we were both young when i first saw you

by makesnowhereplans

Summary:

Tim has a death wish (literally)

reposted!

Notes:

title: love story (tv ofc)

edit: forgot about this note ;; ig they're all tv now right? : D hiphip hooray!

Chapter 1: I'll be waiting..just say 'yes'

Summary:

my style of work is very, 'what if xyz characters were /severely mentally ill/' LMAO not to put a label on it, but

please expect very OOC, low low level knowledge of canon, making shit up, and mature themes

*****important note******: reiterating this from the tags: suicidal thoughts/ideation/themes/attempts are portrayed very explicitly in this work and it's a major topic throughout; ALSO sexualised violence (against both adults and children) became a huge theme as well, please mind this and put your wellbeing first

Notes:

please ignore my anatomically incorrect metaphors

(originally posted 27-07-2023) reposting because i kept saying it was finished and ppl engaged with it like that but i added so much and it felt unfair to those readers and it gave me anxiety, also idt certain things were tagged or cw'd well enough the first time around!

Tim Drake doesn’t know why but he's got a bucket list with exactly one thing on it, so maybe ‘bucket sentence’ is the more precise term. Precisely, then, his bucket sentence is a death wish, and his bucket sentence death wish, or maybe even bucket wish death sentence, is to die for somebody. Preferably, he’ll die as soon as possible while he can still die for somebody, properly. Properly, as in, somebody will live on unscathed, unbothered in direct consequence of Tim’s death.

Dear diary, Tim had written, when he was eight. If I died for Dad, he’d love me forever, or for longer than five minutes at a time. 

Tim laughs at the page before he burns it. He tosses it into the gas fireplace that he had repaired himself, five times, unassisted, only for it to go unused every time. This is the last time Tim repairs it because he doesn’t want to die for his Dad anymore, much less fix up a fireplace for his Dad anymore because he doesn’t want to be with his Dad forever anymore, or with him for longer than five minutes at a time.

That internal change had happened a long time ago. There was someone else’s thoughts Tim had wanted to glue himself into forevermore, after Dad. The next page in Tim’s childhood diary is full of his pictures.

Of course, Tim would never burn this page as is but he doesn’t know what to do for a moment, momentarily stunned by each frozen capture, dazzling like icicles in the sun because they’re so lovely and shiny with their almost-transparent frosted-glass-esque beauty, so they lure Tim in until he's standing beneath them and they choose that moment to fall and rip through his skin then his chest muscle then his heart muscles then his left lung behind his heart and then more chest muscle and more skin and finally air molecules. The icicle looks beautiful like that, too, though, dripping with Tim’s fresh blood and he reminds himself of a giant, messy caramel apple (the kind children never get to buy at fairs when they have Janet Drake as their mothers because she's a Paper Mother,) but with an eye-catching icicle handle-stick.

Yes, Tim always likes himself better when tragedy rends his heart into strips of muscle which barely hang on to the rest of him by arterial threads. Heartbreak looks good on him. Icicles of longing and waiting are his designer jewelry; they give him artificial significance that always inevitably melts away to be replaced with next season’s winter collection.

Indeed, even Robin’s heartbreak melted away in the spring when Robin went away.

Tim picks at the corner of a photograph with his left index finger. Eventually, it comes off all at once, smelling like an Elmer’s purple washable glue stick and dust, and it’s smooth on the back with the thin sheen of glossy residue that always seems to accompany children’s crafts and, luckily, the thin sheen has preserved the writing on the back.

You save your city. Your city will save you, too.

Until Robin abandoned his city, and he abandoned Tim, too, who lives in said city, and Tim relished the tears, quite literally, as they tasted as salty as the sting of betrayal but as familiar as water because Jack Drake never wanted Tim and Janet Drake almost wanted Tim and Robin promised to protect Tim until he broke it, and wow , who could’ve possibly have seen that coming? Not 14-year-old Tim, who could identify a blurry shadow from 50 feet away as Robin but not a pattern as Robin’s destiny.

Robin’s destiny was to break Robin’s promise, and it went both ways, because Tim was also Robin, soon after, and on the last photograph on the bottom right corner of the right-sided page there is a silly sentence written in scented strawberry Sharpie that says I will die for you, and it will be easy, because you already have my heart , but Robin never got to die for Robin because Robin died first.

You traitor, another photograph reads, on the next page, and it’s Robin’s grave smoothed over and jaundiced by the setting sun, You were supposed to save your city. You are also part of your city.

Tim, cross legged on the hearth, stacks the photographs neatly in the cradle of his legs. The darkness in the family room abates, as though terrified by the deranged and utterly delusional nature of Tim’s fantasies. As if Tim could ever be anyone’s hero, much less saved by anyone’s hero. Batman and Robin never found Tim dangling from precipices or hanging from window ledges, Tim’s camera strap sagging off shoulder blades tense with adrenaline and strain. The first Robin did, but that Robin left Tim, too, to go to a different city, and he became anyone’s hero. He saved aliens; he saved Bludhaven; and Tim never saw him in his viewfinder ever again. 

Newspaper clippings slide down the next pages to interrupt Tim’s denialism. Teen Titans Demand Autonomy. Crime Statistics Reveal Nightwing’s Impact on Bludhaven. If Tim could’ve died for Nightwing, he would’ve, but he knew that Batman needed someone willing to fall from the precipice for him. 

Rather, Tim needed to fall from the precipice for Batman, for himself. Batman, who had not even a Janet Drake to receive a brief Christmas greeting from every January, had decided to protect the Janet Drakes of Gotham for the Tim Drakes of Gotham. Batman had an Alfred Pennyworth, but Alfred was an Alfred, and neither a Mrs. Wayne nor a Mr. Wayne.

As Tim began to understand Batman, he began to detest Batman’s understanding of himself. He didn’t understand that he wasn’t dirty. He didn’t understand that he was still untainted and innocent. He didn’t understand that his anger at cruelty and suffering was the only love Tim Drake had ever felt in his life, felt whether 10 feet away on the roof of a warehouse or printed in a newspaper in 10-point font. 

So, Tim would die for Batman, to prove it to Batman, to drive it through his head in the language of the glittering icicles of Tim’s gory fantasies, that Batman’s shame was an boogeyman, that his vengeance was justice, that his stolen future was a tragedy that he had revised into millions of happy endings, and that Tim believed that, that Tim believed that Batman deserved his own life and Tim’s life put together, that Tim loved Batman that much that the only sufficient expression was Tim’s destruction in Batman’s name.

That way, Batman could never forget it. That way, Batman couldn’t deny it. That way, he would finally understand that he was Tim’s hope, and if Tim’s hope died, he’d be dead, too, and Batman’s understanding of himself would change forevermore into someone who was so loved and so protected that Tim would haunt him as a ghost if it meant he could stay by him until Batman's dying day.

Truly, Tim could not imagine a happier ending for himself. However, Tim only has one life, so he has to spend it wisely. 

The remaining pages of the diary, as Tim leafs through them, seem to be covered in rubbish. I would die for Spoiler. I would die for Batgirl. I would die for Alfred. It’s all rubbish, because he would only die for them to catch Batman’s blood pressure before it fell to nothing.

For a few minutes, Tim tears out the pages one by one and feeds them into the fire. Finally, he decides that rubbish deserves to be handled like rubbish, and he allows the flames to swallow the rest of the diary whole. The pictures between his thighs are all that are left of his childhood self, and, to some extent, it is not an inaccurate testament of his history because, really, if a diary is supposed to be a record of his thoughts, then the impression that Robin was all he ever thought about is as close to reality as an exhibit of photographs can portray. Who is Tim kidding- how could any cold thing made of ice like Tim's tragic heartache melt away in a place like this?

Drake Manor is always cold, and it's the kind of cold that stings Tim's bare feet and pricks these specific parts of Tim's brain, specific parts that remember the way Dad looks at him and the way Mom looks at him and how those looks are colder than cold feels. It's the kind of cold that reminds Tim that it hurts to be alone in the family room but it also hurts to be a family in the family room, but finally Tim gets to escape from the chill and the dysfunctional fireplace that was fixed five times for a family-less family room by a frozen little boy who used to think about throwing himself into it if it would save his Daddy or Mommy. Tonight, he gets to leave it all behind, because he's moving to Titans Tower, where the floor is warm all the time because the glass windows trap heat from the sun and give some to the floor, and even if it's not warm, he can go into El-Kon's room and ask for the space heater that El-Kon doesn't need but Tim will get even more, like a giant blanket that El-Kon doesn't need either. 

As usual, Tim's fantasies are blighted by reality. he arrives at the Titans Tower common room, and it's dark because it's nighttime but it's also dark because no one's home. He had forgotten that tonight was one of those rare Fridays when everyone had somewhere else to be.

My hair looks stupid right now, anyway, he reasons. My jacket is old. My shoes are dirty. I always looked stupid in civilian dress.

Tim has one duffel bag filled with clothes and photos slung over his shoulder, so he reaches for the light switch. He'll be able to see, and he'll also see that it's better that no one is here tonight. Settling in will take some time (30 seconds, precisely, to throw the clothes in his duffel bag into the dresser.)

The light switch is not working.

Tim hadn't planned to fix the lights for a singularly-occupied common room, so he doesn't, and he stumbles his way through it in the dark, using the distant glow of the Jump City nightscape as dim ambient light.

After Tim takes a spill over the coffee table, he hears a sharp intake of breath, and the lights come on so suddenly that they do less to illuminate the situation than one might expect. Eventually, the spots in his eyes dissipate, and someone Tim has never seen before is sitting on the sofa with guns in his lap.

"Jesus Christ," the person says. "Are you stupid, or what?"

Tim doesn't miss a beat. "It's probably your fault the lights weren't working." There is sufficient evidence on that account. Other than the handguns, there is the identity-concealing helmet, and the dangerous red-and-black-bodysuit, and his build, and his posture, and his tone, and the fact that he was uninvited.

What doesn't add up is how this dangerous man is in the Titans Tower common room. Why he's here is also a mystery. The timing, especially mysterious. If he had been trying to get in while all the Titans were out, then what is he doing sitting on the sofa in the dark, as if lying in wait?

Tim, having learned from five years of hands-on experience that people in his line of work are never ever forthright with their intentions, identities, or methodologies, has come to expect cryptic and convoluted answers to simple questions ("Who are you?" "I'm Vengeance" is a classic example) and stopped asking altogether a long time ago. Instead, he answers his own questions these days.

Tim's phone is synced with the Tower's security logs, Tim being Titan Tower's unofficial IT department, and his mouth drops open.

Robin-02 entered the building at 19:33.

Tim's head swivels back and forth between his phone and the figure on the sofa.

"What?" Robin says, tone blatantly irritated. "You finally found your flashlight app?"

Tim reaches for his neck with his free hand, but his fingers don't find the coarse fabric of a camera strap and instead land on the itchy polyester padding of a duffel strap. "No," Tim says, voice so quiet it's almost a whisper because he's so sure he's speaking utter nonsense. "I finally found a good angle."

Tim doesn't bother asking how Robin's alive or why he's wearing a stupid-looking suit when red-green-and-yellow are the only stupidly loud colors Tim ever wants to photograph him in, or when Robin stopped being dead because people in Tim's line of work are never ever forthright with their intentions, identities, and methodologies and Tim hasn't been studying under the world's greatest detective to ask others for the answer.

"Robin," Tim squeaks out, instead, because he answers his own questions these days, and because he wants this to be the right answer, he wants to be saved by Robin from the hellish place that has been the world without Robin, a world only five years old but straining under the grief of promises never kept, under the failure that is Tim being insufficient life support for Batman. "You finally came to help me out of here."

Robin's reaction to his name is violent. "You have some nerve calling me Robin , Replacement." He stands up, but not all the way, his movements prowling and coiling. "But you are right about one thing. I am here to help you out of here."

Tim is defenseless and only has vague conjectures about what Robin means or wants, but he knows better than to ask. At the same time, the duffel bag begins to dig into Tim's shoulder with the density of Tim's grief, barely contained within strawberry scented schoolboy-shaped letters and stolen moments coated in a shiny, sticky sheen. So he turns those silly sentences into sounds and scathing remarks, so that they can finally be sent to the recipient they were always meant for. Tim can't help but smush the duffel into his side as he says so: "If I'm your Replacement, then you're my traitor." His throat is closing, his mouth is sewn shut and Tim is swashbuckling the stitches. "You were supposed to save our city."

Robin cocks a gun at Tim's face. His hand shakes visibly. 

Tim never imagined in any of his fantasies that he'd die for Robin's pain and anger. He wonders, would it save Robin? Would Robin taking revenge on Tim for taking his place and taking his future, save Robin's life?

It wouldn't, Tim decides, and he can't die for Robin if he's already dead because of Robin, so Tim fights back and he fights back viciously. He refuses to lose his second chance to make right on a promise he had thought he had broken forever.

Of course, Tim is flat on his back and choking on the boot pressed on his stomach in less than thirty minutes because he is defenseless but for five years of stale regret and endless what-ifs and silent apologies and impossible fantasies. Luckily, Robin doesn't seem to want to kill Tim, just make Tim hurt like the hell Robin must've been through.

Tim can't see it, but he can hear it in the way Robin's voice has lost its chipper note and feel in the way Robin tosses Tim about almost at random, almost in the same way life had decided to toss Robin about. Tim wants to cry because when he saw Robin-02 on his phone and Robin-02 right in front of him, he had thought he would finally get a smile, finally get a face to paste on his memory of Robin's sing-song giggling and witty remarks, but this Robin might not smile ever again. This Robin might never have a face again. In Tim's fantasies, Robin was going to show up at Batman's door, and Batman was going to be able to cry again because Robin was alright after all, and he can stop blaming himself for any and all weakness he ever did and will show but this Robin is not alright and Tim doesn't know how he can possibly fix this. This Robin is not going to live on, unscathed and unbothered, even if Tim dies for him.

The contents of Tim's duffel are splayed in a nearly fan-like arrangement on the floor near his right hand. The photographs are scattered, which makes Tim cringe because they're all that's left of happy Robin, and if Tim can't even save the memory of happy Robin, then Tim's heart will permanently stop because Robin's happiness is Tim's heart.

"You're just going to lay there and take this?" Robin taunts. It's all so cliché, now, heartless, humorless, every word. Tim bites his lip harder. He had dreamed every night of the greatest happiness in the world, and now that he sees he's been fooled into thinking he had been given a second chance to have it, he just wants to cry. 

"If you'll accept it as my apology," Tim wheezes. " You were supposed to save our city. I-"

"Shut up ," Robin seethes. he holsters his guns to kneel over and grab Tim by his sweatshirt. "I didn't deserve -" he hesitates. "Just because I failed, once, Bruce just-" Robin slams Tim's head back into the floor, boot digging deeper and deeper into the softness of Tim's abdomen. 

That's all Tim needs to understand everything , however. Robin thinks Batman's love dies with Robin's strength. Robin thinks because he died that Bruce thinks he deserved to die for his mistake. He suffers and suffers and suffers because he thinks no one wanted to protect him when all Tim has thought about for five years is what if I died in his place because Robin is a target, but he also deserves to be protected for being a target, for diverting thousands of bullets away from thousands of people. All Tim has thought about for five years is how many million more times would Batman have smiled if Robin was here? All Tim has thought about is would I have been able to see Robin smile?

"Too little, too late, Replacement," Robin sneers. His throat twists beneath his suit. "Let's see you save the city now." He unholsters the gun and aims it at Tim's right leg.

"Stop!" Tim shrieks. His right leg is too close to the pictures. If he soils those pictures with his own blood, he'd never forgive himself. Using the advantage of surprise, he launches himself at the photographs to scoop them up.

Robin is momentarily disarmed and thrown onto his butt as he loses his balance. Meanwhile, Tim is staring at a dead boy who he failed to die for twice.

"What the hell-" Robin growls, snatching the photo in Tim's hand. His eyes widen in recognition, and he flips the photograph over in disbelief. Tim cringes because he remembers exactly what the silly sentence on the back of the image is.

"My city never did shit for me," Robin answers bitterly to Tim's promise.

"But-" Tim dares to look at Robin straight. "You are also the city."

The photo flutters to the ground. Tim picks it up and adds it gently to the collection of the others he had recovered from the floor. Tim's voice breaks. "You were supposed to save yourself, too. You weren't supposed to be so flippant and cheap with your life. You weren't supposed to risk yourself to the point of self-destruction." Tim searches Robin's face for traces of anything , but it's like a glacial, smooth coldness has descended upon it. The lack of remorse, the lack of a sense of anything getting through tears Tim to pieces and he can't help but latch onto the splintered pieces of Robin in his arms and squeeze and never let go and mourn them properly for once, for real, for all. "I'm sorry, Robin, that I couldn't save you."

After thirty seconds of Tim struggling not to start the water works, he hears a shuffling noise and the release of pressurized air. When Tim looks up, Robin's face is staring down at him. "It's okay," Robin says. "It's okay. Look, I'm right here. I'm fine." He smiles at Tim, and it's how Tim always imagined Robin would smile at him. Robin kneels down and gently tugs the duffle out from Tim's grip. "You did save me, you did." Jason extracts one photo from the duffel. "I've been alive all along." He reads the back, and Tim knows exactly which silly fantasy it is on the back.

But I want to die for you properly, so you'll never forget that you have my heart and are one of two reasons it ever beat when I was all alone and Mom and Dad only ever checked if it was still beating twice a month. You were beautiful, and your laugh was beautiful, and you made me so happy and if I can repay 300 percent of the happiness I felt then, I'd still die for you ten more times. You matter to me so much that I would be born again to Jack and Janet Drake, if it meant that they would give me the freedom to meet you. I can't believe that I get to know you firsthand.

"You don't need to thank me," Tim says instead. "I love loving you, and I loved missing you because I knew it meant that I love you, which meant that you are loved." Tim takes Robin's hand. "Can I show you what I mean? Can I take you home?"

Robin gapes. Then he smiles again, and then he helps Tim up. "That would make me so happy."

It's what Tim has dreamed of hearing for five years. So, finally, at last, since Robin's happiness is Tim's heart, Tim is happy, too.

Chapter 2: little did I know that..you were throwing pebbles

Summary:

hate 98% of this chapter (my writing is 80% worse than usual and 12% even worse than usual) but 2% of it is good and it's the second time this iteration of Tim and Jason have made me cry while writing and if anyone was curious about Jason's perspective, here you go

(14-08-2023)

Floating around in the Lazarus Pit had reminded Jason Todd of a particularly shitty (they had all been shitty) trip to a dubious waterpark out of town. His memories of splashing into the deep end face first flash in and out, backlit by dappled light, vignette invading oversaturated whites, as though burned or seen through a peephole. Jason might as well have been spying on someone else's life.

The effort required to focus Jason's brain on specific details hurt more than the results were worth. Why had he fallen into the deep end? How had he gotten out? The cause and effect don't fit together; was this memory real to begin with? How could he be sure he hadn't dreamed up the scene, inspired by a teen coming of age movie he'd seen and dreamed to grow into one day, the day he stopped living in poverty and started caring about his shoes?

Chaos, confusion, and the carnage littered by a shattered childhood ruled over Jason in the Lazarus Pit, much in the same way twisted and rusted and dubiously trusted waterpark slides loomed over Jason in his shoddy memories. He jammed on the self-control he never possessed and crashed into a brick wall nonetheless because Jason could never, ever come to a trusted conclusion as to whether he had ever gone to a waterpark as a kid, or if these memories belonged to someone else, or if they had arrived as a pipe dream.

Who are you? Mouthed the green mouth in the slick liquid Jason woke up drowning in. Another face faced Jason in his memories, spotted by chlorine-coloured waves, asking a similar question. Whose are you? Are you lost?

Lost is a good descriptor for Jason. Jason is lost; that's who he is, if he had to answer the question, because sometimes he's not even sure if his name is Jason. Unfortunately, he's not lost in the physical world. Breathing might be easier for him if he was. Unfortunately, he's lost in his mind. The probable past and the present slide together in Jason's mind and they sound off simultaneously yet choppily like a choir that can't ever start singing together. Whose lost are you?

"Where's my Mom?" Jason had asked the Joker, like a goddamn idiot.

The Joker's expression rippled with a sadistic empathy, the likes of which Jason had only encountered at gothic churches and their murals of devils and sculpted gargoyles. Omniscient in their understanding of the humanity against whom they wielded their power, they were inhuman not for an absence of feeling or for coldness, but for the hellfire intensity with which they felt every drop of pain ooze from their victims and the joy they felt as a result. Jason saw through a third eye that he had never looked through before that the Joker felt the chill freezing Jason's sore muscles in place and that's why the Joker smiled when he said: "Robin, you don't have a mother."

Yes, Jason Todd had been Robin. Was Robin? Is Robin? Jason emerged from the lime-coloured sludge found. Because Jason Todd had been found by Batman and renamed Robin. Jason Todd had no mother, but Robin had a better thing. Robin had a Batman and a mentor and a purpose and a skillset and a place and achievements under a yellow belt and a long cape.

Until Jason Todd found himself underground and undead.

Jason Todd read the grave. Above his etched name, a blur of movement leapt from roof to roof by Batman's side.

The Joker's face superimposed itself over the full moon. No one is coming, he said, and Jason hadn't been able to understand what the Joker had meant through 100 layers of pain until then, until Jason stood before his own grave beneath Batman, who he didn't own anymore, and his own Replacement.

Jason Todd didn't have a mother, but he had someone better, as long as Jason Todd had Robin. Clearly, this was the lesson. Clearly, Jason didn't have anyone better anymore because he wasn't Robin anymore.

Jason Todd was lost again and never found again.

Around the same time, the Red Hood stepped into the moonlight. He made sure to, especially in front of Batman and Nightwing. They threw stuff at him.

They have no idea, Red Hood realized sadly.

A dreamy voice giggled maniacally in Red Hood's ear and told him that there was nothing to be sad about.

"Clueless," Red Hood spit. "Both of you. Absolutely ignorant."

In fact, no one had any idea about anything except the Joker and his omniscient understanding of Jason Todd's suffering, and no one had any idea about Jason Todd's rebirth except the encouraging echo in Jason's left ear that rang with the Joker's cadence.

This fact was enraging for reasons Red Hood could not articulate clearly. So they have no idea became his victory song and dance.

For example, Red Hood left a bundle of severed heads at Batman's doorstep. They have no idea of the prominent role you have played in their untimely deaths read the notecard taped to a bulging black garbage bag.

For another, Red Hood let Batman run him through in the leg with a Batarang beneath the moonlight and a lamppost. "You have no idea how much you'll regret messing with me," Red Hood threatened.

Worst of all, Robin's Replacement had no idea, and it whetted Red Hood's appetite for revenge.

"You have no idea how you'll suffer," Red Hood planned to say because only the Joker knew, and Red Hood wanted to make sure the Replacement also knew, first hand, what it felt like to be insufficiently alive for Batman to care.

"You're disposable, and I'm here to take out the trash," said the Red Hood in the mirror. "Yes," he continued and made sure to practice grinning wide enough that the movement was audible through his helmet. "I'm here to take you out." The remainder of rehearsals went off without a hitch, so he was ready to try the real deal.

But the night failed to proceed as scripted.

Instead of saying 'who's there?' when he found the common room suspiciously defunct and darkened, Replacement walked away from the problem. He had no idea, and they have no idea once again started to taste like defeat on Red Hood's lips, until 'Robin' came from Replacement's lips, directed at Red Hood so that all Red Hood could taste anymore was air.

Replacement had caught up to Jason Todd, had resurrected Jason Todd, had found Jason Todd, had pumped breathless air into Jason Todd's helmet until he just had to take it off because Jason Todd didn't need it as life support anymore. In fact, it was beginning to suffocate Jason Todd, or maybe it had been suffocating Jason Todd the whole time, until Replacement had forced it off of him.

Truthfully, Replacement was underwhelming in person and even more so up close, a fact that Red Hood revelled in because somehow Robin the Sequel being better than Robin the Third felt like effortless revenge, until Replacement was overwhelming Red Hood from an emotionally personal distance that Red Hood hadn't prepared countermeasures against.

There was something about watching a teenage boy trying not to cry on the floor as he scrambled to retrieve his scattered belongings that disarmed Red Hood faster than Batman's quickest chokehold. There was something about making that boy want to cry that constricted Red Hood's airway tighter than dying of smoke inhalation had. There was something incomprehensible about making that boy want to cry on accident because Red Hood always hurt people on purpose until he had hurt that boy on accident.

If Jason's mounting horror had a summit, he hadn't seen it yet by the time Replacement asked Jason to come home. He had to kneel down next to Replacement because he was riding so high on it that he was sure he was going to pitch over and fall down if he looked down any longer.

Some reflex Jason had forgotten he was connected to activated as though the sight of a sad and vulnerable Replacement calling him 'Robin' were two reagents in a reaction, and the byproduct was a sleeper agent named Robin who knew what to say in order to get the victim to calm down. Replacement was speaking words Jason had forgotten the definitions for, and it took practice to remember what 'you are loved' meant. To complicate matters, Replacement was asking too many questions in this foreign dialect of English, so Jason said 'yes' to everything and didn't take it back. Because Replacement then smiled at Jason as though Robin had just saved him.

Who are you? Swims to the forefront of Jason's awareness as Replacement turns away to finish organizing his photography, and it is the most interesting question Jason has ever asked since being back from the dead alive. It is infinitely more interesting than asking himself if he is Jason or Robin or lost or found or Batman's sidekick or his mother's son or the Joker's modus operandi because he's Replacement's traitor, and he doesn't even know who Replacement is.

The world has been punted upright. There's no doubt in Jason's mind that he is real because he now understands that his sense of being a ghost and dead and unreal is really the thing that's been fake. Jason doesn't need to search for proof of his connection to this world anymore and rail against the full moon and its sidekick stars whenever he can't find it; he doesn't need to force himself that he's happier being dead to everyone he has ever cared about and hoped to be cared about by in return.

Replacement stands, his duffel teetering on shoulder blades made of bone and blood and muscle. His hand reaches down for Jason's, but Jason doesn't want to admit that he needs the leg up. He still hasn't seen the summit, and he'll fall over at altitudes this high. Not to mention, confusion is locking his joints like a fatal case of frostbite because Jason doesn't get why the idea of being forgotten and unwanted both alive and in death became only the second most horrifying dream that had ever come to him. He doesn't get how it's been replaced by the one in which someone has cried before five rows of pictures of him for five years in a row. Jason's pipe dream of being remembered and missed has become a reality and simultaneously a nightmare because everything he had thought was real is fake and everything he had dreamed of is coming true.

"You have to come see Batman in person," Replacement instructs. "Otherwise Batman will never believe you're back if he hears about it over the phone." He gestures with his outstretched hand again as though to remind Jason that it's there. It's stained purple with Jason's rage because Jason all along had someone who would take it all on him to prove to him that he'd rather feel it all if it meant that Jason was alive, and I had no idea slaps into Jason like the aftershock of a shitty bellyflop into a cold and dirty waterpark wave pool does.

Once more, and for the last time (Jason can see it with a third eye that he had forgotten he had) the past and the present converge into a singular image in which a face spotted with chlorine-coloured waves belongs to a lifeguard who is asking whose he is, and when Jason reaches for the lifeguard's hand, Jason answers that he's Bruce Wayne's.

Jason gapes at Replacement's rage-soaked hand and wonders how he had ever wanted this. He wonders how he had ever wanted to be missed like this, wanted like this, remembered like this, when it meant that someone would turn their hand purple and use that same aching hand to drag Jason up and out of the deep end. Jason had thought he had wanted this more than life itself. But he had wanted wrong.

Jason refuses to take Replacement's hand and wring anything else out of it when I had no idea that I was connected to you, and like this.

At the summit of Jason's horror is a dead end. But reaching the end allows Jason the balance to stand up without squeezing Replacement's sorely wounded hand. The view from up here is new. Replacement's face is crumpled with swelling but the photographs peeking out of his duffel haven't got a single crease in any of them. Jason smiles in a way that hardly scratches the surface of everything he wants to ask Replacement. If I'm your traitor, then who are you? But Jason simply says: "Lead the way."

Notes:

edit: had to retcon a detail!! woo!! (sobs)

Chapter 3: standing there, on a balcony in summer air

Summary:

jason & tim have the same dream

****cw****: explicit & graphic post-death scene; corpses, vomiting, blood, nothing worse than what you might see within a comic book but it's a cruel summerchapter.

(28-09-2023)

Notes:

this is SO gory & mindfucky. i wont waste space with an insincere apology or excuses, i have neither to give.

WHY IS THE FORMATTING BROKEN screaming crying throwing up having a breakdown sobbing

edit: I will fix the formatting on this one day...i cannot reread this chapter, words cant describe the agony i feel rereading my own writing ;;

<p>Jason suggests Tim's tracker. Bruce must hate the idea because he shouts into his comm a dozen more times before capitulating to it.</p>

<p>Comms malfunction all the time. Bruce doesn't correct Jason when he mentions this lie. He merely tells Jason where Tim is, according to the tracker.</p>

<p>Jason follows Bruce, who follows Tim's tracker. They descend every floor, taking their time. They listen for Tim every floor, hearing nothing every floor. At the bottom floor, a fire door to the outside frees them from their fleeting hope.</p>

<p>A car alarm wails. Otherwise, the side street is silent. Jason does not bother to call Tim's name. He merely follows the sound to its source. It's a lone car parked outside the warehouse. A dusty 'for sale' sign is perched on its windshield.</p>

<p>As Jason had suspected long, long ago, Tim is in the car. His head is cushioned by the metal framing above the driver's seat. From his present angle, Jason can see one of Tim's hands resting on the windshield, as though bracing himself from sliding off. He's securely fastened into the car, however. Upon closer inspection, the rest of the car has completely crumpled. Tim's body has compacted the height of the car to waist-high starting from the back row onwards. The windows in the trunk and back row have popped out and crinkle under Jason's boots. Tim's feet rest comfortably on top of each other on top of the carnage, crossed by the ankles. His other hand is relaxed by his collarbone. As Jason had suspected long, long ago, Tim had died on impact.</p>

<p>"Don't look," Jason calls out in response to the low shuffling behind him. He cracks glass to reach Tim. Tim's complexion is almost as translucent, but his eyes are glassier. Jason pauses to trace Tim's gaze to the top of the building, which isn't visible through low-hanging nighttime fog.</p>

<p>"Look," Jason whispers. He brushes Tim's bangs out of his eyes. "I'm here. You saved me." He repositions Tim's hands on Tim's abdomen. A narrow stream of blood had begun to leak from his hand down the windshield, likely from the grapple. Jason remembers Tim's parting words as this hand, warm against Jason's ribcage from overexertion and tension, fitted Tim's belt around Jason's waist. "You liar," Jason blurts as he remembers what he had been going to say before the wind whipped the words out of him. "You can't love me if you're dead."</p>

<p>Tim's corpse is ironically light, in light of the fact that his body weight overloading the grapple had led to its untimely existence. Simultaneously, Tim's head is heavy on Jason's shoulder. A whirlwind of regrets circle ravenously above Jason as he catalogues what Tim feels like, for the last time, probably. Jason had never hugged Tim, until he hugged Tim's corpse to his chest. Jason had never let Tim lean on him, until Tim had died on him. <em> Rest now, </em> Jason wants to say to Tim, but what would be the point, when the dead can't do anything?</p>

<p>"He's-" Jason begins when he finds himself in front of Bruce, who is still in front of the fire door. <em> Watching over us, somewhere. Loving us from afar. Resting. </em>Jason's mind cycles through possible answers until he remembers that the dead can't do anything or be anything but dead. Jason looks up at Bruce, eyes wide in apology and drowned in tears. "He's dead."</p>

<p><em> I love you, </em>Tim had said. He had looked Jason in the eye, then Bruce, and then he fell, and he must never have stopped looking their way because his eyes are still open, but now looking at no one because the eyes of the dead can't see. </p>

<p>Jason tries not to drop Tim even as he stumbles over nothing whilst unmoving, but what does it matter? Tim's not sleeping- he's dead- it's not as if falling from high places can hurt him anymore. The concrete beneath Tim's head can't hurt anymore, either. Tim had already smashed his head into a 1997 Honda Civic and broken it for good, for Jason and Bruce.</p>

<p>So Jason doesn't mind it when he shakes Tim on the pavement because Tim can't fucking mind it, and Tim probably hadn't ever minded it because Tim hadn't hesitated. "I love you, too," Jason whispers. "Do you hear me?" (Tim doesn't.) Jason's voice stumbles on his sobs and heavy heaving, so he has to shout to be heard over the noise. "You didn't give me time to say it back." A memory in which Jason stands over his Replacement and threatens him with a gun rhymes with the present because Jason hasn't felt that level of rage since.</p>

<p><em> You can't be so flippant and cheap with your life, </em> Replacement had said to the Red Hood. "You hypocrite," Jason coughs and wheezes and chokes. "Look what you've spent yours on. Me. Me? <em> Me?" </em></p>

<p>"Move," Bruce orders breathlessly. Jason plays along and scoots aside. Bruce looks Jason in the eye. "We can fix this. I can fix this."</p>

<p><em> Be my guest, </em> invites the naive sliver of Jason's heart which hadn't been pounded out of him by the silent trek down the stairs which ended in a visitation with Tim Drake's corpse.</p>

<p>Batman's gloved fingers interlace and he shoves with all his weight down on Tim's sternum.</p>

<p>Jason understands at once, but he's too close to Tim's body and too far away from it to do anything about this. Tim Drake's ribcage buckles under Batman, easily. "Stop." Jason latches onto Batman's cape. With each chest compression, shattered bone fragments clink together in Tim's chest like ice cubes. "Stop." </p>

<p>Bruce opens Tim's airway and breathes for him. Tim's chest rises and falls per Batman's command, but the moment Batman stops directing him to breathe, Tim stops.</p>

<p>Bruce looks down at Tim like he can't believe Tim can't figure this out. Tim is his prodigy, his natural. Tim's always been quick to understand what Batman wants from a situation and how to get what Batman wants from the situation. If that's Tim, then how come Tim can't figure out that he's supposed to keep breathing even when Bruce pulls away?</p>

<p>Tim's glassy gaze looks back into Batman's. Wide-eyed, blue-eyed, Tim seems just as shocked by Bruce's behaviour as Bruce is by Tim's. <em> Batman, </em> Tim's matter-of-fact tone rings out in graveyard silence. Politely concealed exasperation seeps into his loudly silent voice as his lips curve into one of his patient smiles. <em> I'm dead. </em></p>

<p>"Look-" Jason begins, but he's once again too close yet too far to do anything about this. Bruce is staring down at Tim like he just noticed Tim is dead. His fingers ghost over Tim's sternum, like he can't remember why it's so concave and still and lumpy with displaced bone matter. Instead of moving Tim's neck back to a neutral position, he stares at the thrust of Tim's chin and the way Tim has his mouth agape but says nothing for it. A long two seconds passes as Batman begins to come to terms with the idea that Tim isn't going to realise how uncomfortable his position is, so Tim isn't going to make himself more comfortable on his own.</p>

<p>Batman retreats to the fire door, where he hunches over. Jason returns to the body, but Bruce must be rubbing off on Jason, because he doesn't fix Tim's hair or eyes or mouth or neck, either. Instead, he finds Tim's wounded hand and wraps it in gauze. "Must've hurt, hm?" Jason asks lowly. He ignores the cold beneath his fingertips and adjusts the wrapping. "Is it too tight?" He pauses for Tim's reply. "You should always be able to slip one finger between your skin and the bandage. I'll show you. See?" Jason demonstrates by poking his finger into the bandage. It comes away dusted with Tim's dried blood.</p>

<p>"Report<em>,</em>" Dick says in Jason's ear. "Are you all alright?"</p>

<p>"We need-" Jason strains. "We need a-" His windpipe pleads the fifth. <em> You have the right to remain silent, </em>it warns Jason, every time the words 'body bag' threaten to cross the point of no return.</p>

<p>"We need an AED," Batman finishes. Jason turns around to see Bruce standing up. On a slab of cracked sidewalk by his feet, a burnt colour of slick is dribbling into an adjacent pothole.</p>

<p>When Jason wakes from the nightmare, Tim is aiming a pair of binoculars down at the street from a high place. </p>

<p>"Get down, move, it's my turn," pours from Jason's mouth as torrential rain does during a hurricane. "Move, move. My shift now."</p>

<p>Tim breaks concentration to give Jason a small smile full of politely concealed exasperation. "I still have an hour and a half left," he corrects matter-of-factly. He's leaning over the waist-high ledge to get a better view of what he's looking at. Jason just did that, too, not too long ago, in a dream.</p>

<p>"Give me." Jason wrenches the binoculars from Tim.</p>

<p>"What?" The condescension in Tim's expression fades for confusion then, finally, concern to fill his features instead. "What's up?" And this time, it's with the sincere patience Jason has come to associate with Tim. Tim, who can sit for 10 hours parsing through the driest forms of evidence for the sake of the case, realise he'd misunderstood something, then start from scratch for 10 hours more.</p>

<p>"I watched you die," Jason explains without clarifying a single thing. <em> For me, </em> Jason doesn't explain.</p>

<p>Tim's features refill with confusion once again. He reaches for the binoculars and takes them from Jason, who does not resist. "And?"</p>

<p>Jason hadn't been expecting a normal response to an abnormal conversation starter, but he would never have conceived of <em> And? </em> given 100 guesses.</p>

<p>Tim's the detective protégée. If he wants to, he'll understand Jason, but he doesn't want to, because the mystery of the death Jason saw isn't interesting to him, so he'll go back to looking at an empty street corner for an hour and a half more, just in case the right person passes by. Jason lets it go because Tim <em> likes </em> working, and he's not going to ruin Tim's fun when Jason probably couldn't concentrate on the task right now, anyway, when <em> And? </em> is echoing in Jason's mind in the same way the car alarms in 1997 Honda Civics do when they're impaled from above by a human body.</p>

Notes:

i debated for a long time before posting this chapter but if jason realises he wanted wrong then tim has to too because i like parallels & symmetry within my plotless plots & we do what i like here even when my taste in things is horrid, i'm sorry (sincerely, this time)

Chapter 4: i was begging you, "please don't go"

Summary:

******specific content warnings:******
implied/referenced sexual assault & scene depicting sexualised violence/sexual violence, passive suicide attempt if that makes sense, like, putting self in danger on purpose?; lots of discussion around death, violence impacting children, terrorism and bombs and hostages, no type of graphic violence you would not encounter in a comic book, as per previous, but dont worry, there is no graphic detail this time with regards to anything because i am far too lazy to compose that level of sensory detail consistently
thank you to the reader who suggested tagging implied/referenced sexual assault in the original work!!

(14-11-2023)

Notes:

this was my best attempt at a plot! sorry in advance for the pseudoscience! content is heavy emotionally as usual! i usually write in three 'acts' so it was quite fun to write something which happened to come out in four acts. so, yes, this is the 'finale.' there shall be no epilogue or sequel or anything like that. i have tried to make it worth the payoff.

edit: famous last words

"This was a mistake," Janet Drake said to Jack Drake. Swiveling around in her office chair, she turned her back to the family desktop computer. Meters of sticky notes dotted the monitor's plastic rim. In her hand wilted a thin, letter-sized sheet of paper. Her right wrist flopped with it as she braced her elbows on her thighs, left hand drawing agitated circles at her temple.

Jack touched Janet's drooping shoulder blades sympathetically. "We'll manage."

Janet wrenched away, but not with hostility towards Jack. Never would she towards beloved Jack. She skimmed over the sticky notes and plucked one off. "We've got to get there by Thursday to collect the sample. My calculations aren't wrong; this is the half-life. Any later and there'll be nothing left to collect."

"We'll figure out a way to get there," Jack tried again. He took the sticky note from Janet and rubbed the sticky part back into the monitor's plastic rim. On it stuck.

Tim dared to open the door to his parents' study a crack wider. The hinges were well-oiled, and he bet Mom and Dad were too absorbed in the issue they were having to notice. Behind his back, he gripped his own thin sheet of letter-sized paper, which he had pilfered from Mom's stack of printer paper. But all for a good cause. Because, the thing was, Mom's calculations were wrong. Because Tim had checked them. He had studied, and he would go inside in just a moment and help Mommy. Mommy would hug him around the shoulders with one strong arm, and press him to her side, which was always warm. I know you're mine, she would say, Because you've got that marvelous mind your father has. You're so good.

"It's so stupid," Janet said. "Why do they need the original to renew Tim's passport? For school, for anything else, they accept a photocopy."

"It's the government, love," Jack reminded gently. 

Janet tossed the sagging paper dropped from her sagging wrist back onto the desk, where a corner slid beneath the chunky keyboard placed before the monitor. Tim loved that keyboard. The clacking of its keys was so loud that he could always hear it from the next room. Always. Mom and Dad worked very hard. Tim was very proud. Now, he would swoop in to save the trip.

"This could be our magnum opus." Mom's voice broke. 

"Let's take a break from this, yeah?" Jack suggested. He took Janet's hand to lead her out of the study.

Tim stepped to one side. "Mom," he began, as the door swung open. But he faltered because he was not noticed as his parents drifted down the hallway to their bedroom, away. He deliberated for a few seconds before leaving his parents in peace. They should take the break. He'd leave his solution on the desk. 

The study was dark and windowless, but the computer monitor illuminated Tim's way with blue light which seemed simultaneously harshly bright yet too dim to see clearly with. When he reached Mom and Dad’s desk, he stubbed his right foot on the swivel chair. It felt like a tickle compared with how his chest squeezed upon seeing the thin, letter-sized sheet of paper on the desk, which had been tossed, slipped, and stuck beneath the clacky keyboard.

Tim turned around to limp out of the study, prized calculations in tow, but not before new calculations surfaced in his mind. Per their results, he took the paper on the desk with him.

The next day, Mom and Dad came to Tim with what they presumed might come as a shock. Tim smiled and told them to have a nice trip. No, he’d never open the door to strangers. Yes, he’d go straight to school and straight back home. Tim was eager to go to school tomorrow, besides. There was something that he needed, and he knew how to get it for free. Mr. Brown always had a cigarette behind the school by the dumpsters, so he must have a lighter.

Tim slipped it out of Mr. Brown’s desk drawer at the first opportunity and asked to use the bathroom because he needed to return it before lunch break.

Thankfully, the boy’s bathroom was empty. The custodian had left a cleaning cart by the sinks, and Tim, after deliberating for a moment, placed a yellow ‘Cleaning in Progress’ sign outside the entrance. Then he made his way to the sinks. Tim chose one and emptied the contents of his pockets: two thin, letter-sized sheets of paper and Mr. Brown’s lighter. 

Tim was mesmerised by the way fire consumed his calculations so beautifully. The orange glow, the grey soot, the warmth, the quiet progress of its destructive power. Tim inhaled the smoke and felt instantly sedated. The ache in his chest melted away easily, and he smiled slightly whilst washing the ashes down the sink.

Despite the fun he was having, Tim hesitated before putting the lighter to the photocopy of his birth certificate. The ache in his chest was returning the longer he waited, however, so Tim reflexively put the two together. He watched, pleasantly numb, as his name shone like gold then dulled into unreadable darkness in the span of seconds. 

Tim had expected to maybe be caught by the custodian or a passing hall monitor smelling smoke, and that would have been fine because Mom and Dad would have had to come back, would they not have? But Tim had not expected a large piece of flaming birth certificate to float down and away from the rest of it and onto the mop leaned against the cleaning cart. The mop burst into flame next to a container of drain cleaner. The drain cleaner stood with an assortment of aerosols and disinfectant sprays. Tim could see the chain reaction in his mind’s eye.

One hand holding his still unconsumed photocopy, Tim dragged the flaming mop away from the drain cleaner and looked at it helplessly as it continued to burn. Naturally, the custodian walked in at this moment. Tim and James, as the name sewn into the patch on James’ chest identified him, looked at one another and the burning mop in silence. Meanwhile, the last of Tim’s photocopy transmuted into black powder which fell from his fingertips like a sprinkle of pepper. Shortly thereafter, the fire alarm sounded, and the screams of elementary school-aged children could be heard even through the stuffed, muted acoustics particular to public bathrooms. 

“He tried to burn down the school,” a girl from the other fourth-grade class whispered to a friend, as they passed by the principal’s office Tim eventually found himself sitting in. Wave after wave of students pushed by the office, coming back inside now that the fire alarm had been disabled. Their shakily whispered comments stung Tim’s cheeks like fire on his fingertips.

The principal looked at Tim across a mahogany desk. Tim looked back. This was a mistake , Tim almost said. But he didn’t say that. Because what was this ? What exactly was the mistake?

This was a mistake, Janet Drake had said, tossing Tim’s photocopied birth certificate on her desk and partially beneath a chunky keyboard. 

Tim was expelled. He finished his education at home school.

 

Negligent, reckless, careless, self-absorbed, and baselessly confident, Tim thinks to himself. He checks the stairwell again before checking his watch. He’s been throwing himself a pity-party in his memories for the past two minutes. You’re no hero, he reminds himself. You knew that from the start. You just wanted Batman to want you. Now look at all the responsibilities you have. And look at all the responsibilities you are incapable of executing responsibly. They’re one and the same. Look closely, you freak. He looks again at the stairwell. He does not see who he is waiting for. Because you probably missed her whilst you were distracted feeling sorry over what’s simply true. Such heroics.

Batman speaks to Tim in his comm. “Update me on the stakeout.”

“Nothing to report,” Tim reports, indeed reporting absolutely nothing, and the shame of it is painful.

 “The delivery is not happening tonight,” Jason concludes through the comm. He is posted seven blocks away at a chokepoint.

“Agreed,” says Batman. “Let’s try again tomorrow. Come home.” The order is followed by a chorus of affirmatives.

Tim finds Batman’s succinct manner so charming. He can’t help the smile on his lips. It fades when he looks at the stairwell again. What if the courier had passed through during the two minutes Tim had been thinking of other things ? She would deliver the schematics to a recipient which Tim still does not know, being still unable to decrypt 45 percent of her correspondence. The recipient could be anyone, but the schematics called for uranium. Was it a bomb? A missile? Space tech? Tim could see the chain reaction in his mind’s eye.

“Roger,” Tim lies, and he clambours down from his rooftop positioning to investigate the area around the stairwell himself. He should ask for backup, but he has always been negligent, reckless, careless, self-absorbed, and baselessly confident so if he fucks something up, he ought to pay the consequences in solitude. As he prowls the alleyway around the abandoned tenement on foot, he mentally plots Jason’s route home. Tim checks his watch. If Jason doesn’t announce his arrival in the next 11 minutes, it means something is wrong and Tim needs to be there. 

There is nobody in the vicinity. There is no trace of anyone in the vicinity. Not a single piece of trash or debris is out of place compared with where it was at the beginning of the stakeout.

It’s been 10 minutes. Tim wants to enter the tenement using the stairwell he was supposed to be keeping a close eye on. It’s a fire escape. The building is so dilapidated that the upper floors are inaccessible from the interior, so if the courier meant to go through with a delivery at these coordinates at a ‘seventh floor,’ she would have to take this stairwell up. 

Tim is ignoring the basic facts. He ignores that he would have heard the courier ascend a fire escape as structurally unsound and rusted as this one. He still plans to double check the seventh floor. Maybe the courier found a different way up that Tim hadn’t thought of. He quite frequently makes mistakes in his thinking. 

It’s been 11 minutes. Tim waits for Jason’s comm. Then he’ll check the seventh floor. 

At 12 minutes, Tim dashes madly for Jason. If Gotham is almost blown to ash because Tim failed to track a courier to the seventh floor, it won’t be the first time Tim almost killed innocent people. If Jason dies because Tim was distracted fucking up his job, it won’t be the first time, either, will it?

Batman smiles when he sees Jason. Batman used to never smile. Jason smiles when he sees Batman, too. Jason used to walk around Crime Alley dressed in a blood red costume, fending off Batman with pistols. Finally, they are both okay, and Tim refuses to let things return to the way they used to be. 

Tim knows exactly where Jason is going to be. He knows what route Jason takes back from the chokepoint. He does not need backup to help Jason. Tim has always been negligent, reckless, careless, self-absorbed, and baselessly confident so if he fucks something up, he ought to pay the consequences in solitude.

Instead, Tim watches Jason pay the consequences with him. 

The courier had been here and nowhere near where Tim had calculated. This doesn't surprise Tim, as he frequently makes mistakes in his thinking. Tim knew he needed to monitor Jason's route from the chokepoint, not just because it's Jason, but because Tim is accustomed to having to protect others from his incompetence and now ensures he is prepared to do so.

"What are you doing?" Jason asks Tim a second time.

Tim already has such a difficult time thinking accurately and he is even less capable of doing so when people are asking him questions, so he ignores Jason. 

The courier is wearing explosives. Of course she is. No wonder she is four foot six. She's just a hostage. She's an elementary-school-age hostage, and Tim had not considered the possibility. There was no reason to not have considered it. Now, Tim is without accessible backup and unprepared to help Jason, a hostage, and the neighbourhood within the vicinity of a bomb vest.

"What are you-" Jason tries a third time, and Tim is too stressed to divert energy into having manners.

"Hood, shut up," Tim interrupts. He takes solace in the fact that he managed to keep his tone neutral but something inside him still dies because I was unkind to Jason . If I was any good, I'd be able to treat Jason kindly and complete the assignment. As usual, I force others to pay the price of my incompetence.

"No," Jason fires back. "Be careful with that." He's referring to the task Tim is currently applying himself to, which is stripping the bomb vest off the courier without alerting whoever is in control of it.

Jason's comment stings Tim's cheeks like a lick of fire. Tim returns his focus to the task, however. He's right to doubt your abilities. He's completely in the right.

Tim double checks his work before telling the hostage to slip off the vest and hand it to him. She complies fearfully, and Tim slips the vest on with a sigh of relief.

"What are you doing?" Jason asks for the fourth time with evident alarm.

"I'm ensuring the vest is not detonated," Tim explains slowly, determined not to make anyone feel worse than they all already do, this time. "There's a pulse monitor integrated into the collar. It's possible to fool it for a few seconds by looping the feedback, but any longer and the controller will become suspicious. Human heart rates are randomly variable and difficult to fake." Tim wonders if he actually clarified the situation and reassured everyone, or if he just sounds like a know-it-all asshole.

"Why can't you just disable the bomb?" Jason presses.

The answer to this question is so obvious that Tim almost does not deign to answer. Because I'm shit. "Because the controller would notice, and I don't know what their Plan B is."

Jason, always quick to understand, begins scoping the rooftop for other explosives and traps. Beneath it are apartments, and beneath them is a family-owned grocery store. Beneath all of that, Gotham City Rail runs every eight minutes. Should the building collapse, the metro line beneath would cave in, too.

"Hey there," Tim addresses the hostage. "I'm sorry this has been so scary. We'll take you somewhere safe as soon as we can. But there are a few things we need to know to make sure we can do that. When are you supposed to meet someone here?"

The hostage shrugs slightly, as though ashamed of her answer. She does not make eye contact.

"Whatever their Plan B is," Jason announces, returning to the middle of the rooftop to stand with the other two, "it's not more bombs."

"Great." Tim already knows what he wants to do. He addresses the hostage again. "He's going to stay here with you until I get rid of this. Then he’ll take you somewhere safe right away." At the last moment, he remembers to smile. "I'm Red Robin." Tim extends his hand.

The hostage doesn't shake Tim's hand. "I'm Renee."

Jason swoops in. "Hi, Renee. I'm Red Hood. Are you hungry?"

As Tim begins to make his way back to the tenement building, his comm crackles in his ear with Batman's voice. "Tim, Jason."

"Still reconnaissance," Tim answers immediately before Jason can provide his input. "We think we're onto something."

"Do you need backup?"

Tim answers almost before Batman is done speaking. "No, we need stealth for this."

It's true, in a way. There is no way Tim is allowing anyone else within the vicinity of the bomb, nor does he need to. He can dispose of it safely at the tenement. The nearby buildings are equally in ruins, and the ground beneath is filled, dirt and old plumbing. Once Tim allows the vest to detonate, he can return to Jason and Renee's location soon enough to ensure they get away from whatever Plan B is. Jason pickpocketed the schematics from Renee. Their only goal is to flee; they do not need to win a fight.

When Tim arrives at the tenement, it is as deserted as before. He ascends to the seventh floor to fully appreciate his failure to gather accurate intelligence and reviews the plan in his mind once more to err on the side of caution. If Renee is being tracked by GPS, the device is not embedded in the vest. Based on the bomb's wiring, Tim estimates he'll have 5 minutes to evacuate the building before the bomb explodes. Even without the wiring, Tim would have drawn the same conclusion. Tim knows from experience machines can go wrong in all kinds of ways. Incorporating a delay into the design allows for a margin of human error. The controller could accidentally activate the bomb, or the vest could malfunction but the controller would have time to cancel because of the delay.

Once more, Tim checks the building for squatters with an infrared camera and the ultra-sensitive microphone he had carried with him for the purposes of the stakeout. Again, they both pick up not the slightest hot patch nor scuttle of a termite. It is odd so Tim checks his devices for failures before begrudgingly accepting their unlikely readings. He is desperate to allow Jason and Renee to leave the area as soon as possible, besides.

“You can leave with Renee,” Tim directs through his comm. 

“What?” Batman says.

Fuck, of course I fucked it up. Tim buries his face in his hands in frustration. Careless, reckless, negligent, self-absorbed, and baselessly confident. In his haste, he had spoken on the frequency with everyone on it and not on his private channel with Jason.

“Please, go, now,” Tim tells Jason again, ignoring Batman. He checks his devices again for new readings. Maybe they are malfunctioning. Maybe there is someone in the building or nearby. These readings are simply too unlikely. If he can find a basement, Tim can allow the vest to detonate below ground (but not near key structural supports) and minimise the damage above ground.

“We’re leaving,” Jason confirms. Tim does not have to trust Jason on that because he dared to tag Jason with a tracker before he left the rooftop. It is an absolute creep thing to do, but Tim is at his wits end with surprises tonight. As Tim watches the red dot marking Jason’s location move away from Renee’s drop point and towards the nearest police station with no small amount of relief. If it is moving like that (quickly, along the street,) they are not encountering resistance.

“What are you talking about?” Damian interjects. Tim is racing to the bottom floor of the tenement, vest still on. As he had expected, the moment Red Hood and Renee leave the neighbourhood, the vest begins beeping at a steady rate, counting the seconds to detonation.

“Bomb, have to detonate it,” Tim supplies immediately because he does not want Jason’s attention to be diverted from his surroundings.

“Why can’t you defuse it?” Damian asks. Tim admires how quickly Damian can absorb new information, adapt, and ask the right questions. When he matures more fully, he will be a good Robin for Batman. 

Because when I fuck it up and blow myself up, I can’t ensure Batman and Jason are okay, Tim almost says. “Risky,” Tim answers. He searches the bottom floor, head spinning around wildly. He sees a promising door to his right and is triumphant when it reveals a staircase leading to a lower floor.

“If you’re down there,” Tim calls down, “Get out. There’s a bomb.” His voice echoes back to him eerily. His calculations prevent him from simply throwing the vest down the stairs and running out of the tenement. The readings are unlikely. There could be someone a few floors up or down in the basement; Tim can neither confirm nor deny the possibility. He pounds down the creaky wooden staircase, extricating himself from the vest meanwhile.

When he opens a second door at the bottom of the stairs, instead of discovering an early-twentieth century laundry room or storeroom, Tim finds himself in front of a mid-century nuclear reactor. It is crude. It is small. It is experimental. But there is no mistaking what it is trying to be. The rods are inserted, so the reaction is not active, at least.

Tim beholds the scene with mounting horror. There was no reason not to consider this possibility.

“Tim, update.” Oracle’s voice crackles in Tim’s ear faintly. “I haven’t seen any reports of an explosion.” Something about the basement is most likely interfering with the transmission. Tim would have ignored her, regardless, because he is currently standing next to a nuclear reactor with a bomb in his hand. He can see the chain reaction in his mind’s eye.

Tim races back out of the basement. The only way to minimise the damage to it is by planting the vest on the roof.

“Tim, update.” Oracle demands again. Tim is running down the fire escape. He is on the seventh floor when the vest explodes. As Tim had expected, the centre of the building is engulfed in flames. The building collapses around this newly-formed crater. But the basement’s cement ceiling should protect the reactor from the worst of it. 

“There’s a nuclear reactor here,” Tim says into his com. His other hand grips the fire escape as it shakes beneath him. He takes it the rest of the way down, so far successfully able to outrun the rate of the tenement’s collapse, but not for much longer. The staircase detaches, and Tim is in free-fall. The nearest building is possible to grapple to, but just barely. He closes his eyes because he does not want to look.

In what feels like a second later, Tim jolts. The sensation of weightlessness is gone. When he opens his eyes, he sees the tenement burning, the bottom three floors intact, but it’s sideways. He realises his cheek is pressed into the dirt and forces himself to sit upright. He finds his grapple in his hand and realises he cannot remember how he managed to swing to the next building. His head hurts, so maybe that is related to the reason why. 

The city will have to dismantle the nuclear reactor. Tim knows Oracle understands that. Next on the mental checklist is the fire. The fire department should be able to handle the fire safely. The nuclear reactor is so tiny it is almost pitiful. It cannot harm anyone, unless someone were to detonate a bomb right next to it.

Tim feels so useless upon remembering what had almost happened here that it paralyses his thoughts. But he forces himself to move on. It wouldn’t be the first time. Careless, reckless, negligent, self-absorbed, and baselessly confident. If I hadn’t found the coordinates for the drop off, I must have found the coordinates for something else. Basic process of elimination. Basic logical reasoning. You stupid fuck. Tim ends his pity-party here, learning his lesson from earlier in the night. 

“Jason.” Tim reaches for his comm, but it is missing. He at least still has the tracker’s controller. According to the red dot, Jason is at the police station. Tim heads over there right away, trusting Oracle has informed the appropriate services to come deal with the tenement. Unlike Tim, she has sound judgement and rarely makes mistakes. 

Moving as quickly as possible through the city, Tim keeps one eye on the controller. When he sees Jason’s red dot move again, his chest squeezes with such severe pain it makes the ache in his skull feel like a head massage. The dot moves to a nearby building two blocks away. Thankfully, that building is two blocks closer to Tim.

“There you are,” Tim says to himself when he sees Jason sitting with Renee at a bar counter. She is eating ice cream. Red Hood looks tense and alert but otherwise unscathed. He is watching Renee fondly. Tim stands back at the door and beholds the scene, to appreciate it for as long as he can, before he has to insert his sordid self into it. Of course Jason would have no choice but to take Renee to a bar at this time of night, but there is an innocence and peace to this moment that Tim is loath to disturb. 

Inevitably, Jason returns his focus to his surroundings. “There you are,” he calls out when he sees Tim by the door. He says something quietly into his comm as Tim approaches.

“Hi, Renee,” Tim greets, sitting on the bar stool on the other side of her. He has no excuse not to remember his manners, now. “Is it good?” He motions to the ice cream. “Did they find her family?” he asks Jason. Then Tim blushes, realising he did not give Renee time to reply.

Renee is looking past Tim at the door. Tim follows her gaze. Two well-dressed adults are at the door to the bar, looking a bit red in the eyes. Presumably, these people must be Renee’s family. Tim looks to Jason for confirmation. Jason watches Renee abandon the rest of her ice cream and rush to the people at the door. They leave almost as soon as they have wrapped Renee in their arms.

“She was abducted not three days ago,” Jason explains. “Her aunt and uncle had filed a report. Because of that, she was in the missing persons system, so it was easy to find her family.”

Tim suddenly recognises the aunt and uncle. “They own that one bank.”

Jason nods. “That one bank, indeed.”

Tim flushes. “I know what it’s called. I’m testing you, that’s all.”

Jason rests his chin on his hand. “But I don’t know. What’s the right answer?” He does not wait to hear it before continuing. “You'd know if you participated more in the Wayne side of things.”

Tim wants to participate more in the Wayne side of things so badly that the intensity of his want scares him. There are at least 152 reasons why he should not, however. Not least of which is how shit he is at his job; he does not have time for fun and games, literally.

“Sounds terrible.” Tim lies. “And boring,” he comes up with a moment later, afraid he's transparent.

“It's not really.” Jason's words are argumentative, but they're said with a small smile. He's happy. Tim can't help but smile back because this is another one of those sentences he'd been wanting to hear for five years and had resigned himself to never hearing. He continues to stare at Jason wordlessly, always struck speechless at how good a look breathing and talking and happiness are on Jason.

“By the way,” Jason says suddenly. “How'd you find us?”

Shame pollutes Tim's brief moment of inner peace like a nuclear accident. It does not occur to him to lie to Jason, not about things like this. “I tracked you. Sorry.” For his own good, he should know what a freak you are.

Jason's tone betrays nothing about how he feels. He merely states the facts. “You could have, just asked?” But it is clear he is asking about more than just the facts.

Tim ponders on the honest answer, and his thoughts race with his emotions. Whenever I look at you, I see the teenage boy who thought he had been forsaken by everyone he loved. I see someone with so much potential, with so much to contribute, and you've decided to employ all of that for good. I see someone who wants what I want for Batman, and who Batman wants, too. When I look at you, I see my heart, and it's not just on my sleeve but exposed to danger at all times, and you make me want to die for you just so you'd know how important you are, so maybe you'd just stop that for good.

Instead, Tim answers, “I was worried.”

Batman saves Tim from the rest of the conversation by speaking to Jason through his comm. “We're coming back now,” Jason replies after a few seconds, standing up from his stool. He places a tip on the counter. Tim does the same despite not having ordered anything. It is rude to sit at a bar without purchasing anything, is it not? Tim really would not know. He supposes it is the natural result of ‘homeschooling’ himself in Drake Manor for 18 years, the latter quarter of that time occasionally enlivened by socialising with vigilantes in animal-themed costumes. 

The vigilantes in animal-themed costumes have no intention of socialising with Tim tonight, however. Batman is no longer dressed in his costume but looks more intimidating now that Tim can see the expression on his face. Oracle and Damian are also present in the Batcave. Jason is still getting changed. Tim has not had the chance to change because he has yet to answer for his behaviour tonight.

“It was necessary,” Tim replies automatically to Batman’s unspoken question. ‘Necessity’ is his go-to excuse because his reluctance to get anyone involved in anything he is doing does feel necessary, and so there is a modicum of truth to it.

“A hostage crisis, a bomb vest, an exploded tenement, and a homemade nuclear reactor,” Batman ticks on his fingers. “You are extremely lucky that not even one of those events killed someone.”

Disappointment wrangles Tim by the throat. It is not because Batman is right, but it is because Batman has no idea exactly how right he is. He has yet to scratch the surface of how truly shit Tim is at this. “I’ll write the report and reflect on what we have learned,” Tim finally says. “Several of these situations-” were avoidable if I had been better “-may have been avoidable.”

“I think you may be missing the point,” Damian interjects from his perch on a countertop. 

Tim feels humiliated taking criticism from his junior, but if it is deserved, if it could save someone in the future, Tim needs to take it gracefully. He regroups in his thoughts. “Besides prevention, an essential takeaway is, of course, the fact that someone in Gotham is gathering uranium, and the nuclear reactor which has been discovered tonight may have a relationship to this sudden demand for uranium in Gotham.” Naturally, Tim almost let this key mystery slip his mind. The pain in his temples is so intense that he really wants to cry, but every time he allows himself to make excuses, he wants to kill himself. Innocent people might endure worse pain if he cannot figure out what the fuck is going on, and soon.

“I agree with Damian.” Jason emerges from the locker room. He looks very soft and comfortable in his T-shirt and sweatpants. Tim wishes Jason could look like that all the time. But if Jason is agreeing with Damian , then Tim must really have something backwards. 

Defeated, Tim does not regroup again. “Then, I don’t know.” He does know that he was an idiot for thinking he could ever impress anyone when he is, by definition, an idiot.

The room is silent. Tim supposes that he should feel uncomfortable, but he actually feels very comfortable now that he neither has to reply to anything nor listen to anything using his aching head. Eventually, Jason speaks, smiling ruefully. “He really doesn’t know.” 

Criticism from Jason scalds Tim’s feelings worse than anything because ever since the Tower, Jason has always been gentle with Tim. Tim is beginning to get used to the treatment and sometimes he even pretends he deserves it, but when Jason suddenly rescinds his gentleness, it shatters the illusion and reminds Tim of the truth. “Yes,” Tim grits out. “I’ve just said that. Thank you for your careful attention.” The remainder of the audience continues to be silent. “I’m tired and dirty, so I’m off to change. Good night.”

Tim refuses to cry even in the privacy of the locker room because the vigilantes in animal-themed costumes outside are both observant and kind. They will detect the evidence, and Tim will not allow attention to be diverted from the main issues at hand in favour of addressing a little bout of sadness and frustration that will pass and are deserved in any case. It would not be the first time innocent people almost died for his attention-seeking manoeuvres. 

Instead, when Tim emerges from the locker room and finds the Batcave empty, he takes the liberty of having the computer to himself and addresses the main issues at hand. Within five hours, he has a suspect. Within the next hour, Tim has a plan. He leaves to execute it, independently, as plans should be executed if he can make them out that way.

 

On a Tuesday morning, university professors should be in their classrooms lecturing or in their offices. Based on the syllabi Tim had found, Professor Henry should be in her office hosting office hours at 10.

“Professor?” Tim raps on Professor Henry’s door, although it is wide-open, revealing a young woman sitting behind a mahogany desk, absorbed in work. 

“Hello,” Professor Henry greets. Her demeanour is warm, and her age, even though it is impressive, somehow makes her feel more approachable than Tim had expected. “I assume you are here for office hours?”

“Yes,” Tim confirms. He feels lost, but a part of him is excited. Tim always wanted to go to university, but he did not want to find out how ‘excel in chemistry but almost detonated my elementary school’ might be received on an application. “I’m in CHEM 102. Can we go down to the labs to talk something through?”

“We should be able to,” Professor Henry nods. “I’ll put a sign on the door. In the future, for this type of thing, you ought to make an appointment with me in advance.”

Tim barely suppresses his embarrassment from showing on his face. “I understand,” he says. “Thank you for meeting with me anyway.”

The trip to the labs is awkward and stilted even though Professor Henry is a friendly person. The fault completely lies with Tim, whose civilian dress can only make him look like a normal person but not act like one. Tim’s excitement upon seeing a real university lab eclipses his shyness, however. He really wants to try out everything for himself: beakers, burners, sinks, goggles. The chance to pretend to be a university student, even for thirty minutes, even if he plans to arrest ‘his’ professor by the end of the day, is tantalising. 

You always had ulterior motives, Tim chides before his cheeriness can balloon too much. You’re no hero. You knew that from the start.  

“I need help practising for the-” Tim quickly recalls the syllabus he had read. “-stoichiometry practical.”

Professor Henry offers to watch Tim perform a reaction of his choice and give him feedback. Tim has so much fun doing it that he forgets to mess something up on purpose.

“That was very good.” Professor Henry’s expression is slightly bewildered. “I don’t think you need help at all.”

Tim looks at his hands, feeling utterly stuck after his momentary high from being praised. Now, what? How am I supposed to segue to nuclear non-proliferation from this? You just wanted to show off, didn’t you?

“I am actually a politics student,” Tim replies, feeling terribly awkward because it is not really the most sensible thing to say next. He struggles to save it. “This is my first chemistry course. I’m only taking it for the science requirements. I did not feel very confident, so I wanted extra practice and feedback.”

Professor Henry seems very receptive to the direction of the conversation nonetheless. “Politics! That is an interesting topic. It is not easy at all. I think you must be very talented to excel in both chemistry and politics.”

“Yes,” Tim says quickly, planning to latch onto the ‘interesting’ comment before realising how he sounds. “I mean, no. I meant, yes, that politics is an interesting topic. It is actually a very large collection of topics.” He cringes at how he is correcting the professor. “I am not sure how to specialise yet.”

“That’s completely normal. My advice is to follow what you’re passionate about.” Professor Henry seems unfazed and unbothered by Tim’s lack of any social skills.

“Thank you for the advice,” Tim says. “I’m thinking about going into the diplomacy stream.” He desperately hopes there is such a thing. If there isn’t, he desperately hopes Professor Henry wouldn’t know the difference. “I am passionate about nuclear non-proliferation.”

Professor Henry seems to light up. “Are you, now? As am I! It is a terribly pertinent issue which is sidelined all the time in favour of alien invasions and all that, which is understandable. But those risks make nuclear weapons all the more of a danger, do they not?”

“Absolutely,” Tim answers quickly, mind racing to think of something to add, but Professor Henry seems to have more to say anyway.

“And then we’ve got people in Gotham directly complicit in proliferation, sadly.” She shakes her head. “It’s thus more of a local issue than people here realise. The investment bank arm of Gotham City Bank has helped finance the latest nuclear weapons project, to take warheads up to space.”

Tim tries not to appear alarmed, but he checks the microphone embedded beneath his shirt collar to ensure that it is still there. Motive . She could not have put it any better. “It is utterly irresponsible,” he says, trying to provoke a particular reaction.

Professor Henry takes the bait beautifully. “Right? What gives those with power and money the right to decide on nuclear proliferation without the consent of the people? What makes them better equipped, more responsible, more ethical than anyone else? Imagine if private citizens began constructing nuclear projects left and right. They might as well. It’s practically the same in terms of safety and morality.”

She really was trying to make a statement, Tim confirms. Attention-seeking. I would know a lot about that, wouldn’t I?

“What a genius idea for protest,” Tim comments. “Although I am studying diplomacy, it has historically rarely been an effective avenue for non-proliferation efforts.”

Professor Henry begins to appraise Tim with a gleam in her eye. “That’s what I wanted to say, but I did not want to discourage you from your passion. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and your heart is in the right place. If you’re interested, there’s a protest initiative I’ve been working on which involves some research. I’d like to invite you to help me with it. I know you’re a politics student, but any research experience is still good experience to have.”

That’s where she's been getting the funding, Tim notes. She’s covering the expenses as a research project. But university grant money could be hardly enough to cover everything. Is that what the abduction was for? Ransom money? She must be planning to do more than make elementary nuclear reactors.

“So, here is the plan,” Professor Henry tells Tim after the school day in her office. “Well, part of them. I was meant to receive the full schematics last night, but they never arrived due to certain complications.” Tim reads her computer monitor over her shoulder, and he is so glad to have created those certain complications.  

“The plan is a dirty bomb,” Tim realises. The pieces click together. “Where were you planning to get the Cobalt-60?”

Professor Henry looks away from the monitor and at Tim fondly. “I knew you’d be an excellent addition to the project. One look, and you’ve understood straight away. I had a crude nuclear reactor that I was using to generate it as a byproduct. It’s been dismantled, which is a setback, but only a minor one. I thought it would be cheaper and more discreet to have a means of manufacturing it myself, but it is much easier to simply purchase it.”

Tim tries not to throw up, even though her words combined with the nauseating pulsing in his forehead make it a tempting proposition. The irony is genuinely sickening. She's right. She has no idea what a natural terrorist I am.  “How will we purchase it?” Tim barely stumbles on the phrasing ‘we.’

Professor Henry frowns. “I had another source of funding which was supposed to come through soon, but certain complications have interfered with that as well.”

Tim tries to feign disappointment. “We’ll get there eventually. I assume you have a place in mind?”

“Yes,” Professor Henry supplies eagerly. “Gotham City Bank, of course. The only way to make those people understand the risks they’re imposing on others is to make the risk personal. To make them experience the risk first-hand. You would know, wouldn’t you? Sometimes talking to people rationally, diplomatically does not work. You’ve got to use a show of force, appeal to fear.”

Sceptically, Tim notes, “Do they really have the power to call off the deal? It’s already been set in motion.”

Professor Henry shakes her head. “You’re missing the point. It’s because it’s already been set in motion that our work has to be done. Someone has to punish, penalise nuclear proliferation. There has to be costs to deter future investment.”

Tim nods. “I’m excited to be on the project.”

Professor Henry puts her hand on Tim’s shoulder. “I am also excited you’re on it. You have so much potential.”

I know, Tim doesn’t say. He forces himself to focus. “Professor Henry,” he begins, slowly. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go for today. I’ve got exams tomorrow.”

Professor Henry smiles the warm smile Tim is becoming used to seeing. She rummages around in the largest bottom drawer of her mahogany desk and pulls out a vest which Tim recognises all too well. She can read the expression on Tim’s face perfectly. “I knew you were a natural. You get it right away, don’t you? You see why this is necessary.”

“I see why this is necessary,” Tim agrees. Just as Renee’s vest had been, it is thin enough to be invisible beneath bulky clothing like the hoodie Tim is wearing. He takes it off. He deserves to wear the vest since he hadn’t been able to foresee this. Professor Henry had been far too open with him for him not to suspect a catch. He had been reckless, careless, negligent, self-absorbed, and baselessly confident and simply assumed that her openness had been a sign of trust.

The door to Professor Henry’s office is securely closed. She slips the vest on, fingers brushing Tim’s skin a few times more frequently than the task requires. Tim watches carefully, calculating if he’ll be able to defuse the bomb himself. Perhaps because she has learned her lesson with Renee, or maybe because she was willing to show mercy towards a child, she attaches one last sensor to the vest which Tim understands will prevent the wearer from taking the vest off without detonating the bomb immediately. He is so distracted that he only notices Professor Henry looking at his body after a delay. She looks up at him with a smile that is not at all warm. “You have a nice body.” 

Tim sees the vest’s controller in her hand. She watches him look at it. They both understand that she could make Tim give her what she wants. Professor Henry steps back, however, once she has confirmed that Tim understands. Tim takes it as her permission to put his hoodie back on. “See you in class, Professor,” he says as neutrally as he can manage.

Tim has no such intention, however. He finds the GPS tracker he was expecting to find in one of the vest’s pockets and slips it into the back pocket of a passing student. The rest of the afternoon is spent preparing for the moment he needs to contact the police. He combines the audio evidence he collected with written instructions and schedules the email to automatically send to Jim Gordon in the evening. Afterwards, Tim is able to surreptitiously take a bomb disposal kit from the Batcave and head back to the tenement. It is deserted, as he had expected. The city had already dismantled the reactor and moved its component parts elsewhere, and the tenement building, whilst still smoking, is of course no longer actively on fire.

After some research at the top of the neighbouring tenement he had body slammed into the night before, Tim concludes that he will be unable to defuse the vest with 100 percent certainty. The design of the vest is such that any attempt to manually defuse it, as Tim is attempting to do, is to play Russian roulette with the wiring. One of the wires is the right one to cut, and nine of them are the wrong ones to cut. Tim has requested the police to disable the vest through the controller once they have Professor Henry arrested, but he does not know what else she has up her sleeve. He’s underestimated her once before; he does not make the same mistake twice. Tim will either defuse it manually or detonate it to ensure the bomb vest can not be weaponised against anyone else. 

In the meantime, Tim ponders what he will say to Batman and Jason in case he fails to defuse the bomb. I’m sorry to leave Gotham up to you, Tim will lie. He is not sorry at all. He is glad that he was able to keep Jason and Batman away from Professor Henry and her affinity for explosives. Either of them could have ended up in this vest, and Tim is glad that is not what happened. Tim thinks they will understand why Tim dealt with the situation the way he did. They’ll have to understand how precious they are, that Tim could not risk them in a delicate situation like this. They’ll have to see how Tim only meant to protect them. And once they see that, they’ll never forget how Tim loved them. The evidence, the proof, would be seared into their memories for life. Tim will sear it into the Earth, too, to make them understand; Tim will make himself another dirt pockmark in Gotham Public Cemetery, if only they could understand.

Tim is only sorry that he was not competent enough to save himself long enough to protect them for as long as they both lived.

As the sun sets, the vest begins to beep. Tim knows the police must be in the process of arresting Professor Henry.

“Tim.” Jason’s voice is loud in Tim’s ear through the comm. “Where are you?”

“Stake-out location,” Tim says casually.

“Why are the police saying they’ve arrested a terrorism suspect?” Damian asks next. 

“They have?” Tim says hopefully. “Great.”

“You know about this,” Batman confirms.

“Where are you?” Oracle echoes Jason. “You have your tracker turned off, again.”

“Bomb vest,” Tim explains without explaining. “I have to detonate it.”

“You don’t have to,” Damian argues, sharp as ever. “The police can probably cancel once they find the controller. Someone tell the police.”

“Good thinking, Damian,” Tim says because Damian has probably not been recognised as much as he deserves, given his upbringing. “They should disable it on their end if they can. I still have to take it off somewhere safe.”

“How have you managed to handle this situation in an even worse way than last night?” Jason interjects. 

“It was necessary,” Tim answers as neutrally as he can manage. His entire body aches as anxiety flares between his ribcage. What is he missing? What is he forgetting? What fault is Jason finding with his plan that Tim is not seeing? From Tim’s vantage point, this was the best possible outcome. Civilian casualties will be zero. The police had more than enough reasonable cause for a warrant and enough evidence to start building a case for legal proceedings. Best of all, neither Batman nor Jason had to get involved. 

The comm is silent.

“That’s all you have to say?” Jason says angrily after a full minute has passed. Tim is counting because he plans to snip the wire right before detonation. He is afraid to leave Batman and Jason alone.

Tim struggles to put his affection into words, even in the best of times. Right now, years of heavy emotions remain stuck at the bottom of his voice box, and he is unable to force them to make a single sound. I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you. Instead, Tim says, “I’ll miss you.”

The response is almost immediate, as though Jason had been expecting Tim’s reply. “Bullshit. The dead can’t do anything.”

Immense sadness weighs on Tim. “I’m sorry to leave Gotham all up to you. I tried my best. This is my best.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Damian says, and the similarity of his words with those he spoke last night reopens last night’s wounds.

“Then, I don’t know,” Tim snaps, his entire existence throbbing with a pain that he has never known release from. “What’s so bad about this plan? Tell me. Tell me one single flaw in this plan.”

I might have mere seconds left with them, and this is how I treat them, Tim thinks, and he feels like he deserves to die in that moment, so he snips a wire. He expects to feel fire licking at his skin, like it had all those years ago when he had almost killed a school of children, and he thinks this must be his redemption, to die alone at the top of a building, consumed by the fire he started.

Instead, a cold wind blows, chilling Tim to the core. He looks down, watches his chest rise and fall. Tim already misses that sedated, comforted feeling he had felt when he had thought he was going to blow up. A natural arsonist, a natural terrorist, Tim thinks, but the words don’t cut like they used to. He simply feels tired, too tired to feel anything about anything.

A moment later, the rooftop entrance bangs open, and Jason appears. “There you are,” he says, when he sees Tim sitting in the middle of the roof, surrounded by wires and pliers.

“Why are you here?” Tim watches Jason approach with mounting horror. “I- I cut the wire. You- you could have died.” Guilt, at an intensity and fever pitch Tim has never felt before, stifles Tim by the throat. “I could have killed you,” he chokes out. There was no reason not to consider the possibility, comes the familiar mantra, and Tim feels too exhausted to beat himself up for it because even when he punishes himself, it seems he’ll never learn. It seems his potential to create terrible misfortune is too much to overcome, especially for someone with his level of competence.

Jason stands over Tim, expression unreadable. “You could have died,” he says, tone equally inscrutable.

“And?” Tim is hardly listening because Jason still does not get it at all. “You’re missing the point. You have no idea-”

“No,” Jason interrupts. “Shut up. Maybe that might have been true in the past, but, these days, you have no idea. You say you’ll miss me, but the truth is, you would have been dead, and I would have been stuck missing you .”

“But I love you.” Tim’s voice breaks. “I really would miss you. I missed you for so long. It would hurt me so badly to miss you ever again. I could not miss you ever again. I’m sorry if it’s creepy or insane. I know it is. I’m sorry.” Tim would stand, but he feels bogged down by his never-ending failures. Even in this situation, he cannot get Jason to understand how much Tim loves him. 

“Do you love me?” Jason questions, and it is the epitome of all of Tim’s worst fears confirmed. “If you loved me, would you put yourself through all this and force me to watch you do it?”

“I would die for you, Jason, I would,” Tim pleads. “You’re not alone anymore. You never were.” He feels like exploding would have hurt less than this conversation.

“Would you die for me because you love me?” Jason asks rhetorically. His expression is as unreadable as ever, his tone so emotionless that Tim is momentarily too disoriented to interject. So Jason says the rest of it, unimpeded. “Or would you die for me because you hate yourself?”

“I do love you,” Tim croaks. “I do. I really do.”

Jason’s icy demeanour melts at last. He sighs. “I know. I know.” He kneels down in front of Tim, clears away the pliers and the wires. He helps Tim slip off the vest and the hoodie on. “Let’s go home,” he says.

Tim tries to follow Jason, but he cannot stand. He is tired, and he is cold, and his head hurts, and his heart hurts, and he is hungry, and he does not want to go there when Jason calls that place ‘home.’

Jason sits back down with Tim. His gaze is sad. “Look at how tired you are. You’re running on empty. Did you think I wanted this?”

The words escape Tim’s mouth almost unconsciously, and he does not realise how true they are until he hears them. “I’m tired and empty no matter what. But maybe someone else- you- won’t be anymore.”

“‘No matter what,’” Jason repeats. “What do you want, Tim?”

Tim recoils. He knows I have ulterior motives. He’s probably known all along. Might as well come clean. The gig is up. Tim almost asks for it. Then he remembers. I do not deserve it.

Jason uses his sleeve to wipe Tim’s face. Tim had not noticed he’d begun to cry. He looks at the wet spot on Jason’s jacket and notices that Jason is wearing what Tim likes to see him in. It’s the T-shirt and sweatpants combination. It looks very soft and comfortable. Tim is too tired to resist his temptations, so he says what he wants, at last. “I want you to hug me.”

Jason grins, and it looks the same as Robin’s smile from Tim’s memories. Tim had never expected this , of all things, to bring back Robin’s smile. “Was that so difficult?”

Jason’s hug is as soft and comfortable as it seemed it would be. When it ends, he looks at Tim with a dim but gentle smile. “Breathing and talking and being hugged is a good look on you.”

It is such a close resemblance to Tim’s own thoughts that Tim is shocked into silence. He looks at the bomb vest and the wires and the pliers strewn around them. “This was a mistake,” he realises.

Jason nods along sagely, patiently. “It’s alright. I know you. You don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Tim tries to apologise to Batman for his mistake when he returns home. Batman, much in the same way Jason had said it, tells Tim to shut up and sit down on the couch. “Me first, and then you,” Batman instructs. He looks Tim in the eye. “I love you.”

Tim may lack social skills, but he is at least aware that ‘I’m sorry’ is not the most sensible thing to say next. Damian, reading the Art of Attack in Chess in a nearby armchair, relieves Tim of the duty to respond. “Alright, you sap. Let’s not get carried away. I think he has gotten the point.”

The room is darker than Tim remembers when he hears Damian’s voice again. “I told you he looked tired.” Tim realises it is dark because his eyes are closed, and he opens them to find Damian sitting where he had been, reading what he had been, but the fireplace is on. It is pleasantly warm because of that, but it is also pleasantly warm because of the body heat he can feel on his cheek. Tim turns his head to see a familiar T-shirt and sweatpants combination.

“Go back to sleep,” Jason suggests, and Tim can feel him breathing and talking and being happy through the skin of his cheek. “I think we can survive one night without you.”

Batman appears at the doorway in his blue pyjamas, and Tim is reassured that he is not going anywhere in those. “But not forever,” Batman says.

I can get Batman to stay home. I can resurrect Robin’s smile. Even Damian can relax and read his books because of me, Tim calculates wearily. Maybe I do have potential to do good.

“I wanted to spend forever with you anyway,” Tim admits out loud. 

“Ugh,” Damian comments. “He’s delirious. Go back to sleep, please .”Tim accepts the criticism from his junior gracefully, realising that maybe it had never been criticism. Maybe Tim had never been the mistake. Maybe it is best to let his eternal guilt go, if it isn't helping anyone, anyway. Then Jason interrupts Tim’s prized calculations by repositioning Tim’s head on his shoulder, and Tim knows that if Damian is agreeing with Jason , then Tim must really have something backwards. He allows his calculations to burn in the warmth of Jason’s soft and comfortable hug, and he goes to sleep.

Notes:

i deleted the original end note. i hate this story now and i think it needs an additional chapter, so, instead of trying to explain all the loose ends in an end note, here's to another chapter at some point

edit: okay i don't /hate/ it but maybe i do idk maybe i need to stop writing notes when I'm crashing out...starting now okay byeeeeee

bits from the original end note:
i don't know if cobalt-60 is generated in the kind of nuclear reactor that professor henry made. it is a commonly produced radioactive substance, most applications are related to sterilising medical equipment. as for the nuclear reactor, i had the chicago pile in mind, which has a wikipedia page if you want a better visualisation of what tim saw in the basement. a dirty bomb is a regular explosive with radioactive substances inside it

really bad at plot and detail things, the significance of the first bit, was that Tim's parents lost his original birth certificate, and only had a photocopy, which tim burned, fixed wording to clarify that

Chapter 5: i'm delusional, impractical is crucial...it's the talk of the town

Summary:

******content warnings:******* dissociation all throughout; discussions of sexual violence including what happened last chapter; discussions of child exploitation and abuse more generally

there was only supposed to be one more chapter (this one) but i am struggling to conclude this fic

how do i explain why this exists. so in the last chapter i introduced maybe 7 plot details which also introduced some themes which i didn't expand on very much because i felt that my stance on it was implicit in the story, to some degree, but now i realise, that the themes i wrote need much more

i was brought to this realisation by a great video called "the debate and switch" by the hayze on youtube which i won't elaborate on too much because i highly recommend watching it. it's about how important ideas are often supported by a villain who the protagonists have to thwart, which may seem to cast the idea itself in a categorically negative light. i wasn't /trying/ to cop out of discussing it i swear, to me it was all just artistically blurred background in a photo you know? now i'm unblurring it for better or for worse.

(31-07-2025)

Notes:

my prose just gets worse and worse over the years i do apologise, but i also strongly feel that this story needs a better conclusion. not a 'good' conclusion though because i am so sick and tired of reading this chapter and just wanna let it go lmao

ALSO lmao this chapter is barely about fixing the debate and switch i got sidetracked

chapter title is from locals by underscores and gabby start

The gala glows, and Tim finds that the dazzle shines too brightly for his unadjusted eyes. Even the comfort of seeing Jason peacefully milling about, all in one piece, safe, fails to soothe Tim tonight. He sits at the bar whilst Bruce, Dick, Jason, and Damian have duly planted themselves around the room, according to unwritten rules of engagement that Tim never learned despite having lived comfortably in the strata of the upper class since birth. He had become a liability for his parents in high society upon his expulsion from school. After all, he nearly caused an explosion in the prestigious private school that nearly all the members of Gotham's high society sent their own children to. This was social suicide for Tim’s parents. But their careers remained unaffected. They had and still have a monopoly in the business of harnessing the military applications of archeological artefacts, usually alien relics. Their niche expertise makes them one of the most in demand defence consultants.

But Tim thinks it's a good thing that his eyes are unadjusted, especially as a vigilante, self-proclaimed to be dedicated to the common good. Long-term distance from high society did good things for Tim’s sense of his place in the world. The devil is always in the power dynamics.

Dick has been known to the public for so many years that it necessitates his semi-regular appearance at Wayne events. Damian’s newer appearances really help sell the playboy persona that Bruce still can't afford to retire, much to his chagrin. Both of them play their roles pragmatically as cogs in the smoke machine. But Jason has a naivete that Tim can't help but protect. For Jason, attending Wayne functions means helping out the family business. And because of Jason's dire upbringing and violent downfall, living comfortably provides him with much needed rest and stability. Tim would never criticise him for that.

Tim thinks back to yesterday. By picking the wrong wire he could have blown Jason to pieces just like the Joker had. What an idiot Tim had been, to assume he could disentangle his self-destruction from the people he has weaved into his life. What a sinking realisation. Tim’s not over it.

So Tim focuses on the way Jason holds himself in the conversation he's having across the ballroom. He shifts his weight with agility. There's no pain or stiffness in the way he gestures with his hands to tell his story. Tim takes solace. He's always on edge that Jason’s resurrected form might decompose into ash at any moment. He can't look at Jason without also seeing the dull glint of a crowbar, striking fingers that really do look okay. They do, don't they? They do. But check just once more. Jason laughs, bringing his hand to his mouth.

Tim peels his focus away before Jason notices the attention. Jason’s vigilante awareness never slumbers. Or maybe it's the vigilance of a murdered child. Tim can't help but duck away from whatever it is.

On the topic of mistreated children, Renee’s stoicism comes to mind. Now that Henry has gone into custody, the mental bandwidth that has been freed up continues to replay the memory of Renee in the bomb vest. He feels deeply worried about Renee’s reaction, or lack thereof, to the whole situation. And this roiling anxiety threatens to spill him off of his bar stool and into the crowd, because doing anything at all right now is better than sitting on his hands for the next several hours. Tim hasn't been involved in high society since before his expulsion so he's not worried about being identified on sight. He's just irrationally unsettled.

Tim steels himself to stand up and look around the venue, self-consciously adjusting the collar of his dress shirt even though there's nothing to fix. The tailor fitted this suit perfectly to Tim’s body this morning. Bruce tipped generously for a rush order when Tim expressed his interest in experiencing ‘the Wayne side of things’ as Jason phrased it. Tim checked first that Janet and Jack had declined their invitation to this particular gala.

The tailor stood Tim on a wooden pedestal, fiddling with the sleeves and the excess fabric that he deemed unseemly. Not long ago Professor Henry looked at Tim, fiddling with the loose ends of the straps of the vest, tucking them in. 

For some reason, Tim feels utterly ashamed of looking nice tonight.

Renee comes to mind again. Tim wonders what Henry said to Renee. Maybe that's important. Of course it's important. Now Tim really wants to find Renee. He does not believe Henry would make a comment of the same nature to a child. But he realises that it is important to have Renee's perspective whether or not there is more to the story. There was already the abduction, the threat to life, and the child criminal exploitation.

Tim peels himself off of the bar stool. The seat of his pants feels uncomfortably warm and sweaty, which should come as no surprise, given he’s been sat on the stool for two hours now. The fabric of the suit slides into place over Tim’s body just in the way that the tailor intended. Mercifully the guests at the bar pay Tim no mind, engrossed in their political and business manoeuvring.

Tim takes a step, and in the distance of that step he viscerally feels the weight of his limbs. He feels so raw and corporeal. He is visible for all to see. How does he feel so humiliated by the mere fact that he has a body? Tim can feel air molecules touching his thighs through the fitted pleating of his trousers. It's as if the atmosphere has taken on the density of water, drenching his clothes and sticking the fabric to his skin. Heaviness accumulates in his chest, a thunderstorm that Tim can't afford to disperse right now, so it collapses his chest instead. Tim experiences all of this in the first step, and he doesn't know how he could survive the next ten paces in this suit, let alone the rest of the night.

All the more reason I need to talk to Renee, Tim reasons. All the more reason. But he realises that wandering around the venue looking for a little girl as a random man is really fucking shady. If anyone were to catch him doing that, Tim strongly believes that it should be legal to choke him to death on sight.

Tim could leave and do his own research easily. But he's reluctant to face everyone's reactions after the announcement of his attendance had very transparently raised everyone's mood. Tim desperately doesn't want to burst that bubble, so he's anxious not to leave any earlier than the first person to leave, which will probably be Damian. But Tim also feels that getting in contact with Renee is time-sensitive, and he’s already been oblivious to the issue for too long. Someone on the team ought to know something. He gravitates toward Damian who thankfully has bid a group of socialites farewell and is scanning the room, calculating who he needs to speak with. Maybe Tim can convince Damian to have (non-alcoholic) refreshments at the bar.

But why am I looking for Damian? Tim questions himself, and he realises the answer. Tim hadn't witnessed Damian's childhood. But he has enough circumstantial evidence in the way Damian thinks, talks, and behaves, and in what is known of the League of Assassins. Thinking about Renee has raised the alarm to Tim that he probably ought to have a focussed conversation with Damian sooner rather than later. Tim is astounded by the connections his abstract thought makes sometimes, and he is also astounded by how slow it was to make this connection, when he's supposedly a great detective. How long has he known Damian? In this context, too long.

“Timothy!” Damian says with a twinge of annoyance.

Tim jolts, looking down to his left where Damian has somehow appeared from across the room. Damian looks back, and it's coming back all at once. Tim can't see his own body. It's definitely there because his organs feel too close to one another. And the room doesn't spin or darken. He just feels like a video game character whose character model has glitched out of existence but is still somehow taking damage. “Hi,” he says, trying to wring the breathlessness out of his words. “Can you have a lemonade with me?”

Damian studies Tim with intense scrutiny which really, really, really, really doesn't help Tim's sense of glitching out. “Of course,” he eventually says slowly. “But are you sure lemonade is going to help enough?”

Help what enough! Tim mentally argues because they both know exactly what Damian means. Damian really means are you okay? do you need to leave?. Tim can't play dumb with Damian. Tim just wants to know how transparent he is. Does he come off a little socially awkward and overwhelmed or abjectly traumatised? “Lemonade is enough,” Tim decides. “But I wanted to ask if you’ve seen Renee.”

“Too soon,” Damian explains. “That's the sense I got from their reply.”

“Poor girl,” Tim commiserates, trying to sound like any other member of the public. “She probably needs a lot of support.”

“Explain,” Damian demands, stopping short of crossing his arms. He can't display that kind of body language here.

Tim doesn't know how to explain this in the middle of a gala that is meant to conceal the Batman’s identity, not obliterate his cover. “I’ll show you an article.” 

Instead, he types in his notes for Damian to see. I witnessed Henry use cruel psychological tactics.

Damian smiles for the benefit of any onlookers who might glance their way. But there's a hint of genuine sarcasm and incredulity in the smile. “‘Witnessed,’ is it?”

Tim can't play dumb with Damian. It's annoying. So some aching, screaming part of him wants Damian to feel annoyed, too. “What do you mean,” he asks, in a tone that makes no effort to sound genuine.

Damian stares through Tim. Why does he have to be so precocious? Damian knows that Tim edited out a certain part of the confession tape he sent to the police.

“Hello boys,” Dick interjects with a wide smile. “How are we doing?” Tim once again hadn't noticed his approach, mainly because Tim's desperately trying not to see anyone. If he can't see them, they can't see him either. Right?

“Yes, how are we doing?” Damian throws at Tim, forcing Tim to either lie or admit that there's something to talk about. Damian’s PR-ready smile shines as brightly as the chandelier overhead.

Similarly, the pleasantness of Dick's grin does not falter even though Tim knows that Dick is clocking the subtext. He turns tentatively towards Tim, hesitant to join Damian's accusatory approach but still trusting that there's merit to Damian's annoyance.

“Damian reminded me of Renee, so I wanted to talk to him,” Tim blurts. He forces himself not to smirk. Now we get to talk about your trauma.

But Damian doesn't miss a beat. “Renee reminded Tim of himself. So that's why he thought of me in the first place.” Tim forgot that Damian had that card to play. But he can't give up yet. 

"That’s- wrong!” Tim argues clumsily before Dick can enter the fray. “Jason reminded me of Renee in the first place.”

Tim can see the very moment that Damian takes conscious control of his eyeballs to force himself not to roll them into his forehead. Dick’s smile has faltered, and he is rubbing his neck gingerly. “So-” he tries, and his smile remains barely stitched into his face when he's interrupted.

Jason swings into their cluster of tension merrily. “Did you say you were thinking of me, Tim?” He has a plate of starters in his left hand and a tube glass of sparkling liquid in his right. Tim thinks it's a very inconvenient setup, because how is Jason supposed to eat the appetizers until he finishes his drink? He might as well finish his drink first then fill a plate. But it's what everyone else seems to be doing. 

Tim’s next words flow thoughtlessly. “I'm always thinking about you, Jason. Would you like me to hold something for you?”

The distressed tension in the cluster crumbles, and a new kind of tension rushes the vacuum to rule the space between the four of them. Tim hardly notices because he's already reached out to Jason, waiting for him to deposit one thing, or the other, or both into his hands.

Jason looks so embarrassed. He clutches his drink and his plate a bit closer to his chest before he gives in to the intensity of the moment. “I guess I am hungry.” 

With a smile, Tim takes the drink, albeit unsteadily because he can't see his hands. He feels the curvature of cool glass on his fingertips and takes it on trust that he's holding the glass.

"You should try a sip,” Jason offers before sliding a mini skewer of olive and cheese into his mouth. “It's just sparkling apple cider.”

Tim really does not want to feel the journey of the cider on his lips, down his throat, or into his stomach. Feeling will make him hyper-aware of his entire body again. But he doesn't want Jason to feel awkward either. Tim takes a sip and acts like he can taste it. “Thanks. It's good.”

Damian fidgets subtly which reminds Tim that Damian and Dick are still here. Tim feels a little bad. “Sorry, Damian. I invited you to get a drink with me but didn't follow through. Let me go and get you something?”

“It is fine,” Damian says, looking slightly embarrassed himself.

Tim looks to Dick, about to ask the same question, but for once Dick interrupts and seizes his moment to speak. “That's not it,” he explains. “It's just. I guess we always knew Jason was your favourite.” Dick infuses a playful chuckle into the sentence, but it rings hollow.

And oh, the shame. The shame. The shame . But circumstances do not afford Tim even a moment to wallow in it.

"Hellooo,” a woman interrupts from behind Tim. Tim knows who this is, and he hears the chorusing “hey, there” from a male voice before it happens.

Tim almost says ‘hey mom! hey dad!’ with feigned enthusiasm but he wonders if that would be social suicide for all of them all over again. Instead, when he spins around to face them, he merely says, “it's great to see you. I wasn't expecting you.” He looks back and forth between his two worlds colliding. “Shall I introduce you?” He almost says ‘to my friends’ but the idea of civilian Tim having friends in the Wayne family would raise his parents’ eyebrows. They more or less have an unspoken agreement that Tim is not going to stir up the past by waltzing into high society. And at this point, his parents’ inattention is a huge asset. He has freedom to be Red Robin whenever he wants to be, and he doesn't have to worry about pretending to live a double life almost at all. So doing anything that might spark his parents' curiosity in him at this time in his life alarms Tim more than flatters him.

Janet shifts her weight, sending a ripple down the flowing fabric of her evening gown, and her smile betrays a hint of pride. “No need. We're well acquainted.” There's a hardness in her eyes when she looks at Tim. Somehow, no thanks to you. Tim barely suppresses an impulsive scream that I KNOW THEM BETTER because that would win him the petty status competition, but that could also be the first loose thread that unravels everything. Janet continues. “We weren't expecting you either. But it's great to see you, too. You look…nice.” She lands on the word after a full second, betraying her utter shock that Tim to all appearances fits in well with his surroundings. But she won't remember to check how much he paid for the suit in the family account statement, which is great, because he didn't pay for it.

Oh, the shame, shame, shame shame. What a crying fucking shame. Why nice ? Why of all the words in the English language did it have to be nice ? It's not like she meant it in a crude way. Janet is a neglectful parent but she's not a predator by any stretch of the imagination. She and Jack only have eyes for each other. But why did she have to remind Tim of the one memory he doesn't want to think about right when he's realising that he's the splitting image of his parents- that he's so obsessed that he neglects everyone and everything else?

This feels so bad. This is almost too much. First nice , then nearly pulling a Joker on Jason, next overlooking Renee and Damian, then again Dick, and, now, perhaps the common denominator: that he sees himself in his parents.

No, no. Anyone but them. Anyone . Tim would sooner see himself in the Joker. He would sooner see himself in Henry, even. He already has! And it didn't destroy him half as much as seeing himself in his own parents. Obviously he needs to defend himself. It's a logical fallacy, comparing apples to oranges. It's not the same. He didn't think the same things. He didn't do the same things. But it probably felt the same, didn't it? It felt just as good to him and just as bad to everyone else.

So, what now? Tim forgives his parents? Tim accepts that he's a hypocrite? Ah, but see? This is Tim's forte. In times of emotional crisis and upheaval, Tim does not dare act on any of his emotions, especially the righteous anger.

My parents should be here with me; I make them be here with me; near-explosion in the vicinity of several hundred children

In times of emotional upheaval, Tim jumps ship out of himself.

So Tim wants to explain to Dick that he has just been fucking insane all his life. But does the reason even matter? The reason only makes Tim feel better, not them.

Damian gathers his bearings first. “Excuse me for having to ask. How do you know each other?” His eyes narrow slightly in consternation but he manages to pull off a tone of polite interest.

Tim looks to his parents to answer this question. How he has always longed to look to his parents for answers. He used to have a daydream about looking to his mom to speak for him at the doctor because he heard that it's relatable. Now Tim looks to his mom to speak for him at the gala and decide whether she wants to be publicly associated with him.

Janet takes Tim’s deference as permission. Her eyes slide away from Tim’s and they brighten when she addresses Damian. “He interned with us.”

Tim remembers his calculations. He remembers burning them. He smiles. “It was a great opportunity.”

Jack takes a shaky breath, eyes darting between Janet and the wider group. It's a huge risk to pretend that their son is their intern. but Tim thinks Janet provided an airtight answer. There's enough plausible deniability to twist what was said. Because he can be their son and have interned at their consultancy. In fact, it's even more plausible that their own son interned with the family business.

Tim has also done everyone a favour by never disclosing the full extent of his civilian identity to the bats. Of course it was only out of fear that Bruce would recognise him by his rather unfortunate and infamous reputation in Gotham's high society. Bruce, Alfred, Dick, or anyone else could have dug out the truth if they tried, although it would have been time-consuming. There is very little biometric data associated with Timothy Drake other than a very average vaccination record. There was never any reason to get fingerprinting, have a photo taken as a teenager for official records, or determine his blood type. And there was never any reason to assume that Tim was any different than Dick or Jason, especially because as a child he seemed to be running around the streets at all hours of the day and night in a notoriously sketchy city. Sure, he owned confusingly high quality camera equipment, but precocious children have their ways. If Tim had family, he wouldn't be left unattended for days and weeks at a time.

“That's great,” Jason says consideringly. “You never mentioned it.” He addresses Janet and Jack again and absolutely blindsides the three Drakes with his next question. “How's your son doing?”

Something in Tim collapses into maniacal laughter. Of course Jason knows the guestlist and the regulars like the back of his hand. Of course he would, for the family business. Tim doesn't have to feign the interest he shows in his expression. He's dying to know what Janet and Jack say that he's up to these days.

“He’s doing well,” Jack explains, and it's almost too vapid of an explanation, so he pads it with even more filler. “He's really happy these days.” He then changes the subject. “How do you three know Timothy?”

"I do some freelance photography sometimes,” Tim interjects, because after the cover story Janet picked out for him, he's frightened to know what Dick, Jason, or Damian might pick out for him. How many apocalyptic realisations has Tim had this evening? Even a psyche as disturbed as his own cannot take another blow. Tim points to a slideshow projected onto the far wall. “Some of my pictures are on display. So I was invited to view my photography.” Tim does take pictures of the corporation’s philanthropy, and he's almost 100 percent sure his photos are actually on display.

“Lovely,” Janet praises politely. She sends Tim a subtle side-eye. She's still suspicious of his intentions. Well, that's on them. Why would they reply to the invitation saying that they can't come and then turn up anyway? Tim has made every effort not to fuck them all over. “I love the picture of Richard walking in the park with…I'm sorry that I don't know that man. Did you take that picture, Timothy?”

Dick jumps in at this moment, and Tim feels ashamed all over again. Tim hadn't forgotten about Dick and Damian again, but he suddenly realises how both of them are being quietly subjected to this social nightmare and never-ending accumulation of lies. “That's me walking with the CEO of a mental health charity local to Gotham. They do great work, and Tim has taken a great picture.”

“Thank you, Richard,” Tim says, and his genuine gratitude is achingly pained. The Drakes are doing the best they can to shove the tension between them under the rug, but it's clear that Janet is testing Tim. And Dick has been triangulated into this dynamic by Tim, and Dick still chooses to defend Tim. Tim clumsily begins to ramble. “I'm really passionate about the work Richard is doing on behalf of the Wayne Foundation, so I wanted to capture the story of this work in a medium where it can be understood at a glance.”

Five pairs of eyes watch Tim, and he can't see any of them or the bodies formed around them. He just needs to get them to stop looking. He just needs a distraction. And he also owes Dick. And when will he get to the part when he follows up with Renee?

In a muddled, frenzied acknowledgement of all these factors, Tim attempts to redirect the attention on him to the slideshow and also Dick. So he prattles on, Tim's only tether the photography that he's been doing for so long it's more on autopilot than his breathing usually is. “Richard chose to work with this charity because they are committed to personalised mental health practice, which means they are committed to meeting clients wherever they are. In fact, a staple of their work is holding sessions with clients via a walk in the park. I also wanted the picture in the park because both the Wayne Foundation and the charity recognise the importance of the environmental and systemic factors in improving mental health. This park is, after all, maintained with the hard work of staff salaried by the Wayne Foundation.”

Are they still there? Tim can't see for certain. But there is so much more that Dick has achieved, and Tim can't bring himself to leave anything out. “I've taken the picture from behind to symbolise anonymising their identities because this organisation adheres to stringent client data protection and confidentiality standards, which Richard also vetted. All in all, the picture creates a mirroring between the leadership and the clients they are striving to serve, who look much the same when they are engaging with mental health services in the park. This comparison seeks to destigmatise the clients, as well as to symbolise a breaking down of hierarchy and a willingness to empathise with the clients. Hence the caption “‘a walk in their shoes.’” Tim opens his mouth, shuts it when he realises he has nothing more to add. A flush creeps into the apples of his cheeks. He anticipates a scornful silence because he doesn't know how to talk to people here. Tim has most likely taken everyone off script into improv territory, and they have every right to be annoyed.

Dick grins widely at Tim. “That sums it up really well. Thank you!” His cheeks are slightly flushed as well.

“No, I'm sorry,” Tim says, a bit rushed. “I should have let you explain.” What was Tim thinking? He accidentally pushes Dick into toxic familial dynamics then steals his spotlight? Some show of appreciation. Deep down, Tim is probably still desperate for his parents’ recognition, and he let that run roughshod over Dick. 

Instead of letting Dick reply, Janet rushes in with her own comment. “I'm not sure if shareholders are really getting all of that from a photo. I think it is better if Richard is given his due opportunity to speak.” The unspoken implication is I'm not sure if I'm really getting all of that from a photo because the Drakes are important shareholders.

Jason, Damian, and Dick bristle upon hearing Janet's words, although not obviously. Tim just knows them well enough to interpret the twitch of a finger and the momentary breaking of eye contact. But Tim can't have them rescue him from his mother’s criticism- of all things- and damage a productive business partnership. 

“You're right,” Tim replies before anyone else can. “A photo should never speak for someone else or substitute for transparent information giving. But because photography is a keystone of public relations in this age, it is important that the visuals presented to stakeholders and the public communicate a certain feeling. Nonetheless Richard should be your first point of contact with regards to the Wayne Foundation. I apologise for any confusion.”

“Please, please,” Janet assures graciously. “I know that Richard is always doing great work.”

Stop using him to put me down, Tim wants to scream. That's going to make him feel awkward.

"I like the photo,” Jack says with a considering hand on his chin. “I do agree that photos appeal to an intuitive sixth sense. I need to ask our communications team what their process is behind the photos they take for us.”

Janet almost sighs because Jack is forcing her to make a concession. But she stifles her exasperation well. “Yes, Timothy. Thank you for sharing your expertise. It is valuable.”

"It's nothing,” Tim smiles. “Collaboration is a key value of the Wayne approach. Success for all is success for one.” Janet has to stifle another baleful look because he's buried his condescension under layers of PR speak. He's learned the art of plausible deniability from the best.

"We'd best turn in early for the night,” Janet says. “Our flight was delayed until tomorrow, so we still have an early morning.”

"Thank you for coming tonight,” Damian nods. “Safe travels.”

Jason and Dick bid farewell politely. Tim suddenly becomes aware of his heart thumping in his chest. The beats aren't heavy and percussive but excessively light, as if the rhythm of his heart is trailing off in ellipsis. But he thinks he says good-bye.

"Care to explain?” Damian says with a raised eyebrow.

"Bad…internship,” Tim offers.

“Should we stop working with them?” Jason asks.

"No! No, no,” Tim's composure buckles. His parents would assume he sabotaged them. And they must think better of him now, surely. Surely. “There were just some issues with the onboarding documents and the internship fell through. Anyway. It's not great that we're all clustered here together.”

"Tim's right,” Dick says, giving Tim a look that communicates that he's saving Tim from further discussion now because he has to but not because he wants to.

Jason hesitates, just as reluctant as Dick and just as eager to unpack the interaction that just happened. If it had been a dizzying whirlwind for Tim who had the full context, Tim imagines it had been incomprehensible and destabilising for the rest of them, who had only 25 percent of the context, and were otherwise fed straight-up lies. Ultimately Jason takes his drink back from Tim which makes Tim shrivel on the inside. There are at least three servings left on Jason's plate. “I have a few more people on my list to talk to,” Jason announces. “For this next guest I think I'll need you, Dick.”

Dick tugs on his left dress shirt sleeve, ensuring an even white border is showing beneath his suit jacket. “Lead the way.”

But why is Tim hurt? He's the one who brought up the fact that they have work to do.

"Please let me get you a juice or something at the bar,” Tim pleads to Damian when Dick and Jason have left their group.

Damian considers Tim, wary and exhausted. “Maybe just take me home.”

Tim nods eagerly despite how upset Damian looks. Escorting Damian is something Tim can do. He's just trying to move his presence at the gala from negative to neutral. And he hasn't forgotten about Renee. Once Damian is settled, Tim will try to make progress.

Damian and Bruce make an announcement from a podium near the projector, and despite how all of the attention in the room is directed at the podium, Tim still feels as if he's swimming to the elevator. Once he turns into the hallway leading to the lift, he finds the hallway is dimmed with ambient mood lighting, which makes Tim feel much better. Until he sees that there is a stewardess stationed at the elevator. He can already feel the weight of her gaze.

Get a grip, Tim chastises. You think you feel bad walking into a darkened hallway with her? How do you think she feels? 

Tim waves at the stewardess. “I'm just going to wait here for someone else.” He wants to stay within eyeshot of the podium so that Damian doesn't think he left without him.

The stewardess nods. “That's fine, sir.” Tim thinks of taking advantage of the ongoing speech to talk to the venue and ask if there are any other available staff to accompany her. But that wouldn't make sense for Tim to be doing as a freelance photographer. He could go back and talk to Bruce, but not only does Tim not trust his capacity to make it across the ballroom again, Bruce will probably be in the middle of having a conversation that can't be interrupted. Maybe he can signal the issue to Damian somehow. Damian would easily finagle a solution.

"Timothy!” Damian says from Tim's side. This time Damian is also tugging on Tim's right elbow.

Tim blinks. “Sorry, Damian. I'm guessing you're ready to go?”

"Yes, Father and I finished bidding my farewell at the podium,” Damian confirms. So they begin making their way down the hallway.

Tim sneaks another look at the stewardess whose posture has only tensed further. “Say, Damian. Do you think the venue could spare any extra staff for the elevator?”

Damian takes in the stewardess and the general surroundings. “If they can't, we'll have to reconsider our future bookings.”

The stewardess looks mortified. “Oh, please. It's fine. There was someone else but their shift ended. Another colleague was meant to come but they called in sick.”

"Yes, I remember there were two of you when the gala began,” Damian nods. “What do you think if I ask a member of our security team to come and join you?”

The stewardess fiddles with the pocket on her black trousers. “I don't want to compromise anything.” 

"It would actually improve security,” Damian insists. “I'm not sure why we don't already have somebody stationed here.”

The stewardess is agreeable, probably saying anything to keep her job. “I don't mind.”

Damian pulls his mobile out of his pocket. “I'll ask Pollyanna to come up.”

Pollyanna arrives via the elevator in under two minutes. She strikes up a conversation with the stewardess who appears to relax. Fully engaged in conversation, the stewardess thoughtlessly presses the buttons for Tim and Damian as they enter the elevator.

When Tim and Damian step out of the elevator at the parking level, Tim is relieved. “Thank you, Damian. I feel much better about that situation, now.”

Damian rubs his face in his hands aggressively.

“What is it?” Tim says urgently. “Tired?”

"Yes!” Damian growls with exasperation. “Tired- of you!”

"Sorry,” Tim blurts automatically.

"We have needed you,” Damian continues. “You notice- things like that. So why are you a ‘freelance photographer?’ Why are you not family or a friend?”

Tim tries to conjure up a plausible reason that doesn't have to do with pretending his parents aren't his parents.

"And who are you ?” Damian charges forward. “Dick and Jason say that if we're patient you'll explain everything in due time. Even Father says not to tail you or investigate you.”

Tim looks around the parking garage which is thankfully empty. Most of the attendees of the gala have private drivers who will pull up to the elevator when the guests are ready to leave. The others will probably use the helicopter pad at the top of the building. Tim viewed the security audit of this venue earlier today, and he knows that the cameras are video-only and fully behind them. “I know my relationship with the Drakes is weird, and I'm sorry you all had to experience that conversation. But it really was just a bad internship.”

“Ah, yes!” Damian exclaims with heavy sarcasm. “The Drakes. Do not get me started. ‘Weird’ hardly scratches the surface.”

Tim takes a breath to reply even though he's speechless. In any case, for better or for worse, Damian has more to say.

"Lies of omission are one thing,” Damian says, driving towards his conclusion. “But I know that you are just making shit up at this point. Because you did so easily just now. I am tired of worrying about you. So what did you edit out of the confession tape?”

Tim relaxes. This is a good segue to Renee. “Henry threatened me. I'm worried about Renee. I strongly believe it is important to establish what exactly happened during those three days from Renee's perspective.”

"What crime exactly did you witness, ” Damian presses shortly.

And this is so stressful. Now Tim wants to ball his face up in his hands. “Stop making this about me. I'm talking about an innocent victim. Why aren't you feeling the same sense of urgency as me?”

Fury surfaces in Damian's features. “That is low. That is manipulative . You might think you are being clever but you are merely incriminating yourself further. I will see myself home. Do not follow me.”

"But-” Tim tries, reaching out pitifully, self-aware that he looks like a character straight out of a drama.

Damian has already made it quite far along. He turns around and shrugs in angry indifference. “See how it feels.”

Tim’s anxiety mounts with every step Damian takes towards the exit of the parking garage. The uncertainty of what Damian might encounter in the night, alone, wearing only his civilian dress, frightens Tim to the bone. He can't help but begin to jog after Damian. “Wait! At least walk to the side of where the cars have to drive.”

Damian laughs bitterly. “No.”

"Let me call Alfred,” is Tim's next attempt at negotiation. “I won't wait for him with you though.” Tim doesn't dare to come out in front of Damian and accidentally trip or hurt him, so he trails behind pathetically, flapping his arms in futile placating gestures that Damian can't see.

“Stop following me,” Damian grinds out. They're quickly approaching the metal gate that extends from the ceiling to the floor to bar the outside from the parking garage. Beyond is a steep spiral incline back onto street level. The path was never made for pedestrians. A car coming down the spiral would have a hard time breaking for Damian, especially at night. 

"Please. Let's just move to the side and call Alfred,” Tim begs. He knows that touching Damian in this situation would detonate the situation into smithereens. But he's not in his right mind, and his instinct is to reach for Damian's hand as it swings forcefully at his side.

Damian senses this, of course he does, and he wrenches his hand away and spins around, right at the gate. “ Get away from me. ”

"I'm worried,” Tim says lamely. The gate is beginning to churn upwards. A car must be coming down the way. Tim's stomach churns in time with the gate.

"Why do you not understand, detective? So am I! So just tell me. ” Damian is clearly waiting to bolt under the gate as soon as there is enough clearance.

"Damian, come on, don't slide under there,” Tim begs again. “There's a car coming.”

"Then tell me if you care so much about me ,” Damian shouts.

Tim hears the gate, he hears the woundedness in Damian's emotional blackmail, he hears tires on concrete, he hears the word nice . The thunderstorm reforms in his chest and this time it travels through his throat, and there's a downpour. 

It's a well lit parking garage, so Damian immediately notices the change come over Tim's face. Damian's eyes are wide as if he hadn't expected this in a million years. He takes a breath, holds it, torn between backtracking and waiting for the climactic finale.

Tim’s composure is steadily crumbling, so he needs to talk now rather than later and cut his losses. He tries to breathe deeply as if more air will expand his constricted throat. He puts his entire focus into controlling his voice- not too quiet, not too tremulous, not too raspy- but to no avail. “I just don't want to think about it,” Tim says through a sob.

Headlights blind Tim and Damian. They're both frozen, peering at the oncoming car. But it's already braked. Alfred pokes his head out of the driver’s side window, and although the backlighting is too strong to see his expression, it is safe to say that it is not pleasant.

Tim turns away from the bright light to wipe his eyes. He then in turn wipes the backs of his hands on his trousers. “Let's hurry before the gate closes. Alfred needs to enter the garage to make a U-turn out of here.”

In the car, Damian beats Tim to apologising to Alfred.

"I was expecting a call,” Alfred says, pulling through the gate with some haste. He follows the natural pathing of the garage to exit through the same gate.

"I forgot,” Damian explains. “I am sorry to-”

Alfred interrupts Damian. “And where is the security detail?”

"I sent Pollyanna to the gala level, so I could not allow Yura to work alone at the parking level. I sent him to monitor street level from above,” Damian says.

"And yet I have the sense that all is not well,” Alfred says pointedly, glancing at the mirror to the backseat.

Damian and Tim both fall silent. Tim waits for Damian to speak and is slightly startled when he realises that Damian is also waiting for Tim to speak. Damian studies Tim closely in the dim lighting, the cityscape illuminating each other's faces for only seconds at a time.

The spotlight of a streetlight briefly travels across Damian's face, and Tim sees that his gaze is soft. “I think we should leave it be, for tonight,” Damian advises Alfred.

"I’ll have to inform Master Bruce about this,” Alfred warns, but he doesn't seem to be pressing for a quicker answer, just letting them know.

The remainder of the drive passes in restful silence. The rumble of the road serves as helpful white noise for Tim to consider his next steps with. His argument with Damian has raised an important obstacle that he cannot show concern for Renee without garnering sympathy for himself from other people, which is painfully embarrassing. Because Renee is a small child forced to endure three days of captivity with Henry, and Tim has an almost sickening amount of power at his disposal to keep himself safe with, which he deliberately and voluntarily set briefly aside to progress the investigation. Could Tim put in an anonymous tip instead? He would have to stay with what the public knows about the case so far to avoid the suspicion that the tip came from the inside.

In the afternoon Tim had switched between multiple news broadcasts on the television and poured over the online articles published, as well as the discourse on social media.

Niece of Gotham City Investment Bank Executives Found Alive

Award-Winning Professor Arrested for Abducting Child and Manufacturing Dirty Bombs with Intent to Deploy

University Issues Apology to Students, Faculty, and Donors of Research Grant

LEAKED! Confession Tape of Terrorist Academic and Child Abductor

When Tim checks social media again on the drive to the manor the discourse is still overwhelmingly negative toward Henry. Her students have begun to come forward with disclosures of inappropriate behaviour. On the other hand the discourse is currently very positive towards Renee, mostly words of support and righteous anger on her behalf. But the confession tape has not had much time to sink in. And Tim knows that the tides of social media discourse can change in an instant. He comes across a thread that gives him pause.

okay, but why is gotham city bank paying for nukes to go to space????

Tim hasn't seen a post like this yet on any of his feeds. He taps to view the replies.

exactly. why don't they invest in their own city.

LOL the professor made her own nukes as a statement. that's kind of badass?

she abducted a child. that's cowardly.

but only for ransom,, not to harm the kid.

she was going to use the money to build a bomb! this thread is so brain-dead.

yeah, to stop even worse bombs from being built. it's the abduction of one kid versus the death of millions.

when will the working class realise who the real enemy is?

who? a little girl?

the powerful who are too powerful for their own good.

you JACKASSES are missing the point!!! endangering a child for profit is called CHILD EXPLOITATION. anyone who exploits a child is NOT going to be on the right side of history.

endangering children for profit….just like everyone in the military-industrial complex financing and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction?

okay okay. hmo. are nukes really that bad to have, though…?

YES

yes

help what is this question

but some say that it makes war less frequent and less violent because of fear of escalation

“The only way to make those people understand the risks they're imposing on others is to make the risk personal. To make them experience it first-hand.”

^^^^ having studied this topic i can confirm that diplomacy has rarely ever helped. you guys have to understand the theory behind this. when one government has nukes, everyone wants to have nukes. and the only way for them to decide to get rid of them, is if everyone else does first. so who's gonna be the first to get rid of theirs? nobody.

wait where was that earlier quote from? i like it

that professor's confession tape i think

ooh where did that get leaked?

why did that undercover guy have to bust henry? he had a prime opportunity to be part of something big!

the sad truth folks: the nukes were never safer under the government than they were with that professor or any other terrorist

guys...i think we're still missing something. i'm not sure if i want to align myself with someone who exploits children…

so you're going to align yourselves with the people who exploit children legally?

no! i don't agree with that either!

so what do you align with?

Tim bookmarks the post because he needs to keep a tab on the wave of people who might start shopping for radioactive materials. But he doubts that the thread will inspire violence. It will probably end with a call to action, and Tim isn't sure where that will lead yet. Maybe nuclear nonproliferation nonprofits will be linked. Or a petition to the government will be started. Or the mainstream consensus may focus on the specific issue of Gotham City Bank financing the space nukes.

With this info Tim knows what not to include in his tip. He uses his civilian mobile to navigate to the tip intake page on the police website. There are several drop-down boxes to select on the form, but Tim assumes all of this closed-ended information is meant to filter and sort the tips for the police. But for all his exasperation, Tim finds himself stuck when he finally reaches the bottom, staring at a blinking cursor in a white text box. Now he's thankful for all of the prompts that the form gave him earlier because he still doesn't know how to start; without the prompts, he might have quit the form completely.

The professor in the news threatened me with/

Tim stares unblinkingly at the cursor as it blinks back at him, ironically and almost mockingly. There has to be a way around this. He backspaces to start fresh.

RE: the professor trending on the news. Please investigate what happened during the three days from the child's perspective. I have met the professor personally. Thank you.

Tim marks that he's willing to input additional information and creates a log-in to check later if the police have asked any questions. He hopes to god they don't ask questions. But he's worried that he hasn't framed his tip in a way that will encourage the police to act on it.

Despite how closely the bats work with the police, Tim is not actually familiar with protocol in this scenario. Do abducted children have a police interview after they are found? Tim suspects that abducted children in Gotham are not found, and at that not found alive frequently enough for a protocol to exist.

Then again Tim will not call the police as Red Robin asking to speak to Renee. If he went through with that, the police ought to bring him in for questioning.

When Alfred, Damian, and Tim arrive at the manor, Tim finds himself following Damian around out of guilt. Guilt that Damian felt second-rate compared to Jason, guilt that he was catapulted into the storm of Tim's family relationships, guilt that Tim's behaviour drove Damian, usually the most composed out of everyone, to the crisis point of running in front of a car to test if Tim cared.

"Hell,” Damian says, garbled, a toothbrush gripped in his right hand. He takes one step out of the bathroom and looks at Tim standing contritely in the hallway. “I will talk to you. Let me brush my teeth!” He slams the door.

Tim takes that as permission to let his unresolved issues with Damian go for the moment and remembers the suit he's still wearing. Despite that he's comfortable with everyone in the manor, he would rather change. 

In Tim’s room he finds his nightclothes crumpled on the bed from the night before. A plain white T-shirt and shorts might be even worse than the suit. He wonders if this is how Adam and Eve felt in Garden of Eden. He can only look to comparisons because he can't comprehend his own stupid psychology. How was he okay wearing those clothes yesterday but not a mere 24 hours later when it's even further in the past now than it had been? And how is the suit okay in the manor but not in public? And how is the white T-shirt never okay? He can't keep up with all of these goddamn rules.

Tim shoves his nightclothes in his duffle to launder at Drake Manor. With increasing frustration he checks all of the drawers of his wardrobe to find that they're either empty or filled with day clothes. Tim resigns himself to either sleeping in cargo pants and a sweater or shopping for new nightclothes at a 24-hour superstore in said outfit. Titans Tower has been cleared of all his items and Drake Manor is even more sparse, his wardrobe and dressers bare of even his childhood clothes. Tim gave those up for donation before Janet and Jack could reject them. For some reason there is an emotional difference between getting rid of the clothes himself, and his parents getting rid of them.

Changing clothes is much easier than Tim anticipated, for how difficult the suit was to put on. He opens his bedroom door so that Damian feels welcome to come in before he searches his phone for how to put away the suit. He finds something on the manufacturer's website that looks useful and sets his phone on his bed, trying to follow the video instructions for the trousers.

Alfred knocks on the door, not Damian. He takes in what Tim is doing. “Do you need help putting the suit away?”

Tim considers lying, but Alfred will probably take better care of the suit than Tim can even with guidance from the video. “Yes, please.” He steps to the side and pauses the video so that Alfred can show him the ropes in peace and quiet.

"You can always come and ask me for things like this,” Alfred assures. He doesn't explain what he's doing, but Tim has the feeling that he's performing the steps at a much slower pace for Tim's benefit. Tim also suspects that Alfred wants to talk about something else.

Tim obliges but is at a loss. He just didn't think to ask Alfred. But if he honestly says that, he worries he'll sound hurtful. “You seemed busy,” he says.

Alfred smooths down a plane of the trousers before making another fold. "I was watching cricket on the television.”

“...so, busy,” Tim tries to double down. 

Alfred would probably sigh if sounding exasperated didn't violate his sense of propriety. “I’ll put the suit away. I think Damian is looking for you.”

"No, I couldn't...Are you sure? Thank you,” Tim says sincerely. He reaches around delicately for his phone, watching Alfred's expression to gauge if he's making a serious mistake or not by actually leaving, and actually does leave Alfred to fold his clothes for him, feeling awkward. But he also has a feeling that Alfred prefers it this way.

In the privacy of the hallway, Tim logs into the tip page, checking his inbox for questions. There is a message which Tim taps on immediately, only to reveal an automated thank you message from the police confirming the receipt of his tip. Tim knows that he wrote a really shitty tip, maybe indistinguishable from the flood of concerned citizens putting in their two cents on the newest news sensation, but he's begging whoever reads it that it will be enough.

Tim doesn't find Damian in his room or any other probable room in the manor, by process of elimination directing Tim to the Batcave. Before he heads in that direction, Tim stops in the kitchen and looks in the fridge for lemonade. There's a carton neatly slotted into the fridge door. Alfred marked with thick red marker when it was opened- yesterday. Tim pours two glasses for both of them, even though Tim doesn't want any. But he also doesn't want to condescend to Damian by giving him the classic kid drink whilst Tim gets something else or nothing at all. It's a peace offering.

In the Batcave, Damian sits with his feet in front of him on a sparring mat, staring vacantly. 

"Hi,” Tim greets feebly from a safe distance, not wanting to startle Damian into deploying his assassin instincts, especially when he's balancing drinks.

Damian blinks and the focus returns to his eyes. “Hi,” he says. “Going somewhere?”

Tim looks down. It would be too weird to admit to sleeping in this or to buying new nightclothes, wouldn't it? “Yes,” Tim says, scrambling for an unassuming place to go at this time of night. “I’ll go with Alfred later to pick up everyone else.”

Damian shrugs. “Alright.” 

Oh, no. Tim's a fluent speaker in the language of practised indifference towards caregiver figures. That's Damian's way of saying he doesn't believe anything Tim says anymore, isn't it?

Tim comes to sit down next to Damian on the sparring mat, concentrating not to spill the glasses of lemonade on Damian. That would mark an ominous start to their reconciliation.

"Would you like some?” Tim asks, sticking out one glass for Damian to take. He tries not to shove it in Damian's face, but he also tries not to look too indecisive and like he's questioning whether he wants to give it at all.

Damian looks so torn when he sees the glass extended to him. He reaches for it, then runs his hands over his face out of stress. “Just- stop.”

"Right,” Tim rushes to agree. “You really don't have to have any. It's just in case.” 

"No, stop that !” Damian groans. “Stop acting as if you are the- the root of all evil or something.” 

"I feel like I'm actually operating in a grey area,” Tim corrects. “I don't think I've been evil, but I did make you and Dick feel like I don't care.”

Damian huffs, something pained in his eyes. “He said that. Not me.”

"I guess- just the way you reacted in the moment, I guess- I thought-” Tim stumbles, trying not to sound as if he's blaming Damian for his incorrect interpretation of events because he really does not mean it that way at all.

"Stop assuming what I am thinking!” Damian can't make eye contact with Tim. His voice becomes quiet. “You are too good at it.”

Tim smiles sadly. “Honestly, I feel the same way as you.” He perches the lemonades on his knees so he can focus more easily. “It's hard for me to feel like you can see through me and are trying to help me, especially when I feel like our dynamic is meant to be reversed.”

"That is annoying for me to hear,” Damian says bluntly. “I feel as if I have lived 30 years in 12. Perhaps it is not healthy. But this is who I am. I feel that I have earned the right to be treated slightly differently. So why should I have to dilute myself to make adults more comfortable?”

Tim considers his words with caution. They ring true, but… “with certain things, like romantic relationships, that approach is not safe.”

Damian finally meets Tim’s gaze again, and a wild light has erupted in Damian’s eyes. “‘Romantic?’ Really? You meant ‘sexual.’ I am trained to kill. Do you truly think I was sheltered from sex?”

And this is the conversation that Tim told himself that he wanted to have with Damian. But now that he's in the thick of it, Tim feels utterly unprepared.

"You- you should have been,” Tim says, and it's not comforting at all. 

"But I wasn't !” Damian pounds both of his fists into the mat next to him, and such a childish gesture juxtaposed against the content of their conversation makes Tim feel some way. “It's too late!”

Tim’s heart stops. “What's too late?” 

Tears glisten in Damian’s eyes. He tips his face away, but the telling flush on his neck gives him away.

"What happened?” TIm asks quietly.

Damian looks at the lemonade in Tim’s left hand. He glances at Tim's face for a moment, imploring, pleading for Tim to read his mind in the same way that he has been, and tell Damian the answer. But Tim can’t answer this one, so Damian breaks eye contact again, looking more defeated than he ever has. “I don't know,” he answers, and at the end his voice breaks into a small whine. He struggles to modulate his breath as he continues, driving forward in bursts of the breath that he manages to inhale. “So don't do things like bring me lemonade anymore, because you know nobody in my previous life protected my innocence. Don't act as if me running in front of a car is all your fault, because to you I'm merely a child. Don't think of me when you think of other children, just don't!”

Damian heaves, fists curled, the force of his breaths rocking him back and forth slightly, and he's the splitting image of a toddler. So Tim wonders for a moment why emotional breakdowns in children have become an object of derision when he's never seen a sight so tragic in his life, when Tim so badly wants to hug Damian right now, or rub circles into his back, or maybe add the League of Assassins to a hit list and embark on a murder spree. But he thinks back to the car ride with Alfred, when Damian said I think we should leave it be, for tonight.

So, maybe the first thing Tim will do to adjust his approach is follow Damian's example. Tim needs to tread carefully. “Even though I really want to do these things for you,” Tim prefaces, studying Damian's face to gauge the impact of his words. Damian doesn't look more upset than he already does, so Tim continues. “I won't. What would you like me to do instead?”

Damian smiles slightly, unfurling his curled fists. He chuckles unevenly through laboured breath. “Fuck. You roped me into talking about my trauma. So. I want you to talk, too.” he shifts. “If you can.”

"I can,” Tim says slowly. He can't talk about it with Damian. There are limits to these things. “But first, you need to know. A sexual relationship between an adult and a minor is always child exploitation. Always. It always endangers the minor for the adult’s gain. Okay? Relationship means words. It means subtext. It means touching. It means looking.”

Damian nods, relenting. "Fine. Fine, fine, fine.” A slight smirk blooms on his face. “Don't look so worried. I really mean it.”

Tim can't help his own embarrassed smile. He takes a breath to keep talking, but Damian interrupts him.

"Can I have that?” Damian points at the lemonade in Tim’s left hand.

Tim rushes to exchange the drink. “Of course you can.”

Damian takes a dainty sip, holding the glass with both hands, even though one hand is more than large enough to hold the entire glass. He looks up from his drink. “Please continue.”

A breathy laugh escapes from Tim. “Okay. But please keep this a secret. You have my blessing to do your own investigating in private.” Damian nods, taking continuous small sips from his glass. “Remember when we spoke to the Drakes tonight? And you told me it felt worse than weird? That was because they're my parents.”

Damian lights up, as if he's breaking open a difficult case. He looks into his glass intently, reviewing the events of the evening and drawing connections. Then his excitement dissipates all at once. “They pretended you were their intern?”

"It's mutually beneficial to do that,” Tim assures. He waits for Damian to connect just one more dot for the full picture to come into view.

"I do not see what you mean,” Damian says.

Tim doesn't mind. He thinks it's all besides the point of this conversation anyway. “I'm sorry for lying, and, being distant.”

"It was hurtful in the moment when you chose ‘freelance photographer’ of all things,” Damian says. “But I also assumed the worst of you. I could have guessed that it was a difficult situation for you.”

With that feeling resolved, Tim at last remembers the lemonade in his right hand. He downs a quarter of the glass, walking the tightrope between appearing to drink eagerly and obviously trying to get it over with.

Alfred saves Tim from further calculating of that nature. He steps into the Batcave, car keys jangling in hand. “I am going back to the gala for pick-up.”

Tim almost asks Damian Will you be okay by yourself? but that question assumes that Damian should stay back, and Damian wouldn't like that assumption. So instead, he tells Alfred that he would like to come. He then downs the rest of the lemonade because he's in a rush to leave, after all. “Would you like to come, Damian?” 

Damian shakes his head even as he stands up with Tim. “I want to sleep.”

Tim almost slips up again by asking Do you feel okay sleeping alone in the manor? He forces himself to change gears. “Do you want us to wake you when we get back?”

Damian scoffs, but he doesn't sound genuinely offended. “No need. I will hear it. And then I will go back to sleep.”

Notes:

yes yes yes. i put a literal psa in the middle of the dialogue. i'm not sorry at all because i'm guessing there are minors reading this and something happened recently that made me really want to include this. but i am sorry because i'm so bad at incorporating the idea gracefully and cool-ly so sorry for the pain of reading that but STILL. hopefully it was not so uncool that the children want to do the opposite now... and on the 1% chance it was cool: yeah hahahah!! ik i'm so talented. but the point is: doing my (flawed) part to make the internet safer.

writing this forced me to look into whether world war ii happened in the dcu and how it happened and i can't be bothered to figure it out. believe what you wish but in this timeline the people of nagasaki and hiroshima did not suffer from the atomic bombs which is why it is not mentioned in the story. i strongly believe in the historical narrative that the u.s. did not need the bomb to end the war. so i see no reason to cause unimaginable suffering in this fic…i just want to let the victims rest in a happier imagined reality. (this note is for people wondering why it wasn't mentioned in the social media posts)

Chapter 6: though i'm marred leave me, i just keep on chasing, chasing that feeling

Summary:

*******content warnings******** dissociation continues; past child abuse, and the c.s.a. aspect is supposed to reflect the realities of child influencers, shirley temple, child performers. if that's unhelpful, pls do not hesitate to tell me

look i swear im not a misogynist i just dunno stephanie and cass and babs very well!!! (that's exactly what a misogynist would say!) however i swear im just incompetent, this chapter is not a good character study of a brilliant cast of characters, check my bookmarks for works like that, this is a chapter dedicated to everyone whose top 10 worst memories include being trapped in the car or at the breakfast table with people having a strong disagreement. enjoy!!??

(05-08-2025)

Notes:

i am!! still fixing the debate and switch, i swear i didn't forget, this is the last time i try to make a fucking plot, never again, i'm so sorry, what i have done /with a haunted gaze as i behold my wicked creation, oppenheimer style, having been unable to withstand the irresistible call of the nukes

chapter title from chasing that feeling by txt

edit: i just don't know what words mean

Tim doesn't remember falling asleep in the car ride back to the gala venue. The backseat feels like a cocoon, sometimes, with the dark and plush interior and tinted windows. The windows don't do much to dim light from the outside, but the space has a truly private serenity to it. 

“Maybe you ought to have stayed behind?” Alfred observes, immediately noticing Tim's stirring.

I wish, Tim thinks, and the rough fabric of his cargo pants makes him squirm. Instead, he says, “Sorry, Alfred.” He fights the sleep out of his voice and suppresses a yawn. Peering out the window, Tim recognises that they're descending the spiral path to the parking garage.

When they reach the bottom, the gate has lifted. Tim can see Bruce, Jason, and Dick speaking with the stewardess, Pollyanna, and Yura by the elevator, by the looks of it thanking them and dismissing them for the night. Tim judges that he has time to check the tip inbox and social media whilst he waits.

Tim sees nothing new in the inbox, but the post that Tim bookmarked earlier already has received much more engagement. He guesses that the rate of interactions will slow overnight then ratchet up again in the morning when more people are awake. He then refreshes his social media feeds, hoping his lingering attention to this post will nudge his algorithm in a helpful direction.

The commentary has broadened in scope now, but it is mostly limited to expressing horror at the space nukes and calling for more local investment. The other flavours of comment in that thread have yet to appear widely in Tim’s feed. Tim refreshes multiple news sites again, but not enough time has passed for the engagement-farming editorials and opinion pieces on the confession tape to have appeared.

The clunking of the elevator gets Tim's attention. He looks up just in time to see the three staff take the lift to leave from the street level exit.

Jason opens the door on Tim's side of the car. He jolts to see Tim inside.

“Sorry,” Tim says, and he's not 100 percent decided on what he's apologising for. It just feels right. He slides over to the middle seat and pats the seat to his left to invite Jason to sit.

Jason ducks into the car and settles into the seat, yanking the door shut behind him. “Tinted windows,” he explains. "Don't be sorry.”

Dick sits on Tim's other side, and Bruce takes shotgun. As Alfred pulls out of the parking garage for the last time tonight, Dick grins at Tim, eyes slightly hazy, maybe from alcohol. “Tim!” he practically sings. “Thank you for the photos. I didn't know you put so much thought into them.”

What? Tim doesn't feel that Dick's tone matches with the way in which they parted earlier this evening, but he attributes the sudden change to exhaustion and wooziness. “It's very basic photojournalism. I'm hardly an expert. It can get much better. How are you doing?”

Dick lolls his head on the headrest lazily. “Are you saying that I'm just basic photojournalism to you?” He swings his head to look at Tim and smiles.

Tim thinks this is an excellent opportunity to begin clearing things up with Dick. “My thoughts on photojournalism are basic. You are extraordinary.”

Jason coughs suddenly from Tim's other side. When Tim looks over, Jason is stifling a laugh, and he's looking around Tim at Dick. “Now you know how it feels.”

But Dick doesn't seem to feel embarrassed. He seems ecstatic. “It feels great! I'm extraordinary!”

“What does that mean,” Tim groans, but he knows that he's really awkward sometimes. 

“Yes,” Dick drawls in mock consideration. “What does that mean?”

What a feat it is to gather all of Tim’s thoughts on Dick in a split second. He was the first Robin Tim chased through Gotham. He was the first Robin to depart from Gotham. And in all his different identities- the orphan, Robin, Nightwing, the Wayne- he's been in Tim's viewfinder the longest. Tim caught sight of Robin's bright colours long before he was ever able to catch sight of Bruce. Tim is not a particularly principled person. He doesn't think he'd follow Dick's work with the Wayne Foundation if Dick wasn't the one at the helm. It's not nostalgia. Tim isn’t taking pictures of Dick because he's eager to relive their first months in each other’s lives.

Tim hadn't been lonely. To be lonely Tim would have had to remember what it felt like to have fulfilling relationships with people. Tim was actually on a high. He loved Batman. He adored Robin. In Drake Manor he felt like that thought experiment about a tree falling in the forest without witnesses. If nobody wanted to witness his existence, did he really exist?

For hours Tim could watch Batman and Dick at work. They were always faster than him, darting from one high place to the next. All Tim could do was shove his equipment back into his camera bag and scurry after them, much more slowly. If he lost sight of them completely, terror would pool in his gut. Because during those minutes he felt like a vulnerable and lost little boy, truly alone in the perilous Gotham nightscape. So Tim learned what he needed to learn to minimise how often he had to feel that way. Strolling around in the middle of the night terrified Tim, and so did trying to stay on high ground, but high ground seemed the lesser of two evils. Whether or not Tim fell was in his control; whether or not someone wanted to grab him from behind was not. Inevitably Tim would get himself stuck, gripping at a handhold too narrow, and reaching for a landing too distant. His muscles would gradually drain of strength, and his eyes would screw shut, and when he dared to open them, he would watch his tears glisten in the moonlight for brief seconds before plunging into the darkness below.

But then Tim would see him. Somehow, Robin was always there for Tim at those times, on the horizon, a distant splash of colour illuminated by the light pollution of the city, just within Tim’s limited range of head movement. As a small speck in the infinite cavern of the night sky, Robin seemed to dance and float like a kaleidoscopic astronaut. His movements drew shapes between the stars obscured by the light. He was Tim's shooting star, falling back down to Earth, over and over again. Tim's heart would squeeze in agony, waiting for each touchdown, never guaranteed, just to watch Dick launch himself into eternity again.

It was so beautiful, and so dangerous, and what was it all for? For people like Tim? Was it really possible to care about people like that? Tim wasn't sure, but he wanted to get closer. He was going to get closer, or he would die trying, if only to commemorate the beauty that he witnessed, because it seemed to Tim that it was too good to be true, and more likely to be a fever dream about getting well that a doomed patient might see just before they died.

So Tim would leap, or he would pull himself up, and he might crack a camera lens or sand his legs across gritty brick, but he didn't want to die, when there was Robin in this life.

It was always worth it. Tim would always be especially lucky on those nights because Batman and Robin would stop in a particularly well-lit area, completely unobscured by anything in the foreground. Tim tried to read their lips in his viewfinder, understanding nothing, but unable to look away. Tim learned to understand them regardless. Dick would spin around quickly, and Batman would cross his arms, talking. Robin would laugh, and he always covered his mouth when he laughed in the same way that Jason now does, and Tim has wondered if that mannerism originated with Dick. Then Robin would do a flip, and Batman would pinch his forehead. After a few more rounds of Robin fidgeting acrobatically to Batman’s exasperation, Batman would circle Robin himself, as if checking for something. Tim never understood their body language- he just liked watching Robin- until the day that he saw a gash on Robin’s right calf. Batman saw this, too, during his usual circle, and they left early that night. 

Once Tim cracked this code, everything else made sense, and he began to seek out moments of affection between them, which were plentiful, and also never enough for Tim. Batman would always shout when Robin jumped and disappeared out of view, only to resurface seconds later. Batman would shake his head and leap after him. Robin also circled Batman, and he would haul Batman off by the arm if he seemed to notice something. Even when it was too dark to make things out, Tim was rooted on a high ledge, transfixed by their silhouettes. He would wait in painful anticipation for the very moment that a shadowy arm tousled a shadowy head. Tim knew how they stood when they laughed, how they stood when they were anticipating danger. He knew that when the shadows were bunched on a ledge, Batman and Robin were sitting together, and Robin was probably unhappy. Warmth would quell Tim's shivering on particularly cold nights, when he thought he could make out the shadow of a comforting arm on Robin's shoulder.

At first, five minutes of well-lit interaction and silhouettes were enough. But soon enough, Tim craved more. He wanted to see more, more of the time. He wanted to get even closer.

Tim spent his days plotting and predicting their next appearances. He would lie in wait every day, regardless. He logged their activities in a handwritten diary, meticulously formatted. Eventually he noticed a pattern in the Wayne galas his parents would attend and the absence of Batman and Robin. He thought it was too good to be true, the idea that he might have cracked the code. But he followed the rainbow to the pot of gold. There they were. He burned his diaries after he fixed the fireplace, resolved to protect this secret at any cost.

When Tim wasn't busy tracking Batman and Robin, he home-schooled himself. He tried not to rush to get to the good part of the day: reading the daily newspaper to cut out the articles about Batman and Robin. When they were quoted to say heroic things about valuing the life of every Gotham citizen, Tim would think happy thoughts. They're talking about me. They would care. They do care about me.

Daydreaming about meeting Batman and Robin helped Tim survive the dearth of interaction he had with his parents or anyone else. In some daydreams Tim was rescued from a narrow ledge. In others they hated Tim for discovering their identities and following them. He coveted even negative attention from them so badly, and he imagined the scenario so vividly that he would lie catatonic in bed for days until the feeling passed. In still others they told him that they thought he had potential and wanted him to join them. 

Eventually Tim mastered the patterns of their patrols, and he could position himself to hear their voices. He considered bringing a voice recorder, but it was too much to juggle with his already unwieldy camera bag. He figured if he died, he risked not hearing their voices anymore, an unnecessary risk he refused to take. He already knew what the voice of Bruce Wayne sounded like, so the life-changing experience was hearing Robin for the first time, saying something in reply to Batman. For all the rounded airiness of his movements, Dick's voice was heavier than Tim imagined. It was infinitely more somber, more tired. And it was also infinitely more melodic and symphonic, uniquely mesmerising, a true instrument of the body. Tim could rarely hear full conversations clearly, but he learned the way that Dick said certain words, and Tim was addicted to Dick's way of saying “Gotham,” literally music to Tim's ears. It always sounded resigned, defeated, but in a pretty way, in the way that art makes suffering seem so delightful, which was a recurring theme with Dick. Something about the way Dick smiled with his whole face, looking so happy, but laughed so brokenly, sounding so hollow, threatened to kill Tim, and Tim realised he cared. He cared so much. 

At these new closer distances, Tim could clearly see them, and not just through the viewfinder, not as the bending of the light through a lens. As Tim grew older, his heart began to race. Because he knew Robin's identity, and he looked even better out of uniform. On a typically foggy and drizzling day, Tim remembers rushing to rescue the paper from the front stoop, and the headline photograph was of Dick wearing a suit and smiling on the steps of a Wayne office. It was his first public appearance. Tim felt an affection so intense that it seemed supernatural to him. Was Tim possessed? His chest squeezed with every detail he noted. He traced the cut of the custom-made suit with his finger. The stray pieces of hair displaced by the wind, reduced to mere printing dots on recycled paper, seemed to form a halo, as if his hair was a paid actor. Dick looks so happy, Tim realised, and the thought buoyed Tim for the rest of the week.

The temptation to join the herd of paparazzi following Bruce Wayne and his “discovered” son was strong. But Tim had a certain ego because he was a special fan. He was more committed, and his feelings were more pure of heart. He wasn't like the rabble. So he let others do the photography on the Wayne side of things. He just poured over those photos for hours after the fact. As for Tim's own photography- wasn't that a public good? Thanks to Tim, the crusade against crime in Gotham had been voluminously documented. His pictures were hope! Their pictures were gossip. It didn't matter that Tim hadn't yet had the courage to send his photos to the press. Tim only started to study technique during Jason’s time.

Tim didn't sleep much, if at all. He was always high. He was always wired with adrenaline, chasing that feeling, whether it was the feeling of a photo that perfectly captured the violent elegance of Batman and Robin; the feeling of successfully planting himself in the right place at the right time, able to personally see and hear his two reasons to live; the feeling of collecting the paper or turning on the television to find exactly who he wanted to find, enjoying success and the good life; or the feeling of a giddily plotted daydream in which he accidentally brushes fingers with Robin in a crime-ridden alleyway.

Dreams do come true , Tim supposes. He can't count the number of times he’s been cornered in an alleyway with Nightwing.

When Dick left for Bludhaven, Tim suddenly and viscerally felt the emptiness of his life without him. But when Jason came on the scene, a new flame sparked. It began again. That's when Tim had to reckon with himself that there was nothing pure of heart or noble about what he was doing. In many ways he was addicted to the way Batman and Robin made him feel. Without Batman and Robin, he didn't have anything he wanted to do. He didn't have anyone he wanted to be. Batman and Robin would save him. But was he really worth their while? Tim can't remember precisely, but it was around this point in his emotional process that his death wish fixation began.

Losing Jason was not how Tim wanted his wildest dreams of meeting Bruce and Dick to come true. In fact, he would say that his dreams warped into a waking nightmare. He wanted what he wanted, and Jason paid the price. Tim tells himself that his insertion of himself into the situation wasn't opportunistic, but he doubts his own reassurances. Even though he thought long and hard before applying for the Robin role, so to speak, he can't deny that there was that layer to the situation. That he was a fan with the opportunity to live out his fantasies. Jason's reaction upon coming back felt deserved and cathartic to Tim on some level.

What is there to miss about those times? Maybe he misses seeing Dick in the Robin costume from time to time. Maybe he misses watching Batman persistently comfort a boy who really needed someone. Otherwise, Tim was just like any other wounded person who lined Gotham's alleyways, dependent on chemical escapism, drowning himself in feel-good stimuli to forget who he was.

Tim's heart doesn't race anymore when he takes a picture of Dick Grayson, even though processing the photos he takes is fun. Admittedly, Tim will still take any excuse to pour over his photos. Old habits die hard.

Yet it's completely different than it was. Something much gentler aches in Tim’s chest. 

Jason answers Dick for Tim. “In this context, it probably means your blood-alcohol level is extraordinarily high.”

Bruce clears his throat from the front. “Stay the night and sleep in,” he tells Dick.

Dick nods, rubbing his temples and ducking his head towards his lap, away from the meagre light. “I will. Damn. I hate feeling off-balance.”

Tim guesses that none of them like to feel inebriated or drugged, excepting himself. “What happened?” He asks the group.

There's a beat of collective silence. Then Jason answers. “It’s been a stressful three days. Don't you think? And then Dick had to deal with the nervousness in the crowd tonight. Everyone is on edge about the growing unpopularity of Gotham City Bank.”

Tim can understand the last part but not the first. Did he miss something? It wouldn't be the first time tonight. “What was stressful? Sorry I didn't notice.”

Dick looks around Tim at Jason for moral support. The glaze in his eyes has cleared somewhat.

Jason shrugs. “I told you.”

Dick looks back at Tim. “You disappeared with a bomb vest twice.”

Tim understands, he really does. “The situation has been concerning me as well. I'm worried about Renee. I'm worried about how the public is making sense of the situation. We don't have to talk about it now. I'm guessing you're tired of it all. But when you're up to it, I do want to discuss how Wayne Enterprises is going to proceed from now on. It has the potential to influence our vigilante work.”

Dick gapes, and his mouth slowly widens into a flabbergasted smile. “I am so frustrated right now.”

All of Tim's energy vaporizes at once. It's approaching one in the morning, and he has no energy for another conflict-ridden conversation. He's so tired of himself. He can't stop pissing people off tonight.

“Master Timothy,” Alfred says from the driver's seat, glancing at Tim using the rearview mirror. “Will you tell Master Bruce or will I?”

Shit. Tim sees that he's going to have to scrounge energy up from somewhere to explain himself. He doesn't want to create unnecessary stress and tension, so he rallies every lighthearted bone in his body. “Damian and I had an argument in the parking garage. But we're perfectly fine. We worked it out.” Tim debates relaying the conversation with Damian in the Batcave and decides not to. He needs to ask Damian first. Tim attempts to answer every question he can in advance. “He was upset about the cover story I chose. Which I'm sure may have seemed hurtful. I apologised for being distant. I’m still sorry.”

There's another collective silence in the car. Then everyone asks a question at once.

“What were you and Master Damian doing, running in front of a car?”

“Why did you pick that cover story?”

“We're worried, Tim. Are you okay?”

“I think Damian was a little too hard on you. Did he apologize, too?”

Tim doesn't have the energy to cry or to feel overwhelmed. The sooner he answers, the sooner he can rest. “I promise there's nothing to worry about. Damian and I worked it out. We both apologised, and things won't escalate like that again. I picked that cover story because it's mostly true. I have been photographing you for the past several years.”

Another lie of omission, and Tim may still have merely picked a different hole to dig. He silently prays that Bruce won’t explain. Tim intended that nobody would ever know. Now that he sees himself in his parents, he feels differently about his approach. He wonders how much longer he can run away from the foundations upon which his relationships have been built.

“I never told you how Tim became Robin.” Bruce twists in the passenger seat, slinging his left arm around it. He looks at Tim, asking his permission to continue.

Not much longer at all. Embarrassment floods Tim. He doesn't think he can survive the retelling. “It doesn't matter,” Tim refuses Bruce. 

“Don't say that,” Bruce says. “For me, it's a happy memory.”

“Well,” Tim snaps. “For me, it's not.” He covers his mouth in self-admonishment. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that.” He really hadn't meant to imply that he regretted meeting Bruce. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. He was so excited, but his excitement was also tainted with self-disgust. Because Jason was dead, and Tim was excited.

Bruce smiles. “I know you didn't. It was probably hard for you to approach an armed man at two in the morning.”

“What?” The one thing worse than the story being told at all is it being told like this. “You didn't do anything wrong. I blackmailed you .

Jason inhales sharply from Tim’s left. “Interesting.” He balances his arm on Alfred’s seat to lean his cheek on his hand. There's mirth in his eyes, which really overwhelms Tim, because he can't find anything funny in this conversation.

“I didn't feel blackmailed,” Bruce says. 

Tim surrenders all at once to the feeling that it's time for the past to catch up with him. “You were. I showed you the leverage I had on you. And then I told you what I wanted you to do.”

Bruce doesn't pause to consider Tim's perspective. “You showed me how you figured out our identities, and you showed me the pictures you took. Then you said you were worried about me and wanted to help.”

“I know.” Tim can't help but avert his gaze. “It was really creepy,” he mumbles.

“Creepy? Is that what he said?” Bruce looks to Dick for confirmation.

Tim peeks at Dick. Dick's eyes shine, the cloudiness of earlier gone. “Creepy,” he repeats, as if the word tastes bad.

Bruce considers Tim for a moment, reassessing his next words. “You assured me that you burned everything that proved my identity. You brought out an envelope of pictures of Jason and asked if I wanted anything for his memory. You said that you noticed that my working patterns had changed for the worse. You asked if I thought you could be helpful in any way. Then you asked if I wanted you to stop taking pictures. You showed me the pictures you had taken, some of which I recognised from the press, and asked me what I wanted to do with them.”

“I'm sorry,” Tim says. “I know that I basically stalked you, Dick, and Jason.”

Bruce takes a breath, sighs. “I didn't feel blackmailed, or stalked. I didn't feel in danger or unsafe.”

“Of course you didn't.” Now Tim is also becoming exasperated. It's almost too cruel that he's being forced to explain how horrible the situation had been because they somehow don't see it. Having this conversation is far worse than Tim had ever imagined, even for as many times as he had daydreamed about this day, years ago. “You're Batman.” 

“Usually, when someone creeps out of the shadows in front of me, it's to hurt somebody. But you appeared from behind a corner, telling me that you had been watching over us.” Batman smiles fondly. “I still feel comforted thinking back on it. It was like meeting a guardian angel.”

“That's delusional.” Tim's voice trembles, and he can't help it. He assumed Bruce had forgiven him over time, but that the truth coming out would lower Dick and Jason's opinions. Tim could face that reality. But that Bruce has such a warped perception of what happened? And Tim has to try to walk that back for Bruce's own good? That's just too cruel. That's just salt in the wound of how Jason's death made Tim's dreams come true. 

“Tim, stop it,” Dick says hurriedly, laying a mollifying hand on Tim's.

“No, Bruce needs to stop it,” Tim argues. “It's delusional to think and feel that way. I stalked you all. I did! And then Bruce let me into his life. How do you not see how dangerous that is? You're all lucky I wasn't a complete psycho.”

“Tim, stop saying these things about yourself,” Dick says, more harshly than before. His fingers tense on top of Tim's hand.

“I wish I could, but clearly you all can't figure it out for yourselves!” Tim exclaims. He's not looking at anyone. “I was opportunistic. I took advantage of a bereaved man and Jason's death.” He doesn't know where his sudden willingness to say all the things that he couldn't bear to say before has come from. Tim hears Jason shift, but before Tim can bring himself to see Jason's expression, Dick moves first.

“Tim, just shut up!” Dick's hand darts from on top of Tim's to clamp down on Tim's mouth. There's a shocked stillness in the car, and even as the traffic light turns green at the intersection, Alfred doesn't touch the accelerator. Tim is still too tired, far beyond tired now, of making people angry to feel hurt or cry tears. So he doesn't shy away from Dick’s eye contact. Dick's eyes shine even more brightly than before. “I can't bear to listen to you say these things about yourself.”

Tim looks around the car with his now restricted range of head movement. Bruce's shoulders sag with relief. Alfred releases the brake and begins to accelerate forward through the intersection. Jason turns away to look out the window.

Jason probably doesn't need to have a long conversation about the circumstances surrounding his death after a long gala. In the dim lighting, Tim thinks he can make out the poorly-suppressed trembling of Jason's hands. Tim could have foreseen this. He needed to shut this conversation down at the start, but he lost himself in it. He tries to apologise to Jason, but Dick's hand is firm.

“Now,” Dick continues. “I'm not going to take my hand off until you listen to all of this.” He waits for Tim's reply.

Tim nods, out of options. Alfred fixates on the road ahead, as if the weather conditions have suddenly worsened. But the temperature is mild, and the sky unusually clear. Bruce faces the front, resting his elbow on the passenger-side window as he rubs his forehead in distress. Tim can't see Jason in enough detail using his peripheral vision alone.

“I don't know how to explain how mad I am at you right now. Because I care about you so much. But the person saying these things about yourself is you. I feel so split. You're hurting and also doing the hurting to yourself. How am I supposed to reconcile that?” Dick seems to ask Tim this question earnestly, and Tim would answer, if he could answer. He would tell Dick that he's a hypocrite because he's the one of the most masochistic people Tim has ever met, second only to Batman.

“And it's so annoying how your view of yourself is so low. Batman of all people says that you saved him, and you have the audacity to claim that you- did what? In actuality committed a heinous crime against him? That's so annoying. Annoying beyond words.” Dick pauses to gauge Tim's reaction. Tim grips Dick's wrist and tugs lightly, but Dick does not yield. Tim would again answer if he could. He would tell Dick that he needs to look in the mirror because he's painfully self-critical.

“And do you know what's even more annoying? That you are so aware of everyone around you. Nothing slips past your awareness. You read me like a book. But when someone shows concern for you? Suddenly you're on a different planet, unable to receive the signals that people are sending. Explain this,” Dick demands, a little sardonically.

It makes my skin crawl. If I play dumb, then maybe you'll stop. Tim doesn't bother to try to answer this time, though. He releases his grip on Dick’s wrist and twists slightly to check on Jason from the corner of his eye. Jason still sits turned away.

“It all makes me so angry that I could cry,” Dick admits. The shine in his eyes takes on a three-dimensional appearance. “Because you should be the one crying. Why aren't you crying? I want you to cry so that I know when to comfort you.”

Tim’s skin crawls, so Tim wants to argue. You're the one with the relentless cheery facade.

“I think that's enough,” Alfred interjects. His grip on the steering wheel is probably white under his black leather gloves. 

Dick relinquishes his grip on Tim's face suddenly. “Sorry, Tim.” He shrivels and fidgets with his hands. It's an awful feeling to be chastised by Alfred.

Tim isn’t sure how he keeps achieving the impossible tonight. He's pushed the always composed Damian to a nervous breakdown. Now he's pushed the always gentle Dick to anger and slight physical aggression. Who's next? Tim wonders bitterly, even though he knows he's only a catalyst for reactions that were long overdue. And is Dick even really mad? Tim scans Dick's huddled frame, the picked skin around his fingernails. He's in pain. He's in Tim's pain. 

Tim has walked into the same assumption again. What an idiot he has been, to assume he could disentangle his self-destruction from the people he has weaved into his life.

“Hey,” Tim begins shakily. He puts a hand on Dick's shoulder, using only the lightest brush of his fingertips. Dick doesn't shrug it off or flinch, but Tim isn’t convinced the touch is welcome. Dick doesn't lean in or make eye contact. But pulling away would probably hurt Dick more. Tim commits and presses his full palm into Dick's shoulder, circling the pad of his thumb. He can't help the gnawing fear that his touch actually feels really bad.

Dick still does not signal his reaction either way, and Tim's stomach hurts with the weight of everything he has ever felt for Dick since the first time Tim saw a blur of yellow arc across a rooftop. Every thought Tim has contains a self-deprecating flavour which he judges would pain Dick even more. Sorry for making you worry. Sorry that it took so long for me to express how much I care. 

Tim has rendered himself speechless, ironically after he's been freed to speak. He takes in the sight of Dick, floundering for something to latch onto and just talk about before the moment grows stale and Dick assumes that Tim has nothing to say. 

Dick looks handsome. Every time Alfred blazes past a street lamp, the shadows travel across Dick's frame, backlighting his features in stark drama that reminds Tim of a Baroque painting. A strangely lighthearted thought crosses Tim's mind, that his younger self had daydreamed about sitting this close to Dick wearing a suit. Tim's younger heart had raced out of control at the imagined sight of Dick's bright smile. Reality is different, and yet also the same. Tim's heart doesn't race. It swells and it slows, as if he has a heart disease. But he's still desperate to catch Dick at the start of a smile. He's still so desperate that he'd stake it out for hours, waiting atop a summit with his camera to catch the first rays of sunlight over Gotham.

It's this poorly restrained craving to see it, this tautly strained impatience that threatens to cripple his steady hand, that brings Tim to the brink of the waterfall. Because when he cried on the edges of Gotham's high places all those years, he supposes that they had become his man-made Niagara Falls. His voice strains with the power of emotion that his fragile human body can hardly withstand. “I love you.”

Dick flinches immediately, which makes Tim instinctively remove his hand. But Dick is faster, once again. He always has been. He presses Tim's hand back into his shoulder, but he still can't look at Tim. “Please don't try to comfort me. Not after what I just did.” 

“I want to,” Tim says. “I love you, so much.”

Dick’s shoulders shake slightly, as if playing tug of war between the part of himself that is staked in self-resentment, and the part that wants to hear the rest. He turns his head part of the way. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Tim confirms. “Endlessly, yes.”

Dick shifts to face Tim. His cheeks somehow appear sore and tender to the touch. They're shiny, and flushed. But they begin to make way for a slight smile. “Yeah?”

“For a long, long time,” Tim confirms again. “Yes.”

Dick covers his eyes with the back of his hand, as if Tim can't already see his tears. “Please don't say that. Please.”

“What do you want me to say instead?” Tim asks, completely sincere. Since Dick still presses Tim's hand into his shoulder, Tim begins to rub the circles again, more slowly than before.

“I’m not sure. It's too much,” Dick explains. He's looking away again, into his lap. “It’s too much happiness. I don't know how to feel this happy.”

“Me too,” Tim admits. He forces a genuine smile, as much of an oxymoron as that is. For Dick, he'll make it work.

Dick peers through his hand, and he laughs, a bit brokenly, but there's a sonorousness to his laugh that is always lovely. “Look at you.” He dabs something off of Tim's cheek. “There you are.” The echo of Dick's laugh lingers as a radiant smile, as if Tim looked directly into the sun and now has a bright spot in his vision every time he blinks.

There it is , Tim thinks to himself.

Dick looks around Tim at Jason. “Sorry.”

When Tim takes a proper look at Jason, he looks visibly shaken. “Don't be sorry. Just- fighting. It reminds me of childhood. And also- how we met.” He looks at Tim briefly. “Because now I realise you probably thought you deserved it.” 

“What are you talking about?” Dick asks.

“Boys,” Alfred announces from the front. “I think that is enough turmoil for one night.”

Jason opens his mouth in protest, but then he notices Bruce, who looks absolutely devastated. 

The remainder of the ride is bittersweet. The silence is exhausted, but also delightfully empty. The air is clearer than it has ever been.

“Everyone is to go straight to bed,” Alfred orders when they arrive. 

And everyone obeys. Tim trusts that Damian can hear them enter the manor. He heads directly to the guest room that has functionally become his own room. There's no way he's going to be able to sleep in these clothes, but in the privacy of his room, he'll be able to use his laptop in peace. On his bed is a garment bag. His dress shoes are at the foot of the bed, shined. Tim reminds himself to thank Alfred in the morning and carefully relocates the suit and shoes to his wardrobe.

Tim is about to close the doors when he suddenly thinks of dampness and moths, and he wonders if that's why Alfred didn't put them in the wardrobe. Tim almost pulls out his cellphone to research, but he doesn't, remembering how upset Alfred had been when he did so earlier. Tim lays the garment bag back on the bed, placing the shoes at the foot of the bed again. He was going to sit on his bed and use his laptop, but the desk is fine, too.

Tim wonders if he'll be able to sneak to the kitchen for coffee, but now that he's aware of just how lightly Damian sleeps, he wonders if he'll wake Damian up in the process. The idea that Damian noticed Tim awake and wandering around the manor when Tim thought he was sneaky is very humbling. Instead, Tim rummages in his duffle for his stash of energy drinks. His hand closes around a can when he hears a soft rap on his door.

Tim forgot to turn off the overhead light, so he can't pretend to be asleep. Final stretch of human interaction for the night, Tim tells himself. He disguises the can back in the mess of clothing in the duffle before he goes to open the door.

“Master Timothy,” Alfred greets. He glances over Tim's shoulder at the garment bag and the dress shoes.

“Hi, Alfred,” Tim blinks. He hadn't expected Alfred, but he follows Alfred's gaze. “Oh, yes. Thank you for helping me with my clothes earlier.”

They allow a beat of silence to pass, Tim out of confusion and Alfred out of expectation. Alfred speaks first. “You are welcome. I was expecting you'd come find me.”

Tim blinks again, too tired to put effort into inferring the reason why. “Sorry, Alfred. Did I promise to do something, and forget?” He suddenly realises he's making Alfred stand in the dark hallway. Tim steps aside, almost ramming his head into the doorframe. “Come in, come in.”

Alfred obliges. He stands by the bed, casting a meaningful glance at the garment bag. “You did not promise, per se. But I was under the impression we had an agreement.”

Tim can only blink again, and again. Every time he tries to initiate a logical thought process, his brain seizes with the beginnings of a massive headache.

Alfred explains, with much more patience than Tim would have in his shoes. “You can always come and ask for my help.”

This was a test, Tim realises. “Thank you for coming by, Alfred. I do need help.” He gestures to the formal wear. “Can I store these in the wardrobe?”

Alfred suppresses a smile. “Yes, you may. Allow me.” He hangs the garment bag in the wardrobe for Tim, positioning the dress shoes beneath the bag. Tim totters behind Alfred to observe, but he doesn't notice anything special about how Alfred hangs the garment bag or stores the shoes. Tim could easily have done that himself.

Tim realises. He's doing it for me. “Thank you,” he says sheepishly. “Hopefully I can do it myself next time.”

Alfred closes the wardrobe primly and turns back around to face Tim. “And if you can't?”

Tim's brain can still function well enough to fill in the blank. “I will come ask.”

Alfred nods with satisfaction. “ Good night , Master Timothy.”

Tim understands the emphasis to mean that Alfred expects Tim to sleep now, and if he doesn't, Alfred will somehow know. Maybe Alfred sleeps much more lightly than Tim thought, just like Damian.

“Good night,” Tim says in return, but he panics as Alfred begins to leave. He really can't sleep like this. And then Alfred might know somehow. And what then? Tim causes another scene at hell o’clock in the morning? “Wait,” Tim blurts.

Alfred stops, turns. He looks vaguely pleased. “Yes, Master Timothy?”

“Are there-” Tim begins with hesitation, feeling that he's too close to speaking aloud the things that he never wants to speak aloud. “Are there any spare pyjamas?” 

“Of course there are.” Alfred puts a considering hand to his chin before he straightens with an idea. “Would you like to follow me?”

Tim tails behind Alfred, slightly anxious about what the options will be. But Alfred has a certain sense of taste and style, which Tim is counting on. He's expecting to follow Alfred to a linen closet or guest room, so he's shocked when Alfred leads him to Jason's room. Light from Jason's room spills into the hallway from underneath the door. The nub of a shadow dances in the spillage of light. Alfred knocks on the door.

Jason answers after a few seconds of rustling on the other side. He's changed out of his suit, and he wears the T-shirt-sweatpants combination that Tim adores. Jason leans on the door frame casually, but he looks nervous to see both Alfred and Tim standing in the doorway.

“Hello, Master Jason,” Alfred greets. “Master Timothy needs pyjamas. Do you still have your silk set?”

Tim has the thought that Alfred is playing at something, but Tim can't be bothered to play the game right now. He just wants to see what the pyjamas look like as soon as he can so that he can determine whether he'll be staring at the ceiling until dawn or not.

“Hey, Alfred,” Jason says, looking even more uncomfortable. “Tim. Yes, I do.” He squints at Tim. “Should fit. Come in.” Jason waves them in and pulls open the bottom drawer of a dresser. Tim catches glimpses of the other contents of the drawer. Those are old, old clothes.

Alfred, I appreciate the thought, but please, not right now, Tim pleads in his mind.

“On second thought-” Tim begins, but neither of the other two seem to hear.

“Here,” Jason announces shortly. The wooden drawer rumbles shut, and he stands up with the pyjama set. They're deep blue with a white trim. “Worn maybe once, so they shouldn't be too shabby. They're way too small now, obviously. You could keep them. If you wanted.”

Worn maybe once echoes in Tim's ear. Tim can't. He definitely can't.

Jason places the bottoms on his bed and holds the top up. But it's such an improvement. The sleeves are long. The fabric is stiffer than Tim had expected. The shirt buttons up almost to Tim's neck. Jason holds the shirt up to Tim for size, and remembering that Jason had once fit into this makes Tim miss Robin in a way that Tim hasn't had to in a while.

“Looks like it will fit perfectly.” Jason nods, barely stumbling on ‘perfectly.’ “Let's see the pants.”

“Jason,” Tim interrupts. “On second thought-”

“Here we go,” says Jason. He gently unfurls the pants at Tim's waist. “Waist looks fine. Length looks fine, too.” Jason folds the set back up neatly before he offers it to Tim. “I want you to keep them.”

Tim looks on in horror. “I can't.”

Jason sighs, looking exhausted. “To be honest, when I was going through my old things, I specifically kept this for you. Because it looked like it would fit you. I just. Never got around to giving it to you.”

Tim nods. “That's okay. That's okay if it's still hard for you. It doesn't hurt me.”

“It does hurt me,” Jason says. “Help me grieve, yeah?” He jostles the pyjamas in his outstretched hands.

Tim has the sinking feeling that if he leaves Jason and takes the pyjamas, that he's going to be leaving Jason to do the Jason equivalent of crying into his pillow. But Tim knows that all the pain, all the grief is already there, lodged deep in Jason like an arrow that nobody has had the heart to pull out yet. Jason has to feel the snag of the arrowhead on the way out, sooner or later. Tim can't possibly protect Jason from a death and rebirth that's already happened, from stolen time that he never had, or from memories that are only his to relive. If Tim were to prolong this, he would only protect himself from having to see Jason suffer, so that Jason can suffer at a later date when Tim doesn't have to watch. 

So Tim reaches for the pyjamas, judging that taking them off Jason's hands might be easiest. He moves slowly, giving Jason every opportunity he can to change his mind, or to feel and remember everything that he needs to. And maybe also because Tim himself feels hardly ready to watch Jason go through this.

“No, wait,” Jason says suddenly. He grips the pyjamas tightly. “Let me give them to you.”

“Okay!” Tim says quickly, trying to be as flexible and as unbothered as possible, for Jason's sake. 

“I can't pretend that you're taking them from me,” Jason says so quietly that Tim can hardly hear.

Well, I kind of am, Tim thinks, but he doesn't want to interrupt Jason, having already said too much. Jason has suffered enough tonight, trapped in the car as everyone discussed everything he missed.

“It made it bearable, to blame you,” Jason continues, unprompted. He takes a shaky breath, placing the pyjamas in Tim's arms. “But you are not to blame.”

How badly Tim wants to believe that. 

“I have to learn to live with it some other way,” Jason tells Tim, loosening his grip on the silk, which, being silk, sinks back into a fluid shape, unwrinkled, unmarred. “It was never your fault.”

Jason lets go, swinging his hands behind his back, almost childish, as if he's nervous that Tim won't like his present.

“Thank you, Jason,” Tim says. He reaches for something comforting to say, but the depth of pain in Jason feels too far to reach. Tim settles for at least something sincere. “Having this makes me miss Robin, too.” That sounds bad. “I like it!” Tim adds hurriedly. “I love it. I'm happy.”

Jason smiles, and it's like a gorge of melancholy etched into his face. “I have a lot more to give you,” he says. “So, stick around for that, okay?”

The wording makes Tim freeze for a moment. Jason's stare is knowing, and Tim feels exposed. 

“Okay!” Tim answers, telling himself that he's just trying to be flexible and unbothered for Jason's sake. 

Alfred checks his pocket watch. “It's getting quite late.”

“Right,” Jason says. “Lost track of time. Sorry, Alfred.”

“Good night, Master Jason,” Alfred says, and there's a touch of tenderness buried in the words, if Tim really listens carefully. Tim wonders how much Alfred missed saying them. Hopefully, Jason can hear it, too. Alfred turns to Tim. “Can you see yourself back?”

“Yes!” Tim nods. “Absolutely. Thank you again for your help. Good night, Alfred.”

Alfred raises an unimpressed eyebrow, knowing full well that Tim is giving him a dose of his own medicine. “ Good night, Master Timothy.” Alfred departs first, not closing the door behind him. He's expecting Tim to follow suit shortly.

“Thanks again, Jason,” Tim says, clutching the pyjamas to his chest carefully. He waves a little. “I love them. Good night.”

Jason shakes his head, leaning against his bed post in obvious tiredness rather than faux bravado this time. “No. Thank you . See you tomorrow.”

Tim closes the door behind him as quietly as he can. There's a part of him that recognises the gravity of the interaction that just took place, but he's also fucking elated. Sleep, at last.

The pyjamas feel cool on his skin, and Tim can dissolve into that sensation. There's hardly any friction, and there's a formlessness to the silk that allows Tim to feel what having a body feels like without also feeling nauseated. Tim grieves that Jason cannot ever wear this again, so putting it on almost feels like banishing Jason's ghost. But Tim feels too grateful right now to consider the implications. He's also grateful he was given the guest room with the ensuite bathroom. The mirrors are tall, and cover a substantial portion of the wall, so he doesn't turn on the light. It feels so nice to brush the taste of apple cider and lemonade out of his mouth in complete privacy. 

Sleep arrives dreamlessly, as it always does. The morning light that infiltrates through the closed curtains wakes Tim quite early, but he's able to doze until he hears stirring in the hallway. He checks his phone on the bedside table for the time and plugs it in to charge belatedly, having forgot all about it last night. Despite that it's only seven in the morning, Tim feels much more clear-headed than he had been feeling.

Pulling his phone charger with him, Tim rolls back into bed to check for updates. The tip inbox is still empty. Tim moves on to social media again, and the commentary has broadened in scope even further. The call to action Tim anticipated has not appeared yet, which puts Tim on edge. He really wants to see a petition, or a nonprofit, to help focus the energy. Tim thinks about checking the individual profiles engaging with these types of posts, but he tells himself that it's still too early to assume the worst of people.

Tim decides to refresh himself in the bathroom before delving into depressing reality: the discovery of nuclear fission, the Manhattan Project, and the arms race ever since, including historical instances of testing nuclear weapons in space. Despite attempts to stabilise the number of nuclear weapons, and declare space a non-nuclear zone, R&D has unsurprisingly continued. The ability to orbit nuclear weapons around the Earth and deploy them to the surface has long been within human technological capacity. It was agreed not to go there because from then on the horrors would never cease. 

So, why go there now? Tim's eyes gloss over as he reads through the purported benefits- stopping alien invasions and asteroids. Those are huge problems, right?

The point is the capability to damage critical communication and military satellites orbiting Earth, unprecedented leverage in modern warfare. Once space nukes are in orbit, then other countries are under pressure to destroy them before they're ever used, or send up their own first. That would more or less be nuclear war, the experts say. Tim is quickly learning to follow security theories and analyses, but he’s not convinced that it’s helpful to try to be right on the validity of nuclear deterrence, right in applying theory to speculate how a certain country would respond to space nukes, or right about whether nuclear war is inevitable once a certain action is taken. Tim believes that all the intelligence in the universe couldn’t make him right on any of these fronts. The only thing that matters is that people in power do think this way, which means that these ideas, and ways of thinking, rule the world.

These ideas feel powerful, Tim admits. They’re soothing in their authority. The logic puzzle of nuclear warfare promises a right answer, a right course of action, the capability to track onto the right timeline. But Tim has long abandoned the idea that any of this is about safety, security, or self-preservation. Then all of this theoretical chatter, all of this rationalising is all for the glory of it, of course, for a power-trip unprecedented in all of human history, to rule over a creation so monstrous that it evokes the victory of David against the Goliath of infinitesimal particles; for the once-in-a-epoch opportunity to play the lead roles in a horror story so romantically Gothic in its beauty. 

But maybe it is about safety, a part of Tim worries. It would be unsafe, not to try to think through these things. Even if all that matters in the world is glory, and the glory that money can buy, Tim knows well enough by now that simply being well-intentioned does not make him right. And yet, Tim can’t shake the idea that if people didn’t want them, then there would be none. If it wasn’t expensive to make them, then nobody would supply them.

And maybe that’s why Tim resents the social media discourse so much. They’re just like him, anxious to do something, anything, against the existential crisis of the age. They’re just as confused as him, leaving no idea unturned, each as shiny and alluring as the last. They don’t know the right thing to do, and neither does Tim. But they think they do, and Tim wants to think he does, too.

And maybe there’s truth in the jumble, as much as it makes Tim want to scream. As self-aware as Tim can try to be, it doesn’t change that Wayne Enterprises, and even Tim as Red Robin and a Drake, are far more powerful than the general public, right up there with, or really further up than, Gotham City Bank, and that power dynamic is never not oppressive. The stewardess felt that she didn’t have a choice, no matter how hard Tim and Damian tried to convince her otherwise. He knows that he is more powerful than he has any right to be. So what is Tim doing, surveilling the general public for people who might resort to homemade nuclear projects? They’re far easier to control, whereas moderating the global attachment to nuclear warheads feels like an intractable task, far more intractable than a problem as nebulous as crime.

Before Tim can sink even further into reflection, he hears a knock on his door. He wakes his phone and checks the time. Somehow, it's almost eleven in the morning. He rushes to answer the door, embarrassed that he's been brooding in his room all this time.

Jason stands in the hall, arms crossed, a bit tense. He's dressed for the day, and he winces a little when he sees Tim.

Tim wants to face palm. He had so much time to change clothes, but he didn't think of it. He felt so comfortable.

“Morning, Tim,” Jason says, tone carefully friendly. “How did you sleep?”

Tim does his best to sound cheerful. “Good! Really good! You?”

Jason shrugs. “Fine, I guess.” He doesn't seem to want to dwell on the topic. “I got a call from the police. They say they want Renee to have an interview.”

Tim suppresses his excitement at the last moment. “Does she want to?”

“Yes,” Jason says. “But she wants to have it with me.”

“I think that's a great idea,” Tim assures, thankful for the update. “If you're up for it.”

“And you,” Jason finishes.

Me? Tim wonders. He doesn't think it makes sense. She didn’t seem to feel very comfortable around him, understandably so. 

“If you're up for it,” Jason adds.

“Of course I'm coming,” Tim says. If she specifically asked for him, Tim isn't going to not show up. “When does she want to meet?”

“Today. In the afternoon.” Jason says. “She says she wants to meet at her house.”

Tim nods. “Okay.” Then he realises. “We're going to show up as Red Hood and Red Robin?”

Jason smiles helplessly. “I mentioned that, but she said that she's fine with it.”

“Okay…” Tim says with uncertainty. “I guess we won't bring weapons?”

“I won't,” Jason affirms.

“To be honest,” Tim begins, trying to be gentle in his criticism. “I don't think we're the right people for this.”

“We'll probably kick ourselves afterwards, realising how we could have been better,” Jason admits. “But it's what Renee requested.”

Tim can accept the truth in that. “Let me go change.”

Jason relaxes, but then a thoughtful expression crosses his face. “Do you really need to? Also, I don’t think I’ve seen you eat anything in…” 

Tim doesn’t want Jason to think too hard about that. “I’ll go to the kitchen. Is there still food from breakfast?”

Jason follows Tim to the kitchen, all the while looking to be on the cusp of saying something important. Tim lets Jason be, also feeling too much, and unable to say anything about it. How is it, watching the Robin who came after you wear the pyjamas that you only got to wear once? How’s the grief processing going? Not bad? That’s nice. Besides, once again, Tim benefits whilst Jason pays the price. He was relieved when Jason told him not to change.

“Hey…Jason,” Tim says. They haven’t run into anyone so far, so Tim hopes that everyone is either resting or enjoying a day out. “Really, thank you so much for the pyjamas. They really helped.”

Jason opens the door to the kitchen, but he pauses, confused, and doesn’t step aside to let Tim through. “Helped with what?”

“Sorry,” Tim says quickly. “That was selfish. It doesn’t matter. It’s more important that it’s helping you. It’s probably really difficult. To die, that is. Obviously. Sorry.” He ducks under Jason’s arm, thinking the kitchen will help him escape. 

Everyone is in the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Tim greets, trying not to sound uncomfortable. He slinks closer to the island that everyone is gathered at, upon which is a cornucopia of American breakfast foods. Perfect. If he eats, then they can’t make him talk. 

“Good morning.” Alfred is the first to reply. He stands away from the island with a small plate. He seems to be eating a scone, judging by the containers of clotted cream and jam on a different countertop.

Bruce appears to be done eating, or not hungry, as he’s drinking what is probably matcha. His eyes immediately widen in recognition. “That’s…”

Damian always eats slowly, and today is no different. He waves with his fork, chewing.

“What?” Dick asks Bruce. He had been looking down into his plate of food which is piled high, searching for a piece of something specific. “Oh, those are nice pyjamas. I haven’t seen those before. Or…haven’t I?”

Jason walks up from behind Tim. “They used to be mine. But they don’t fit, and Tim needed some pyjamas last night.” He doesn’t fill a plate, but there’s a dirty dish next to the mug that Jason picks up to drink out of. 

Tim serves himself a little of everything. The more food, the better his alibi. He takes a fork and starts eating. He doesn’t mind that they’re standing at the island because Alfred would serve them if they ate in another room, which nobody wants Alfred to do every single day. But standing and eating, quite normal for Tim, is slightly uncomfortable today, because Tim doesn’t have any room to tremble under the table without people noticing.

Damian at last finishes chewing, and swallows. “So, how did you two meet?” He’s the only person sitting, but on a countertop.

Tim nearly chokes. He swallows laboriously. “Where- where did that come from, Damian?” He tries to deflect, even though he remembers perfectly well. That’s where the conversation from last night ended abruptly, and he’s guessing that everyone else remembers, too. He’s just not sure how the hell Damian knows.

But Damian has already shovelled another portion of food into his mouth. He chews daintily as he stares at Tim, as if Tim asked a rhetorical question. What is it with Damian and his need to gouge out all of Tim’s secrets? Even though Tim hadn’t explained the confession tape, he had given up something quite substantial. He assumed Damian would be satiated by learning of Tim's parents. Apparently not.

“We were just talking to Damian about what you two fought about last night,” Dick explains. He at last skewers something on his fork. “We just wanted to hear his perspective. He said basically the same thing you did. And he also wanted to know what we talked about in the car. So we explained. Hopefully you don’t mind, Tim.”

“No, no,” Tim says. “I don’t mind.” He genuinely doesn't. If everyone else knows, Damian should, as well. Tim does not want to make Damian feel condescended to again. He gives Damian a searching look. Damian continues to eat, standing by his original question. Tim can determine by the atmosphere in the room that Damian hadn't told anyone what he'd told Tim. Tim attempts to give Damian a warm smile, to reassure Damian that he won't talk about anything Damian hasn't given him permission to talk about. Tim hopes that Damian understands. He ought to have clarified this point during their conversation. “Yeah, so,” Tim begins, overly casual in a way that incriminates him horribly. “Jason came and visited me first. And then I dropped him off here. I had to go on a vacation for a few weeks, as you all know, so I couldn’t stay.”

Jason puts his drink down with a sharp noise. He braces himself on the island, turning to Tim. “Why in the hell are you telling it like that?”

Because it’s not about me, Tim wants to say.

“Tell them.” Jason demands. “Tell them all about how I tried to kill you.”

Tim is too overwhelmed to register the reactions around the island. “Look, Jason. It’s not that simple.”

Jason looks so pained, and Tim’s heart drops because he’s trying to make it easier for Jason. So why isn't it working? “You’re making this so hard for me, Tim. You have to say it. Because I was never able to say it myself. I’m sorry I was never able to say it myself.”

“What are you even talking about?” Tim says. “You were brutally murdered. Everyone knows that. You were also psychologically tortured after your death- that much was clear when I met you. I don’t blame you for not wanting to ‘say it yourself.’”

“Tim, stop,” Jason begs. “Stop. Just tell them all about how much I hated you for becoming Robin after me.”

“Like I said,” Tim argues. “It’s not that simple.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell them?” Jason exclaims. “And why did I let you never tell them?” 

“You did the best that you could,” Tim tries to explain to Jason. Why can’t he get it?

“If I didn’t do anything wrong, in your eyes,” Jason bites out, eyes wide, horrified. “Then why are you trying so hard to hide it?”

“It’s not about me!” Tim can’t help but match Jason’s frustration.

“Tim,” Dick interjects quietly. “Did you think we wouldn’t understand the…nuance?”

“He deserved a happy homecoming!” Tim really needs to explain this right.

“Of course he did,” Dick agrees. “But-”

Tim doesn’t want to hear what comes next. “I just wanted everyone to be happy!”

Jason scoffs at himself, and his thousand-yard stare only darkens. “You have no idea. You have no idea how long I plotted your murder.”

“That’s fine!” Tim can’t believe he’s still holding his plate, so he sets it down. “I forgive you! Is that what you need to hear? Stop making it about me. I got a little beat up, but you actually died.”

“Yeah, but it was about you.” Jason looks at the ceiling, remembering. “It was all about you.”

“It was about what happened to you, ” Tim says, looking around the island to see if people are finally getting it. “It was about everyone you lost. ”

“Of course you would say all that!” Jason groans. “Because you're probably fucking s-” He breaks off, visibly conflicted.

“Because I'm fucking what?” Tim demands impulsively, in denial of Jason's next words.

“We understand, Tim,” Dick assures, forcibly and yet gently breaking up the tension. “We really do. Did you really think that we wouldn’t be unconditional?”

For some reason, that question makes something in Tim snap. No more apocalyptic realisations. No more. Not a single more. Please. 

“I should’ve said something,” Jason says, to no one and everyone. “But I was so happy.” He shakes his head. “Why? Why did you let me cover it up? Why did I let you cover it up? Because now my homecoming has really been tainted. I tainted it.”

Tim’s heart breaks, and he feels like maybe he really did fuck it up, in all his efforts not to fuck it up. And it wasn’t really all for Jason’s benefit. It wasn’t really all that altruistic. Tim had been scared shitless. That’s all it was. “I thought you all would finally realise that I took advantage of Jason’s death,” Tim says, subdued. And to Jason, he says, “I just didn’t want to lose you again.”

“There’s no way we would abandon Jason,” Dick says, looking at Jason, who is still not looking at anyone. “Why would you think that we would? I thought you knew us better than that.” He’s trying to smile, but he rubs his shoulder as if he’s in pain.

“Because when-” Tim stops himself, shaken by his own thoughtlessness.

“When?” Bruce prompts.

Because when I fucked up, my parents abandoned me, Tim realises. “It doesn’t matter,” he answers clumsily.

“This again,” Damian sighs.

You’re one to talk , Tim almost says pointedly, patience drained. But he would regret it, after all those implicit reassurances to Damian that he took his pain seriously and would never push him. “Sorry, Damian. I didn't mean to create so much stress. Are you okay?”

Damian shrugs. “Of course not. Since birth I have witnessed and suffered unimaginable horrors, unfit for any child. This is common knowledge.”

Dick looks completely overwhelmed. “Damian.”

Damian slides off of the countertop. At some point during Jason and Tim’s dramatic dialogue, he completely cleaned his plate. “Ask Timothy about it.” He glances back at Tim briefly as he begins to leave, and the fear in his eyes detonates an atomic bomb in Tim’s chest cavity.

Tim rounds the island in a frenzy, clipping his hipbone. He doesn't want to raise his voice at Damian to come back. He doesn't have the soft authority in his voice that Dick has. But chasing after Damian also feels wrong. Thankfully, Damian can sense the break in Tim's movements. He turns around to see not only Tim but Dick moving towards him, in an absurd imitation of red-light-green-light.

“One at a time,” Damian says, wryly. When nobody seems to see the humour in that, he sighs. “Fine.” In one fluid motion, he hops back on the counter directly from where he stopped. He nods at Tim, the picture of nonchalance. “I still would like Timothy to explain.”

Damian wants Tim to talk for him at the doctor's appointment, and Tim so badly wants to allow Damian to experience this upcoming moment as a child. But Damian also needs to express himself, even if he doesn't realise that yet. 

Tim is unsure how to best help Damian in this situation. He ultimately decides to start talking about himself, hoping that he can prompt Damian along. “Damian said that he was worried about me, which I said that I felt awkward about because of his age.” He pauses for Damian to agree or disagree with this account. 

“I found that sentiment frustrating,” Damian continues, crossing his arms. “As I feel that I have earned different treatment due to my life experience.” He stops there, waiting for Tim to continue.

“I can understand that,” Jason jumps in. “I felt the same way.”

“Me, too,” Dick agrees with a smile. His eyes flash with something dark. “I thought that because of what I'd seen, childhood wasn't meant for me.”

“Yes, you both did,” Batman confirms. There's a brightness to his eyes that betrays to Tim that he's as distressed as he had been the night before, if not more.

Alfred smirks slightly. “As did you, Master Bruce.” He then straightens his collar. “Do not look at me. I enjoyed my childhood.”

Damian nods, relief apparent in his body language. Tim wonders if Damian truly believed he would be ridiculed by this bunch of all people. But Damian still waits for Tim to continue, still guarded.

“I also agreed, wholeheartedly,” Tim says. “But I also told him how in some contexts that concept can be unsafe.” He looks to Damian again, to see if he's ready. Not yet. “For example, in-” Tim waits another beat for Damian to stop him. He doesn't. “-sexual contexts.”

The air is thick with speculation. Tim knows that they're all anxious about where this is going. But he will still take Damian's lead, and as Damian begins to pick at his pants, Tim determines that he's still not ready. So Tim continues to repeat what he said. “I said that a sexual relationship between an adult and a minor is always exploitative- always endangers the child for the adult's gain.”

Dick tries to fill the pause, so that Damian doesn't feel pressured to. “Exactly. Please, always feel like you can talk to us about anything, Damian. Nothing can ever change that we care about you.”

There's another silence, and despite the stoicism Damian tries to embody, the way his eyes flicker across the floor tile betrays that he's absorbing everything. “Well,” he finally replies, stabbing through the gentle silence with a spear-like ferocity. Each time Damian picks at his pants, the resulting sound is almost as loud as his voice. “What if you found out that it was nothing at all? You probably think that something really bad happened. Well. Rest assured. It did not. It is nothing, compared to dying, or being the object of a murderous revenge plot. You all have enough to worry about. So do not worry.”

“What does ‘nothing’ mean, Damian?” Dick asks. “And if ‘nothing’ really is ‘nothing,’ ‘nothing’ is good! We don't want anything bad to happen to you.” 

The moment is Schrodinger's cat. Once Damian opens the box, he is either dead or alive. But for now, he is both. The idea of a completely unharmed Damian is so enchanting, that it is all the more painful to consider the alternative.

“‘Nothing’ means that it is too embarrassing,” Damian hedges. He stops picking his pants and grips the countertop with both hands.

“Whatever happened, it was never your fault,” Dick says, approaching Damian slowly. He places a hand on Damian's own.

Damian looks at Dick's hand in the same way that a desert traveller looks at an oasis. His fingers twitch, as if he's battling with himself not to partake of the affection. He succeeds in resisting temptation, but Damian doesn't look away from Dick's hand. "I don't know what happened."

Dick is still taller than Damian, even when Damian sits on the counter, so Dick lowers himself to his knees, which makes him much, much shorter than Damian. Dick has gone so far to make himself so small, so harmless, and Damian sees it, too, because he looks even more mortified and fearful than he did before. Maybe he has been waiting all his life for someone to sink so low for him, to sink deep, deep into territory that nobody wants to think about. "This hurts me to say," Dick says. "But I think you do have the words. You shouldn't have them, but you probably do. So, whether or not you want to say anything, please know that you could say anything, anything at all, and I will still be here. You could also say nothing. I could never know, never ever know, and I will still be here. Please believe me when I say this."

“I told you. I don't know what happened,” Damian says, but he sounds less certain than he did before. His knuckles appear so compressed on the countertop that Tim wouldn't be surprised to find hairline fractures in the granite. “Sometimes-" He stops, and his gaze bores into Dick's hand. The granite is artificially warm, sapping from Damian's body heat. But Dick's hand is humanely warm, and much, much softer. Tim can see the longing burn Damian from the inside out, until Tim can almost hear an audible splinter in the dam barring Damian's pain from himself and the world, and Damian grips Dick's hand in a movement almost too quick for the naked eye. "Sometimes I had to perform my fighting skills in front of people who I did not want to. Sometimes I was not wearing clothes when I wanted to be, during research. Sometimes people talked about me, because I aged quickly, and they said things that I cannot forget. Sometimes I had to fight people who I did not want to touch me. That is nothing. Is it not?”

Dick seems to freeze in place, even though he hadn't really been moving at all.

“Tell me,” Damian says, with a cutting bitterness, looking around the island. “Because I don't know! Is it nothing?” The ensuing silence obliterates the battered remnants of the dam. “What happened to me?” He asks again, voice raised, the desperation of his tone unmistakable. “Tell me that it is nothing!”

Dick opens his arms for a hug automatically, but falters. “Sorry, Damian. I-”

Damian actually reaches for Dick's embrace, but he collapses on himself at the last moment. “This is so frustrating. You did not do anything wrong. I want a hug from you. But I am also so angry, because I do not want to act like a child. But I am also upset when Timothy does what I asked and treats me like an adult. I don't know what I want. I don't know. I am so embarrassing.” He looks determined not to cry, but emotion rips through his vocal cords, and they fray like splintered wood.

Dick shushes Damian, immediately sliding onto the countertop with him. “You can have a hug whenever you want. And never when you don't want.”

Damian buries his face in Dick's shirt, and Dick takes that as his cue to hug Damian. Damian's breathing evens as the seconds pass, as Dick rubs his back and murmurs soothing things that Tim can't hear. When Damian is ready to peer out of the hug, everyone else is bursting with things to say.

“I am so sorry,” Bruce says, and he also grips the granite top of the island for dear life. Between Jason, Damian, and Bruce, Tim notices a pattern of behaviour, and the fond observation offers a small comfort in a bleak moment. “I had no idea. I could have guessed. A child is never a means to an end.”

“Except when they are,” Jason observes, tone dripping murderously. His expression softens when he speaks to Damian. “You are never embarrassing. You were never embarrassing. Never.”

“What happened was…” Tim sorts his ideas carefully. He imagines how this will sound to Damian, so he starts slow. “Not nothing.” 

Damian looks somewhere in the distance, Tim's words hitting him like a blow that he takes unflinchingly, as he was always trained to do. Tim realises. It was Schrodinger's moment for Damian as well. It was nothing, or it was something. And it was both, for the longest time, and so Damian could tell himself that it was nothing.

Alfred comes closer with a handkerchief for Damian, which Damian accepts listlessly. Alfred talks quietly, as if speaking too loudly will worsen the impact. “Child exploitation, undoubtedly. Forced crime, as well. Using Master Damian for fame, for criminal activities, for the gratification of others, or for the advancement of science is all child exploitation. Nothing was ever more important than your wellbeing.”

Damian doesn't seem shocked, but more in despair, huddling closer to Dick, swiping at his face clumsily. Dick grabs onto the handkerchief without pulling, and when Damian relents, Dick helps.

“I hate this so much,” Damian mutters.

“Almost done,” Dick promises. “See? There.” He places the slightly damp handkerchief to the side as a sign of surrender.

Damian shifts.  “Did you want to?”

“Want to?” Dick asks, puzzled. “Want to comfort you? Please don't ask that. Of course I want to comfort you.”

Damian wraps his arms around Dick, the movement reminiscent of a baby deer walking for the first time. “Then, admittedly. I feel very. Comforted.”

“Damian,” Dick says, and that prettily distraught sonority in his voice, which Tim has been obsessed with for years, gives way, the departure as resounding as the impact of a wooden hammer on a tolling bell. A bright note rings in the absence, and the perpetual dissonance of Dick's demeanour is gone, for that moment, because his smile is bright, very bright. “That makes me very happy.”

Notes:

ik "child exploitation" "child criminal exploitation" (coercing children to do crime) and "child sexual exploitation" are legal concepts for some ppl in the world and not for others, so i don't really mean it in that legalistic sense, although there is overlap. hopefully the concept as ive tried to explain it is helpful

Chapter 7: oh, tell me, we both matter, don't we?

Summary:

*****content warnings***** jason-typical dissociation; mentions of the child abuse previously discussed

it's really hard to see from inside jason's head, so, for your reference, this chapter picks up almost exactly where we left off, maybe slightly before? what do you think? [not engagement bait] i don't know, i'm just the author!!

(09-08-2025)

Notes:

slowly...but surely...fixing the debate and switch...i just keep getting sidetracked

chapter title from running up that hill by kate bush!

Jason hasn't felt this shit in a long, long time. It doesn't matter that Dick and Damian might be sharing one of the most formative (net positive) moments in Damian's life. Jason is happy about that, or at least he thinks he is. Emotionally he just feels like pure, unadulterated shit. He wants to die. And that's so funny, because he already did. And he hates finding things funny that he's mostly sure other people wouldn't think are funny. Because that's one of those ways in which he's changed for the worse. At least, Jason assumes he was better at one point, because he doesn't actually remember being better, but he remembers thinking he had been better, and he's just going to indulge in a bit of self-trust, even as much as he thinks, wow, I probably shouldn't do that . 

But sincerely, truly, Jason doesn't remember life being so fucking funny before his death. Jason doesn't remember being so unfunny, either. He feels like a really unfunny joke that other people might find funny in a derisive kind of way. It's difficult to explain. Oh, he’s finally got it: he's probably the post-ironic, slightly absurdist type of joke, where he says or does a thing, and people think is he saying that completely seriously or is he saying that completely aware he sounds insane, and it's supposed to be funny, somehow? And that's the kind of joke that doesn't have a punchline that Jason gets to glorify himself with, but if there was, Jason would be the punchline, and therefore still unable to glorify himself. But maybe that's actually a good thing? His life could use some comic relief, or any brand of relief.

Relief would be a nice emotion to feel. Instead Jason feels the weight of Damian's old life compress into him, and it really strikes a nerve. He could qualify for a sciatica diagnosis, surely. But that doesn't make sense. Sciatica is a compression of a nerve in his body, not of a nerve in whatever plane of existence his emotional experience ceaselessly terrorises him from. But he probably could, couldn't he? For example, if his spine was bashed in with a crowbar, compressing the nerve, would he have qualified for a sciatica diagnosis as a corpse? Now, that's kind of funny. That's kind of clever. Isn't it? Maybe not. Bruce wouldn't laugh. Jason kind of wishes that Bruce would, if only out of pity, or polite social laughter. Jason's sorry to say that he just doesn't have a funny bone anymore. Maybe the crowbar whacked it out of him? Jason suppresses a smile. That was definitely funny. Or he's just so desperate to be funny that he's rationalising himself into delusion. He used to make Bruce laugh, effortlessly.

Bruce could probably use a good laugh right now, but Jason is only a good grief right now. “Good” might be overstating it. “Grief” may be understating it. “Good grief” is about right. He does tend to surprise and alarm Bruce, and also Tim. Good grief, Jason's been floating away! He's definitely aiding and abetting it, because getting far, far away from Damian's past would be great. He doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to feel about it. And he definitely doesn't want to think or feel what Bruce is. It's gotta be pretty bad. It wouldn't be as bad, if Jason hadn't- what did Damian say?- made Tim the object of a murderous revenge plot. Put that way, it's kind of funny, though, isn't it? Damian has a way with words, a way that was abused into him for profit. Oh, no, Jason really wants to make another hitlist. Those were fun. But they wouldn't fix the nightmare reality that, thanks to Jason, Bruce has Tim, Jason, and Damian to be distressed about. Not that Jason directly contributed to Damian's upbringing, but he has definitely compounded the pain for Bruce, for no reason. But hadn't there been a reason? 

Right. Jason had wanted it to hurt. So badly. And now it does. So, does he get to say ‘mission accomplished’ and tell himself that he's still got the makings of success? Irony is really funny. It's so funny!

“Jason,” Tim says, and his voice is always imbued with that starry-eyed quality when he says Jason's name. And it's the last thing Jason wants to hear, because feeling how much Tim cares used to save him, but, now, it's just drowning him, drowning him all over again. Because can't Tim save some of that, any of that, for himself? Why in the fucking hell is it still going to Jason? He's not freshly dead or freshly alive or super traumatised anymore. He's not even funny anymore.

It does sound a little unbelievable, since he was brutally murdered, but is Jason really going to claim to be traumatised while being surrounded by an unconditionally loving group of people? There's a word for that. But get this. What if! He traumatised himself! By almost murdering one of these people? That would be hilarious. Jason chokes back a chortle. His comedic genius is becoming undeniable. It feels great to know that he's still got the makings of success.

“Jason,” Tim repeats. He steps fearlessly into Jason's personal space. And how is he not traumatised? I will kill you if you say my name with that much emotion ever again, Jason thinks, but he's lost the privilege of hyperbolic banter. He could've had it, if not for himself. Is Jason really angsting over the grief of never being able to tell Tim I'll kill you if you xyz ? Is he really? Now, that's pretty funny. The one withered sliver of Jason's awareness that is still tethered to the earthen world can hardly register Tim's movements over the noise of his stand-up routine, but it does. Tim is hugging Jason, and Jason registers the silk, distantly, reluctantly, longingly, because it makes him remember a time when he was funny, and when things were serious. “It’s okay,” Tim is saying. “Damian is okay. Look.”

Jason looks, even though Tim doesn't mean “okay” in an absolute way. Damian has to live with it, and that will never be okay. There's heartbreak in that knowledge because he needs Damian to be okay, and knowing that this need will never be met bores a whipping, whistling emptiness in Jason. Damian is the most annoying child Jason has ever met, but it's always the impossibly annoying kids who are debilitatingly aware of how hard they are to love. 

Jason knows something about hard to love, so wouldn't it be really funny, if he decided that Damian was too difficult to love? But it's really too hard to love a child who asks if it was embarrassing that they were abused. And that's also funny, that it's too hard to love children in the throes of irredeemable agony. Jason can't help the breathy laugh that escapes. He had to crack up eventually given that he's his own sole audience, so unfunny that he has to play the laughing track for himself.

Tim hooks his thumb into his sleeve, and the silk is so cool that it feels wet under Jason's eyes. Tim swipes quickly, but gently, as if he's terrified. Jason can't compute the context of Tim's actions until it crosses Jason's mind that he could be tearing up. Crying and laughing at the same time is a new low (or maybe high?) of emotional dysregulation even for him, because even homicidal bloodlust didn't feel as tempestuous as this. But it's not that weird. Isn't there a crying laughing emoji? Wow! Jason is thinking about an emoji at a time like this! Why is he so insane? What did he do to deserve to live in this headspace? 

“I'm so sorry for laughing,” Jason says, feeling himself cover his mouth, because even as he says so, he can't stop laughing. How is his behaviour supposed to make Damian feel? It's going to make Damian feel even harder to love, which cracks Jason up even more. He feels Bruce’s hand on his shoulder.

“Laughing?” Bruce asks.

“I don't know why,” Jason struggles to explain through peals of giggling. Tim pulls away, and Jason thinks he sees Tim give him a very concerned, but very earnest look, which doesn't make sense at all, but it makes Tim's departure slightly easier on Jason. Bruce fills the absence of cool silk with warmth. 

“You're not laughing,” Bruce says, his hand shifting, and Jason can now feel Bruce's arm around his shoulders. To be honest, Jason thinks the last time he was really hugged by Bruce was shortly before he died. It's hard to remember, which is not to say that Jason can't remember, but it's really hard to remember, almost as hard as Damian is to love. And for all the fanfare of his bloodthirsty rebellion against his fate, it's a little funny that he's at last circled back to the idea that maybe he was better off dead, because he was much, much more loveable, dead.

“Are you sure?” Jason can't bring himself to do anything but try to stifle his emotions in his hand. And part of him wants to dare Bruce to get closer, and even closer. Because the first few weeks of his return were idyllic, but also conflicted, because everything Jason wanted dropped into his armoured lap, and Jason was still stubborn, funnily enough. Bruce had to get closer, first, or Jason wouldn't. And he doesn't care if Bruce was trying to go at Jason's own pace, because Jason wanted to redeem their ‘final’ moment so badly, and didn't Bruce want to, as well? Bruce must not have wanted to, at least that badly. So why hadn't Jason just stayed dead, when he was apparently so much easier to hug as a tragically deceased child? Does Jason want too much? Does Jason just need too much? He doesn't understand how people like Tim exist, wanting nothing from Jason, seeming to need nothing from Jason, and when Jason (very hypocritically) pushed Tim, Tim gave it up, and asked for a hug. Jason exhales, listening to his voice, still confused. “I can't tell.”

“You are not,” Bruce says, almost confidentially. What, is he embarrassed? Of Jason? Jason isn't sure how he's shocked. How could Bruce not be embarrassed of Jason, when Jason regrets everything? That would be so hypocritical of Jason, once again, a real joke. Then, in a way that's certainly meant to be reassuring, Bruce says, “I know you.”

Whoa. That's so funny of Bruce to say. Jason is speechless. He doesn't mean to sound sarcastic, but he's choking on air, and it just comes out that way. “Who, me?” He's tempted to shove out of Bruce's arm, but Jason has had his morsel of tender parental-esque touch from Bruce, and his insatiable need has been whetted. “You had no idea it was me.”

Bruce’s muscles tense, and Jason dares Bruce. Leave me be. Leave me. But Bruce doesn't leave Jason be. He says, “I didn't.”

“So, why would you ever say that?” Jason presses, because he's feeling very sadistic. But then he remembers Damian is still recovering from the last argument that Jason dragged everyone through. “Nevermind. It doesn't matter.” Some part of him giggles, realising that he's being hypocritical again. I completely understand why you do that, now, Jason wants to say. I completely understand why you say “that's fine” when I tell you that I wanted to kill you.

“I wish I had known,” Batman says, and there's a tenacity to his words. “Otherwise, I wouldn't have hurt you so many times.”

Jason doesn't want to hear that. Jason doesn't need to hear that. Here he goes again, and a sparkle of whimsical glee lights Jason up, as if he's reached the second pinnacle of the roller coaster and is anticipating the drop. Jason gets exactly what he wants, and he's still being stubborn.

“You did hurt me, even after you knew,” Jason argues. He dares to look at Damian and Dick on the countertop. When he forces his eyes to focus, they don't look angry. They just look sad. So why is Jason the only person who's always fucking angry? Jason envies them, because he wishes he was the loveable kind of person who feels sad about things.

“When?” Batman asks, and the weight of his arm lightens slightly, and it makes Jason feel fragile.

Jason is very breakable. He knows that. He had been invincible, and the whole world knew it, so the whole world knew it when Jason turned out to be wrong. It's really funny when the overconfident kid learns his lesson the hard way. Jason concurs. But what kind of comedic timing is this, when the universe could have let him learn so much earlier, right at the start, when Jason stole the tires, and everything worked out for him? He takes another breath, and he thinks the laughter or the tears or the insanity has finally been exorcised out of him. “Yesterday. Last week. A month ago. The whole time since I died. Now.” 

Jason can sense the pull of Bruce's cheek into a bitter smile, more than see it, because they're very close. But it's still not close enough. “Ah,” Bruce says. “No wonder you hate me.”

That's funny. Jason didn't know he mattered enough to hurt Bruce's feelings. But maybe he did. Maybe he's always checking, just to make sure. Even after he finishes checking, he wants to check again. Some part of Jason really, really likes it that Jason's hatred hurts Bruce's feelings, because that’s living proof that Jason’s opinion matters to somebody. But somehow, feelings feel different when they're said outright rather than implied. Jason guesses that's the crux of communication as a human being. When Bruce looks sad because Jason is nonchalant about the past, it feels completely different than when Bruce says “I think you hate me, Jason.” Despite all of Jason's behaviour to the contrary, Jason never wanted to hear those words. 

Jason thinks back to yesterday, last week, last month, and all the time since he died, and he thinks that's a really long time to be hurting Bruce's feelings. Being Bruce's good grief had been one thing, and now this. Jason could have asked for what he wanted, the whole time, if not for himself.

“I really made everything worse,” Jason realises. “It was my time to go, and I came back despite the natural order of things. Things were really okay, weren't they? It was hard at first. But then came Tim, and things got better. When I died, I could tell Bruce really cared, and that should have been good enough.”

“No,” Dick interjects, once again very sad, and can Dick please get angry at Jason, like he did at Tim? Why is it that nobody can get angry at Jason when he's the one who should be reaping the rage that he sows? “Things were not okay.”

Fuck it! Fine. Jason knows that, even if he'll never understand it. “So, then. Why don't you know, Bruce, that when I hate you, I don't want to. I hate hating you. I have never wanted to hate you. I still don't. But I just- do.” He can feel butterflies of giddiness, or, maybe, despair in his stomach. “It hurts me so badly to hate you that sometimes I wish I stayed dead, because it would hurt less.”

Jason knows Tim is cringing in pain somewhere over there, but Jason takes no satisfaction. Tim is the same. There was no feeling in the world like realising that the object of his murderous revenge plot not only did not care about dying, but wanted to. It was really funny, actually. That's a pretty funny situation, right? Has Jason won an award yet for funniest fucking life in the universe?

“Never wish that,” Bruce says, his carefully authoritative tone threatening to swerve into pleading and begging territory. “I would choose a lifetime of you hating me, every time.”

The moment stretches, and Jason notices that Bruce's arm has tightened around him. What does that mean? Does that mean that Bruce is scared? Scared of losing Jason? So, then, what exactly would Bruce be losing?

“Why the fuck would you choose that,” Jason says, and he does say it. He's not going to raise his voice. He's not going to make everything worse. “And why would you choose that and still not know that having you there was the only good thing about dying?”

Bruce’s breath hitches, less because of Jason's exact words and more because Jason twists around and tightens his arms around Bruce. Jason expects hesitation, or surprise, or even the repulsion of being hugged with blood red hands, but he can't keep up with how quickly Bruce returns the hug. It feels like dying.

“You've given me so much happiness,” Bruce says, almost confidentially, and Jason doesn't wonder why this time, because everything makes sense after Bruce's next words. “And in return, I failed to protect you.”

Happiness? Jason scoffs, finding that a little humorous. It's hard to believe, because Jason was self-selected for this life, wretchedly railing against the city determined to prove his worthlessness, cravenly believing that he deserved a better life than that. And then he had it. And then he left Bruce stranded, abandoned, if the accounts are to be believed. (Fine. They are true. If Tim tries to die a third fucking time to prove it, Jason will kill Tim himself, once and for all. (Fine. Jason will do the opposite of whatever killing Tim is.)) And Jason guesses that a dead child was very hard to love.

“I was supposed to be there for you,” Jason says, and he squeezes, because it’s not enough, never enough, never close enough to make up for all that distance. “Instead, Tim was there. And I missed it. I missed you.”

“Ahem,” Damian says. “In your endeavours to assign blame, I think both of you are forgetting a very important person in this situation, namely, Jason's murderer.”

Bruce wheezes despite himself. “Noted, Damian.” 

Damian rolls his eyes. “It does not change anything for you, does it? Noted . Do not mind me, then.” He sinks more deeply into Dick's hug, trying to frown but missing the mark entirely, instead looking very fond.

Bruce squeezes Jason. “I missed you, too.”

It really does feel like dying. It's hard to remember, but he remembers. He has waited pointlessly for this moment, for a new memory to burn the old away. Because the dead don't do anything. They don't remember, they don't love. They don't even miss everything and everyone. Everything and everyone misses the dead. So Jason wanted to watch his death decompose before his eyes. He craved to remember, to love, to be, and it broke him to feel undead, to want to forget, to hate, and for everything and everyone to still miss him, to have no idea.

Now the ashes of his death scatter in the wind, circling the Earth in the jet stream, until it is time to come and find him again.

Jason decides to break away first because he doesn't need to check. He doesn't. He still wants to, but he doesn't need to.

Bruce doesn't seem hurt. He looks strangely energised, the brightness in his eyes reflecting not devastation or despair, for once, but happiness.

“Are you okay, Master Jason?” Alfred asks. There's something in his smile that betrays that he already knows the answer, but is just happy to be asking.

Jason looks around the room at the devastation that was wrought this morning. Alfred still stands back from the island, almost self-protectively, and Jason completely understands. Damian and Dick still sit together, huddled for warmth, even though the kitchen is never cold. There's always a burner or an oven turned on. Tim stands but is poised on the edge of his seat, so to speak, waiting for Jason's answer. The dark patch on the sleeve of Tim's pyjamas faces Jason as Tim leans on the island.

“I think…” Jason considers. “I really, really wanted Damian to be okay. I wanted Tim to start giving a shit about himself. I wanted Dick to be genuinely happy for more than five minutes at a time. I wanted…a hug from Bruce.” Jason chokes on his own words, and he's fully aware that he's laughing. He is very sure of it. “And I wanted to eat breakfast with Alfred. That's two out of five, I think? That’s really bad.”

“Really bad,” Tim repeats, clearly disheartened.

Jason is so sick of Tim. Jason is so obsessed with Tim. Jason could say something devastating, like, you're part of the problem, but Tim already knows. He's been trying so hard. Jason almost feels guilty because it became clear that Tim has his reasons for not liking the galas, and he came anyway yesterday. He was petrified at the bar for most of the time, which was very distracting for Jason, who was stuck on a never-ending carousel of guests, and desperately wanted to keep Tim company. But then Tim made Dick's evening, saw Damian back, and not before having maybe the most hostile interaction Jason has ever witnessed at a gala, even for as many business competitors and political rivals gather there. And Tim still would not let Jason, Damian, or Dick get a word in edge-wise, refusing them to take a stance on his behalf, whether because he hates himself, or because he was afraid to damage the business partnership. Jason wouldn't put it beyond Tim to have made a very pragmatic calculation of yeah I hate myself and I don't want to cause trouble and so I will just stand there and be humiliated while everyone who cares about me watches . In any case, it's clear that Tim is trying so hard not to worry them, and, other than realising that he worries people, he hasn't realised anything beyond that. Jason is so sick of Tim. Jason is beyond obsession. 

Jason wants to know everything about this bad internship. He imagines if he took the approach to Tim that Tim does to him. Jason imagines giving everything up to talk to Tim at the bar. He imagines calling off everything with Drake Consultants. Tim would have blamed himself for all of the economic and political fallout. And Tim expects Jason not to do the same? I am so merciful, Jason thinks to himself. The world has yet to recognise the vastness of my mercy.  

“No, not really bad,” Jason says, watching Tim's eyes flicker with hope, and would Tim stop doing that? Jason remembers Tim holding his drink for him, forcing himself to take a sip, lying about the taste. Jason wanted someone to carry something for him, in his previous, previous life, when everything he could have was limited by what he could carry with his stick arms. Jason has never, ever been embarrassed to want something. Maybe Tim, or Dick, or Bruce get embarrassed about wanting things, but never Jason, until now. Now Jason really wants Tim to tell him the truth, the truth that Tim thought the apple cider tasted like shit, and Jason is really, so, embarrassed to want that.

“It's the best thing that ever happened to me,” Jason says, “That I have so many people who-” tear my once-dead and twice-living heart to pieces, hurt like hell and it makes me so angry, are too close and too much and not close enough that it feels like dying “-are so hard to love.” Wait. “That was a little rude, my bad.”

“Thank goodness,” Damian says. “I was bracing myself for another sentimental moment. Crisis averted.”

Dick rubs Damian's arm and holds back a laugh. Because Damian is saying all that in the midst of a hug. At this point, Jason suspects that Damian is just trying to be funny, rather than express genuine relief, but Jason will give Damian the benefit of the doubt. Dick's smile dims, and he stares distantly at Damian, who, while never oblivious to body language like that, doesn't seem to acknowledge it. “Damian. Just so you know. Our conversation from earlier can be over, if you want it to be. But we can continue it, whenever you want.”

Damian starts off defensive. “What more is there to talk about? I told you everything. At least.” He furrows his brow, really looking the part, an assassin in the plainclothes of a child, except the line between disguise and identity blurs by the second. “I think I did.” He sighs. “Provide an example of what I would talk about.”

“Anything,” Dick assures. “Or nothing. As for a concrete example, maybe, your feelings?” He says the word so gingerly that Damian blinks twice, trying not to laugh.

“Feelings?” Damian says, “I would like to see you talk about feelings.”

“I do!” Dick says, now on the defensive. Jason has to give Damian credit where credit is due, because Dick then says, “I’m always happ-”

“I will not hear it,” Damian protests. “Spare me.”

Dick scoffs, offended. But he doesn't seem too focussed on that point. “Seriously, talk about anything you want. Do you need more examples?”

“I will talk if I need to,” Damian promises. “If only to save myself from more examples from you.”

Dick slouches slightly, but he doesn't pull away from Damian in the slightest. “I know I'm not always the best example.”

Tim gapes. Jason has to give Damian credit where credit is due, again. That annoying, annoying button-pusher knows the precise location of every emotional wound. Jason chances a glance at Bruce. Surely, he's next, after Dick is dealt with.

Dick stirs from a pensive fog, absorbing the concerned attention directed at him with what can only be described as terror. “But! I will keep trying to do better! Guys. Tim said something else last night. About the reactions to the space nukes, and Gotham City Bank. He's right. We do need to think this one over.”

And that is very classic for Dick, to deflect from his problems with the fate of the world. How infuriating, how tragic, how effective it is to make everyone feel like talking about himself is going to end life as they all know it. And what's funnier is that Dick probably believes that talking about himself will mean the end of the world. But Dick has merely postponed his fate. He has it coming. For now, Jason is so fucking merciful.

“It’s not just Gotham City Bank,” Jason points out. “All the representatives of the high street banks that I talked to mentioned that they either facilitate financing, or directly finance the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.”

“People are understandably terrified, and they understandably do not want that,” Tim says. His abundant plate of food still sits atop the kitchen island, untouched in ages. Jason resists the temptation to pull up a stool from somewhere in the manor, shove Tim onto it, and ignore everything he says. “If people didn't want to make space nukes, then we probably wouldn't have any problems. Maybe. I don't know.”

Bruce swirls the ceramic mug in his hand, disturbing the matcha powder at the bottom before he takes a final swig. He sets the mug down with a clink that resounds in the stillness of the kitchen, reminding Jason of a judge's gavel. “There are others who deal with these global issues.”

“Wayne Enterprises is a multinational conglomerate,” Tim presses. “We already deal in global issues.”

“We?” Bruce asks.

“You,” Tim corrects, looking away. “You guys.” 

Tim is suggesting that Bruce obliterate the carefully constructed boundary between his two lives, and Bruce is already being this harsh. Somebody needs to switch this train to a different track.

“What are you suggesting, Tim?” Dick asks curiously, not getting Jason's mental memo. 

Jason watches Bruce's expression for any drastic change. He's ready to shut Bruce up at any moment, but Tim deflates further.

“I don't know,” Tim says. “People in Gotham already have too many problems to care about something so abstract. Bruce is probably right.” He speaks with a slight lag, as if he's making up the argument as he goes, and Jason appreciates Tim for trying to keep the anxiety level in the room at an all-time low. The only problem is that the argument doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

“It is abstract,” Damian agrees. “And that is why it has taken on a different meaning to people in Gotham. It is not about aggravating the balance of mutually assured destruction. It is about aggravating the distribution of power and wealth.”

“Well, then,” Jason offers, attempting to table this discussion for another time. “Gotham City Bank is already planning to do some local investment. We can just see how that goes?”

“It's going to be mired in corruption,” Dick predicts, very accurately. “It probably won't have the impact that it could have.”

“All that matters is that it cools public sentiment,” Tim says, looking at no one, and Jason wonders why the hell Tim is trying so hard to play devil's advocate when he was the one who suggested taking some form of action in the first place. He must have really been hurt. Of course he was. Of course Tim hears I love you from Bruce one day and We? another and take the We? to be the truth.

“Master Timothy,” Alfred says. “Would you like a drink?”

Tim almost jumps. “Me? Yes. Thank you. I'll make it, if that's alright.” He almost bolts, but he waits as patiently as he can for Alfred's permission.

“You may,” Alfred says, stepping back so that Tim can have more access to squeeze through to the other part of the kitchen. But he follows Tim, for some reason, and Jason has a feeling that he needs to redirect attention away from them.

“Tim and I need to get ready to leave, soon,” Jason reminds them all. “But I have to say, this is an important conversation to have. I just think there's a better time to be having it.”

“There is no conversation to have. We have patrol tonight as usual,” says Bruce, or the Batman, leaving the kitchen island with a very dramatic flair. 

Jason scrubs his face with his hand, waiting until the door closes behind Bruce to talk. “Unfortunately, that's a sign that we definitely need to have this conversation.”

Dick nods, with a grimace that doesn't quite develop into a smile. “We will.”

“You're a great example,” Jason blurts, because Dick is probably about to follow Damian, who looks ready to leave.

Dick blushes, and when he blushes, he blushes very vividly, and very profusely. “Oh. I mean. I was thinking. There’s really no such thing as a good example, you know? Everyone is their own original individual, and nobody is really better or worse than anybody else, if you really think about it. But I think. I do want to have an influence. I mean, I do, whether I want to or not. But I want to have a very intentional kind of influence. Yeah.” He looks down at Damian, very ready to escape this interaction. “Are you ready to go?”

Jason is almost at his wits end with being merciful today, and it's not even noon. “I can't believe you're saying that, having created the role that exactly three other people in this room all wanted to have.”

Dick freezes in place, his flush visible from all angles. “Yeah, I mean. I guess that's my influence.” He slumps, and he looks one more word out of Jason away from dragging Damian out of the room.

Damian’s eyes flicker towards Jason, who tries to look nonthreatening and ready to let things go, and then back towards Dick.  “I wanted to play chess.” 

“That sounds fun!” Dick says. “I mean, did you mean alone? Or can I play?”

Damian smirks. “I suppose. So long as you do not take it as an opportunity.”

“Opportunity?” Dick plays dumb for a moment before realising that playing dumb in front of Damian is untenable. “Oh, I promise! You should know that I don't expect you to talk about anything. But you should also know! Chess is all about opportunity.”

Jason tells them that he'll see them later, knowing that Dick is going to be good at chess. Alone at the kitchen island, Jason realises that he feels completely exhausted. Part of him doesn't think he can survive another conversation about children being abused, and that part of him is even more doubtful knowing that he's partnered up with Tim, who Jason is so sick of. But Tim is probably feeling more or less the same as Jason, and Renee asked for them, which means they need to meet her when she's ready to meet, or she might never feel ready again. Speaking of Tim, Tim and Alfred are taking some time to make a drink.

They're surprisingly far from Jason, in this enormous almost-industrial kitchen, but he can hear them pretty well, Tim saying something about No please don't bring out the espresso machine just for coffee, and the clamour of Alfred dragging a large barista-grade espresso machine across the counter. They're having fun, or, at least, Alfred is having fun. Jason turns to the commercial three-bay sink behind him and figures that he has some time to kill. He rounds up the dishes nearest to him, hoping that Tim will keep Alfred occupied. The last several times Jason had attempted this manoeuvre, he had been intercepted by Alfred.

Jason still feels pretty fluent in how to use the sink, even though he's a little nervous about accidentally doing something to ruin Alfred's system, and even though the last time he used one of these daily was when he was much, much shorter, so the view and reach of everything was much different. The wage was food, and there were several coworkers around his age, so it was all very above board. There was no reason to pay the minimum wage to adult workers when children would accept much, much less, and half the amount of total wages paid to workers could be paid to auditors or inspectors. The race to the bottom in Gotham fueled unemployment, further perpetuating horrible life chances for children like Jason. The twisted logic of Gotham’s economy still amazes Jason to this day, and Jason knows that while it is slightly less prevalent, it is still happening.

As solo Red Hood, he tried to seek out these establishments, but also found himself stuck. Because how could he guarantee that each and every child would end up in a better situation, with the restaurant closed? What would happen to the owners and their dependents? The most harrowing thing about restaurants like these is that their dubious labour practices keep prices very low. For many people, these restaurants supply the only affordable legitimate meal, while cooking for themselves might involve some iteration of salt, rice, beans, and tinned meat, especially if they are tired, which they almost certainly are. Jason was stumped, and he still is.

“Master Jason,” Alfred calls in a warning tone, hearing the washing and sanitising compartments fill. 

“I’ve got it,” Jason calls back, making sure he securely plugged both sinks. He locates the trash bin conveniently to the left of the sink, scraping what he can before dumping each dish into the rapidly filling wash sink. Jason guesses that he might be violating food hygiene standards, not that he was ever given any on-the-job training, and not that Gotham has any that are implemented widely to begin with, but he feels like a three-compartment sink is a little overkill for a household anyway.

Alfred doesn't come over and forcibly rip the dishes out of Jason's gloved hands, so Jason continues, trying to remember how Alfred stores uneaten food. He has never seen Alfred slap a piece of foil over a plate, so Jason wanders the kitchen as non-invasively as possible for something suitably air-tight. Meanwhile, Alfred steams a portion of milk using an appendage on the espresso machine, and Tim is beginning to pivot from embarrassed to fascinated. For Tim's love of caffeine, Jason can hardly believe that he's never seen an espresso machine.

Jason has plenty of theories about Tim, but none of them feel convincing. Jason asked who Tim was going on ‘vacation’ with very early on, but nobody knew. Jason didn't press for answers, somewhat dreading Tim's return. But a bad internship is so interesting, because not just anyone can intern at a place like Drake Consultants in a role that involves direct contact with Jack and Janet Drake, and, at that, at a very young age. Drake Consultants isn't a massive consultancy, but the conversation felt so personal. 

They're all lying. That's a theory that feels right, to Jason. 

Jason turns the washing fluid and sanitiser taps off, impressed that there is somehow a seemingly endless supply of diluted soap and sanitiser. Jason remembers trying to mix the right concentrations using the tiny instructions on the bottles, back when he was almost illiterate. Eventually he found concentrations that worked for him by burning his skin off in the sanitising fluid, and by almost getting “fired” for using too much soap. He's about to look in a tenth cupboard for some kind of food storage container, when Alfred tells him to stand down, and Tim shows off his latte.

“It’s a heart!” Tim says excitedly to Jason.

Jason is not surprised at all by Alfred's endless number of skills. “That's really beautiful, Alfred.”

Alfred glows, and Tim almost takes a sip. “I feel so bad destroying the art.”

“I can make another,” Alfred points out.

Tim still looks hesitant, but an idea comes to mind. “I could take a picture.” He pats his pocket. “I left my phone in my room.”

Jason has his phone. He strips off his sudsy rubber gloves to fish it out of his pocket. “Just use mine.”

“Thank you!” Tim says, looking around the kitchen, clutching the latte so protectively that a nuclear detonator might be submerged inside. “I just need to set this down carefully somewhere. Somewhere with good lighting.”

Jason watches the very full and very large, almost soup-bowl size latte slosh minutely in Tim's hands, and makes a decision. He's not sure how Tim made it across the kitchen without disturbing the art or spilling a drop, but then Jason is very sure. Steady hands, Jason remembers. Even so, Jason asks, “Are you sure you don't want to be in the picture?”

Tim ponders this question with a seriousness that makes Jason want to smile. “I don't see how I could hold it so that the latte art is visible. Even if it were possible, I think it would make more sense for Alfred to be in the picture, since he made it. Also.” Tim looks at Jason with that focussed attention that makes even Jason feel self-conscious. “I don't know how to be in a photo, honestly. You make it look so easy.”

Jason can admit that the possibility of being photographed at any moment did make Jason more cognisant of his posture, his facial expressions, and, generally, his appearance. But Jason can also admit that the photographer makes a difference. Tim's photos that he sent to the press were so flattering that Jason was very embarrassed the first time he saw himself in pictures and video footage taken by the media.

“You can use my phone,” Jason offers again. “If you let me try to take a picture, too.”

Tim looks confused. “Of course you can. It's your phone.”

“Of you,” Jason finishes, very deliberately belated.

“No, wait,” Tim groans.

“You said it,” Jason says, waving his phone. “It's my phone.”

“I really can't,” Tim reiterates. “I don't know how.”

“Consider this your media training,” Jason grins, already navigating to his camera app. “We're already dealing in global issues, after all.”

Tim bites his lip. “I crossed a line.”

Part of Jason wants to comfort Tim, but Jason has already maxed out his mercy quota for today. Any more acts of mercy, and he'll become a saint, and that's the last thing he wants. He's already died. “You said it,” Jason reminds Tim. “Didn't you say that Alfred should be in the photo? Alfred, would you like to stand next to Tim?”

“I would love a photograph,” Alfred says, slotting into the epitome of a butler pose. 

“Um,” Tim says, still hunched over the latte like it's going to be sniped if he's not careful. “What do I do now?”

That's a good question. Jason holds up his phone, trying to frame the shot. Tim makes this look very easy. “I honestly don't know how to do this, either.”

Tim laughs, and that's a very good look on him. “What do you think looks good? You can do it.”

“I don't know,” Jason lies, and also doesn't, zooming in and out on Tim to no avail. 

“Hmm,” Tim says thoughtfully. “This is something that I do, every once in a while when I only have my phone. I take a video, and then I screenshot the video. What do you think?”

Jason does not trust his ability to take a quality video any more than a photo, but Jason thinks that the candidness might help Tim a lot. “I like it,” Jason agrees, and he presses the record button. “I'm recording. What have we got here today?”

“I'm Tim,” Tim says, so redundantly that Jason can't stifle a breathy laugh behind the camera, and Tim immediately breaks character. “Wait, sorry. Was that- weird?”

“We know who you are, Tim,” Jason assures, and it's hard to talk and keep the phone still. “But it's okay. You are not weird. What are you holding?”

“Alfred made me this latte today,” Tim says in a volume that is much louder than normal for him, beginning to dissolve into some more authentic expression, which Jason is going for. “It looks amazing. Thank you, Alfred!”

Alfred has a timeless quality on camera, very photogenic in the way people from old, old photographs are. “You are welcome, Master Timothy. I feel that I should remind you that it tastes much better when it is still hot.”

“I can't wait to try it,” Tim says. “But I want to show the latte art first. I don't want to lose it.” He shuffles closer to the phone.

“I'm zooming in,” Jason announces.

“Can you see it?”

Jason feels really under pressure to capture a good view of the latte for Tim, a pressure which is disarmingly stressful. What do you think looks good? Jason remembers, and Jason tries, so hard. Tim really found fun in doing this every single night, for years, if the accounts are true. “Yes,” Jason says eventually.

“I'm going to have a taste,” Tim tells Alfred, and Jason hurries to zoom out and pan the camera accordingly.

“What do you think?” Alfred asks, arms behind his back, and he seems slightly nervous.

Tim’s eyes widen so much, and Jason resists his mischievous urge to zoom in for comedic effect, because maybe he's also annoyed that Tim is that overjoyed over a drink. There's a resonance to the detail that's blurrily sad, and Jason can't figure it out. “This tastes so different from the latte sachets I use. I didn't know a latte could taste this good.”

“I did say that,” Alfred says, and he clasps his hands, betraying his sense of accomplishment.

Tim looks down into the cup. “I tried not to ruin the art, but I did.”

“That is exactly how the art is meant to be consumed,” Alfred advises.

This idea seems to take a hold of Tim, and he takes another long drink. “This is so amazing. I don’t taste any water at all.”

Jason does successfully stifle his laugh this time, somehow. While this is probably the highest possible praise Tim can think of, that has to be such disappointing feedback for Alfred, the professional.

Alfred looks at Jason's phone, breaking the fourth wall. “Thank you, Master Timothy.”

Tim follows Alfred's gaze. “Jason!” Tim remembers. “Do you want to try? I really want you to try. It's really good.”

“I'm filming,” Jason says.

“I can make Master Jason his own, anytime,” says Alfred.

“Exactly,” affirms Jason.

Tim nods, finally agreeing. “It’s probably better that Jason has his own, instead of drinking after me.”

Jason groans internally, wondering why Tim has to put it that way. He relents. “I'll try a sip, just for taste.”

“Are you sure, Master Jason?” Alfred asks.

“It doesn't taste like water at all,” Jason says, solely teasing Alfred. “How can I resist?”

Jason hands the phone off to an exasperated Alfred, feeling much more relaxed already. He takes the mug from Tim delicately, now filled with a new anxiety that he'll spill the precious latte.

Tim laughs again, and Jason finally registers that he has not actually heard Tim laugh, at least, not like this, ever, possibly. Tim reassures Jason. “It's okay if you spill some. There's a lot.”

“I'm just going to have a sip,” Jason reiterates. The latte tastes like a latte to Jason, but he can tell that it's leagues above the stuff that he tried before out of desperation. “I don't taste any water at all,” Jason tells Alfred behind the phone camera.

“Many thanks, Master Jason,” Alfred deadpans.

“I was rude,” Tim realises, looking back and forth. 

Jason hands the latte back to Tim with the same caution as before. “No. You just said your opinion. So did I. I don't like to have caffeine, and Alfred knows that, so don't worry so much.”

Tim lowers the latte slightly, still careful. “I didn't mean to force it on you.”

Jason sighs, but he doesn't feel as annoyed as he thought he would. “Then don't let me force things on you.”

Tim frowns, which Jason detects as genuine. “I don't remember you doing that.”

Jason finds it in himself to perform one last merciful, saintly act, mostly sure that it won't kill him, and doesn't force Tim to try to remember. “Just say that you don't like apple cider, next time.”

Tim recalls immediately. “It's not that I don't like it. I was just nervous. I couldn't taste anything.”

Jason feels that his point still stands. “Then just say that you're too nervous.”

Tim looks away, uncertain. “I guess I wasn't really nervous, either.”

“What does that mean?” Jason asks, now actually becoming nervous.

Tim takes a long sip of his latte, and Jason is pretty sure that he is aiming to finish the whole thing. Jason waits, thinking. Tim suddenly exclaims. “I spilled it. No. No. No.”

Jason sees exactly what Tim means, a feathered brown stain on the cuff of the right sleeve. By the pattern and light opacity of the stain, Jason suspects Tim accidentally dipped the sleeve along the rim of the cup. 

“That's fine,” Jason is quick to say. “It's so light. It will come out. Alfred has his ways.” Jason is waiting to feel fury, hysterical, but he feels nothing. He is very surprised that he emotionally accepts that these pyjamas are Tim's now. Jason rarely expects anything out of himself these days, so when he does exceed his own expectations, it's nothing to really celebrate. But he does, and can't help it, because he really, really didn't want to not want to give Tim the pyjamas, much in the same way that he didn't want to hate Bruce.

“I'm so sorry,” Tim says to Jason. “You just gave me these.”

“It's going to come out.” Jason repeats himself, and he doesn't mind. “And on the one percent chance it doesn't, it's light brown on dark blue. I can barely see it.”

“It will come out,” Alfred reassures, and Jason absently wonders if he's still filming this.

“It means so much to me,” Tim tries to explain, and Jason does know that.

“It helps, right?” Jason prompts, wondering how much he'll get out of the question.

Tim fixates on the stain. “That's not what I mean. I mean that I really miss Robin, too. I hate it, so much, that you didn't grow out of this gradually, but suddenly. I don't understand how I could be so careless, to eat and drink in this.”

“Tim,” Jason says, and he wonders how much of what he says is for him, and how much is for himself. “It's just a pyjama set. It's not my corpse. I'm my corpse. Look, I spill things on it all the time.”

Tim gapes at Jason, eyes flashing with an emotion beyond incredulous, beyond concerned. He laughs a little, and then a little more, and then he's laughing the way he had minutes earlier. He clutches the emptied mug for support. “Jason, I'm so sorry. That's not funny. I'm so sorry. That's- I'm sorry.”

That's funny, because Jason was so sure that he lost his funny bone. “I'm not funny,” he says, injecting his tone with hurt and disappointment.

“No! You are, you definitely are,” Tim says quickly, catching his breath. “But it was also so disturbed. I couldn't tell what you were thinking at all. It made me feel so much emotion, and somehow, I had to laugh.” He sucks in a deep breath, and the starry-eyed gaze makes a return. “You are so funny. I'm so, so happy that you're back.”

Jason didn't want to hear that. Jason didn't need to hear that. But, fine, Jason can return the favour, and tell Tim what he wants and needs to hear, too. “I'm happy to be back,” Jason says, and his smile blooms unbidden. He studies the stain, and he realises something. “If I was dead, that sleeve would have stayed spotless, pristine, forever.” Before Tim has even a moment to feel guilty, Jason continues. “But it's much, much better, lived in, and worn.”

Tim grips the stain, tracing his thumb on the outline. “Are you sure?”

Jason doesn't need Tim's opportunity to back out. He doesn't even want it. Jason thinks about saying I love you, but he'll exceed his mercy quota just once more, for himself. “I'm very happy to be here with you.”

“Me too,” Tim grins, very genuinely, very hyper, almost in a boyish way. “You have no idea.”

Jason believes him.

Notes:

hopefully the double meaning of "hard to love" came through? i really like double meanings

thank you thank you to anyone who has gotten to this point. your patience with this story means everything to me.

Chapter 8: the song we couldn't write, this is what it sounds like

Summary:

*content warning*: vague reference to drug use & brief discussion of suicidal intentions

guys…when is this story gunna end (sobs)

the first part of this chapter is for anyone who has musical instrument lessons trauma XD...it's not funny tho is it :' ( but seriously what is this story even about anymore???

also i ADDED themes in this chapter that i probs need to follow up on...WHY do i keep DOING this even though this is why we're in this sorry situation in the first place

(13-08-2025)

Notes:

how obvious is it that my research into canon for this is googling one very specific question at a time and clicking on the first tumblr/reddit/wiki post? i know it's obvious, but how obvious? noticeably obvious or very distractingly obvious LMAO

chapter title from, that one movie (sobs i love it so much)

Jason notes the time. He and Tim can't afford to be late. While Tim dunks his cup in the washing sink, Jason retrieves his phone from Alfred. The video is long, and Jason scrolls through the frames, confirming that, yes, everything was recorded.

“I did not know how to stop the video,” Alfred explains, looking over Jason's shoulder. “Eventually I found the button to do so.”

“That’s very convenient timing,” Jason says, observing that the video ends right as he mentions the time.

“Yes, it was,” Alfred agrees. He shoos Tim and Jason away from the sink, donning the rubber gloves Jason left on the countertop. Jason thought he might have contaminated them for Alfred, but Alfred scrubs the dishes, wearing the gloves Jason wore, without a second thought. “I will sort out your pyjamas, Master Timothy, and I will leave a change of clothes.”

Tim seems disappointed about some part of what Alfred said, but he says, “Thank you so much, Alfred.” He takes his turn looking around Jason's shoulder. “That looks really good!” 

“Really?” Jason asks, self-conscious once again due to Tim's rapt attention. He stops scrolling through the frames. “I did promise that you could take a picture. Is a screenshot good enough?”

Tim shakes his head, scaring Jason for a moment. “You and Alfred need to take the screenshots. You've already come this far. I'm excited to see your pictures.” He twists to see Jason's expression more clearly, hopeful that Jason will agree.

Jason feels slightly jittery because Tim is excited to see the pictures Jason takes. His opinion matters to Tim, which Jason always knew at some level, but Jason cannot pinpoint when that knowledge started threatening to improve his quality of life. “Fine,” Jason agrees. “But later.”

Tim points to the time at the top right corner of Jason's phone. “We have a little time. Just one quick screenshot? Please? I can't wait that long.”

Jason checks Tim's expression and confirms that Tim is having so much fun. “You're putting me under time pressure,” Jason protests without any real resistance. “But that's nothing to an artistic prodigy like me.” He also knows that Tim is dreading their next appointment as much as Jason is. He needs a tether, and Jason knows how that can be. Jason scrolls through the video again, looking for the latte close-up. When he finds the string of frames, he finds himself overwhelmed by choice.

“What are you thinking?” Tim prompts. 

“Nothing, really,” Jason lies. He wishes Tim would give him an inkling of what he likes, which is a little funny, because Tim has so many photos that Jason could study to figure out what he likes. Jason remembers how Tim explained his photo at the gala, and how the video idea came up in the first place. Jason comes to a conclusion. Tim would like the frame with the clearest view of the art.

Jason isn't really a perfectionist, but he thinks it's stressful, trying to compare and contrast all these different frames for the clearest view. He glances at Tim briefly, feeling acutely inferior, not for the first time. But Tim is watching Jason's expression with warmth. “Which frame do you like? It's okay if you're not sure. You can always come back to the video and pick a different one later.”

Jason realises that is true. But he continues scrolling back and forth between the frames fruitlessly. He asks for Tim's help, at last. “I want the clearest one.”

Tim inspects the frames carefully, and then Jason's face with an expression that is too knowing for Jason's tastes. And then he smiles. “You did really well. They all look clear to me.”

Jason hates Tim for his stupidly effective encouragement. But then Jason remembers that Dick received virtually the same treatment at the gala, and Jason feels less embarrassed. At the gala, Tim talked about all sorts of things that weren't in the picture, which inspires Jason with an idea. Jason unmutes the audio and listens.

“Ow, my voice.” Tim covers his ears.

“You'll have to get used to that,” Jason says, pretending to miss how that gives Tim pause. He at last hears Tim's Can you see it? and pauses the video on that frame. “I want this frame,” he tells Tim. 

Tim uncovers his ears tentatively and focuses on the said frame once reassured he won't be tortured with his own likeness. He asks Jason with genuine interest, “What do you like about this frame?” His eyes sparkle with passion, and Jason doesn't feel judged or tested. He feels consulted, and he thinks that's so awkward, given that he's the beginner.

Jason feels himself beginning to want more positive feedback, and that feeling is even more embarrassing in light of the context that he probably is going to get unconditionally positive encouragement from Tim. Even so, Jason can't help but explain himself. “At this frame, in the audio, you asked ‘Can you see it?’ And I wanted to get the clearest frame. So, I don't know. It made sense in my head.”

Tim gasps, delighted, and Jason wonders where Tim learned his mid-Atlantic mannerisms from. It's as if a detective noir film taught Tim how to talk, even though Tim doesn't necessarily pronounce words like that. It's just his cadence, his vocabulary, his syntax, it's all very northeastern elite to Jason. “Jason, that's so lovely. I think it's so clear!” He pauses for Jason to absorb the play on words, which Jason does, and Tim talks more quickly as his excitement increases. “You took advantage of a quality specific to the medium, the audiovisual aspect, to intentionally select a very specific moment in time, a layer of meaning which most photos can't capture! And then you picked specific words that represent the intention behind the photo! I really wanted to have a picture of Alfred’s art, so you wanted to take a clear picture of it for me, and in that way you commemorate that you care about me.” Tim stops abruptly, shocking himself, watching Jason with a mix of confusion and regret.

Jason can't even laugh because he's still recovering from the volley of praise. “You said it,” he manages.

TIm shifts his weight, determined to deflect the subtext. “I got carried away with my own interpretation. What was your process?”

Jason can't take this anymore. He might have to just say it. Part of Jason really wants Tim to know his process, and receive more glowing encouragement, and part of him wants to deflect Tim's deflection. “You wanted to remember Alfred's art, so I thought bringing another sense into the picture,” Jason pauses for Tim to recognise the play on words, which Tim does, “would make the memory clearer for you in the future. And in that way I can commemorate that I care about you.”

Tim stares, looking a little shattered, and that's when Jason realises that his opinion has always, always mattered to Tim, even back when Jason’s opinion was that Tim should be dead. He can't say anything to Tim about that, because Tim answers first. “That’s really so lovely, Jason. I hope you show me the other pictures if you take any, and I hope you liked trying it out. Do you know how to take the screenshot? There's a button specific to the gallery app. Yes, that's it. Will you send it to me? I really like it. I love it.”

Jason needs Tim to stop. He refuses to follow Dick's example and flush like a winning hand of poker. “Thanks. I'll send it now,” Jason says. He realises that he and Tim have a very dry message history. The last exchange they had was last week, with Tim asking Jason if he picked up the mail left for him on the counter, which Jason did pick up. Jason sends the photo. “We should really start to go,” he says.

Tim nods, not looking as dreadful as before. He and Jason tell Alfred that they'll see him later, and once Jason finally leaves the kitchen, he recognises just how suffocated he felt, maybe to do with childhood, maybe to do the several emotional breakdowns that he just experienced and witnessed. And then Bruce hugged him, or he hugged Bruce, and then Tim kept asking for Jason's opinion. It's so draining, his ever-layering, ever-grey knot of associations with kitchens. An ancient memory flashes behind Jason's eyes, of his mom heating a spoon over their single-burner stove when her lighter broke, burning through the last of their meagre gas ration. There went Jason's plans for making food. Thank god he had child labour to fall back on.

“So,” Tim breaks the silence, once he and Jason reach the Batcave. “What else did the police say this morning?” He stops before the door to the locker room. “You can go first.”

Jason doesn't mind. “Thanks.” He closes the door behind him and tries to figure out what Tim wants to know. “Nothing, really. I asked them what prompted the follow-up, because it was, unusually good, for them. They said that they received an anonymous tip, which makes sense. I think Babs recently revamped the anonymous tip intake, and she monitors it now. I bet the police don't even see the original tip. I bet she just tells them what to do, which is really funny to me. But I don't know how she makes the time, to be honest.”

Jason can hear Tim pretty well through the door. “That makes sense,” he says. “The form is really good. I should tell her that.”

“Hm?” Jason says, casually, very casually. He rustles his clothes extra loudly. “Have you seen it?”

Tim is silent, and Jason tries not to punctuate the silence. Jason shakes the wrinkles out of his pants before folding them. “Yes,” Tim eventually says. Because Tim doesn't elaborate, Jason knows that he struck gold. Tim changes the subject. “How is she, anyway?”

Jason realises that he hasn't seen Babs in a long time. She's very busy, and it's more than slightly inconvenient for her to come over here. Metropolis is far, all things considered, and Gotham is one of the least accessible cities in the country, if Jason had to guess, so that eliminates public transportation for her. If widely applicable food hygiene standards are a pipe dream, then accessible infrastructure is of legend. Jason stopped and stared the first time he saw a curb cut, somewhere around a gentrified Gotham development, because he assumed at first that someone damaged the concrete. And Jason doesn't blame Babs if she doesn't feel comfortable taking a taxi around Gotham alone. As a child with at least the grace of two moveable legs, Jason never considered getting in a Gotham taxi. It was notoriously difficult to determine which were associated with a legitimate company, and which were a front for something else. If Babs doesn't have a wheelchair accessible car, she’d probably have to wait for somebody to drive her, and that person is most likely to be her dad, who isn't exactly swimming in free time, either. 

Jason realises. Does she have a wheelchair accessible car? Wouldn't that solve everything? If she doesn't, that would be so easy for Bruce to figure out.

“We should ask,” Jason says. “Do you know if she drives?” He doesn't bother with his helmet today, opting for just the domino mask. “I'm opening the door,” Jason warns, so that Tim doesn't get whacked in the face.

“I don't know,” Tim admits, safely to the side of the door as Jason steps out. “I assume she used to, with her feet. I don't know what it takes to be able to drive with only hand controls.” Tim hesitates at the door, and then steps in the locker room as if diving headfirst into a frozen lake. The door closes, and Jason pretends not to hear it lock.

“I don't think she's even thought about it,” Jason speculates. “I don't think she's even been outside since moving to Metropolis.”

“Surely things aren't that bad,” Tim says unconvincingly, expressing more of a fading hope than actual reassurance. “Metropolis is a-” Jason hears a thump. “Metropolis is a nice city.”

Jason has a very clear memory of the moment he lost function of his legs. Thankfully, he didn't last long in that state. He perished, and when he returned, he was fully functional, generously speaking. “What if she doesn't want to go outside? It's probably easier to just- you know.” He remembers, and he imagines if that moment, a moment that felt like dying, because he did, lasted for a lifetime. “It's probably easier for her to just exist in her head. Or, the mind palace? Whatever you geniuses do.”

There's a clatter, and Tim says, “Genius is a social construct. Don't force that on me.” Jason doesn't like that Tim is already referencing Jason's moment of sappy weakness. “But, thank you. And don't rule yourself out. If it's easier for Babs to focus on Oracle, is it really going to be helpful for us to try to invite her here? I'm pretty sure that's where you’re going with this.”

Jason almost says that It wouldn't hurt to ask, but it could hurt to ask, especially because it took this long to ask. “Then, we just apologise if it's not.” He hears the door unlock, again pretending not to hear anything. Tim opens the door a smidge, checking that Jason is stepped to the side. When Tim steps out, Jason notes that there's something cringing about his movements, something Tim is probably trying to suppress with sheer force of will. Jason judges Tim for a moment, because now what? But then Jason remembers he's being hypocritical again. He wonders if he ever looks like Tim does.

Jason has gradually come to accept his "psychosomatic" pains as just that, except that he doesn't really accept them. As solo Red Hood, they were the least of his problems. Now, they're maddeningly distracting. Part of him has concluded that when he feels a burning electric shock dart up and down his spinal cord and radiate to every extremity randomly for hours at a time, that it's a memory. Part of him doubts it, and worries that he's dying all over again. This time, it's long-term. This time, it's debilitating. This time, he's really done for. No matter how many test results return normal, no matter how many specialist appointments lead nowhere, Jason can never surrender to uncertainty, especially because if he had a real disease, then maybe something could make it stop.

Tim pulls Jason out of his ruminations. “I think it's a good idea. We can talk to her later, if you want.”

“I want to,” Jason confirms. He checks the time, relieved to know that they're running slightly ahead of schedule. “Are you feeling sick?”

Tim leans against the wall, as if trying to become one with the reinforced concrete. “No, not at all,” he says. “I've always been in good health, fortunately.” He studies Jason with curiosity, and there's a weightlessness to his gaze that makes Jason feel fragile again. “I saw that you got mail from the hospital last week.”

Jason doesn't want to talk about this very much. It's a waste of resources. Not to mention that there's a freedom in the reality that he can pay for whatever he wants, a freedom that he's abusing. But it feels so different. It feels like living in a different world than in the one where he deserved so little that taking what he needed was a crime. “All my investigations are normal,” Jason explains. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Tim doesn't immediately answer. The way he looks at Jason almost makes Jason feel like he could tell Tim everything, and Tim would say again, like he did, you did the best that you could. “Does it hurt?” Tim asks. “To come back to life?”

Jason honestly doesn't know the answer to this question. "I don't know," he says.

Tim answers his own question. “It does hurt. Where?”

Where does it hurt? Where doesn't it hurt? And the word ‘hurt’ has lost all meaning to Jason. Does ‘hurt’ mean what feels like the cascading, compounding sensation of all the injuries he was spared from feeling during his time as a corpse, descending upon him suddenly, just to leave no trace or proof of the harm perpetrated against him, just to come around again, the pattern rhymeless, the prognosis indeterminable? He will never be able to answer Does it hurt? with yes or no without lying either way. People fortunately in good health, like Tim, will hopefully never have to grasp the concept. “Somewhere,” Jason tries.

To Tim's credit, he seems to already know that he can't know. He doesn't try to guess, or assume, which would only frustrate Jason more. “Now?”

“Not now,” Jason says. “Sooner or later.”

Tim nods, eager, relieved, filled with dread. “Will you say something?”

Jason feels a little bitter, and overwhelmed, because Tim is trying so hard, and Jason has no goodwill to extend. “What do I get if I say something?” He asks, trying to sound much more amused than he feels, because, really, what does he get if he says something? Relief? He doesn't think so.

Tim looks very lost, which, spitefully, brings Jason much satisfaction. “A…hug?” He suggests, and his tone tells Jason that he can surmise the futility of the idea before Jason even says anything. 

The imagination of what it would feel like to be touched during those times legitimately strikes fear into Jason, which makes Jason feel so stupid because nobody, including himself, can even see or hear anything bad happening to him during those times. Maybe touch wouldn't make a difference, or maybe it would make all the difference between curling up in a ball and jumping off a balcony. “No, please,” Jason says. “Definitely not.”

Now Tim looks fearful, and what right does Tim have to feel afraid, when he didn't even have to imagine what Jason just did? “Jason-”

“It's time to go,” Jason interrupts, turning to start walking.

Tim folds easily. “It is.” He takes disconcertingly slow and delicate steps after Jason, and Jason cannot shake a sense of alarm.

“Are you sure that you're feeling okay?” Jason decides to check one last time. 

“Yes, yes,” Tim says. “I just don't feel like this fits well anymore.”

Jason hadn't been expecting that, but he's also not that surprised. His intuition will coalesce these details into a coherent narrative, sooner or later. Tim had better get ready. “You could technically wear something else. All you really need is the mask.”

Tim shakes his head, slowly, tired. “It's not that uncomfortable. We need time to prepare.”

Jason sees that Tim has been taking notes from Dick's book of gesturing to legitimately pressing problems in order to avoid discussing his own. Jason is annoyed, to say the least, but he does need to find something. “Have you seen a plastic storage bin labelled ‘voice of the child’ anywhere around here?” He trusts that Tim will know. Jason hasn't had an opportunity to use his it since his solo Red Hood days, and when he lugged it here along with several other things that he left heaped in a pile, uncertain of where his things belonged, the bin disappeared. Jason isn't concerned, assuming that Alfred stored the contents of the pile for Jason.

Tim recalls almost instantaneously. “I was wondering what that was. I can show you where it is.”

“That's alright,” Jason says. “Do you mind getting it for me? I'll get the Batmobile ready to go.”

Tim almost falls over. “We're going to a meeting with a child and probably also her guardians in a stolen armoured vehicle?” He makes sure to sound scandalised, but he's smiling.

“Of course we are,” Jason confirms. “Don't kids love seeing the Batmobile? I sure did. Great tires on that thing.”

“I guess I did, too,” Tim says, looking more and more excited. “Okay, then. Meet you there.”

Jason needs his joyride before this appointment in the same way that Tim needed his photoshoot. Jason also needs time to think, alone, and the time it takes to go to the Batmobile might be all he gets. The Batmobile isn't time-consuming to get going, practically, it can't be, and he already knows the indirect route that he needs to take, having been plotting this for ages. 

The problem with the fact that Jason has no idea what the anonymous tip said (although he feels like Tim might know, somehow), and the problem with the police enthusiastically foisting this ‘police interview’ on Jason and Tim without any guidance, overloaded with other urgent tasks, is that Jason has no idea what exactly the purpose of this meeting is. The aunt and uncle sounded open to the idea of their visit over the phone, but he doesn't know what their expectations are. On a brighter note, they let Jason speak directly to Renee on the phone, which Jason thought was all well and good. Jason was blunt, and told Renee that the meeting would be about what happened to her, how it happened, and what will happen to help her get better, because all of that is important. Renee agreed to meet, saying only “yes” and other one-word answers to all of Jason's questions despite Jason's attempts to give her control over the location and the time of the meeting. Jason wonders if she's still freezing or fawning, just as she was when Jason took her to get ice cream.

This isn't Jason's first meeting with a child about their experiences of exploitation. He met too many children like Renee in his line of work, and he realised after only a week of becoming Red Hood that he needed to develop a more specialised skillset. Until his approach is proven otherwise, Jason will assume that an interview structured around Renee’s recovery needs will be good enough. Given that Renee’s life was clearly at stake as an accomplice, and, crucially, that Renee's family are wealthy and powerful, the police and the prosecution won't bother with trying to charge Renee with anything. Jason hopes that Tim and Jason can report back to the police that Renee was interviewed, and they'll happily check the box and plow onto the next crime, so that everything Renee talks about can be kept confidential.

Another chafing detail about Renee's family is that Jason knows the uncle and aunt personally as Gotham City Bank executives, so Jason needs to be very careful with what he knows, and what he talks about as Red Hood. He already almost forgot to ask them their address, because who in Gotham's upper echelons isn't aware of the sprawling estate that they live on? Sometimes Jason wishes he could compartmentalise as well as Bruce does, but then he doesn't, because Bruce seems miserable.

With possible snags meticulously identified to the best of Jason's ability, Jason rewards himself by sliding into the driver's seat of the Batmobile, feet already itching to slam the pedal to the metal. He peruses the shiny buttons, switches, levers, and displays on the dash with satisfaction and reminds himself that launching an explosive outside of Renee's residence would not universally be received as ‘cool,’ even though Jason would have loved it as a kid if the Batmobile appeared and exploded something in front of him.

A display lights up and signals to Jason that Tim is approaching, so Jason opens the passenger-side door for him. Seconds later, Tim slides into his seat, positioning Jason's treasured possession on his lap, and it looks exactly the same as Jason left it, still an opaque purple bankers-box-sized plastic bin with ‘voice of the child’ affixed to the side in shiny lettering he found at a teacher supply store.

“Seatbelt,” Jason says, locating a button that looks like it will close the door for Tim, and he feels great when the door does close. Jason and the Batmobile are meant to be; they just speak the same language. “You're going to need it.”

Tim scrounges the black-on-black interior trim to buckle himself in, and he checks Jason’s seatbelt, satisfied that Jason is following his own advice. “Hopefully I found the right thing?”

Jason nods, focussed now on getting ready to drive. “Exactly the right thing. Thank you.”

Tim pats the bin cheerfully, rearing to go. “Do you mind if I look inside?”

Jason would prefer that Tim previews the contents of the bin before having the meeting, so Jason is relieved that Tim made the suggestion and seems interested. “I would appreciate it if you did, actually.” Jason finally feels situated, and he taps the gear selector in anticipation. “But after we make it out of this cave system. I have a good feeling that it's going to be a wild ride. Are you ready?”

Tim nods eagerly, holding the bin more tightly. “I'm so ready.”

And they're off. The cave system is winding, marred with narrow passages, sudden drops, and dead ends, but Jason has been paying close attention. He doesn't slow down for anything, and the unbridled glee on Tim's face only eggs Jason on.

“Do you know how to drive?” Jason asks Tim, realising that the road noise in the Batmobile is minimal, and knowing that is probably important to Bruce. 

“Yes,” Tim says, fixated on the leap over a small chasm that Jason is about to make. “But I don't have a driver's license.”

“That's illegal,” Jason points out. “How do you get around?” He swerves a random stalagmite erupting from the middle of the path.

Tim's voice shakes with the roughness of the road. “I walk. I live not far from here.” And, wow, that's a significant admission.

“Where do you live?” Jason tries, not expecting anything. 

Tim bounces in his seat, despite the seatbelt, as the Batmobile hits the ground after a few seconds of airtime. “Not far.”

“Ha,” Jason says, and he begins to see the light at the end of a tunnel. If he navigated correctly, they'll emerge into a nature reserve very near the grounds of Renee’s family. It's a desolate area, neither private property nor public lands, a very convenient ‘error’ that Oracle orchestrated, meaning that on land use maps the reserve shows as set aside for conservation purposes, but nobody is actually authorised to monitor or maintain it, not even the Bureau of Land Management. There are no official roads leading to or from it, but that's not an issue for the Batmobile. “Where's ‘not far?’”

Tim braces himself for a steep, almost vertical incline to the mouth of the cave, and Jason is determined to make it out on the first try. When he's successful and the Batmobile seems to spawn into the reserve out of nowhere, Tim claps, and he grins at Jason. “Thank you for that,” Tim says sincerely. “That was fun.”

Jason plots his route down from this mound of boulders to the nondescript gravel path ahead, which he believes will take him to the county road that he needs. “The pleasure is mine.” He needs to focus to reach level ground, and then he asks again, “Seriously, where do you mean by ‘not far?’”

Tim's smile fades, and he traces the edge of the bin, taking in the peaceful scenery around them. “I feel that if people really wanted to know, they would have found out, by now.”

It's crystal clear who ‘people’ and ‘they’ are. Jason reaches the beginning of the gravel path and keeps an eye out for the turn he needs. “I’m sure people do want to know,” is all he can say, because he also has questions about why the topic of Tim's civilian identity has been handled the way it has.

“Can I look inside the bin, now?” Tim asks.

“You may,” Jason says, slightly disappointed that he now needs to follow traffic rules and regulations for the most part.

Tim shifts the lid off. “There's a lot in here.”

Jason amassed a plentiful collection in a really short time, if he does say so himself. “We probably won't use all of it. By the way, do you by any chance know what the anonymous tip said?” He sees the turn, and he makes it, the Batmobile devouring both lanes of the scrawny county road. 

Tim hesitates. “Yes, probably? I wrote a tip, very specifically suggesting a police interview. I wanted the police to follow up with Renee, because-” He fits the lid back onto the bin. “I thought it was important to establish as much as possible what happened during the three days Renee went missing, and to see how she's recovering. I didn't think we would end up doing the interview.”

Jason feels relieved listening to Tim, because Tim seems to have the same focus and intention as Jason does, but Jason's sixth sense pesters him again to read between the lines. “What made you think it was important?” 

Tim shrugs, and Jason senses that Tim truly can't articulate what it is. “Something about Renee. Something about the professor.”

“Renee I understand, completely,” Jason agrees, noting that they have crossed into the bounds of Renee's estate, demarcated by a tacky stone obelisk, of all things. But the grounds are enormous, and Jason knows there's still more driving time to go. “What about the professor?” Jason wonders why everyone has to call her that by that title. It makes her infamous, in the same way that the Joker is, and they really like infamy.

“When I was with her,” Tim begins, and the way he starts that sentence makes Jason feel cold, which makes Jason so anxious for everything to click, but it's still so confusing. “How do I explain this? It was just the way that she tried to become my friend, and then turned around and trapped me.”

Jason takes a shaky breath, a sinking feeling inking the afterglow of his joyride. “I hate that you experienced that. I'm sorry. I haven't listened to the confession tape, yet. I tried again, last night. But it's hard to listen to.”

Tim blinks. “I tried to suppress the background noise, and even though I modulated my voice, I thought it still sounded clear. Is the audio quality still bad?”

Jason already feels so depressed, and the interview hasn't even started. “It's because I know what happens at the end. It's hard to listen to that happen to you. And it's even harder to listen knowing that you're just going along with it.”

Tim turns to look at Jason directly, rather than out the window. “You know what happens at the end?”

Jason grips the steering wheel, composing himself. He takes in the splendour of the lake to his left, complete with a pier and a small fishing boat, which does not refresh him but irritate him even more. Jason knows from attending parties at the estate that it isn't natural. It was dug by hand by people who probably had no other choice, for the sole purpose of impressing guests with fresh fish, and passed down through the generations for the same purpose. “Remember when you quarantined yourself on a rooftop, defusing your own bomb vest? Or did something else happen that I'm not aware of?”

Tim inhales shakily, even though the pavement is perfectly smooth. “I could have killed you. Just like-”

“No, Tim,” Jason interrupts. “Stop right there. Besides, you picked the right wire.”

Tim looks out the window again, but he doesn't seem to be taking anything in, which should surprise Jason, since the artist in Tim might like the picturesque serenity of the grounds, but doesn't surprise Jason.

Jason can't hold this back when it's just the two of them. “You weren't trying to.”

Tim flinches, because he can't deny a statement like that. He can't pretend away a statement like that, when Jason was there, about to explode with him.

“Well,” Jason exhales. “What am I going to say about it? I tried to kill you on purpose.”

Tim covers his face in his hands. “Jason. I'm so sorry. I don't know how I must seem to you. You actually died, and it was horrible, beyond horrible, and then, there I was, trying to. That must be so- I don't even know.” He lowers his hands, watching Jason bravely.

Jason thinks about this. “You know, that actually doesn't bother me. I've had similar thoughts, even after dying once. What did really suck for me, though, was that I wanted to kill you, and you already wanted to be killed. Giving my victim exactly what he wants doesn't make for very great revenge, does it?” 

Tim shakes with the beginnings of a frail chuckle. “Dying for someone doesn't really work if they die, too.”

Jason nods slowly. “That's very poetic. You know, Tim, even if I hadn't been there, you may have killed us anyway.” He spots a mansion on the horizon. “We're almost there. I want to give you an overview of how this is going to work, if you're ready.”

“Yes,” Tim sits up in his seat. “I've heard that you're really good at having these interviews.”

“‘Good’ might be overstating it,” Jason says. “I try really hard, and I think the effort is meaningful to people.” He organises his thoughts, glancing at Tim. “First thing is that we need to be very clear on what we're each doing. If we contradict each other, if there's any hint of tension, then Renee is not going to feel comfortable telling us about the worst moments of her life.”

“True,” Tim realises. He raps his fingers nervously on the bin. “What would you like me to do? I can take notes.”

Jason appreciates the thought. “Maybe another time. The problem with notes is that I like to show what I wrote at the end, and then there's the added burden of safekeeping them. Plus, I already know we're going to write a very barebones report to the police for the casefile, so no need to record specific detail. If Gotham was a city with a robust recordkeeping system for children, and if it was likely that some social service would meaningfully follow-up with Renee in the future, then more detailed notes would help Renee not have to repeat herself. But in our system, it's more of a risk to record so much sensitive information for no real reason.”

Tim looks even more nervous. “So I need to help talk. I guess I can't just stare at Renee the whole time. That would feel strange for her.”

Jason smiles, starting to feel a little excited, but still terrified, ambivalent in same the way he feels before starting patrol. Tim is really going to be good. But Jason already knew that. “It’s going to be okay. I can lead. But I'll ask you if there's anything you want to ask or say before we move onto the next topic. Do you think that will work?” Jason sees the tops of manicured hedges behind the mansion, the garden. He can also make out the looped driveway, much like those in front of hotels, and figures he can park the Batmobile there.

“I think that will help me a lot,” Tim agrees, already more relaxed than he was. “And I'll try my best to help you, and Renee.” He squints. “I think I see three people coming down the steps.” He sighs. “That's a lot of steps. I can't wait.”

“Are you feeling tired?” Jason asks.

“Not tired,” Tim says. “Uncoordinated, maybe? How about you?”

Jason hates this question as much as he's always wanted to be asked about it. “Sooner or later,” he predicts.

Tim looks fearful again, but Jason doesn't feel as annoyed this time.

Jason wonders if their synergy developed newborn out the past several hours or days, or if they always had the potential to coexist so easily and so honestly, even when Jason's life gave way for Tim's, and even when Tim tried to give way for Jason. Jason never dreamed of a day like today, both of them enjoying the same life at the same time, and space-time doesn't feel overcrowded. Neither of them are redundant. Neither of them are the understudy.

Jason keeps an eye on the shortest figure of the three figures as he pulls into the loop, and watches for any other short figures using the displays on the dash, knowing that Renee is the only child on this entire grounds, but still wary due to the sheer size of the Batmobile. He slows, engaging the parking brake at the base of the steps, and the family is standing out there, waiting. “How are you feeling?”

Tim checks the time. “Good. Right on time.”

“Good.” Jason grins for Tim's benefit, and it doesn't matter that Jason has paid a visit like this before. He was never formally trained, and he's inexperienced, and so he feels like he might throw up. He knows he'll miss things and have to learn from the experience. But he can give Tim the hand to hold, this time. “Alright then. Onwards.” 

Notes:

i had to reread the previous chapters and by god. pain. pain. pain. pain. but its ok cause that pain fuels my power (the sting of regret) to write the next chapter

I DON'T KNOW WHY IT SAYS LOCKER ROOM I THINK IT DID EARLIER (yeah tbh i kept skipping parts out of aversion even tho i was supposed to be rereading for continuity purposes) AND WHY WOULD I EVER FIX SOMETHING OR FIGURE OUT THE CORRECT WAY THAT THEY CHANGE CLOTHES WHEN I CAN JUST DOUBLE DOWN STUBBORNLY

also trying to figure out how they call things. like, suit, uniform, costume? (i've never tried to figure it out i'm like a test taker who keeps picking A trusting that it will be right eventually) stresses me out so fucking much and i keep writing chapters anyway, why? why?

Chapter 9: if i didn't tell her, i could leave today

Summary:

*******content warnings********: really really dark family dynamics at some points; maternal mortality; discussions of suicide, alcohol dependency; discussions of csa; descriptions of child abuse and (non-sexual) grooming and child criminal exploitation/forced crime; this chapter was hell to write, guessing it might also read that way. please stay safe. lmk if i can add more warnings!

this chapter has the most development of the original topic that i promised i was gonna write about, several chapters ago, so, lmao. i think the topic still needs some more work after this

(15-08-2025)

Notes:

idk how tf i come up with these names. please ask the (eurocentric) random name generator- i can't be bothered XD except renee’s name. the reasoning behind her name is…the bbc gen elec coverages of the 70s and 80s…really good 25 hours of my life spent! honestly!

chapter title: california dreamin by the mamas and the papas

Jason buttons to open the door for Tim, and takes the bin off of Tim's hands. “I got it,” he tells Tim. Jason glances over the dash once more to ensure that nothing is set to explode if Renee touches the Batmobile. 

Jason exits first, hooking his bin under one arm, before waving and smiling at their hosts. Tim follows Jason's lead, and Jason locks the Batmobile after Tim. They meet the family somewhere between the Batmobile and the bottom step.

“Welcome to Henry Castle!” The man greets Red Hood and Red Robin with flair, betraying that this is not the kind of social visit that he is used to, and Jason needs to remember that he doesn't know the man. He doesn't personally know Mr Asco Henry, the CEO of Corporate and Investment Banking at Gotham City Bank. All he knows is that this is Renee’s Uncle Asco, and they talked on the phone. “I hope you were able to find your way alright.” 

Jason sees that he'll need to endure the usual humble bragging even as Red Hood. “It was a beautiful drive,” he compliments honestly, shaking Uncle Asco’s hand.

“I almost didn't want it to end,” Red Robin agrees, taking his turn for the handshake. Jason fights not to smile. 

“You're in luck,” Ms Winifred Henry, the very CEO and President of Gotham City Bank says. “There's much more to see inside the house. And I believe Renee has invited you both to the garden.” She reaches for a handshake as well, and Jason is quick to match her preference. Tim follows suit. “I'm Renee’s Auntie Winnie. This is my husband, and Renee’s Uncle Asco.”

For all the frustration of doing the song and dance, Jason has to give them both credit. This kind of visit is usually reserved for poor people living in Gotham proper, and, in their shoes, Jason probably wouldn't know how to receive Red Hood and Red Robin at his mansion, either.

“It was nice to speak with you both over the phone,” Red Hood says. “This is Red Robin. We've both met Renee before.” Now that the guardians have had a chance to get acquainted with himself and Tim, Jason seizes the opportunity to bring Renee into the introductions.

“Renee, will you please say ‘hello?’” Uncle Asco prompts.

Renee is looking past everyone at the Batmobile behind Jason and Tim. Every hair is perfectly in place, her A-line dress and cardigan both spotless and recently pressed. Her white socks seem to shine even under the overcast sky, as do her black Mary Jane shoes. Her clothes look to be the right size, and Jason can't see any marks on her ankles, hands, neck, or face from this angle. Does she play outside, or even inside, at all? Jason has a healthy skepticism about the cardigan, but he'll admit that it is breezy outside, and that Renee is dressed appropriately for the weather. Renee looks at both Red Hood and Red Robin. “Hello,” she greets quietly, her gaze immediately returning to the Batmobile.

Jason kneels, making sure that the lettering is clearly visible to Renee on the bin. “Hi Renee,” he greets in return. “I'm Red Hood,” he repeats, unsure if she was paying attention, and double checking that she remembers what happened the day she was found. “I met you three days ago. Then we talked on the phone. Thank you for inviting Red Robin and me to the garden.”

Renee’s eyes follow the colourful lettering on the bin, and Jason is satisfied that she can read, not that he was that suspicious of a learning difficulty in the first place. Her gaze lingers, calculating, before returning to the Batmobile again. “Yes,” she agrees vaguely.

Tim drops down with Jason. “I'm Red Robin. I remember meeting you with Red Hood. We didn't talk on the phone, but I heard that you wanted to invite me to the garden. Is that right?”

Renee glances at Tim. “Yes.”

“Thank you so much,” Tim says with a smile. “I really wanted to come.”

Renee holds her breath, and the breeze whips the baby hairs around her temples. But then she nods. “Thank you,” she says, which confuses Jason a little bit.

“What do you think of the Batmobile?” Jason asks Renee. 

Renee almost smiles. “It's the Batmobile.”

This is promising. Jason is enjoying this turn of events, not least because the secret third reason he brought the Batmobile was to take his turn name-dropping in front of the Mr and Ms Henry, who only need to say their own names.

“I almost thought the Batman himself was here,” Aunt Winnie laughs, flushed.

“When I saw him this morning, he said that Red Robin and I could take it for a spin,” Red Hood explains. “I hope it's not in the way. Would you like me to move it?”

“Not at all.” Uncle Asco waves a hand dismissively, gestures widely. “There's plenty of space in the driveway.”

Jason allows his frustration to roll through him. This isn't a gala or a party. There was a point to all this. “Would Renee be able to take a closer look?” Jason asks Uncle Asco and Aunt Winnie.

Uncle Asco itches his moustache. “That’s very kind. I'm sure it's fine. Surely there isn't a, you know, rocket launcher button, or something, on the outside.” He chuckles nervously.

“Explosion?” Renee asks Jason with a twinkle in her eye, and it's the first time she's said something unprompted.

“No explosions today,” Jason says, also disappointed, and also serious. “That wouldn't be the safest for you.” He then turns to her aunt and uncle. “We can head inside, if that would be better for you.”

Uncle Asco leads the group, and Aunt Winnie takes Renee by the hand to ascend the extensive flight of stairs to the entrance. 

Red Hood and Red Robin fall into step behind them. Renee walks without pain, as far as Jason can tell. The steps are a feat, especially for a child of Renee’s height, but Renee doesn't struggle at all. At the top of the steps, Renee breathes normally, not even winded. 

Aunt Winnie, still grasping Renee’s hand at the top of the wide landing, keys in a code into a pad to the right of the massive doors, which surprises Jason, because this mansion, or castle as they say, is very old. “Mind the automatic doors,” she warns, holding Renee back somewhat.

But the landing is just huge. There's plenty of room for the clearance of the doors, and then some. During parties the doors are left open, showing off the grand foyer to those just arriving at the driveway. Jason has seen it all before, but only as a venue, and not as a home.

“Please, come in,” Uncle Asco says. “Make yourselves at home.”

“Thank you,” Tim says for both of them. Red Hood and Red Robin follow Renee and her family into the grand foyer, a large white room of tall ceilings, domed skylights, and spiral staircases. Jason is playing spot the difference with himself, and he is surprised that there are several. There are traces of Renee everywhere that weren't there at the parties. Jason spots a pair of yellow rain boots flopped in a corner, a rain jacket draped over a hand-carved stone banister, a stuffed bee perfectly centred in a floor tile, and a bottle of bug spray stood up on a bottom step.

Uncle Asco checks Red Hood and Red Robin for their reactions, gesturing with embarrassment. “Don’t mind the clutter. It's usually tidy, but the staff have been on leave. Renee hasn't wanted anybody else inside the castle.” He smiles self-consciously. “It's great to have company.”

“It’s very tidy,” Tim says politely. “And the natural light from the ceiling is beautiful.”

“Then you'll love where we're going,” Aunt Winnie promises. “It’s one of my favourite rooms in the castle.”

The group exits the foyer to the left through a small side door and enters into an ornate room. The walls are decorated with pleated silk instead of wallpaper, and airy French doors looks out into the garden in the distance. Spaced evenly along two of the walls are tall panelled windows, each with an embroidered window seat. On all four walls, paintings in golden frames hang from golden chains which rivulet from the ceiling. Jason counts at least twenty pieces of art, some portraits of the family line, others landscapes. In the heart of the room are three groupings of chairs and tables designed for gambling. 

Jason hasn't seen this room before. Despite that it's clearly a game room, the space feels intimate, as if the gaming tables are just vestigial heirlooms, sentimental mementos of bygone eras. Again, there are traces of Renee everywhere. The meticulous arrangement of the room is freely disrupted by the odd colouring page threaded between gold chains, watercolour paints on the baize card table, textbooks split open on the armrest of an armchair, and Renee herself, who takes the initiative to separate from the adults and pillow herself in said armchair. She ignores everyone and reads quietly to herself. Jason makes out the words ‘nuclear physics’ on the cover, and he’s pretty sure that's unusual, not that he would know, having had to play catch-up in school.

“I love the light in here as well,” Tim compliments, eyes scanning the windows, but he focusses on the portraits, and on one portrait in particular. Jason follows Tim’s gaze. The three women look to be about the same age in the painting, possibly around university age, but their similarities end there. While two of the women have the same complexion, bearing a strong resemblance to Aunt Winnie, the third woman has a different hair colour and eye colour. Although it's an oil painting, the clothes are modern. Jason dares to assume that it is a younger Aunt Winnie in the painting.

“Thank you,” Aunt Winnie says, seeming pleased. “My father redesigned this room to better suit the light about ten years ago. Before then, it was unchanged for about one hundred years.”

Uncle Asco clasps his hands. “Please, have a seat. Anywhere is fine.”

Jason walks up to Tim to get his attention. “Where would you like to sit?”

Tim peels his focus away from the portrait. He surveys their seating options, and thankfully picks the grouping of chairs that Jason wanted. It's far enough that certain topics can be discussed out of Renee’s earshot. Jason picks a chair that indirectly faces Renee, enabling him to observe, and he sets his box behind his chair. Tim sits next to him. Aunt Winnie moves to sit down opposite them both but notices the watercolour palette on the table. The palette almost looks like a piece of stained glass, the original white of the plastic lid suffocated beneath layers of colour and paint.

“Pardon me,” Aunt Winnie says, clearing the palette away and placing it on a different table.

“Would you like anything to drink?” Uncle Asco asks the group, hands still clasped. “The kitchen is a bit of a trek away. It might take some time. I hope you don't mind.”

“I’m alright, thank you,” Jason says.

“I’m also fine,” Tim says.

“I don't need anything, love,” Aunt Winnie answers.

As Uncle Asco sits down with the group, Jason begins the interview.

“How is your dad doing?” Jason asks Aunt Winnie.

Aunt Winnie looks pensively around the room. “He passed shortly after finishing this room. I’m thankful that he did manage to finish it.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Tim says.

“Thank you,” Aunt Winnie replies, smiling, but almost seeming to wince. “It's wonderful to feel like his eye, his sense of beauty lives on for him in this room. He was a great dad. When Mom gave birth to triplet baby girls, he decided to retire primogeniture as a tradition. He said that he already had all the inheritors he could possibly need. He really, really loved us for who we were. That's how I inherited this room, and Henry Castle, when he passed away.”

“It must have been really hard on your mom when he passed,” Jason suggests.

“Well,” Aunt Winnie says, “It was the opposite. Mom passed away during childbirth. It was a complicated pregnancy, with the three of us.”

“I'm so sorry for assuming,” Jason tells her.

Aunt Winnie gives him a look. “Why are you sorry? You couldn't have known. I don't mind talking about it.” Despite that, Jason notes that Uncle Asco takes her hand under the table.

Jason feels awful continuing to press the topic, but there's certain information that he needs to know. “Did Renee ever get to know your dad?” Jason asks.

Aunt Winnie takes a look at Renee, who is still absorbed in the same textbook. “Not really. She's 11 years old. Dad passed away when Renee was about one year old. Grandpa loved her. But Renee probably doesn't remember.”

Tim considers. “She still might.”

Aunt Winnie seems cheered by that idea. “That's true. But she certainly never knew my sister. Her mother.” She watches Renee, chin on her hand for a few seconds, as if coming to a conclusion. “But still, as you say. She might. My sister died during childbirth, like our mother did. In our family, we have a genetic predisposition that results in high risk pregnancies and complicated births.” She says the next part thoughtlessly, as if she doesn't know how insane it sounds to Jason. “But it is important to have descendants to inherit the Henry legacy and fortune. My sister's death-” Aunt Winnie sneaks a glance at Renee, almost whispering. “-Dad couldn't endure. We say that he died of a broken heart.”

“I'm really so sorry,” Tim says.

“I am, too,” Aunt Winnie says, and her gaze moves from point to point around the room, as if reading invisible writing on the wall. “This room was a sign.”

Jason forces himself not to twitch, knowing now that he's seated in a man's suicide note. 

Aunt Winnie looks at them knowingly, because Jason and Tim have no idea what to say. “After he died, our family regrouped. Renee and her father moved in. My other sister moved out. She took the death of Renee’s mother as hard as Dad did, and we fell out. We didn't talk at all for years. Nothing was ever the same.”

“How could it be the same,” Jason acknowledges, noting that Uncle Asco still holds his wife's hand. “Who lives here now?”

Uncle Asco steps in to give Aunt Winnie a break. “It's just been us three and the staff for about five years. We're very careful with the staff. We have to be. Renee’s father-” Uncle Asco lowers his voice again. “-also died of a broken heart.”

Renee turns a page, seeming to be completely absorbed in her reading. She's not remotely curious, as if she doesn't need to listen, as if she already knows what they're talking about. She knows it by the infected absences of people she never met, and of people who couldn't stay long. That could be it. But Jason also has a bad feeling.

“He struggled,” Uncle Asco says. “That's why they moved in. He self-medicated, and it wasn't good for Renee. One day, he fell.”

Jason knows that this family has suffered, yet he can't help but feel annoyed by the euphemism wasn't good for Renee . That could mean anything. 

“I'm so sorry for your loss,” Tim says, again, and his repetition of these words underscores the heavy darkness in the home, impervious to the countless openings for natural light in the ceilings and the walls.

“We lost him long before,” Uncle Asco explains. “He died with his wife. It was like trying to resuscitate a skeleton.”

“I can only imagine what those years were like,” Tim says.

“He couldn't take care of Renee at all,” Uncle Asco explains. “But he wanted to. I think that Renee has a few good memories with him. When he passed, not much changed in terms of Renee’s care, since Winnie and I were, practically speaking, her caregivers. The only change was adoption.”

“I’m so glad that Renee has always had her aunt and uncle,” says Tim, and Jason has to agree. It's important to acknowledge how hard they've been trying.

Aunt Winnie sighs, a wet quality to her voice, even though she speaks clearly and without a tremor. “She is my sister's precious daughter. We will always be there for her, for as long as we can. She's been through too much, and she deserves the world.” Aunt Winnie looks at Renee as she says these words, and she does not speak quietly. Jason judges that Renee can probably hear. Aunt Winnie looks back at Red Hood and Red Robin, her voice quiet once again. “Some days, she is my only tether. When she disappeared-” she squeezes her husband’s hand under the table. “-I lost my tether. Thank you so much for finding her.”

“Please don’t thank us,” Jason says. “We're relieved that we were able to find her.”

“When she came back,” Aunt Winnie says, seeming to hesitate before every word. “She completely relapsed. Over the years, we've tried everything we can. She’s never wanted to leave the grounds. She only attends events with us because she doesn't like to be left alone here. She’s never wanted to make friends, and she’s never wanted to meet the professionals that we've brought in. She barely tolerated having the staff around, until her a- abduction. School or tutoring is out of the question, even though she's intelligent beyond her years. Renee never talked much, but it was never this bad. Overall, she was actually getting better.” Aunt Winnie takes a breath, then appears to regret it, and she falls silent.

Jason makes a mental note of that. “Does Renee have any known health conditions?”

“None at all,” Aunt Winnie says with relief. “Thankfully she's a healthy child, and we manage to bring in a doctor every year. After her kidnapping, the first thing we did was call a doctor. We also almost called for a- an exam, which mercifully did not have to be done.” Aunt Winnie speaks to the table at almost a whisper, as if haunted by a face in the grain in the wood. “I bow to every single lucky star in the night sky in gratitude that no harm in that sense came to her. But she still lost something because of the questions I had to ask. It doesn't matter that nothing happened. She still lost something.” A single tear slips from Aunt Winnie’s cheek, dotting the baize on the very spot where the watercolours were before she moved them.

Tim springs to reach for a box of tissues placed on a low table pushed against the wall, and Jason is grateful for Tim, because pins and needles dance at the top of Jason's spinal cord. The pins quickly grow to the length of daggers, the needles to the thickness of nails. They pry the flesh off of his vertebrae, gouge his organs out of their cavities, wedge themselves between the folds of his brain, twisting like screws, and he knows that it's only because he could cry enough tears to paint an entire game room of art with. Because why is this so fucked up?  

“Thank you.” Aunt Winnie accepts a tissue, wiping her cheek, but she's not crying anymore. She checks Renee to make sure that she didn't see, and Renee is as placid and seemingly oblivious as ever. Uncle Asco stops trying to be discreet and places a comforting hand on Auntie Winnie’s back.

“Would you like to take a break?” Jason offers. “We aren't in any rush.”

“Thank you, but it's alright,” Aunt Winnie says, folding the tissue neatly into a square and hiding it in her hand. “I don't want to make Renee wait too long to go to the garden.”

Jason would really like to end the conversation here. Even though he's established Renee’s background, her health, and the members of the household, there's still something that he's curious about. “I think it's almost time to go to the garden,” Jason says, trying to give them all a light at the end of the tunnel, even though he's not excited to try walking all the way to the garden at his current level of debility. “When you said that Renee was getting better, what do you think was helping? Maybe this is something that can continue supporting Renee, even after what she's been through.”

Uncle Asco and Aunt Winnie both stop breathing at the same time, very conspicuously. They avoid looking at each other for help, but neither of them look eager to start talking. Aunt Winnie almost gives Jason an incredulous expression, as if something is obvious. The thing is, even though Jason does have a sinking idea of what might have helped, he can't begin with a leading question or start monologuing to them about his grand theory of the situation like a lawyer or a detective. He's not here to be right or to look smart. The point of the conversation is to figure out what happened to Renee, and that means remembering that he objectively has no fucking clue, but they do. So Jason might seem to look dumb or to play dumb, but there's something undeniably sincere about what he's asking, and there's a power to that.

“My sister, Iseult, reconnected with me a year ago,” Auntie Winnie says at last. “She was estranged from us for almost ten years. Iseult’s absence, after everything, felt like yet another loss. It was wonderful to have her back in our lives. Iseult became Renee’s very first friend. It seemed that our family was on the mend." A note of longing resounds in the room, plucked from a wounded chamber in Auntie Winnie's heart. 

Jason is pained. He really is, in more ways than one, in maybe an uncountable number of ways. “Is Iseult doing okay?”

Auntie Winnie barks out a cutting laugh. “I think I expected more from Red Hood and Red Robin. You must know. We share the same last name.”

Uncle Asco frowns, and Jason thinks he might have shouted if he wasn't a practiced socialite. “You can't possibly expect us to-” He restrains himself, gathering his composure as deliberately as the pleated silk on the walls was.

Jason takes a breath. “I'm sorry to have to ask. I know these are difficult topics and questions. I really appreciate your patience with the process so far. Do you mean that Iseult kept the family name Henry?”

Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco are placated, but just barely. A wild light shines in Auntie Winnie's eyes. “Yes.”

Jason asks another question, bracing himself as a barbed comb of needles brushes down his back, and then up again. “I apologise in advance if this is a difficult question. Where do you think I know your sister from?”

If looks could kill, Jason would be beaten to death in a warehouse. Aunt Winnie’s fist clenches, definitely collapsing the folded tissue inside. “I would assume. That you would know the name of the woman who abducted my niece.”

That's close enough. Any further, and it would just be senseless cruelty. 

“I'm so sorry,” Tim says. “I don't even want to imagine what it's like.”

“Imagine what?” Aunt Winnie snaps, and she is just short of slamming her palm into the surface of the table. “Imagine what it's like when your sister kidnaps your niece?” But she doesn't raise her voice. Instead she gets quieter, almost threatening. “Then I'll tell you. It's like finally getting what's left of your family back, only to find out that it was all an illusion, and that you were played for a fool. It's to realise-” Aunt Winnie looks at Renee only for a moment, the sight of Renee painful in some way. “-that you should have never let your own family into your life, or around a child.” Aunt Winnie’s voice cracks, and her eyes become wet again. “It's like never being able to love both of them at the same time ever again.” She almost gasps, but she's determined to be angry. “And thus we arrive at the main point of our meeting today,” Aunt Winnie says, a professional cadence to her tone that makes Jason feel like he's been suddenly transported to a boardroom meeting. “I kindly request that you do not get in the way. Charges will be dropped against Iseult. Maybe she was the wrong suspect. It doesn't matter. She systematically destroyed her connections to us over the years, and the press will find nothing on her background. She'll come home, and-” Aunt Winnie glances at Renee, again too pained to linger, and despite the venom in her words, she almost begs Jason with her eyes. “I'll keep them separate somehow. I swear it. Iseult will never have contact again. I swear it, I swear it, I do. Renee will never be harmed by Iseult again.” Aunt Winnie’s eyes light up, remembering something, and she focuses on Jason with a hard, penetrating stare. “So you'll never take Renee away from us. Don't even think about it. Our family stays together.” At last, the desperation trickles from her eyes into her words. “If Dad saw that one of his daughters was in prison. I don't want to imagine. I think it would kill him.” Uncle Asco reaches for an embrace, and Aunt Winnie accepts, hiding her face. “He's already dead.” Jason hears the last part, just barely.

“It's going to be okay,” Uncle Asco says soothingly, rubbing her back.

Jason reflects that it is not okay, and that bribery and a half-baked cover up of the biggest news sensation in Gotham is probably not going to work the way that they think, but that's not the point of today's meeting, even if Aunt Winnie thinks that it is.

“I really appreciate you both having this conversation with us today,” Jason says. “I'm very sorry for the difficult questions that we've had to ask. It's time for a break. Red Robin and I will talk to Renee in the garden. We'll only ask her to discuss whatever she feels comfortable with. And then we'll ask her what she needs to start feeling better, and to feel safe living at home going forward. Do you have any questions?”

Aunt Winnie and Uncle Asco don't resist Jason as much as he expected. They almost eagerly agree to end the conversation. Jason doesn't blame them. Tim's right. Jason doesn't want to imagine what being Aunt Winnie in this situation feels like, and talking about it probably feels even worse. Jason almost feels like a bully, and he wonders if he could have done anything differently, nudged the conversation in a different direction, so that the truth didn't have to detonate in their faces like that and incinerate them all.

But that's a reflection for a later time, mainly because Jason can hardly think straight, with the sensation of a nail plunging into the bottom of his feet, over and over again in the space between each metatarsal. Jason doesn't know why intense emotionality tends to trigger this self-destruct sequence in his body. He guesses that's why it's easier to float away from himself during the times when he thinks he's supposed to be feeling strong emotion, because it's like his body associates big trauma with dying. The physical pain of murder has become a classically conditioned response, so that just listening to Damian triggered a horrible reaction in Jason. If only it was so reliable. It also comes on randomly. But Jason can't float away right now. He and Tim have to go to the garden.

“Did I forget anything?” Jason asks Tim. 

Tim shakes his head. “I don't think so. I just want to reiterate. Thank you so much for your trust, and for your patience with us. We're much better prepared to help Renee now.” He stares at the tissue box on the table for a second, remembering something. “Oh, yes. We'll keep what Renee tells us confidential, so that she feels able to talk to us. But if she says something that tips us off that she might still be in danger, we will absolutely tell you, and the police, if necessary, when we come back from the garden.”

Uncle Asco eyes Jason and Tim warily, and also with exhaustion. The fight has drained out of him, and the shapes of his words are a little rounder, softer. “That’s…okay. I’ll go get her ready to go.” He pushes his chair back as he stands, and the sound of the wood is brittle.

Aunt Winnie doesn't speak, only watches as  Uncle Asco round up Renee, so Jason watches with her. Renee already shelved her book back on the armrest, and she waits for Uncle Asco to sit down next to her on the adjacent armchair. Based on her readiness to leave, Jason assumes that Renee was probably listening as much as she could, just protecting herself with practiced disinterest.

“It's time for your visit the garden,” Uncle Asco says. “Do you need anything before you go?”

Renee shakes her head. 

“Not hungry? Not thirsty?” He presses.

Renee still shakes her head.

“Auntie Winnie and I will see you after,” Uncle Asco promises. “Now go and be a good host. Do you remember what we talked about?”

Renee doesn't fidget. She doesn't swing her legs, or pick at loose threads. She sits completely still, and completely straight. “Tour,” she says. "Make them feel welcome."

“That's right,” Uncle Asco says, hesitating. “Do you have your phone?”

Renee twists, pulling out a cellphone that slipped between the cushions. “Yes.”

“Call us if you need anything,” Uncle Asco says.

Renee nods, and Uncle Asco holds out his hands to pull her up. Renee takes his hands, sliding out of the armchair with grace that Jason knows is learned, because he himself had to learn it. She glances at Jason and Tim, but looks at the floor as she makes her way over to them. Jason’s body feels like death, and he can only concentrate on standing up. Tim stands up first and retrieves Jason's box from the floor, which Jason is beyond grateful for. Thank god Tim is here.

“Bye,” Renee tells Aunt Winnie, who is still seated, hands clasped so tightly that she might fall apart if she lets go of herself.

“We'll be right here when you're ready to come back,” Aunt Winnie promises.

Renee nods, watching Aunt Winnie for a few moments, before turning to Jason and Tim. “Ready?” She asks.

“We're very excited,” Jason confirms. 

“Thank you for the tour,” Tim adds.

Renee beckons them to the French doors leading to the garden. “Come please.”

Jason suppresses an agonised scream, forcing himself to pay attention to Renee. She still seems comfortable enough to be coming with them, all things considered, because she always seems to be in a state of extreme discomfort. Tim tucks the bin under one arm, fiddling with the lock on one of the doors until something clicks and he can open the door for both of them. Renee waits for Jason to pass through and follows after him. 

“Can I lock the door from the outside?” Tim asks Uncle Asco and Aunt Winnie.

“Don't worry about it,” Aunt Winnie calls back. “We've got it.”

Tim lets the door close behind all of them, and Jason feels, paradoxically, infinitely more comfortable and also hellishly more uncomfortable. He can't wait to sit down.

Renee leads them to the hedges that Jason saw earlier, and they're a substantial walk away. Jason assumes that having an expanse of lawn all around the immediate vicinity of the mansion is intentional, for peace of mind. The mansion also sits at the top of a gentle hill, and the downhill walk is a small sip of mercy for Jason in a green desert of pain. 

Renee stops, turns around to face her guests. She gestures at something behind them. “My house,” she says.

Jason and Tim both turn around a little awkwardly.

“I really like the art inside your house,” Tim offers, stumbling to say something.

Renee stares at Tim for a moment before turning back around to continue leading them to the garden. “Thanks.”

If the hedges enclose the garden, then the garden must be huge. Jason has never been to the garden; he's never been able to peel away from the other partygoers long enough to walk all the way over. He's admittedly curious as Renee leads them to a large opening in the hedge perimeter, presumably an entrance. 

Renee stops again at the entrance and turns to face her guests. She gestures behind them again. “Grass,” she says.

Jason blinks, and turns behind him to behold the immaculate and sprawling lawn they've just been through. The perfect checkerboard mowing pattern stretching in all directions to the horizon is almost hypnotic.

“Good thing it rains a lot here,” Jason observes.

Jason swears Renee almost smiles. She gestures again, almost like a real tour guide, at the hedges to her side. “Bush. Border.”

Jason has to suppress a laugh. There's no way that she's parodying the idea of a self-aggrandizing mansion tour. But maybe there is a way. 

“We're almost in the garden,” Tim infers.

Renee nods. “Yes. Come.” She walks through the opening in the perimeter, makes a right, and it's a corridor still made of hedges as tall as the first floor of a high-rise.

“I wonder if it's a maze,” Tim says.

“No,” Renee corrects. “Grid.”

“That's so interesting,” Tim says. “Will you take us to your favourite section?”

“Okay,” Renee says. She stops at the end of the corridor, about to make a left into another opening in the hedges. “After you.”

Jason and Tim step through to a large, perfectly square patch fenced by the same tall hedges as ever. Jason can see two arched openings that lead further into other areas of the garden. In this part, it’s stunning. There are white flowers of many shapes and sizes, spread between flowerbeds that form concentric circles. The flowers have grown tall, and the whole effect makes Jason feel like he's standing in a meadow. In one corner stands a swinging bench with a flowering canopy.

Renee overtakes Tim and Jason, both of them awestruck. She gestures again, underwhelmingly. “Flowers. Bench.”

Jason accidentally laughs before he can stop himself. He covers his mouth, but it's already out there.

Renee does smile, this time, and there's a dash of relief in her eyes. “More,” she says. “Come.

“How many sections are there?” Tim asks, following Renee as she leads them through to another section.

“Nine,” Renee replies.

Jason realises that the way the garden has been configured, the viewer can see three layers at the same time when they stand in front of an arched opening. He can see the white flowerbeds in the foreground, the trees of the section immediately beyond the opening, and then there's a third arched opening in the distance, teasing a glimpse into the colour of a third section. It's just so beautiful, and completely foreign to Jason, who was born and raised in an urban dystopia, where aesthetics are the last thing on anyone's mind, if the relentless accumulation of filth and garbage along the curbs is anything to go by. But in the garden, it's as if someone knew that Jason was going to stand here, and decided to make his standing here a work of art. Already, he feels marginally better, which always happens eventually, but it's almost never this soon. Maybe it's the air, maybe it's the nature, maybe it's the quiet, or maybe it's Renee’s idea of a tour. But Jason could fall to his knees in relief.

The next section of the garden is crowned with a pond of bright orange koi fish in the centre. Around the fringes of the section are rows of fruiting trees.

Renee leads Jason and Tim through, not bothering with the gestures anymore. “Fruit. Fish. Yum.”

Tim nearly trips over himself. “You eat those?” He gasps, double-taking at the fish darting under the lilypads.

Renee gives Tim a look. “Joke.”

“Sorry,” Tim says,.

Renee doesn't seem offended. “It's okay.” She looks at Jason mischievously, and Jason feels caught. “He laughed.”

The three emerge into what must be the centre section of all nine squares, because there are openings in all four sides. It's much like the first section, with concentric flowerbeds containing flowers of all varieties, but the colours are arranged in a gradient forming the entire colour spectrum. In the centre is a large white gazebo with seating and tables, and it reminds Jason of what he's seen before in public parks, except that there's less rotting, splintering wood and bird poop.

“My favourite,” Renee says. “Welcome.” She waits for Tim and Jason to take in the view. 

“I like it, too,” Jason compliments, at a loss for words to explain how pretty it is here.

“Thanks for the tour,” Tim says, still looking around.

“Sit,” Renee says, beckoning them to the gazebo. Jason and Tim follow Renee to the bench seating in the gazebo. She waits for them to sit down at a shiny white-painted picnic table. “Pillow?” She asks.

Jason can't understand the question at first, but Tim answers. “No thank you,” he says politely. Jason now notices the scattering of chair cushions at other benches.

Jason kind of does want a pillow. “Yes, please,” he requests.

Renee retrieves a pillow from another seat and waits for Jason to stand up.

“Oh,” Jason says. “I can do it.”

Renee stares at Jason. “Stand, please.”

Jason stands after a moment of hesitation, and Renee slides the pillow onto his spot for him. She wanders off to get herself a pillow, bringing back two, and Jason understands after she sits down that she needs them to sit at a comfortable height for the table. She silences her phone, and she tucks it beneath the bottom cushion.

“Thank you,” Jason tells Renee, who is settling into her seat across from them.

“Comfortable?” Renee asks them. 

“Very,” Jason says. Cushions on park benches should be a widespread thing.

“Yes,” Tim assures, placing the bin on the table. “How about you?”

Renee pauses. She looks away, and then back, as if she decided on something. “No,” she says. “Never.” She nods to the bin before Jason or Tim can say anything. “I want to look.”

“Of course you can look,” Jason says. “It's for you to use today.” He pulls the bin across the table for Renee to reach more easily.

“For me,” Renee repeats. She pulls the bin down next to her, onto the bench, so that she can see everything inside. She pulls the lid off and sets it on the other side of herself.

“You can go through it,” Jason says. “Do you see anything interesting to you?”

Renee checks Jason’s expression for extra confirmation before she reaches into the bin. By the sound of it, she doesn't dig in, but she lifts a few objects to see underneath. Eventually she picks something out and places it on the table for everyone to see.

“Do you like the buttons?” Jason asks. 

“Colourful,” Renee explains, peering through the tinted plastic pencil case.

“You can open the case,” Jason says. He really appreciates how the picnic table is put together to form one solid table surface, rather than with gaping chasms between the planks.

Renee scoops out a handful of buttons, and spreads them out on the table so that they lay flat and she can see each individual button. She pokes a few into place, taking in the varying colours, sizes, shapes, materials, and textures. “How do I use them?” She asks Jason, looking up.

“I use them to talk about the people around me,” Jason says, trying to suppress his excitement that he's heard a full question, so as not to spook her or make her feel like she's being manipulated into talking. “Do you want me to show you?”

Renee pushes the pencil case of buttons towards Jason. “Please, thank you.”

Jason glances over the accumulation of buttons, picking out three. He doesn't want to take up too much time. He arranges the buttons on a formation so that Renee can see easily, and Renee watches, calculating, predicting.

“That's me,” Renee says suddenly, as Jason places the last button in its place.

Jason smiles. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

“Colourful,” Renee says, referring to the iridescent gleam of the button. Her eyes land on two red buttons, the first with two holes for thread, and the second with four, which are next to each other, and slightly removed from Renee's button, in imitation of the way that the three are sitting. She looks at Jason, pointing at the button with four holes. “Older.” She looks at Tim, pointing to the button with two holes. “Younger.” She considers their buttons. “Two years apart?” She asks.

Jason didn't even think of subtracting the button holes. Moreover, Jason doesn't know Tim's exact age. This is a horrifying realisation to have.

Tim speaks up. “That’s exactly right,” he compliments. “Do you want to have a try?”

Renee nods, almost eager. Jason moves to clear his arrangement out of the way, but Renee covers the buttons from him with her hand. “I like it,” she tells Jason.

Jason is flattered, which he thinks is a little funny, because it's just three buttons in a triangle formation. “Thank you.”

Renee almost smiles again. Then a focus comes over her expression as she looks for the buttons that she wants to use. She places the buttons that she selects one by one around her own button. When she's finished adding buttons, she surveys her work for a few seconds. “Okay,” she says at last, looking up at them. “Guess.”

Jason is slightly nervous, because this isn't really the way that it's supposed to go. It's just that Renee is too quick, and so she was able to guess before Jason had a chance to explain. But if Renee wants to play the game this way, Jason figures that there's no harm in playing along. He focuses on the two closest buttons to Renee’s, assuming that they must be her aunt and uncle. “Are these Uncle Asco and Auntie Winnie?”

“Yes,” Renee says.

Jason notes that Renee picked two of the biggest buttons in the box and ponders on that. There's a green button and a dark blue button. 

“They're everything to you,” Tim guesses.

Renee lights up, happy to be understood. “Yes.” She pauses, pointing to the blue button, and then the green button. “My world.” She pauses again, hesitating.

“They have a big impact in the world as well,” Jason interprets.

Renee nods vigorously. “Yes. Yes.” She seems energised. “Next,” she prompts.

Jason looks to the next closest pair of buttons to Renee. One is clear, and the other is red, without a button hole, so technically a stud. Jason is confused, but based on distance alone, he has to guess that these are Renee’s parents. 

“These are your mom and dad,” Jason says hopefully.

“Yes,” Renee confirms. “Dad.” She points to the clear button. “Mom.” She indicates the red button. 

Tim concentrates on the clear button. “It reminds me of glass.”

Renee can't make eye contact. “When he fell, there was glass everywhere.” She registers the reactions across the table. “I didn't see. Just glass.” She rubs her thumb over the button, as if testing if it's going to be sharp. “He liked drinks in glass bottles.”

Jason is alarmed. “What happened after he had the drinks that he liked?”

Renee picks up the clear button, assured that it isn't sharp. “Sleep. He was too tired-” She puts the button down again, and it's like the encapsulation of how brief her time with her dad must have been. “-for me.”

“I'm so relieved you didn't see,” Tim says. 

“Yes,” Renee agrees. She points to her Mom's button. “Red.”

Jason has a terrible suspicion. “Blood,” he tries.

Renee doesn't touch the button. She keeps both of her hands under the table. “There was blood everywhere.”

Tim tries to follow the logic of that statement, because it's unlikely that she has a memory of her mom. “Did someone tell you that?”

Renee stares at the button silently for at least ten seconds. “Yes,” she says.

“Who told you that?” Jason asks, and he has a bitter feeling about the upcoming answer. Because who tells a child there was blood everywhere with regards to their mother?

Renee points to a button farther away than all of the rest. It's neon yellow, with four button holes and a ridged edge. “She is far from here. With the police.”

Jason is overwhelmed with all of the questions that he wants to ask. For starters, Do you know what she did to be with the police? Do you feel better now that she's with the police? But he feels that it's still premature to be talking about the future or even the present. “I'm so sorry to ask,” he prefaces. “She said that there was blood everywhere. When was she talking about?”

Renee’s posture falters for the first time, but she stays upright, even as she says, “When I killed Mom.”

And Jason thinks that's so rich of Iseult, of someone whose own mother died in childbirth, to say, but maybe that right there is the root of the problem. “That's not what happened,” Jason says. “We know that it didn't. We talked to Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco.”

Renee shrugs, as if it's something that they can agree to disagree on. “If not Mom, then…” She holds her breath, glancing at Jason fearfully, before remembering to breathe. “...Dad and Grandpa.”

The unspoken words ring in Jason's ears. If I didn't kill Mom, then I killed Dad and Grandpa. “Did someone say that, too?” He asks.

Renee nods, pointing to the neon yellow button again.

“That's not what happened,” Jason says, very emphatically, and he doesn't miss how Renee slightly relaxes. She was genuinely afraid that he would agree, wasn't she? But she doesn't agree with Jason, and she doesn't look any less guilty. Jason forces himself to have patience with the fact that he's not going to be able to reverse what is probably at least a year's worth of emotional abuse just with two reassurances. He points to Iseult’s button. “How would you like us to call this button?”

Renee doesn't immediately have an answer. She has to contemplate the button for a moment. “She was never my auntie, not like Auntie Winnie.” She shrugs again, as if that doesn't matter. “Last year she became my friend.”

It was the way that she tried to become my friend, Jason remembers, and his knee-jerk reaction is to look at Tim. He can see Tim’s hands shaking beneath the table.

“What kind of friend was she?” Tim asks, and Jason almost vomits from the way that he asks that question. Some kind of bad feeling rings in Jason's body like a fire alarm, and he wants to kick himself, because he feels like he should know something about Tim that he's not seeing, and he desperately needs to see it.

Renee looks at Tim knowingly. “Not the kind of friends that Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco are,” she says. “They already asked me this question yesterday.” She hesitates before saying the next part. “I look like Mom. So she could never.”

Jason thinks it's wonderful that Iseult draws the line somewhere. Holy shit, he really wants to puke. And then Jason feels a wave of the full-body hurt again. Children aren't supposed to understand things like that. They're not supposed to understand so deeply the fucked up reasoning that protected them from abuse.

Tim’s breath catches in his throat. “I'm so sorry to ask you the same question twice.” But Jason doesn't fault Tim. It's just one of those tragic questions that have to be asked, because they need to hear the answer from Renee herself.

“It's okay,” Renee says, and she anticipates the next question. “She was a nice friend. For a while. Last year she said that she missed me. She said that she was sorry for being gone.” Renee looks away, and her body trembles, just visibly, and Jason feels like she must be in intense pain. “Nobody ever said sorry for being gone before. It was nice.”

“It's been so hard that so many people have been gone,” Tim says.

Renee nods. “Everyone is always sad. Nobody is happy that I am here.”

Tim grips his own knees under the table with a force that Jason knows has to hurt. “Are you happy to be here?”

Renee stares at Tim, once again recognising exactly what he's thinking. “No. But it would be even worse if I left. They probably told you. I am the tether.” She looks at the buttons on the table. “More deaths on my hands.”

“You did not kill anybody,” Tim reiterates.

Renee takes a breath. “Maybe,” she allows, and there's a flicker of hope in her eyes.

“When did she start to change from being a nice friend?” Jason asks.

Renee thinks about this. “Slowly. She bought me presents the whole time. She always asked what I liked. So we always talked about things that I liked. I like colours. So she got me colours, and we painted the garden. She never pushed me to do anything I didn't want. She never asked me to go anywhere I didn't want. At first.”

Jason realises something. “When I picked out the rainbow button for you, I didn't mean to-” remind you of her he doesn't say.

Renee understands, as she always does. “It wasn't like her.” She’s still again, and Jason wonders how much of her stiffness is just repression. “I can't do that,” she explains. “If I thought every nice thing for me was the same as her.” The depth of sorrow in her eyes is enough to drown Jason. “I would be too sad.”

Jason really wants to cry, and only because he wishes that Renee would. He wishes that something could purge some of that sadness from her.

“Besides,” Renee continues. “You both helped me.” She sneaks a glance at Tim. “You put it on instead of me.” When she lifts her face, her eyes brim with tears. “I almost killed you. Again.” Renee surely can't know about Jason's attempt on Tim's life, so Jason assumes that she's referring to her Mom, Dad, and Grandpa. Still, Jason wonders if she can sense something about Tim, something that even Jason still isn't getting.

“It's not your fault,” Tim says. “Nothing bad happened to me.”

“That's a lie,” Renee says, and her voice is forceful. “It was my fault. My fault!” Jason regrets wishing she would cry, because the sound physically hurts him, literally grates against his soul. She looks at them both like she's about to step backwards off of a cliff, and then she does, and the expression she makes gives Jason a sense of plummeting down to the bottom with her. “I wasn't abducted.” She inhales, exhales, the sound sharp like someone popping the balloon of her lungs each time. “I wanted to help.”

“Hey,” Tim says, gently. “Can you breathe? I think there are tissues in the bin, if you want to use them.”

“Yes,” Renee nearly coughs out. “I can breathe. Thank you.” She glances at the bin, presumably seeing the tissues. “It's okay.” She thumbs a teardrop off her own cheek, as if she does this all the time. Renee balances the drop on her thumb. “They are water for my colours.” Renee looks around at the flowering beauty encircling the gazebo. “They are water for the garden.”

Jason can't comprehend that until he remembers the stray watercolour palette that Aunt Winnie moved aside before the interview. He remembers the layers of colour he saw on the plastic lid, stripes on stripes, probably originally colours of the rainbow, but so overlapping that all the colours appear at first glance brown or even black. It was only when Jason looked closely that he could distinguish blue, from yellow, from green, from red, from purple, from pink, and the number of shades was dizzying, infinite, a vortex.

Renee is still again, looking at Jason with a little confusion, but mostly concern. “Please don't cry.” She brings out the box of tissues and places them on the table. Tim blinks something out of his eyes, helping Renee to bring the tissue box closer to Jason.

It just hurts . But Jason needs to compose himself quickly. It may be cathartic for Renee in moderation, to see him cry for her, it may even help her understand just how badly she was harmed, but for too long, and his emotions will overwhelm her. 

“Thank you,” Jason says, taking a tissue for her benefit. “I already feel much better.”

Renee brings her hands back to her lap, encouraged. “That's good.”

“Do you need a break?” Jason asks. 

Renee shakes her head. “Do you?” She asks.

“I'm fine,” Jason promises.

Tim agrees. “I want to keep going, too.”

Jason looks at the collection of colourful buttons on the tabletop, feeling that they have been absolutely exhausted. He’s guessing that there's more thought to the buttons that Renee hasn't explained yet, but they feel a little tainted now, overwhelming with all the suffering they embody. “Is there anything else you'd like to pick out from the box?”

Renee nods, pulling out a stack of postcards bound together with a rubber band, as if she had been waiting the whole time for the chance. “How do I use these?”

Jason is hopeful, because he can see how these might work out really well. “You can tell any story you want about yourself with the pictures on the postcards, kind of like a picture book. You can also use the pictures to answer the questions we ask. Those are just two ideas. You can even write on the back, if you want. It's completely up to you.”

Renee carefully pulls the rubber band off of the postcards, setting the rubber band next to the tissue box, and she fans out the postcards to preview some of the pictures. “I like them. I want to try to tell a story.”

“Here,” Tim says, standing up. “Do you want me to move the buttons out of the way? You can spread the postcards out on the table to show us easier.” 

“Thank you,” Renee says, looking out at the table space in front of her. “I want to keep my family.”

“That's perfect,” Tim says, scooping the extra buttons back into the pencil case. “You can leave them there. I'll just get these. Do you want me to put the tissues away?”

Renee thinks. “Do you need them?” She asks Jason.

“I don't,” Jason promises. “But thank you.”

“Okay,” Renee tells Tim, and Tim puts the pencil case of buttons and the tissue box back into the bin next to Renee. By the time Tim sits back down, Renee has already picked out a postcard. She picks out a two more, setting them picture-side down in a small pile. Then she slides the buttons of herself and her family to the side, keeping everything in formation, except that maybe Iseult’s button is even further away now. Renee lays the postcards face down in front of Jason and Tim in sequence, oriented so that Jason and Tim can read, so to speak, from left to right.

“This is my story,” Renee announces when she's done with her preparations.

“Do you have a title for it?” Jason prompts.

“It's The Story of…” Renee doesn't seem to struggle to find the words, only decide whether she wants to say them. She glances at Tim. “...Why It's My Fault.”

The breeze from earlier has died down, and the garden is absolutely still. Jason almost wishes the wind would come back, and sweep these cards away into the grey of the sky.

“Renee-” Tim protests, but Renee cuts him off. 

She looks at Jason. “He said I could tell any story I wanted about myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim relents. “I do want to hear your story.”

Renee smiles, and it's barely visible. “It's okay. I'm sorry, too.” She flips over the first postcard from Jason and Tim's perspective. It's a vintage postcard from the Florida Keys, picturing one of the bridges from an aerial view. The ocean is still vibrant blue despite discoloration from the passage of time, the purple font of the text antiquated. “Things changed slowly when she told me a secret. I was happy. Because best friends have secrets. I always wanted a best friend. So I told her I would always keep it. I told her that I would throw the key into the ocean. She told me that I was clever and funny for saying that. She used to compliment me a lot.”

Jason knows from experience that secrets are a common tactic. They make the child feel special, and, depending on the situation, they implicate the child, beginning the slow entrapment of the child into the crime. And when the child gives up their own secrets, that's just blackmail for later.

“She asked me if I had any secrets that she could help keep for me, in return for my help,” Renee continues. “I was excited because I had a secret for a long time. It was the same secret as hers.” Renee looks guilty again, but she pushes through, bravely saying the rest. “We both don't like what Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco do for work.” She waits for a reaction.

“It's completely okay to have your own opinion,” Jason says.

Tim agrees. “Just because you have the same opinion as her, doesn't make you a bad person.”

Renee holds her breath, about to argue, but then she sighs. “Okay,” she says quietly at last. She continues. “After my secret, she told me another secret. She told me why Auntie Winnie and her stopped talking when Grandpa died. She asked Auntie Winnie to quit her job. Auntie Winnie didn't. She asked Uncle Asco to work with her.”

Renee flips over the next postcard. It's another vintage postcard, much older than the last. Jason saw 1929 on the back before Renee flipped it over. He can't decide if it's a photograph or not. Parts of it look stylised. The colours seem a bit too vibrant. There's no shading or depth to the light. But there's something about it that looks like a photograph. It's the people in the street, maybe. Jason concludes that this might be a photograph colourised by hand using paint. The caption at the top reads Berlin-Brandenburg Tor. “After our secrets, she started to push me to do things that I didn't want to do. She started asking me to leave home. She knew that I hate doing that. But she didn't care anymore. She also started teaching me more about the work that Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco do. After a while we didn't do painting anymore. Or go to the garden at all. We only talked about their work.”

Jason can tell that the disappointment that Renee felt then is just as intense now as she tells the story. “She told me that there are a lot of things that Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco help people buy or help people make by finding money for them to use. Then those people pay Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco a lot of money for their help. She-” Renee points to the neon yellow button. “-explained how those things hurt people sometimes. But she says it doesn't matter to Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco. Because she says that they do it for me." Renee pauses, seeming to force herself to admit something. "She is right. They love me, so they want me to have a lot when they die.”

Tim is thinking hard about the postcard, and then an idea comes to him. “Berlin is where nuclear fission was discovered in 1938,” he says, connecting the illustration to the story.

Renee lights up, relieved that Tim got it. “When they discovered nuclear fission and published it, everyone around the world had the same thought at the same time. They knew a really powerful bomb could be built. So they felt scared because there was a war. Every scientist wanted their country to build it in case other countries built it. So when I asked Auntie Winnie about her opinion, she said it was inevitable. The existence of nuclear weapons can't be helped. But I said that they're really dangerous. Nobody wants to use them anyway so it's okay to stop making them. Auntie Winnie said that it doesn't work like that. Countries don't want to use them only because other countries have them. If they knew they couldn't be hurt back, they wouldn't care about using them. I guess people are like that,” Renee concludes glumly.

“When I couldn't change Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco’s minds,” Renee says, picking up the yellow button. “She told me that I needed to figure it out, because it was my fault. People could die because of the things that Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco were making for me. Just like Mom died for me, and just like Dad and Grandpa died because of me. I was scared of that happening again.” Renee flips the third postcard over with her free hand, and she says everything with such a horrifyingly objective tone that Jason has to wonder how many times she was told these things to feel nothing at all about them. Jason finds himself missing his hit list so often these days.

The next postcard is again vintage, and Jason is not surprised, having discovered the dusty stack of postcards at the back of a thrift store. They had been somebody's prized collection once, he thought, and what better way to remember that than to make them part of his own prized collection? The text at the top of the postcard says that it's from Brazil, and this time, it's definitely a drawing. There are mountains, a city on a bay, and lush tropical flora. Jason feels that it's oddly jaunty imagery for what Renee is talking about, but so are the other two postcards, and that's kind of the point. Renee puts the yellow button on top of one of the bushes, and she leaves it there, and that makes Jason think.

“So,” Renee says. “When she told me she had a way that would change their minds, I said that I wanted to help her. She said that it was urgent for me to leave my house with her, or else bad things would happen to people very soon. I went with her because I didn't want more bad things to happen to people because of me. She told me that she was going to make her own weapons, but not use them, and she promised that it would work because it would scare Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco. I really wanted it to work so that I wouldn't hurt anyone. That's why I kept leaving with her.”

Renee can guess Jason's next question. “She always gave me the vest to go do errands. She said it protected me from people who might try to hurt me. Sometimes I collected packages. Other times I had to remember instructions that people said to me. If I didn't remember, she said it would hurt. So I remembered. She said I didn't have any friends, so it was better for me to go out, because nobody knows who I am very well." Renee holds her breath, Iseult's barbed words stinging even now. She lets out the breath to continue. "But I think she was even more scared to meet them than me, so she wanted me to do it. The whole time, Uncle Asco and Auntie Winnie were so happy. Because they thought I was getting better. But I was actually helping her get ready to scare them the whole time.” Renee looks at Jason and Tim, guilt shining in her eyes. “Wasn't I just stupid?” She asks. 

“You weren't stupid,” Tim assures. “Even adults would get scared and confused by her logic. It must have been terrifying to realise that the person who you thought was your friend actually thought you were a bad person.”

Renee holds her breath again. “Yes,” she says, letting it out. “Sometimes…I don't think she even cared about people. Because after a while, she said that her plan wasn't scary enough. She said she wouldn't just make a bomb, but use it. She said Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco needed to see what a bomb is like. I told her that hurting people with a bomb doesn't make sense if that's the thing that she thinks is wrong. I said I didn't want to help her hurt anyone. That was the exact thing I was trying not to do all this time. But she didn't let me go back home. So, sometimes…” Renee pauses, tears brimming in her eyes again. “Sometimes I think all she wanted to do was hurt me.” Renee blinks for a few seconds, the meaning of her words sinking in, and then she breaks down fully, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes, as if that could stop the torrent. 

“Why?” Renee asks Tim and Jason, bawling, her voice cutting in the silence of the garden. “I didn't mean to kill her sister…or her dad…I didn't…I never asked Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco for a lot of money…I never asked for any of that…not even any of the presents she gave me.” Her entire body heaves with the strain of trying to breathe through her sobs. “I didn't even ask to be born! Why does it have to be my fault? It should be Mom and Dad's fault…for wanting me…why have they left me here alone just to hurt people and be hurt by people? It hurts too much to be alive.”

Jason feels his heart straining against his ribcage again, feels hurt even more, and he wants to comfort Renee. He just doesn't know how. What can he even say or do after another human being says something like that? His instinct is to hug her or hold her hand, but he was taught not to do that. He's frozen, torn between what he wants to do, and the dread of infringing on an invisible boundary, the boundary between just being there to help and then being so fucking affected that he comforts her, just for himself, because he needs to, as a human.

While Jason tries not to panic, Renee looks blearily at her third postcard through tears. “I thought things were getting better…but I was just going to get hurt the whole time.” The air seems to scrape her throat as she breathes in, but she's breathing, somehow.

Jason adjusts his perspective. The neon yellow button, together with its button holes and ridges, look like the pattern of a toxic jungle creature, like a kind of aposematism, maybe. And she placed that button on the tropical vegetation in the postcard. Jason stares at Renee, amazed that she could produce such a coherent metaphor in only a few seconds, but not really amazed, because it's probably been the only thing on her mind for a long time. Renee thought she was in paradise, but there was a predator underfoot in the brush the entire time. And that's her last postcard. That's the ending she chose for her story.

Tim moves to get the tissues back out of the bin, kneeling next to Renee on her side of the table. “I hate to think that you went through that. It must have been so scary, but you made it through. You have been so brave. How did you do that?”

Renee takes a tissue from the box being offered to her this time, her breaths jagged, but much more even than before, which is a bit of a low bar, to be honest. The tears all over her face soak the tissue completely through, and when she tries to fold it, like her aunt does, the tissue tears, breaking apart into tendrils of wet paper. “I…did my best to mess everything up. I kept messing up, hoping that someone was looking for me, and would notice. I could only mess it up a little bit, because then she would notice that it was on purpose. She told me that I was stupid. But you guys noticed.”

Jason finds the will to stand, and he slowly comes to sit on the bench next to Renee, gauging her reaction. She doesn't move away or tense up, but she may even still be fawning or freezing.

“Can I sit down next to you?” Jason asks. “Nothing bad will happen if you don't want to.”

Renee looks up at Jason, and she's very small from this angle, the way she looked on the rooftop. She holds her breath, as she seems to tend to do. “Yes!” She says, and Jason is distracted by the disintegrating tissue in her hand. “Please. I wish you had come sooner.” She almost whispers the last part, guilty again to be admitting it. Jason knows that she means more than Tim and Jason going around the table. 

“We wish we had, too,” Jason says, taking a fresh tissue before he sits down, moving the lid of the bin to the side. He takes her hand, making sure she has time to process each of his movements, before using the new tissue to wipe away the old. He balls everything into his hand. “Is there anything else you wanted to look at from the bin?”

Renee shakes her head. “I'm tired.”

“I'm sorry,” Jason says, as Tim lifts the bin into the table so that he can sit on the other side of Renee, having judged that it will probably be okay. “I’m sorry that we talked about all these things today. I only have one more thing to ask you about, so that we can talk to Auntie Winnie and Uncle Asco about it. We need to know what you need to start feeling better, and to feel safe living at home.”

A shift has taken place within Renee. She doesn't even have to think. “I can tell them. I'm ready to tell them.” She looks up at Jason, slightly ashamed. “Thank you, though.”

Jason can't help but smile. “But that's great. We want you to feel that way.”

Tim looks around at the table. “Do you mind if we start cleaning up? Do you want to keep anything?”

Renee nods. “Just this,” she says, taking her own button.

Tim smiles, beginning to clear the table. “Just let me know if you change your mind as I'm putting things away.”

Renee doesn't change her mind. The walk back to Renee’s house is quiet, because Renee is gathering her thoughts. But her steps are quick, determined. Jason feels like the walk is much shorter than the walk to the garden, even uphill with The Hurt, and Jason is beginning to accept that it's not actually a bad name for whatever the fuck is happening to him.

Renee knocks on the French doors to the game room, and Aunt Winnie opens a door almost instantaneously.

“I’m back,” Renee greets. “I want to talk to you and Uncle Asco.”

“Let's talk,” Aunt Winnie says, a little taken back, glancing up at Tim and Jason for some indication of what happened. Jason tries to look well enough not to worry her, but not overjoyed, because there was nothing joyful about the interview that just happened.

“I feel much better after the garden,” Renee tells Aunt Winnie as they walk to the table and the chairs that the earlier interview had taken place in. Uncle Asco is already seated, seeming a little on edge.

“I'm so glad to hear that,” Aunt Winnie says.

“I know what I need to feel better from now on,” Renee states, the authority in her tone very endearing to Jason.

“Then we want to know what that is,” Uncle Asco says as Aunt Winnie sits down next to him.

Renee pulls out two chairs from the table for Jason and Tim. “Please sit with us.”

“Absolutely,” Jason is quick to accept, gauging that Renee might still need some moral support.

“Thank you,” Tim says as he sits down. 

Renee sits down at what feels like the head of the table. It's a square table, but she's sitting by herself at one side while the two pairs of adults are crowded between two of the other sides. Renee takes a moment to gather herself, and she turns to Aunt Winnie specifically. “I'm sorry,” she says, and she's sympathetic, and she's bracing herself, all at once. “I need her to stay with the police.”

Aunt Winnie’s lips thin into a line. She can't protest outright to a request like that, but she can't agree readily either. She looks like she's watching another family member die in front of her, but it's as if she's been fortifying herself for this conversation all the time Renee has been gone, because she's not outrightly emotionally expressive. Aunt Winnie breathes, normally, and the silence makes her breaths loud. She meets Renee’s gaze with a searching determination. She wants to know what happened, but she already knows from everything Renee has expressed so far, in things both said and unsaid. “I know,” she tells Renee. 

“I don't want to meet her again,” Renee says, explaining more. “Even by accident.”

“I know,” Auntie Winnie says quietly. “I'm sorry for saying what I did. I didn't mean to scare you.”

Renee gains momentum, as if feeling that much more safe already. “And I don't need you and Uncle Asco to help pay for nuclear weapons anymore.”

Aunt Winnie is more quick to answer this time. “We’ve been over this. The way the world works, it's a good thing that they're made. At this point in history, they make the world safer.”

Uncle Asco adds to the argument. “It would be very destabilising to make that kind of change at work. It's hard to say what would happen, and we don't want you to go through that. We want the best for you.” Jason can hear the genuine intention behind Uncle Asco’s words, and that's complicated.

Renee gets angry. “Don't pin that on me.” She immediately feels bad for her tone of voice, but she can't keep the rest of it in. “Everyone stop pinning everything on me. Just stop. You want to help make them because you think you need to. You want money because you think I need more money. But I'm saying right now what I need to feel better, and it's not that.” She lets up, recognising the hurt on the faces of her aunt and uncle. “I'm sorry. I know that you love me.”

Aunt Winnie agrees. “We do love you. We think you deserve the world.”

Renee almost physically recoils, absorbing the love as much as the generational legacy of warped beliefs about the world. “I love you Auntie Winnie,” she says, her voice blistering with the overcrowding of mixed emotions. “But I don't deserve the world. Nobody does.” She brings her uncle into the fold by taking his hand, and she says, “I already have a world, in you.”

That really strikes them both. Uncle Asco may tear up, but Jason can't see very well. They're sitting in one of the few places in the room that the natural light doesn't reach well.

Aunt Winnie sighs, more smoothed over than defeated. “You sound like your mom. I just want to warn you. Someone else will probably fill the funding gap, even if all goes well. And I can't promise that this will go well.”

Renee doesn't seem bothered. “I think it could go well. You're both really good at your jobs. And even if other people do what you were going to do, then I still feel okay. I just need us to do something different. Speaking of, I have one more thing that I need.”

“Just one?” Uncle Asco repeats, wryly.

“I would feel a lot better if we opened the garden for the public,” Renee says. “You’re always worried because I don't make friends. I think this would help me.” She turns to them both hopefully.

“But with the public, we don't know who-” Uncle Asco realises the irony, given that the last threat to Renee’s life came from inside the family. 

“We have plenty of parking space,” Renee reminds him. “We have plenty of everything. So everything can all be free.”

“It's doable,” Aunt Winnie admits. “Maybe this can be your project. It was about time for you to learn how to manage affairs.”

Renee doesn't hide her smile. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m excited.” She looks to Jason and Tim. “Okay, that's all I need. Do you…have to go now?” She tries not to sound disappointed, but she can't help her hesitation, as if she'll speak the ending into existence.

Jason does his best to smile, even though he feels just as complicated as Renee does. “Well, look at you go. You don't need us anymore. That's a good thing.” 

“I guess I don't,” Renee says, and the acceptance of that truth is bittersweet for her, just as it is for Jason.

“But we'll call again,” Jason promises. “Just to see how things are going, and if you need anything else. When would you like us to call?”

Renee calculates. “Next month. I want to have time to-” She breaks eye contact again. “-to impress you.”

Tim smiles. “We're already very impressed.”

Jason turns his attention to Aunt Winnie and Uncle Asco. “Do you have anything else that you need from us? Any questions?”

They turn to each other. “No,” Uncle Asco says first. “Thank you for coming,” he says politely, and Jason knows that part of Uncle Asco is uncomfortable with how he's actually thankful.

“Thank you for having us,” Jason returns, also politely, and also grateful that the interview ultimately went in the direction that it did. He turns to Tim. “Is there anything that I missed?”

Tim thinks. “I just want to remind that everything that we discussed today stays confidential. We'll write a report to the police for the purposes of documenting that this visit happened, but we'll only mention that Renee’s needs were addressed and a plan was made for meeting them.” He looks to Jason for help, unsure.

Jason thinks that Tim did just fine. “You can ask the police for a copy of what we wrote at any time.” He looks at Tim again. “Shall we see ourselves out?”

Aunt Winnie pats Renee’s hand. “Go see your guests outside.”

There's the formality of the adults standing up together and shaking hands, and then Jason and Tim escape with Renee to the main double doors. She points to the exquisite skylights in the grand foyer, identifying them as the “ceiling” for their benefit, as the great tour guide that she is.

Renee opens the main double doors for them using a keypad, and she walks them to the edge of the landing, glancing down the steps at the Batmobile with disguised longing.

“I don't think your uncle is comfortable with the idea,” Jason says, truly sorry, and moving down a few steps so that he can be level in height with Renee, Tim coming to stand next to him. “We'll wait to leave until the doors close behind you.”

Renee looks away, embarrassed but stubborn. “What if I never close them?” She seems to hear herself, then backtracks. “I'm being childish. But all of our time together really meant a lot to me.”

“Spending time with you meant a lot to us, too,” Tim says. “You had a big impact on us.”

Renee looks surprised. “Really?”

“We're already very impressed,” Jason repeats Tim from earlier.

Renee suppresses her excitement well. “Okay.” She smiles. “Then prepare to be more impressed. Talk to you soon.” She waves. “Bye.”

“Bye.” Jason can't help but mimic the way she talks, because he knows from experience that everything will become a faded memory one day, no matter how important or moving the interview. “Talk to you soon.”

“Thank you for everything, Renee,” Tim says, as Renee disappears into the mansion to close the doors. And they close, and she doesn't reappear.

Notes:

the riddler: name 100 women
me: um um um um batgirl! oracle! spoiler! um…catwoman? and, uh, that's all i got.
me: (explodes)

my tortured ghost crying out from the abyss of hell: no! wait! i wrote about women today! please!
the riddler: (reading the chapter) no yea you’re definitely a misogynist

 

on a more serious note: i don't work with children & families so. had to reread some readings/lectures and read some new things. to anyone who knows what they're doing: sorry for anything that i butchered!!

Chapter 10: curse my body (you raise the gun and i'll fire)

Summary:

********cw:******** discussion in depth of implied/referenced s.a. & seuxal violence from ch 4 (including brief mentions of barely legal); graphic descriptions of memories from jason's death and torture; detailed descriptions of bruising

this is probably the last jason pov. (might have another famous last words situation but) I'll miss it, it's fun. everybody say byeeeee jason!!! :’D

(19-08-2025)

Notes:

chapter title: slo by vukovi

taking a break from nukes this chapter because why tf did i pick to write about this topic when i barely know what I'm talking about

the ages are all fucked in this....i keep misunderstanding things from different tumblr and reddit posts and i am so grateful for the geniuses that can somehow put together so much from so many different comic books and timelines but their genius far surpasses my meagre intelligence and so now we have my own fucked timeline....who knows how old they are!!!! or were when certain shit happened!! certainly i don't!! those are just random numbers in the story...sobs

“Hey,” Tim says urgently, as Jason begins the lengthy descent down the steps of Henry Castle to the Batmobile. Tim is still holding Jason's bin for him, which Jason can't appreciate enough. “I feel like you weren't feeling good during the interview.”

Not feeling good is also a phrase that has no real meaning to Jason. But somehow negative statements about what it isn't are more comforting that positive statements like it hurts. “True,” he tells Tim. 

Tim is silent for a few steps, trying to piece things together, but he holds himself back from asking any questions. “I can drive,” Tim offers instead, always practical, and Jason has the capacity to like that about him these days. Jason heard Damian's story about the adjustment Tim suggested to the staffing at the gala, and he doesn't feel any angst that Tim is an effortlessly competent manager. Jason is beginning to think that it’s a bit of an honour, that Robin the Third likes Robin the Sequel so much.

Jason almost asks Can you? as a joke, but he now also has the capacity to feel bad about that, because Tim didn't even think to make fun of Jason with the phone camera this morning. Jason gives up, because once he gets into the Batmobile, he doesn't think he'll be able to move. “Thank you,” he accepts.

Tim blitzes down a few steps ahead of Jason, as if he's afraid that Jason will fall, and the way he almost trips makes Jason remember that there's something going on. What now, Jason thinks again, but he's not exasperated or frustrated at all. He's just fucking terrified.

“You really are a genius,” Jason says, not sure why he thinks that's going to be a helpful thing to say.

“I did not foresee that outcome,” Tim says honestly, reaching the bottom first. He waits for Jason. “Renee just changed the course of history.”

Jason steps off of the last step onto the driveway and is split between the longing to sprint to the Batmobile, and the abject terror he feels at the thought of sprinting. “Was the inclination to finance nukes really just social-worked out of this family?” He asks the sky, because, really, what the fuck.

“Do you want to just wait here?” Tim asks Jason.

“It's not far,” Jason answers, very embarrassed.

Tim shrugs. “Far is relative to near. I want to see if I can figure out how to drive on my own anyway.”

Jason notices that Tim is trying to do the sleight of hand where Tim does something for Jason and tells everyone that he did it for himself, and Jason doesn't want Tim to accidentally hurt himself. “But I wanted to give you Batmobile lessons,” Jason tells Tim, very intentionally referencing himself.

Tim bites his lip, conflicted, and in his moment of hesitation, Jason continues across the driveway to the Batmobile. Tim hurries after him, scrutinising Jason's every step. The sensation of Jason's kneecaps splintering due to blunt trauma that happened years ago, over and over again, like his body is looping its favourite song, impedes Jason's ability to feel cared for, and if Tim wants to do that, Jason can do the same. He observes the way that Tim seems to wait for Jason's cue to take the next step, like Jason's second shadow. Jason remembers Tim tripping in the garden, and in the Batcave. He hears the door locking and unlocking, and he hears Tim say I guess I wasn't really nervous, either. As they step closer and closer to the Batmobile, Jason thinks about They really helped and I just don't think this fits well anymore and You know what happens in the end? and It was just the way that she tried to become my friend and What kind of friend was she?

Tim doesn't even notice any of this, because he's that determined to figure Jason out just by watching him walk, and Jason is feeling too crippled to admit to himself that he's being hypocritical by judging that. So when Tim finally notices Jason's attention as they reach the Batmobile and stop, Jason is so fucking relieved, because he was one more step away from screaming at Tim.

“Sorry,” Tim says, one hand opening the passenger-side door for Jason. “Did you say something?”

Jason manages not to scream, or even sigh. “No. I'll take the bin and sit with it on my side.”

Tim doesn't give Jason the bin, though. He kneels down and tucks the bin into the leg room in front of the seat, as far forward as the bin will fit. “Does this work?” He asks Jason, still kneeling, like he'll move it half an inch to the left if Jason asks.

How does he know? Jason wonders, and the question infuriates him, because Jason wants to know what to do for Tim. 

“Yes,” Jason says.

Tim hurries to stand up and let Jason get in, and Jason can see it, very clearly, the shadow of the thing that happened at the end, and the way that it seems to make Tim walk around blindfolded. Despite the shadow, Tim waits for Jason, and Tim closes the door manually before circling around to the driver's side. 

Jason sinks into the seat, circling his arms around his knees. It's better than walking or standing, but now the weight of his body rests on his pelvic bone, and the fissures begin, vines of cracks that creep and swirl around his bone marrow, as if Jason’s skeleton is a garden tended to by a conscientious farmer with a crowbar-shaped hoe.

Ouch, Jason thinks, as the subtlest vibration of Tim closing the driver’s side door reaches Jason, and the splintered pieces of his pelvis impale the surrounding muscle, and something in Jason screams get it out get it out get it out of there.

But Tim is uncertain, looking over the dashboard, and Jason doesn't want Tim to hurt himself anymore.

“That’s the parking brake,” Jason confirms to Tim, when he sees Tim's eyes run over the switch. Jason doesn't have the willpower to lift his arm and point. Renee’s memories have been destroying him for what feels like forever now, her emotions transfigured into his murder weapon, and, now, there's Tim’s shadow, bruising Jason deep purple, pinching his capillaries to bursting one by one by one like bloody cellular grapes.

Tim looks over at Jason after the parking brake is disengaged. His eyes widen, maybe because Jason physically can't tolerate the sensation of the seatbelt on his skin, and so he hasn't bothered with it, and Tim's obvious concern is just another burden for him, and for Jason. “This still isn't good for you,” he concludes, as unfairly quick as ever. “I'm going. I'm going.”

“Take your time,” Jason says. “Stay safe. That’s it, the gear selector. Good job. It's a fully automatic transmission, if you're just driving around. Yes, that’s the accelerator pedal. That's the brake. Don't worry about the other pedals.”

Tim nods, still in a hurry. Jason winces. The Batmobile wasn't made for Tim. He's touching the pedals with the tips of his feet, which might not give him very good control. Just imagining uneven accelerations and hard braking is making Jason flinch. Maybe he shouldn't have agreed to this. But he doesn't have anything left in him to move a muscle. 

Tim looks over at Jason, one more time, and it's like he somehow knows that whether or not Jason throws himself out of the vehicle to escape from The Hurt once and for all is entirely in his hands, which should be impossible for him to know. He looks around for Renee or anyone else, and Jason finally notices that Tim hasn't bothered with the seatbelt either, because he can't reach the pedals with it on. He's beyond sitting at the edge of the seat. He's more like falling off of it.

Before Jason has even a second to feel afraid for their lives, Tim drives, and there's no inertia, no lurching. It's just radio silence as he pulls out of the driveway. His hands grip the steering wheel with force that has to hurt, as if he can't feel it at all, and the corner of his lip twitches with the beginnings of a nervous breakdown, but he's good. He’s racing down the road once they've cleared the driveway, but it doesn't feel like that to Jason.

“Who taught you how to drive?” Jason asks to distract himself from get it out get it out of there .

“Somebody did,” Tim replies, and Jason wonders if he's stressing Tim out more. But Jason is just so hurt by the shadow, so Tim has to at least tell him this, because Jason doesn't know what to do for Tim at all.

“Does this somebody have a name?”

“Probably.”

“Do you happen to know what it is?” Jason is beginning to conclude that Bruce and Dick just gave up, because this is so goddamn frustrating. Jason followed their lead without question for the longest time, assuming there was some kind of important reason for not discussing Tim personally even after years, maybe retraumatisation, or something, but it turns out, that this was probably the reason the whole time.

“Honestly, I don't.”

“That’s rude.”

Jason sees Tim's grip on the steering wheel finally relax, and the distressed crook to his mouth gives way to exasperation. “She never said! The videos were just of her explaining things and driving around!”

“Ah. So where did you learn how to drive?”

Tim almost smiles. “At a place.”

This again, Jason thinks, noticing that he sounds like Damian. “Where did you find a car to practice with?”

Tim digs the nail of his left thumb into the steering wheel. “I borrowed it.”

“That sounds illegal,” Jason says, tickling himself internally because they are also borrowing a car of sorts at the moment.

Tim doesn't seem repentant at all. “I don't think they noticed.”

“Do you think Bruce has noticed?” Jason wonders. Tim's tactic must be getting people to rage quit this line of questioning, and it works really, really well.

Tim looks genuinely scared. He presses his nail even further into the steering wheel, and Jason knows that he's still much more anxious than he's trying to let on.

“He's not going to be really upset,” Jason says. “I asked that question because I think it's funny to imagine his reaction.”

Tim still looks unsure, returning the majority of his focus to the road, and despite the slight bends and dips in the pavement leading out of the estate, Jason doesn't feel the road at all. As he continues to scrounge for ideas to help Tim relax and switch on autopilot, Jason suddenly remembers We?, and he completely understands Tim's fear.

“You're doing really well,” Jason praises, to cheer Tim up, because he knows that Bruce is going to have to be the one to make Tim feel better about what happened between them. “I feel okay.”

“No, you don't,” Tim says, eyes fixed on the obelisk up ahead that marks the border of the estate.

Jason can't argue with that assessment. “We'll debrief later, if you want to.” He judges that now is the worst possible time to have an emotionally heavy conversation, for both of them. “Do you want to write the report together?”

“I do,” Tim says. His short answers are really disheartening, because Jason is becoming increasingly sure that Tim is unreachable at the wheel. It's just too hard to drive the Batmobile for the first time under the amount of pressure that Jason's additional needs are exerting. Jason really hates himself right now for putting all that on Tim. And he hates himself even more for not being able to do anything about it. So if it's fucking hopeless no matter what Jason tries, maybe he should just float away.

But Jason forgot. He can't float away when he's already this deep into the reenactment of his death. He has front row seats, and he can't leave the theatre now. That would be very rude for all of the other guests who are trying to enjoy the show.

Tim looks frantic, glaring out of the window with pure concentration, and his legs tremble with the effort of pushing the pedals without the full support of the seat. Just imagining the soreness in Tim’s legs makes Jason feel even more hurt . And Jason trusts Tim to do a good job, so Jason turns his mind to the other things that he was going to have to think about sooner or later. His awareness needs to tread water above the depth of darkness below, even if Jason can't float, because the alternative is to drown.

If whatever is happening hadn't started to happen, Jason was planning to ask Tim on this drive back Did you know that you share the same first name as the son of Jack Drake and Janet Drake? Because Jason has a feeling that Tim does know. Tim is lucky that he doesn't share a strong physical resemblance with his parents, otherwise Jason might have confronted Tim much earlier. But then again, Tim does share a strong resemblance in other ways.

Lovely, Tim said about Jason’s process, like how Janet said lovely about Tim’s ‘freelance photography.’ Jason changes his mind, again. They actually couldn't be more different. Jason doesn't understand how someone who says lovely with such gentle warmth and sweetness can be related to someone who says lovely with an almost-sarcasm, with the cynicism of someone who throws around words like ‘lovely’ to describe almost anything, believing that the word doesn't mean that much, if humanity were to really think on it.

Jason can understand, actually. He thinks about his own mom, as he is prone to do during times like these. Jason remembers the day that she never came back. He didn't know it was the day that she never came back at the time. She left a lot. So Jason waited, kept ‘working,’ and saved food for her. Eventually Jason decided that wherever she was, they were better off without each other. He thought that, because he couldn't bring himself to assume the worst. The most telling thing was that he still wanted Catherine Todd’s last name. Jason kept it, long after Willis Todd fucked off during the very last screaming match, long after Jason found her in the cemetery after his death, along with a note in a public record that the cause of death was overdose. 

Some part of Jason was happy that their tombstones matched, and even their deaths, both of them having spiralled to their demise by their own folly. It was as if Jason had the last laugh, because no matter how far into euphoria his mom ran away from him, there it was- their undeniable, inalienable connection, etched irrevocably into stone, defining their lives. But Jason and his mom also couldn't be more different. Because Jason died looking for her, and she died looking for something else.

Jason doesn't know why he does this to himself, every time. He thinks it's related to how he’s heard you don't have a mother so many times from the Joker that he doesn't even remember if the Joker actually repeated himself during Jason's death scene, or if Jason repeated the line to himself as a mantra to distract himself from other sounds, like the sound of his stomach tearing, and the sound of stomach acid trickling somewhere under his skin, and the ensuing corrosive sting that felt so hot that he could almost hear sizzling. 

“Jason,” Tim says, panicked. He doesn't dare look over at Jason entirely, focussed on braking to make the turn back onto the gravel path. Jason doesn't feel the turn at all. He finds himself thinking again Thank god he is here, and he never thought he could ever feel that way about reality. “You're covering your ears. What's going on?”

What's going on? is another one of those questions that Jason can't answer. “Something is definitely going on,” he assures Tim, because that's the clearest picture that he can possibly give, this time.

Tim doesn't know how to answer that, and even though his eyes are dry, there's still something undeniably teary about him. He doesn't accelerate very much, driving slowly, keeping an eye out for the mouth of the cave at the top of the rocky incline to their left. It's just hard to see, because the actual opening is not visible from this lower vantage point.

“I see it,” Jason says to help Tim out.

“But what about getting down?” Tim asks Jason, a tightly wound soreness splitting his voice, and Jason forgot about that. He forgot about the part where they have to get back down into the cave system. His first reaction is a near mental breakdown, but his second reaction is relief. Because Jason can sense relief at the bottom, a relief that he's never been able to experience, because he's just so crazy that drugs don't work on him anymore.

Jason decides that he can't wait. He actually can't. “It'll be fine,” he tells Tim. “You're doing very good. I don't think you even understand how good you are. The cave system is easier than it looks. Make sure the headlights are on automatic. Switch on the full beam headlights if you need them, but only if you have enough control over the vehicle to do so. I'm sure you were paying attention to how I handled the Batmobile. You're good like that. And that's all there is to it.” 

Jason begins buckling his seatbelt, forcing his legs to unfold, his feet to reach the floor, despite the fact that his body thinks that his bones have been levelled into shards of calcium that float around in the lazy river of his flesh, despite that the seatbelt feels like being tied up again, and it's still his doing, the rough corded texture under his fingertips still the knobby fruit of his own foolish labour.

“No, wait,” Tim says, even as he continues to drive. “What if we call for some help? We can wait here, and I'm sure someone can come and get you, and take you back the normal way.”

Jason imagines waiting like this for someone to come after forever of waiting for relief that only flitted further and further away during his time at Renee’s house, imagines transferring into a different vehicle, imagines getting into the manor the normal way. He almost bashes his own head into the door, because imagining hurts. “This is our best option,” he says.

Tim gapes. “I-” he stammers, because he’s trying so hard to take Jason seriously, trying with everything he has to understand Jason's perspective, as he always has. And that makes Jason feel worse, because he can still see the shadow under Tim's eyes, and Jason can't even do anything for Tim. “I don't see how-”

Jason physically cannot bear the load of hearing the rest. “What do you know?” he says, and he's not sure if he says it, can't actually hear himself above the loamy squish of the ropes, and, when Jason thinks about it, ropes are actually so pretty, aren't they? They're a braided, weaved textile with their own kind of fashion sense, and maybe they’ve actually looked good on him the whole time. If so, then maybe there's nothing for Jason to be complaining about in the first place. That's a little ironic, a little funny. But hadn't he been in the middle of saying something to Tim? He at last catches the end of his own thread. “Please,” Jason begs. “Fucking go.”

Tim looks like Jason physically wounded him, and Jason knows very well from experience what that expression looks like on Tim. Tim looks up the uneven incline with sheer terror, and Jason remembers that Tim has never done this before. But Tim turns carefully anyway to start up the side, and Jason feels nothing from the movement of the Batmobile, which he knows isn't going to last for long.

“Just imagine if there was a road paved up to the mouth of the cave,” Jason instructs. “How would they pave it? I don't recommend following the path I took down, because there isn't actually a road. What works on the way down might not work on the way up. You'll have to improvise. But I have every confidence that you can find a way.” Part of Jason is just being a selfish asshole, and the other part knows that Tim can do it, and wants Tim to know it too. He's already this good, just from watching videos on the internet and driving around Drake Manor.

But when Jason looks at Tim, there are tears under his eyes, reminding Jason of that stupid rooftop, and of godforsaken Titans Tower. “I'm going to hurt you,” Tim says, and Jason is again not sure how he can know this so acutely, when there’s no evidence for him to even see or hear or touch. 

“I'm ready,” Jason says, because there is nothing else to say. 

Tim wipes his dark circles with the back of his hand, and they're off.

Jason feels the incline immediately in the way that gravity starts to press on him from the front, pressing dangling pieces of flesh back into place, which further press into his exposed vertebra, and Jason feels put back together like a dissected specimen for taxidermy. The force of gravity on his neck is too hand-like, and he tries to remember that dissected specimens are already dead by the time they get to the lab, so a little strangulation isn't going to hurt. But it does, and he remembers that vivisection is a thing that happens too sometimes.

“You're screaming,” Tim says, still crying, and Jason notes that he doesn't feel anything from the actual movement of the Batmobile, even as Tim changes directions as part of his pathing. Tim doesn't make rookie mistakes, like braking out of panic and backsliding, or trying to push up on boulders without enough purchase, so Tim is still doing well, and it helps that the Batmobile has a futuristicly advanced suspension system.

“It's not because of you,” Jason says.

Tim doesn't argue, because how is he supposed to know, and he knows that. “We're at the top,” he announces. “There must be something.” He searches the dashboard. “Something that can help lower us.”

Jason imagines being lucid for their upcoming travel through the cave system, at the speed that they need to be going to get across certain areas, and being thrown back against the seat with more force than even the omniscient force of gravity. Besides, Jason already decided. He's not giving up on his relief. He's going to get it, just this once.

“There isn't anything,” Jason lies.

Tim sucks in a breath, unable to stop crying at all. “There has to be.”

“Tim,” Jason says, with all the patience that he can muster, as the millionth you don't have a mother screeches in his ears above the sound of the last beat of his heart, and when he remembers this moment, he always remembers it along with Bruce's face, and it's just too fucking cruel, and now Jason needs to raise his voice to hear himself above it all. “You're hurting me now. Fucking drive.”

Tim looks at Jason again like Jason almost killed him, and Jason knows very well from experience what that expression looks like on Tim. It's starry-eyed, concerned, and Jason is lying when he says that he doesn't know how Tim isn't traumatised by Jason, because he thinks it's because Tim is already broken. And now Jason really needs his relief, because there's no feeling in the world like trying to break something that already broke.

There was no other way but to drop, straight down, and that's fine, as Tim likes to say, because the Batmobile is built for that kind of thing. The relief sets in almost immediately, as the impact of the bottom triggers sensations so vivid that Jason's body decides to quit rather than cope, just in the same way that it did all those years ago. But it's not quite the same as dying, passing away from something to nothing. Instead Jason begins to understand his mom, because if this is what a tranquiliser feels like when it actually works, he can't get enough. He can't get enough of how his body passes away from his awareness, how he feels cuddled and warm, wrapped up in his own brain, insulated from the sound of Tim’s panic or anything else.

Jason thinks it's funny how these things are called black outs, when everything feels so much brighter and clearer. He can actually think, and his thoughts are free from all that other shit that he's so tired of thinking about. It's a magnitude of rest that Jason has only experienced a few times before, between living with his mom and dad, living with his mom, not living with his mom, being Robin, dying, and being undead, because the dead don't even rest.

What did you do? A familiar voice disturbs Jason's newfound relief, but Jason is still not ready to give it up yet. He can't remember this particular memory with Bruce, even though he can think of several funny and unfunny things that he's done over the years that would have deserved that response. He combs through his memories with a utensil that isn't knife-sharp for once, not in any rush, because none of the memories that he hates are on the shelves right now. He doesn't find anything about What did you do?, but that doesn't really bother Jason. He's getting a little bored. Rest is cosy, but there's nothing to really think about other than himself, and there's nothing to really do. Jason already misses the liveliness of his group of people, which there is an official term for, but he's feeling too restless to pick it out of his brain.

Jason decides to take it easy, just in case any of what was there in his body before is still there. He listens.

“It could still be a physical health condition,” Tim is arguing. “In the sense that there are actually changes and damage in his body when whatever happens is happening. But I don't think the mechanism is necessarily a known pathology, or even mental, or emotional, although the triggers may be. I feel like the mechanism could be something that we can't even conceive of yet, like, a virus, almost, from the Lazarus Pit.”

“So many people have been through the Lazarus Pit, and nobody else has experienced what you say Jason is,” Dick says. “The cause is definitely biomedical, and, if not, probably PTSD, somatisation, something like that. I don't understand why you're fighting so hard not to take him to the hospital, unless you're trying to hide something.”

“He's probably been there so many times,” Tim says, ignoring Dick's accusation, like he's already heard it before. “Even if the cause is biomedical, the science isn't there yet to understand what happens to people who come back to life, much less how to help. They're not going to find anything, or do anything helpful. It's just going to make Jason look dishonest.”

“We're going in circles,” Dick says. “Like I said, nobody else who has been through the Lazarus Pit has reported any of the things that you think he's going through. And how do you know that nothing is going to help? Modern medicine has come really far.”

“You weren't there!” Tim says, voice fraying. “If there was something that worked, Jason would have found it by now. He basically asked me to literally knock him out.”

“So you admit to hurting him on purpose?” Dick says pointedly.

“I swear,” Tim pleads. “I didn't want to. He asked me to. You don't understand the way that he asked me. It would have been way worse if I didn't. You don't understand. Please try. Please. And we're not going in circles. Some people die from the flu; other people are asymptomatic. And we still don't fully understand this variability in people, even with modern medicine.”

“First you're saying that it's something that we can't even conceive of, and now you're repeating the concept of a Lazarus Pit illness, even though there's nothing that's ever happened to substantiate that,” Dick says.

“I don't know what it is!” Tim admits. “I don't! I'm just saying that whatever it is, and whatever will fix it, is uncharted territory. It could even be some kind of parasite or fungus in his body, from, underground, as a…corpse. I doubt they screen for that at the hospital! It could be the way he died, the torture. It could be anything. Anything at all.”

Dick is silent at first, but Jason knows that Dick has a molten soft spot for Tim. “Okay. We'll figure it out. Please don't worry,” he says with a tired sigh. “I'm not mad.”

Tim doesn't say anything at first either. “Thank you,” he says, voice quiet. “I know from your perspective that it's really hard to understand.”

“Bruce is going to be okay,” Dick says soothingly, and Tim doesn't say anything to that.

Now that they're done fighting, Jason takes a moment to investigate how he feels, and he's so relieved to discover that his body has reset. He's still fatigued, but he would be, anyway, after Renee’s interview. When he opens his eyes, he's surprised to find that he's still in the Batmobile, and that Tim, standing with Dick in front of the parked Batmobile, is still wearing what he was. Jason checks the time and realises that hardly any time has passed. 

Tim notices Jason first, despite the tinted windows. “Sorry,” he says immediately, in stark contrast to his speaking patterns with Dick. “Did we wake you up?” He comes around to open the door, but Jason doesn't need Tim to do that.

Jason opens the door first, and he collects his bin from below. “I'm fine,” Jason says to Tim. “It's over now.” He comes to stand with them in the Batcave, and he absently notes that Tim's parking job is really bad, and he feels like that's foreboding for some reason.

“What happened?” Dick asks, suspicious all over again. He monitors Jason's movements carefully.

“Exactly what Tim said,” Jason confirms. “I asked him to dive bomb the Batmobile. And it worked really well. Usually there's a couple more hours in store.”

Dick accepts this answer with relief, but he's tired. “This is all very sudden,” he says with uncertainty. “You've never said anything about this to me.”

Jason looks to Tim, thinking, again, thank god he is here. “It was hard to explain, and I didn't think it was possible to explain it. I wasn't even sure if it was real, or if I was making it up.” It's good to have an advocate, Jason almost says, but Tim doesn't look very much like an advocate right now. He looks like he just watched someone die.

Jason takes in the lack of focus in Tim's eyes, because he's taken off his mask, and he may have also taken Jason's off to make him more comfortable. Tim is leaning against reinforced concrete again, and Jason strongly believes that Tim wouldn't be upright otherwise. 

“Tim was amazing,” Jason says, and Tim looks at Jason like he's stopped speaking English, or because he's never heard his name said together with a positively connotated adjective in his life. Jason thinks about all the distance Tim made driving alone through the cave system, by trying to reverse engineer the route that Jason took. He thinks about the way Tim guessed what Jason needed, wordlessly, and took the things that Jason could never express so seriously that he drove himself insane. Jason wants to tell Dick as much, knowing that Dick will understand. “He helped me so much. You have no idea the-”

Tim interrupts. “I'm just glad that nothing even worse happened.” He laughs, as if politely accepting a compliment at a party, and it's strange, because this joyride was nothing like a party. “I didn't know what was going on at first.” He smiles to himself, and then at Jason, and then at Dick, almost crying again, but he stifles his breath in his throat.

So that's how it looked to him, Jason realises. 

“I'll put your bin back,” Tim offers, and it's less like a friendly gesture and more like supplicating for somewhere else to be. “You can change first.”

Jason doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know how to tell Tim that he's seen his shadow. Jason doesn't even know if it would comfort Tim or burden him more, to have a witness. He hands Tim the bin, realising that he still has Renee’s tissue balled up in one hand. The memory of what Renee’s button looked like is already growing fuzzy around the edges, and the interview only just happened. Did the orange hue in the iridescence catch the light first? Or the blue? There was an inimitable compassion that bloomed in that interview, and it becomes so meaningless to the human memory with the passage of time. But Jason knows that he needs to let the helping relationship go. Not every flower blooms, but every flower must wilt, whether by the gardener's own wrathful hand, by negligence and forgetfulness, or by the inevitable arrival of winter. Jason knows this axiom of human relationships well. He walks with Dick as Tim goes his own way with the bin, and Jason drops his last attachment to the beauty of the connection into a waste bin. The sourness of grief pricks his heart.

“I’ll go round up Bruce and Damian, and we can all talk before dinner,” Dick says, because Jason needs to change. “He'll come around! He'll come around…” He mutters to himself with his usual hapless smile, then addresses Jason. “Just to warn you,” Dick says, rubbing his shoulder, which he always does when he needs to soothe himself. “Bruce did not take the way you two returned very well.”

What did you do? Jason remembers, and he couldn't find the memory in the stacks, because it just happened. But Jason isn't disconcerted. He's just more determined now to finish what he started to say earlier.

“It's going to be okay,” Jason tells Dick, and Dick stops massaging the muscle behind his neck. He studies Jason, and there's fondness in his expression.

“You're right,” he tells Jason. “I guess it is.” Dick looks Jason over, worried again. "Are you sure that you're okay?"

Jason wonders about that, too. He presses where the seatbelt would have dug into his torso, and he doesn't feel any tenderness. He suspects that there will be a bruise, but between the body armour and the well-engineered seatbelt designed to withstand impact like that, he judges that the bruise is just decoration. "For now," he promises Dick. "I'm okay."

Dick smiles unsteadily. "I don't think you realise how bad this news is to us." He blinks quickly. "I mean, I'm overjoyed that you're okay, for now. But I'm sorry that I didn't notice. I guess I've been in Bludhaven too much. I'm sorry. Maybe you felt like I didn't really care that much. That you're back, I mean. Which isn't true. It's the opposite. I felt like I was alive again. I didn't really care about philanthropy, and all that, but, I was so grateful. I just, felt so lucky. I got everything I wanted. So I just had so much to give. That's how I felt, when I decided that I wanted to try leading on some things. But I knew it was too good to be true. Of course there has to be a catch. There always is with us. I'm such a wishful thinker."

Jason doesn't know how to feel, when Dick says I got everything I wanted in reference to Jason's existence. He doesn't know how to feel, when Dick tries to talk about his deepest pains and joys, which Jason is somehow important enough to be associated with, in a rambling, clownish style, like doing that will misdirect Jason from the fact that Dick is not happy.

"It's okay," Jason starts lamely. He's too overwhelmed to formulate a better healing tonic of words right now.

"No," Dick says, turning his face away. "Don't try to comfort me right now. You guys- you both need to stop doing that. I'm supposed to be fine. I am fine." 

"Tim was not the best bearer of bad news, was he," Jason guesses. 

Dick does the thing where he covers his mouth with the back of his hand, and Jason has always been enchanted by that gesture, even though Dick is trying not to cry with it, because the movement is so dainty, and yet so exaggerated. It reminds Jason of the theatrics of the circus, and it makes Jason feel so close to the beautiful and scarring things that Dick saw in his past, close enough to close the curtains on it for Dick, and still hold onto a few pretty baubles from the gift shop for him. Hopefully no one has noticed, but Jason likes to copy this specific gesture of Dick's, because he wants that undeniable, inalienable connection between them. He wants to come from where Dick came from.

"I was waiting with Bruce because he was panicking. You know how he thinks. He assumed that you two killed yourselves with the Batmobile until otherwise proven. I was telling him how everything was going to be fine! Because you're a great driver. Then Tim stepped out of the driver's side, looking like the pallor of death. You didn't get out. Holy shit, it was so obvious that something really bad happened. Bruce was really not doing well at that point. Without any other context, Tim says, 'please don't worry, Jason didn't die again, I checked,'" Dick recalls, lightly copying Tim's very matter-of-fact way of explaining things. "Why does he talk like that? I don't get how he can be so delicate, like with Damian, but other times, just completely out-of-touch with how sad he sounds. But I mean, what else was he supposed to say? But it just looked so bad. Bruce asked Tim what he did. The explanation Tim came up with was even worse. He kept saying things like, 'Jason was just tortured for over an hour, so let him rest for a while.' What was that supposed to mean? But I feel so bad for getting angry. I don't think he's okay. I've made it worse." Dick looks over Jason's shoulder, like he's about to run wherever Tim disappeared to.

Jason remembers that Dick was playing chess with Damian this afternoon, a mental and emotional feat that Jason does not envy in the slightest. It's hard enough to have an interview with Renee, but it's different to have that kind of interview with a child who is in Dick's life the way that Damian is in Dick's life. On top of that, it sounds like Bruce was not okay at all. So Jason can take care of Tim. Jason is fine for now. He decides to make an observation that is long overdue. "You see yourself in Tim, don't you?"

Dick doesn't flinch, but Jason senses that it's a tough blow. He asks Jason, "Did I teach him to be like that?" He's not that earnest, sounding like he's asked himself the question plenty of times before, but he sounds scared, like it took all the courage in the world to ask for a second opinion.

Jason again thinks that it's one of those things that needs to be cleared up between the concerned parties. "You'll have to ask him. I think you'll be surprised by the answer," he says cryptically, hoping that the air of mystery will push Dick to actually ask.

"I've never felt like this before, about anyone," Dick admits. "Losing you was sudden, unexpected. But talking with Tim makes me feel a sense of doom, like the writing is on the wall, and there's nothing I can do. It's like I miss him all the time, and he's not even gone anywhere."

"You see yourself in him," Jason prompts again, hoping the idea will sink in deeper this time.

Dick laughs, and it's a wobbly sound. The look in his eyes is crumpled and defeated. "Am I that transparent? I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Jason says. "I'm happy you're here."

Dick gives Jason a wary look, grimacing. "I'm being comforted again. I know I sound full of myself when I say this. But I'm the oldest. I'm not saying that I'm stronger, or better. I don't know what I'm saying. I just think you three need something from me that I can't give, and, the lack of it, has harmed you."

Jason once again can't believe that Dick is saying these things. "You have no idea how much you've comforted me since we met. Naturally I want to do the same for you."

Dick does not believe Jason at all. "But I wasn't really there. I was off trying to be 'my own adult,' whatever that meant to me back then."

"So? That's just like any young adult who goes to college, starts working, or takes a gap year," Jason argues. "You always came back for me. You taught me a lot, even helped tutor me when Bruce enrolled me in school. I was able to catch up because of you. It was the only reason I was able to catch up. And you motivated me. I wanted to be like you."

"Yes!" Dick says excitedly, except it's a very wrong kind of excitement. "That's exactly the problem! My ego was so fucking flattered that you wanted to be like me, so I let you and helped you, not fully assessing the risks, and then you died. That's so fucking beautiful of me."

Wow, Tim and Dick really are almost the same person. No wonder they set each other off. Jason tries not to laugh, because that would be really inappropriate. "You had nothing to do with the way I died. I set myself up for it."

"No," Dick says sternly. "Stop victim-blaming, right now. It kills me to hear it."

"You, first," Jason argues back. "I'll stop when you stop atoning for your survivor's guilt with a certain kind of ideation."

Dick closes his mouth, deflates. "Oh, my. I really am a bad influence."

Jason runs his hand over his face because that was not the conclusion that Dick was meant to draw from that exchange. But he can work with this. "You were the first person to make me feel like I mattered. Bruce did, yes, but he's subtle. You're so bright, heavy handed, and only with your affection. I never idolised you, not like the way you're thinking. I just wanted to be yours. It's hard to explain. You'd have to be unwanted to really get it. You'd have to understand what it's like to chase after someone who would rather poison themselves than live with their connection to you."

"Jason," Dick says, in that tone of his, but Jason is not going to let this turn into a sad conversation about himself.

"You chased me down instead, to do my homework, reach my potential. You said that I was smart when the world always said that I was destined to be dumb and menial. You were happy when we shared the same name. Before that, nobody was ever happy to share the same name with me. You were happy to look the same, to move the same, to go to the same places. You wanted me," Jason says, surprising himself that the healing tonic of words is binding together after all. "So don't you tell me that the first time that I ever felt loved, was just your own self-aggrandizement, because even if it's both, it's also this, and surely this is more important. You knew that part of you, you lived with that part of you, and you tried to love me anyway. Maybe you've been doing this for too long. You're not meant to be a concept or a paragon. I've never been confused about that. I just love you."

"Oh, my," Dick says, awed. "Jason, when did you become so wise? No, I know this. You were always this way. You just needed help to expand your vocabulary." He's not teary anymore. "I love you, too."

"No, I definitely got it from you," Jason says honestly. 

"Hm," Dick says. He thinks on it. "It was our joint effort. Our collaboration."

Jason can agree to that. "By the way, how was chess?"

Dick has a wistful expression. "Yeah, those were tough games. It's not my place to talk about it in depth. Damian said it was fine, but it's best that he tells his own story. I'm sure Damian will invite you to play chess. He told me as much."

"You don't have to talk about it in depth," Jason says. "But it's a lot to play chess against Damian alone. Do you need anything?"

Something in Dick relaxes, like it's already helpful to be asked, and he grins widely. "I think I heard what I needed to hear. But I might need a hug later, and some ice cream." He stops short of pouting, and Jason wonders if that spiel about the responsibilities of being the oldest Robin was just a dream. 

"Yeah, okay," Jason says. "I'll get you ice cream."

"No, no," Dick says. "You misunderstand me. My treat. We have much to discuss." The look he gives Jason is sad, but he's not going to tank the mood right now, not right when they've just raised it after considerable effort.

"I'm really okay," Jason promises one more time.

"For now," Dick finishes for Jason. "I think there's room for improvement. See you upstairs. Love ya." He messes Jason's hair up very obnoxiously as he leaves.

"Love you," Jason returns, letting Dick go, and Jason changes. When he's finished, he hesitates to go back to the manor. He feels like he wants to wait for Tim, so he stands outside the locker room along the wall opposite the door. Tim trudges along after a minute or two, the bin presumably put away, not noticing anything or anyone, and knocks on the door. When he doesn't hear anyone inside, he fumbles with the handle, but eventually manages to open the door. Tim slips inside, and Jason hears the slide of the lock, which does not surprise him.

Jason hears a soft clamour, the rustling of fabric, and then he doesn't hear much else. He waits another minute, then another three, then another four. At ten minutes, he's kicking himself for waiting so long, because what is Tim doing in there? Hanging himself?

Jason is beginning to understand how things work with Tim, more and more clearly. He's sure that Bruce and Dick waited for Tim for an hour, and then a day, and then a week, and then a month, and then five years to talk about himself. And then they're kicking themselves for waiting so long, but it's almost too late. Things just slip away with Tim.

Jason knocks on the door, trying not to make the sound forceful. He waits for Tim's response, which doesn't come, so Jason identifies himself. “It's me.”

When Jason still doesn't hear anything, he's tempted to get other people down here. But he tries to be optimistic, and assumes that Tim is being stubborn. Bringing others into the situation might make Tim's reaction worse. “I know you're in there. I saw you go in.”

Jason hears rustling. “Please,” Tim says, voice muffled. “Leave me be. I just need time.”

“What exactly do you need more time to do?” Jason asks. “It's been at least 15 minutes.”

“Change,” Tim says, in a tone that is supposed to make Jason feel stupid, but Jason is not taking Tim’s rage-bait to quit this line of questioning.

“Why is that taking so long?” Jason asks, a thousand different awful reasons swirling in his head. “Do you need help?”

Tim only gets harsher, by his standards, which isn't really that harsh. “Absolutely not. Seriously. Please go away.” 

“Why is it taking so long?” Jason didn't miss that one of his questions went unanswered. 

“Long is relative to short,” Tim argues, and it's like Tim is addicted to trying to get people to hate him when he's at his most hurt.

Jason tries to change his approach. “What exactly are you doing right now?”

“Changing,” Tim repeats, again trying to make Jason feel like an idiot.

Jason takes a breath, because he's only angry because he's really fucking panicked, and the irony is that the angrier he gets, the deeper the well of his care tunnels. He knows that it was the same for Damian and Dick. “You don't have to answer this question, okay? But what exact step are you on?”

Tim’s tone only becomes more bitter, like he was expecting Jason to have left already, and like Tim feels a bit foiled. “I'm not on a step. There aren't any steps in here.”

Jason mutely screams into his hands, but he's able to control his tone of voice, all things considered. “Can you please take yourself a little more seriously? For once? Why is every question directed at your wellbeing a joke to you?”

“It is a joke,” Tim continues to argue. “Oh my god, it's such a joke.” Jason feels a little bad, like he cornered Tim into saying this about himself, but Tim continues. “I locked myself in. I'm not on a step because I’m done, and I locked myself in.”

Jason is so confused, and this entire conversation makes him want to throw up again, because Tim is probably in some kind of agony right now, and instead of helping Tim, Jason is arguing with him, and that's exactly how Tim likes it to be. “You can't lock yourself in,” Jason says, hating how he's still arguing. He tries to agree with something. “And even if you did manage to do that, do you really think we're just going to let you sit in there and be stuck for the rest of your life?”

This question really makes Tim upset, because he falls silent. He doesn't have a snarky comment to make about standing and not sitting, or anything else. “It's happened before,” Tim finally says, almost too quiet to hear. “And it wasn't that bad. I can get myself out. Just give me time.”

Jason is still so angry. Now Tim has switched from being ‘funny’ to vague, and Jason isn't sure which is more enraging, because they're still poised to argue in either case. “What are you even talking about? Do you mean that you were stuck somewhere?”

“So many times!” Tim doesn't shout, but there's a ferocity to his words. “I've been stuck, in that house, I've been stuck, on this ledge, on that ledge, on one roof, on the next roof, I've been stuck, in office hours, I've been stuck, in a cave system with what I thought was a corpse at first, so I'm just really experienced. I don't need anyone to come and get me. I don't need anyone to witness it, either. I don't even need to exist. My wellbeing is one big universal joke, and that's fine!”

“That’s not fine!” Jason argues, still arguing, even though he doesn't want to, and even though he knows that he's part of the problem.

“Yes, it is!” Tim argues back, and his voice breaks. “I don't need your attention, or anybody else’s attention. Get it away from me.” His voice grows quiet again. “Don’t look at me.” 

Jason wonders how much of that is about what happens at the end, but he feels like it's also much deeper. It’s so upsetting to Jason that there are wounds, upon scars, upon burns for Tim, because by that point, each individual laceration and injury is unreachable, and invisible, sliced away by the next cutting thing, missing forever without a trace, and only a gory crater remains to be beheld, and Jason surprises himself, which isn't much to celebrate, that he wants to achieve the impossible, that he could tend to each and every thing that has ever pained Tim, even if it means that the time has come to run himself through with his own sword.

“I’m sorry,” Jason says.

Tim denies the premise of the apology, as usual. “You did the best that you could.”

Jason agrees, somewhat. “But I'm still sorry that you got hurt. I know it hurt you. That-” Jason almost chokes on his own self-disgust. “I wanted to kill you.” Isn't that an understatement of tragicomic proportions?

“It doesn't matter,” Tim says, and it's so sincere, the way that he always says that line. “It wasn't about-”

“Yes it was!” Jason is still arguing with Tim! Really? Why are they like this?

“You’re making it about me!” Tim bristles again.

“I hurt you,” Jason says, trying to sidestep directly contradicting Tim, hoping to change the momentum of their dynamic into something else.

“So, what?” Tim asks, genuinely. “It's fine.”

Jason almost says it's not fine, but he knows that's not going to get them anywhere. Convincing Tim that it mattered that he was hurt feels like one of the worst things that Jason has ever tried to do, right up there fighting for the number one slot with both 'trying to find Mom' and 'trying to kill Tim.'

“I don't want you to hurt because of what I did anymore,” Jason says, and he wonders if Renee has rubbed off on him.

Tim reaches peak levels of frustration. “It doesn't hurt. If I don't think about it!” He’s still not quite shouting, but it's like he doesn't want to take the chance that his words will be muddled by the door. “So I just! Don't want to think about it! Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?”

Jason pauses. That actually explains a lot. He sighs. “Are you sure that it doesn't hurt when you don't think about it?”

“Yes!” Tim answers immediately. He falters. “No? I don't know.” Tim hesitates for a full five seconds, and Jason waits patiently. “I can't unlock the door.”

Jason is still struggling to connect the context clues with what Tim means by ‘can’t unlock the door.’ So he'll try to be practical, like Tim. “Do you want me to try to unlock the door from the outside?”

Tim seriously considers this option. “Yes,” he agrees.

Jason is excited because picking a lock will be the first easy task he's had to accomplish in this entire interaction. He finds something to use, and it's done in under ten seconds. “It's unlocked,” he announces, just in case, although he's sure Tim can hear him.

Tim is quiet again, and Jason can feel frustration bubbling under his skin, because he has no fucking clue what is going on with Tim, and it scares him to death. But Jason hears movement again, which calms him. Tim says, vague as ever, “I'm still stuck.”

And Jason literally hates Tim for making it as hard as possible to help him, but he remembers to stay practical this time. “Would you like me to open the door, too?”

“Yes,” Tim says. “But don't look.”

Jason wants to know how Tim expects people not to look at him, long term, but Jason is only frustrated, because he's mad, because he's furious, that Tim feels so uncomfortable. “I'm about to open the door,” Jason warns. “I'll be turned away.” And he does as he says he will.

Once again, there's a period of silence that drives Jason mad, before Tim speaks up. “I'm still stuck,” he says, very brokenly.

What the fuck does stuck mean? Jason wants to shout. Let me see you. Instead, he asks, “Can I help?”

“Yes,” Tim says, and Jason is almost turned around, when Tim says, “But I don't want you to.” His voice is thick with emotion, like it was while he was driving.

Jason is about to blow his top, because why does Tim have to make it so exhausting and frustrating and overwhelming to try to help him? And why is Jason helping Tim do that? It's like Tim is trying to get him to give up, at every step. “I want to help,” Jason insists.

“Don’t,” Tim says. “I don't want your attention. I don't want anybody's attention.” Jason hears movement, and he forces himself not to look, as promised. “Getting just a little makes me want it. I don't want to want it.” He takes a wan breath. “I don't want to go through it again, wanting attention, and then not getting any.” Tim's voice becomes muffled again. “And I'm so tired of getting attention, but it's always the worst kind.” He's probably crying again, and that pisses Jason off so much, because Tim isn't letting him do anything about it, and Jason is back on that fine line again, of having to discern which help is what Jason wants to give to soothe himself, and which help is what Tim actually needs.

Jason tells Tim, “Even though you don't want it, you may need some attention right now.”

Tim doesn't reply. Jason waits. Either seconds or minutes or hours pass. Jason doesn't mind. Tim waited a long time for Jason. Jason can wait, too. It's always the impossibly annoying ones that are debilitatingly aware of how hard they are to love.

Tim says finally, having failed to test Jason beyond his limit, “You can look.”

Jason's arm was getting tired from holding the door open, so for his own sake, Jason is very excited, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the relief he feels for Tim. But he doesn't swirl around to look. Funnily enough, Jason feels hesitant and scared now that he has permission. He guesses he'll always be a little stubborn, even when things happen just the way he wanted them to happen. Jason wills himself to turn around, dread slowing his revolution with a grating friction.

Tim sits in the middle of the room with his back away from the door. He doesn't look at Jason, just hugs his knees, and cries to himself. Jason notes that Tim changed into a fresh pair of clothes, probably the clothes that Alfred mentioned earlier. The sweater is cashmere, and the pants look soft. Jason thinks he recognises these from Dick's wardrobe, from a long time ago, and Jason thinks Alfred was probably lying in wait forever for an excuse to give Tim hand-me-down clothes, and only the best sets- the ones made of silk, of cashmere, of merino wool.

The second thing that Jason notes is that the back of Tim's neck is exposed above the crew collar of his sweater, and the skin is not the right colour. It's a shade of purple that's familiar to Jason, familiar like a recurring nightmare. Jason wills himself to talk calm steps, and to have the presence of mind to prop the door open. 

“What happened?” Jason asks, even though he thinks he knows what happened. He scrolls through his memories like video footage, and he stops at a frame, when Jason was telling Tim to fucking drive, and Tim wasn't wearing a seatbelt because he couldn't.

“Nothing,” Tim replies, face still buried in his knees. Jason revises his overly-optimistic theory of petulance. He thinks that Tim literally cannot move. Tim sits completely still, and his silhouette is stiff.

“Where does it hurt?” Jason asks, automatically, and he thinks to himself, so that's why Tim asks these questions. He takes tentative steps, and he sits down in front of Tim, because he doubts that Tim could turn to the side to look at Jason, and the next thing Jason notes is that Tim's hands are deep purple, an exact colour-match to a shade that Jason recognises from before.

“It didn't hurt,” Tim says, and as unbelievable as that sounds, Jason really tries to understand. Tim raises his head, but not fully, like it's just too heavy for him anymore. “I couldn't feel my legs or arms the whole time, and I had to drive you while you were that vulnerable. That hurt me.” He's contradicting himself a little bit, but Jason doesn't mind, because Jason also does that.

Jason doesn't like that Tim is speaking in the past tense, although he doesn't feel that Tim is trying to be deliberately misleading. “Does it hurt now?” He asks, accidentally echoing Tim again, and Jason really, really gets it now.

Tim doesn't nod, or shake his head, or even blink. “I felt tired, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was stuck.”

Jason is not oblivious to how Tim is refusing to say that he passed out on the floor and now can't even get up, but that's just the crux of communication isn't it, that some things feel completely different said outright. “Can I look?” Jason asks. He's weighed the risk that he might retraumatise Tim against the increasingly likely possibility that Tim needs medical attention.

Tim’s hands shake, but just barely, like his body doesn't have the energy for even involuntary movements. He whispers, “I don't want to want you to look.” He buries his face in his knees again, trying to muffle his sadness in vain. “It means that I was asking for it.”

Jason realises that he's going to have to be patient with the medical attention. And he'll also have to come clean. “I think I know what you're talking about." He clarifies, refusing to allow Tim the plausible deniability of misinterpretation. "I think I know what happened at the end.”

Tim lifts his head so quickly that it definitely pains him, and his eyes are a little dazed. He looks so disappointed in himself. “I must have been making a really big deal of it. Obviously I was. I was asking for pyjamas, and I wasn't tasting flavours right, so Alfred had to make me my own drink, and now I have even more new clothes.” He tries to smile, but his face is tense. “I'm sorry to worry you,” he says. “It's not a big deal. Nothing happened.”

Jason completely understands Dick, when Dick said just shut up, because Tim says things sometimes that are so fucking sad of him to say, and Jason knows from grim experience that ‘nothing' never is nothing with this group.

Tim catches on that Jason doesn't believe him. “It's really nothing. She just put the bomb vest on me. She took her time with it, but that's all. She told me-” His voice breaks, for maybe the hundredth time today. “-sorry. It's not a big deal. It was nothing. She told me that I have a-” Tim stops again, but forces himself to continue, so determined to convince Jason that it was nothing, that it's almost a little funny, in the most unfunny way, how he's just doing the opposite without realising it. “-that I have a nice body. That's all she said. So don't worry. So stop.” Tim studies Jason's expression in disbelief, like he's failed in his mission. His voice is more haggard than ever. “Don't look at me like that.”

Jason sees Tim in a light that he never wanted to see. Tim is small for an adult his age, and if Renee's calculations were correct, he recently became an adult. He's athletic, and he's cute, in the most literal sense of the word. He's barely legal, and a lot of people think that's okay, because of his gender, because the male ego allegedly loves that kind of attention.

“Jason,” Tim says, not giving up. “If you really think about it, I wasn't the vulnerable person in that situation. I basically signed up for it, being reckless, and baselessly confident, and we both know that I'm not harmless.”

Jason's heart squeezes, because Tim is the furthest thing from reckless and baselessly confident, more like, very painstaking, and baselessly unconfident, and because Tim does notice things like that, as Damian said. He really means well. That makes it all the harder to say this. “That’s dangerous thinking in its own way, Tim.” He takes in the shock on Tim's face, because Tim would never mean to do this. “Power isn't gendered.”

Tim stares at Jason like he's looking down the barrel of a gun again, and Jason can tell that's when Tim finally feels it all crashing down. He bleeds out in a mess of his own denial, and fully comes to terms with the destructive power of her touch, her words, her gaze, her deception, and how much his destruction brought her pleasure. Jason knows that Tim isn't ashamed for being less powerful than a woman, but because anyone can feel humiliated and terrified for being less powerful than anyone else. 

Tim is sobbing again, face buried in his knees again, and Jason can guess that he's remembering the fear that he told himself was just irrational and invalid, completely grasping the powerlessness of having an appeal or un-appeal that only other people can decide that he has, of having a quality to himself that he has no control over whatsoever, no matter what he wears or doesn't wear.

The universe must fucking detest Jason, because it's the second time in an afternoon that he's been sat in front of another human being in deep suffering, and feeling like everything he wants to do- to hug, to hold, to soothe, to talk, to cry- is going to be completely useless or counterproductive, because that's just the cruel irony of this reality, that there are infinite shades of dark that get asymptotically more dark as life goes on, and only a finite number of shades of light that can hardly hold a candle to that.

“Can I hug you?” Jason asks anyway. That's what Tim wanted last time. 

Tim sniffles. Jason wishes he still had tissues, but he's not ready to get up and walk away, even for a little bit. “I wish,” Tim says, looking at his knees, and Jason is so angry, because the one thing that he wanted- more like, needed- is inaccessible, because he chose to help Jason. 

“I’m sorry to say this,” Jason says, a sinking feeling crowding out the forced calm of his tone. “But I think you still need to get looked at, medically speaking.”

Tim shakes his head. “It's fine. I've been stuck like this before, when-” He sighs, sick of himself in some way. “It doesn't matter.”

Jason fills in the blank. “You were stuck like this after we met. You didn't go on vacation anywhere.”

Tim looks like he wants to hold something back, but maybe he's too chafed raw from the last couple of days, and especially today, to have the strength to heave the emotions on the tip of his tongue back inside his heart of hearts. “I thought you hated me. I was in bed catatonic for days at a time. I was just depressed. It's not like I was gravely wounded or anything. I just needed time.”

Jason wonders why Tim is gaslighting him as if Jason wasn't the only other person there to witness Tim be gravely wounded, as if Jason wasn't the perpetrator of the grave wounding. He tries to let it go because he thinks he can just barely hear the echo of what Tim wants to know. “I regret everything I did and said when we met, Tim, and also before we met. I don't hate you. I hate that I hated you. You have no idea.”

Tim seems to feel bad for Jason, which is frustrating, and, also, selfishly, a bit of a relief, because that's not how apologies are supposed to go. “It doesn't matter. You did the best that you could.”

After what feels like the millionth time cycling through the same cutscene, Jason finally, finally sees how he can agree with what Tim is saying, beat the level, and get to the next stage. Jason feels proud that he's starting to get good at playing Tim's word games. “You're right. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how it happened, or who or what caused it, at least for right now.” He looks Tim in the eye, and Tim squirms, which Jason takes as a good sign. “All that matters is that you were harmed.”

Tim breathes, and that's all the sound in the room, because Jason is holding his breath. But Jason doesn't mind waiting with baited breath, because Tim waited too long to hear all of these things.

“You care about me,” Tim finally says.

Jason almost scoffs, because, “I think that's a bit of an understatement.” He doesn't continue, because he's going to pry Tim's eye contact away from his knees, so that Tim can't pretend he didn't hear or didn't understand. Jason waits, and waits, and Tim realises that he can't test Jason out of the bounds of his patience. He looks up, unable to tolerate the uncertainty brewing from the unfinished thought any longer, and Jason finishes the thought. “I love you.”

Tim says it back immediately, which shouldn't surprise Jason. “I love you, too.” He looks at Jason the same way he did when he said Really bad.

Jason stifles a sigh. “I know. I really do know. Do you?”

Tim studies Jason, and Jason can only hope that Tim will use his powers of observation for his own good for once, to really grasp the concept that Jason is telling the truth. Jason almost sighs out loud in relief when Tim says, “Yes.” But Tim continues to watch Jason with the same discerning, fearful eye, checking his work, checking again, because he can't believe that it's the right answer.

Jason forces himself to have patience with that, because he now has to move them along to another hard part. “I mean it. You need medical attention.”

“I'm really fine,” Tim says. “Nothing is broken. I know what that feels like. It's just uncomfortable. Besides, whatever the damage, it will definitely get better eventually.” He leaves the point of that observation unsaid. Unlike whatever is happening to you.

Maybe in the past, or even this morning, Jason would have rejoiced in the idea of someone else understanding what he feels like, even for a little while, even from a watered-down version of his experience. Unapologetically, he would have felt glee, because their despair made his own feel less like a figment of his imagination, and more like it actually mattered.

But Jason doesn't need that brand of reassurance anymore. He doesn't need Tim to believe that almost being killed, or his own debilitating physical discomfort, doesn't matter all that much just because Jason was actually killed, or because Jason's discomfort is foreseeably permanent.

Jason doesn't even want that brand of reassurance anymore.

"It doesn't matter what happened to me, or whatever is happening to me, at least for right now," Jason tells Tim. "All that matters is that you were hurt, and are still hurt."

Tim has a very watery, very fragile quality to his expression as he looks Jason in the eye, saying nothing, very intentionally moderating his reaction, and Jason is not fooled. Jason knows that Tim is the kind of broken person who has already taken the liberty of sanding down the rough edges of their shattered self, who has sanded away at even bevelled corners, rounding them, painstakingly, so that he's soft and safe to the touch. Tim isn't going to ask Jason to say more, he isn't going to grasp eagerly at Jason's affection, betraying that he didn't know that he needed to hear these words all this time, and risk making Jason feel worse about the delay. But Jason isn't fooled. Jason knows that Tim needs more attention.

"Can I take a look?" Jason asks. He's itching to see, because he doesn't want to, and he's trying to get the realisation over with. But he doesn't move at all, because that would pressure Tim.

Tim hesitates guiltily, and Jason is learning to read his mind.

"It doesn't matter how it happened, or what caused it," Jason repeats. "All that matters is that you were hurt."

Tim searches Jason's expression, eventually satisfied that he's not about to put Jason on a guilt trip. But he still hesitates.

"There's nothing shameful or moral about wanting or refusing attention. Attention is just one of those things that feels good sometimes. And humans can't ever not want to feel good," Jason says. "But I would even say that all of the attention you've ever 'wanted' was needed. To be honest, the more I think about it, a lot of the things that we think that we want, we probably actually need. And that's a dangerous way of thinking in its own right, to believe that some of us can feel better about ourselves, because we want or need less than other people. There's a glory to be coveted in independence, self-neglect, and suffering, as well."

Jason included the last parts because he knew that they would probably really speak to Tim. Tim doesn't give a shit about himself; he'll only change himself in relation to how that change impacts other people. Jason feels vindicated in his judgement as Tim unfurls his arms from around his knees, a movement that seems to almost make him scream.

Despite that, Tim has the bandwidth to smile at Jason, starry-eyed as ever. "You really are a genius." He doesn't avert his gaze. "You can look."

"Thank you," Jason says. "For your trust."

Tim's smile twists into confusion. His hands press lightly onto the floor on either side of him, but Jason can tell that Tim can't bear to put any more weight on them.

"Your wellbeing is not a joke," Jason explains.

Tim tries to shrug that off. "Obviously I trust you."

Jason lets it go. Maybe one day Tim will understand how precious his trust is to Jason, but that's not the priority at the moment. 

Tim gives Jason another uncertain look. "Are you sure that you need to see? I don't see what it's good for. I'll feel better."

"I do need to see," Jason explains. "You need to be seen when you've been hurt."

Tim trusts Jason in that statement, and Jason is grateful for that trust. "I'm sorry," he says. "I can't roll up my sleeves for you."

Jason tries not to fall into the trap of assuming that because Tim can't, that he wants Jason to do it for him. "You have no reason to apologise. Would you like me to roll up your sleeves?"

Tim nods, embarrassed, but he's really trying to do things differently from now on.

Jason smiles. He takes Tim's left sleeve, rolling it slowly starting at the cuff, one iteration at a time. Thankfully it's a loose-fitting sleeve, and it doesn't get tight around Tim's arm. The sleeve reveals another sleeve, a tattoo sleeve of bruises, but unlike a tattoo, the bruises are layered and have no clear outlines or borders, like Tim hit the same places over and over again.

"What happened?" Jason asks, trying to get Tim to be descriptive for once.

Tim looks at his arm, at the amorphous purple, blue, and black mass that the bruises have collated into, and it's like he can't even remember. "I think I used this arm to brace myself against the roof when we reached the bottom. I probably also braced myself with it a few more times. That's all that happened to it. I couldn't feel anything in the moment. I can feel it now, though. Nothing is broken. If it was, I would definitely try to fix it, otherwise I would be much worse off long-term. You know that."

Jason again thanks the Batmobile's futuristically advanced suspension system, because he does believe Tim that the shock absorbers did their job. "Your bones could still be bruised. It probably feels so painful. Bone bruises can take months to heal."

Tim doesn't say at least they are guaranteed to heal, unlike for you, still trying his hardest to trust Jason. "I hope not," is all he says.

"It's going to be okay," Jason assures, feeling like he's becoming impressively fluent in the language of Tim's silences. "We still need you. Now you have to get involved in the Wayne side of things, or else you'll be so bored." Jason reassess that statement, hearing how it could sound like he thinks Tim owes them because he can't contribute to patrol. "But only if it sounds interesting to you."

"I want to," Tim says. "I've always wanted to. I'm sorry for being distant."

Jason wonders if now is the time to pull the rug out from under Tim and reveal that Jason knows exactly why Tim always wanted to get involved, but never did. He decides that it isn't.

"Do you want me to pull the sleeve back down?" Jason asks.

Tim considers. "It feels a little better rolled up."

Jason takes that to mean that Tim's skin is hyper-sensitive at the moment, even to the sensation of fabric. Jason understands how that can work. He'll need to be even more careful from now on. "Are you ready for the next sleeve? I'll leave it rolled up."

Tim seems to blush behind the shadows cast on his cheeks, and Jason knows that he feels like it's way too much. But it was about time Tim received a dose of his own sugary sweet medicine. "Thanks," Tim says.

Jason folds the fabric on Tim's right sleeve with even more focus, and it's surprisingly stressful, this small thing. But it's not as stressful as trying to drive a spiralling Jason without making a single mistake. Jason knows this.

"Hey, Jason," Tim says suddenly, startling Jason as he makes the second fold.

"Hm?" Jason asks, trying to finish the fold without brushing Tim's skin with either the fabric or his hands. He pauses so that he can concentrate on what Tim has to say.

"I'm afraid," Tim says. "I'm afraid to want and to need things." He sighs. "Sorry, that probably makes no sense."

"It makes complete sense," Jason says, feeling bashful that he's being consulted on his philosophy of life, himself being the most dysfunctional personality that he's ever known. He tries to make the most of this once-in-two-lifetimes opportunity, and sound as cool and wise as he possibly can. "A want by any other name is just a need. You'll know, just stop and smell the flowers. A rose smells like a rose. Ask yourself what's behind the so-called want or need. How do you feel about it? Ask what's in front of it. What are the consequences? You've always been honest with yourself. I know you."

Jason thinks that Tim might blush harder, and Jason returns his attention to the sleeve, instantly regretting trying to sound wise. But Tim says, "That helps a lot. Thank you. You really, seriously are a genius. I feel like you're referencing something."

Jason finishes rolling up the sleeve to Tim's elbow, at last, and he didn't notice Tim flinch or wince, but that doesn't mean much with Tim. "Didn't you have to read Romeo and Juliet for school? I thought everyone did." Jason vividly remembers having a mental breakdown when he had to read fucking Shakespeare in class after a lifetime of reading at a first-grade level. But Dick chased Jason down to do his homework, and everything worked out for Jason.

Jason was right. Tim is definitely flushing. "I never read it," Tim admits. But he stops short at admitting that he didn't go to high school.

"You probably picked something else to read," Jason can't help but guess.

"Yeah," Tim remembers, not seeing the trap at first. And then he does. He stares at Jason in fear, wondering what else Jason knows about his upbringing.

Jason smiles. He was Batman's crime-solving protegee once, too. He likes a good mystery just as much as Bruce or Tim or Dick or Damian does. He's just more unassuming as he goes about his sleuthing, which often comes in handy, like now. But he can wait for his moment of triumph, having cracked the case of Timothy Drake wide open. Tim's wellbeing is more important. "What happened?" Jason says, referring to Tim's right arm, also darkly stained with bruises.

Tim struggles to recall. "I needed to brace your head with my hand. My arm might have bumped into the roof or the seats a few times, as I was reaching over. I think that's all."

Bumped into and a few and that's all. Tim really has a way with words. It's so corporate, so persuasive, borderline manipulative, because he grew up that way, but in the most endearing way possible, because he doesn't want Jason to blame himself. 

"Would you be okay if I checked your ribs?" Jason asks.

Tim looks at Jason apologetically. "I don't want to move my legs."

"That's okay," Jason agrees quickly. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Can I see your legs?"

Tim looks mortified again. "It's just the same story. They bumped into the underside of the dash a few times. That's all."

Jason is unimpressed. "Tim, your injuries are not boring me. Do you want me to cuff your pants like I did your sleeves?" He's being a little sneaky using this tactic, because Jason's main intention is to see, but Tim started the tradition of word games aimed at ensuring the wellbeing of loved ones. Who is Jason to break a family tradition?

"I think it would also feel better that way," Tim says, relief dripping from his voice. "Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me," Jason says. He cuffs the pants with the same attention to detail as before, and he tries to make it look somewhat fashionable, too, not that it matters just being in the house.

"I think that looks really good," Tim says, awed, somehow completely ignoring the layered black marks all over his shin bones.

"You do look good," Jason tries, hoping that it's not too soon. But Tim isn't nice-looking, or cute, or barely legal. He just looks the way that he looks, and he looks even better when he likes the way that he looks, which Jason really wants Tim to understand sooner rather than later. 

Tears well in Tim's eyes, but he doesn't seem upset. Jason still feels bad about almost making Tim cry again, so he moves on. "What about your socks? Do you want to wear shoes?"

"I want to wear shoes," Tim says. "The ground is too hard. The socks don't bother me as they are."

Jason sees a pair of brogues to the side that he recognises as Dick's. Jason also wore these, but he grew out of them slowly, and then all at once. They've been broken in over years, and they're soft and yet supportive on the inside. On the outside, they still gleam with polish like new. But they're laced shoes, so it's no wonder that Tim gave up, with hands like those.

"What do you think of these shoes?" Jason asks, dragging them into Tim's field of view. "I think these were left here for you."

"Those were Dick's shoes," Tim says. He takes questions literally sometimes, and Jason notices that this tendency gets worse when Tim is tired. "And yours. These clothes also used to belong to Dick."

Jason is happy that Tim is aware. "And now they're yours. Do you like them?"

"Dick wore these shoes a lot," Tim explains. "He wore these on the day of his first public appearance. I couldn't tell from the newspaper photo whether the broguing was printing dots or actually there. So I turned on the TV, and luckily I was able to catch a news clip of the same moment. I thought this pair looked really good on him. I was disappointed when he grew out of them. I like them a lot, yes."

Jason wants to laugh, because that's not what he was asking at all.

"You wore them, too," Tim says. "Your existence was never confirmed publicly. You never had." He almost chokes. "You never had the time to be introduced to the public, the first time around. But the paparazzi caught a glimpse of you on July 19th." He looks apologetic, but also thoughtful, like he can remember what the very air smelled like when he saw the photo. "I recognised these shoes. That's how I knew you were real, and probably Robin. I thought they also looked good on you. So, it's hard to explain how much I like them. Did you like them?"

Jason smiles, because what did he do to deserve someone who remembers the exact date that he wore a certain pair of shoes, years ago. "Yes, I did." He rephrases his earlier question, "Do you like them on yourself? Or would you rather wear something else?"

"Yes, yes," Tim says emphatically. He's embarrassed that he might not have sounded grateful enough. "Yes, I like them, a lot. Sorry, that was the whole point of my rambling. Yes. Alfred would probably be happy if I wore them, since he set them out for me."

Jason debates letting the ever-elusive answer to his question go, but he decides he wants to try one more time. "Would you be happy to wear them right now? Do you think they would be comfortable?"

Tim answers without thought. "Yes, obviously I would be happy to wear them." He's flushing deeper than ever. Jason realises that Tim has no way of knowing the answer to the second question.

"Do you want to try them on?" Jason asks. "If they don't feel comfortable, we'll just find different shoes." He doesn't move, again reluctant to pressure Tim either way.

"I do want to." Tim almost stammers. He braces himself to put the shoes on.

"I can do it," Jason says, trying to stop Tim in his tracks without touching him.

Tim appears to be on the verge of tears again. "No, you can't put on my shoes for me."

"Yes, I can," Jason says, allowing himself to argue, just a little. "It doesn't hurt me."

The words it doesn't hurt me seem to have the intended impact on Tim, because the worried crease under his eyes finally eases. He needs a lot of reassurance, too, that Jason is okay, doesn't he? Jason can keep this in mind. "Only if it doesn't hurt you," Tim allows.

Jason looks at Tim with a seriousness that Tim can't deny. "It doesn't hurt me at all."

As Tim tries not to cry, Jason tugs the laces of Tim's brogues undone and loosens the lacing on the shoes as far as he can without unraveling everything, bending the tongues of the shoes as far backwards as he can without unnecessarily creasing the leather, because Tim would blame himself for that. Jason wants to laugh again. Tim should've seen the way that Dick jammed these onto his feet. But there's another point to putting the shoes on this way, for today.

"I know this will hurt no matter what I do," Jason acknowledges. "Are you ready?"

Tim nods. "I'm okay. Don't worry. Thank you."

Jason picks up Tim's right foot, which was controlling the accelerator. "Did you hurt your feet?" Jason asks, just in case it would be helpful to have a distraction. He slides Tim's foot into the shoe easily, the shoe thankfully loosened enough. He lowers Tim's foot slowly so that Tim can get a feeling for the sole of the shoe.

Tim once again can hardly remember. "I think I just put some extra weight on it, because I don't fit the Batmobile very well."

Jason almost corrects Tim, that the Batmobile doesn't fit you very well, but there are more important things right now. "How does your foot feel?"

"The sole is so comfortable," Tim observes in shock.

Jason can't help but feel proud. "As you know, Alfred is not just a barista. He's also a cobbler, and also many other things. I think we have yet to appreciate his full power. But I think he was very thoughtful about the comfort of the shoe for Dick. You probably noticed it for yourself at the gala. You spend a lot of time standing around, on the Wayne side of things."

"I noticed," Tim says, carefully avoiding the subtext.

Jason turns his attention to Tim's left foot, the foot controlling the brake. "Are you ready for the next shoe? What happened to this foot?"

Tim almost laughs. "Oh my god. It's just the same story." He seems to remember Jason's earlier comment. "It's probably just a little tired," he elaborates. "I'm ready."

Jason thinks it's stupefying, how Tim has so much to say about a pair of shoes, and so little to say about himself after what would amount to a major car crash in any other vehicle. He tries not to prolong the discomfort for Tim, though. He gets to work putting on the other shoe. "Are you sure you're okay to wear these?" Jason checks again, when he's done.

Tim smiles, very brightly, as if his feet feel that much better already. "They feel really comfortable."

Jason smiles back. "I'll lace up your shoes. Tell me if it's too tight or too loose." He's smiling, but he's really nervous. If he ties them too tight, they'll put pressure on areas that already hurt, but if he ties them too loose, they'll chafe. He swallows a sigh. Tim also had to decide on the correct amount of pressure to apply to the pedals. It's hard, but clearly not impossible. "Ready?"

"Yes," Tim says, watching Jason's hands nervously.

"It doesn't hurt me," Jason assures again, beginning to tighten the lacing at the toe of the right shoe. He judges everything based on how he liked to wear them, straining to remember. Jason at last double knots the lace, worried that having it come undone might be an avoidable hassle for Tim later. "How does this feel?" He asks.

"Perfect," Tim says quietly, like he can't believe it.

Jason sighs in relief quietly to himself. He copies his work with the other shoe, trying to match by having the same amount of lace left over as the first time. "How about this one?"

"Also perfect," Tim says, and there's much less tension in his frame already. "Thank you so much."

"Don't mention it," Jason says. He's worried that the real test will be Tim trying to walk in the shoes. But he doubts there will be much walking for Tim today. He moves his attention to the next thing. "Can I take a look at your back?"

Tim is incredulous. "If you want to. There's nothing new to see, I doubt there is. It's just the same-" He gives up. "Yes, you can look."

Jason moves himself to Tim's back, noticing that Tim tucked in his sweater into his pants. "I'm going to untuck your sweater all the way around, and I'll pull it up to your armpits. Does that work?" He rubs his hands together for warmth. He runs cold these days, even though he always ran hot back in the day. Jason is going to avoid touching Tim altogether, but he wants his fingers to be warm just in case, because the skin of Jason's torso has always been more sensitive to temperature than anywhere else. He feels like it's probably a universal thing for the most part.

"That's fine," Tim says.

Jason is thankful again that it's a very loose-fitting sweater, because he can untuck the hem and ride the fabric up entirely without brushing skin, if he really focuses. Jason can now see exactly what he didn't want to see, deep brown, almost black bruising that has a slight gradient and bleeds into the speckled red of burst capillaries in the centre. That there are splatterings of Tim's normal skin tone between the red spots make this bruise, one large bruise that covers most of Tim's back, the most disconcerting to look at of them all.

"What happened?" Jason asks. "I thought you said you braced yourself with your arm when we first fell."

"I did," Tim says. He pauses, because he really can't remember. "I braced my head. I don't think I was able to do anything for my back. I think it's a good thing. I would rather my back bump into the roof the most, rather than my neck."

Jason has to admit that Tim has a point. "Are you sure you want me to tuck your sweater back in?"

Tim suppresses a flinch. "I guess it didn't look good."

Jason wonders why Tim would ever assume that Jason would be nitpicking his style in this context, even if it actually looked bad, which it didn't. "No, you looked good. But is it comfortable to have fabric bunched in your pants? Does it feel too tight like that?"

Tim realises. "It does feel better untucked."

Jason nods, because he doesn't like to tuck his shirts either, during times like these. "It looks fine either way. I'll let your sweater down. Ready?" When Tim agrees, Jason unravels the sweater, feeling a little bit like he's putting a sock on, but concentrating on not pulling the fabric down on Tim's shoulders too much, and on not pressing the fabric into the skin of Tim's back. He resigns himself to the reality that the fabric is going to inevitably brush into Tim's skin, and so he lets go when he has to, smoothing wrinkles out of the hem as best as he can. "There," he says, when the last wrinkle is pressed or tugged away, feeling proud of his handiwork. "Now you're dressed."

Jason comes back around to sit in front of Tim. Tim would be covering his face in his hands if he could.

"You had to help me put on my clothes," Tim says in horror.

"And a lot of us, if we're lucky to make it to a certain age, will eventually need someone to do that for us again," Jason points out. "Some of us need people to do that for them their entire lives. It doesn't hurt me."

The embarrassment rushes out of Tim, and he smiles fondly at Jason. "I think genius is a bit of an understatement. You're very wise."

Jason can feel the colour and the accompanying heat rise on his cheeks, because he really doesn't deserve to get the same compliment from both Dick and Tim in one day. “What about your head,” Jason says, ignoring Tim. “I don't see how you couldn't have hit it at some point.”

“I was careful,” Tim says. “I couldn't afford another concussion.”

“Another?” Jason asks.

Tim looks like he's kicking himself internally. “I think I'm over the last one. It was three days ago at this point.”

Jason resists the urge to bury his face in his hands. “That's not how it works. Now I can't believe anything you're saying to me about your health.”

“That's how it feels,” Tim says quietly.

Jason is being a hypocrite again. Who could've guessed? He's never done that before. “I’m going to trust you when you say that you're okay to be moved,” Jason tells Tim. He knows that Tim was driving and walking around, but Jason knows from experience that outward levels of functioning don't actually mean much. “Do you need to be picked up?”

That's the embarrassment that Jason wanted to see. He's out of mercy for today. Tim can't kneel on the ground, drive Jason home, allow Jason to be that dependent on him, and not expect this payback.

Tim avoids looking at Jason's face. “I wish,” he admits. “I’m so tired. But I think it would be worse than standing up on my own.”

Ah. So this is how Tim felt. This is what it's like to watch someone pick an option out of a resoundingly harmful set of options, and then also have to watch them pay the consequences of their doomed choice. Wow, it feels so shit.

Jason stands up first, and he holds both hands out to Tim. “Does this help?”

Tim considers, calculating. He nods and braces himself. He grasps Jason's hands with his own, and they're still purple. Jason doesn't pull or tug on Tim, because he knows that any touch can hurt, given the wrong place and the wrong time. Tim squeezes Jason's hands, straining, and there's pure agony reflected in his eyes. Jason tries to be a stable ledge for Tim, making sure not to budge, and Tim eventually does pull himself to his feet. He sighs harshly, inhales, almost hyperventilating.

“Thank you,” he tells Jason. “I already feel much better standing. Getting up was the hard part. Are you sure you're better now?”

Jason finds the fading hope in Tim's eyes overwhelming. He has to tell the truth anyway. “For now,” he says. “But that's fine.” He smiles as Tim hears his own words repeated to him. “Are you ready to go home?”

Tim smiles back, hearing the same echo of the past that Jason is, maybe also seeing the humour in the cycle that they seem to be stuck in, of almost killing each other and themselves, then coming back home together, just to do it all over again. But Tim does one thing differently this time.

Unprompted, unpersuaded, Tim asks, "Can I hug you?"

"Yes," Jason agrees, trying to be as warmly enthusiastic as he can be while remaining cautious. "But don't hurt yourself."

Tim hugs Jason without another word, which leaves Jason at a loss for what to do, given that everywhere probably hurts. Jason settles for tousling Tim's hair until Tim pulls away.

"Lead the way," Tim says, and Jason hears those words burn the old away.

Notes:

poor bruce, young adults taking the car without warning and then the worst case scenario happens, what a nightmare for a parental figure like our guy XD

i have a hug fixation....i hate the way hugs feel even though i CRAVE the emotional fulfillment of them and I think i have like a legitimate problem or smth lol because skin just feels really..greasy/slippery to me all the time??? and i get pins and needles sensations everywhere when I'm touched? ahhh i just love to write hugs and pretend that they feel good thanks for putting up with this lol (pls dw i'm not dying or sick i kinda know where it comes from and sometimes i just get embarrassed by my horrible taste in things so hence this note lmao)

Chapter 11: every petal playing dead in the water/the heart is not what it was

Summary:

*******content warning*******: most detailed description yet of the impact of ch 4 implied/referenced s.a. & sexual violence with some victim-blamey trains of thought (runs in the family) and most explicit trains of suicidal thoughts thus far imo (also runs in the family) so please be careful!

wtf is a defence procurement contract fml...guess i'll just write about it anyway!

(28-08-2025)

Notes:

friendly reminder to ignore the random numbers in the story because if i tried to retcon or work things out now i'd be way too embarrassed to continue updating this work lol...i know that this sounds very counterintuitive but unfortunately we go with my horrible taste in things here even when i know it's horrible

chapter title from magic 8 ball by cavetown and frankie cosmos

There's no feeling in the world like hearing the words I love you from Jason Todd. Now Tim wants to hear them again, and again, because what if Jason changes his mind? Bruce said those same words, and he called Tim an angel, and then he changed his mind so quickly at breakfast the next day, and Tim was so shocked. There was never anything to lose in Tim's relationship with his parents, so it never crossed his mind that he might need to worry about losing someone's love someday.

And what if Jason is telling the truth, that it's not shameful or immoral to want to hear I love you again and again? What then? Tim's brain throbs with the exertion of thinking. He's too scared to think it through, besides. He doesn't want to be honest with himself. Honesty is to risk realising that the number of times that he needs to hear I love you is way fewer than the number he wants. So Tim will estimate that he probably only needs to hear I love you once from Jason. He feels fine. Life has always hurt with a murderous brutality, but after Jason's I love you, life hurts so much less now. Tim can get by on the memory of it. 

Besides, Jason has more important things to turn his attention to. Jason is leading Tim through the Batcave, and Tim is aware that they're going so slowly, but Jason doesn't seem to mind even though he probably needs a break from everything. Tim tries to go faster, but he can't overtake Jason no matter how hard he tries. Tim can hardly conceive that Jason could lead Renee’s interview, or do anything else but writhe on the floor in agony, at pain levels exponentially higher than Tim's own. Every step pitches Tim violently towards giving into the temptation of collapsing, but Tim already learned the hard way that lying down is going to make him feel worse. The floor seemed to dig into his very bones and light his skin on fire. Standing up wrenches every last modicum of stamina out of Tim, but the pain is so much more bearable. 

It doesn't matter. Tim thinks that this experience is good for him, in the long term, because he wanted to know what it feels like, even if it's just a paltry, pasty imitation of what it feels like to be tortured for hours and brutally murdered, and then relive the whole thing at random intervals for all time. Tim is scared of forgetting, scared of underplaying the situation, scared of becoming out of touch with Jason. It's so anxiety-inducing, to try to keep track of something that just barely leaves a trace of evidence for Tim to follow. Jason must feel worse. Tim doesn't understand how Jason waltzes through life knowing that that could happen at any moment. That's why Jason needs to take a break.

“You can go first,” Tim says, and he tries to sound as energised and recovered as he possibly can. “I’ll catch up.”

Jason can read Tim like a book now, and Tim likes it and dislikes it at the same time. “I'm really okay,” Jason repeats, refusing to quicken his pace, and Tim isn't sure that Jason can hear himself. Does he hear himself saying “I’m okay” after literally being tortured to death without the dying? Jason is so insane.

“I can write the report,” Tim offers, knowing that he sounds really arrogant, but he can at least draft something for Jason to fix. That's hopefully easier on Jason. Tim is almost sure that something about Renee triggered the episode. Even if the report is objective and factual, Tim is terrified to accidentally set something in Jason off again. How is Jason not terrified? He must be. He has to be.

“How?” Jason asks, glancing at Tim's hands.

“They're fine now,” Tim lies. 

“Hm,” Jason says sceptically. He gives Tim a look that is very not sceptical, almost…loving? Tim needs to stop right there. He can't revert back to daydreaming about Robin meeting him and somehow not hating him. The opposite came to pass, and even if Jason changed his mind, he still has the right to change his mind again. Jason considers Tim thoughtfully as Tim fights himself not to ask for a footnote at the end of Jason's every sentence confirming that he still loves Tim. “Do you want to take a painkiller? I have some.”

Tim knows that Jason only has painkillers because they probably didn't work, an inference that really guts Tim, but Tim needs to start operating at a higher level of functioning so that Jason can focus on himself. Tim won't argue that he really needed Jason back there, but all of that attention was more than enough to last a lifetime. Jason said all the things that Tim needed to hear, got Tim unstuck, and Tim feels that living with himself is easier than it has ever felt. So Tim tells Jason that he would like a painkiller, and Jason tells Tim to wait for him.

Tim waits where he is, even though they stopped not too far away from the lift. Even that distance will take Tim forever to traverse. Jason probably made the same judgement. He'll get the painkiller because he'll be faster getting it on his own. Then Tim can take the painkiller faster. Jason still cares about Tim. That's the only logical conclusion, isn't it? Tim starts again from the premise of the argument, rearranges the evidence into every possible permutation so that his thinking doesn't suffer from confirmation bias, because Tim has an embarrassingly high stake in the outcome of this study.

Tim's head aches again, along with everywhere else, and the results are inconclusive. To be brutally honest with himself, he doesn't have the resources to conduct this study properly, so, ethically, scientifically, he can't proceed with drawing a conclusion. He'll have to live without the answer for the time being, and that's okay, because Jason may or may not hate me already feels so much better than Jason definitely hates me. 

Although everywhere feels like hell, Tim doesn't want to lean against the wall or sit down. Jason seemed to immediately understand this, which makes Tim really upset because Tim feels like he can barely understand Jason. Tim holds back a frustrated scream, because Jason's medical attention healed something in Tim, and Tim doesn't feel like permanently freeing himself of his disgustingly visible flesh just from walking around, but Tim has no idea how to initiate a similar recovery in Jason.

Including fixing Jason's horrifying situation, there's so much to do, and Tim wants to take over some of these tasks for however long Jason needs, even though Jason will probably complete them better, and even though Tim is terrified of condescending to Jason, like Jason isn't strong enough to do these things himself, and so now he has to watch Tim show off. Tim felt horrible driving the Batmobile for that very reason, among several other reasons, and Jason had to praise Tim the whole time because Jason physically couldn't drive himself due to pseudo-death by torture. But Tim is also terrified of not offering to do enough, and Jason suffers invisibly and unnecessarily again, the same way that he did for so long.

Tim decides that he will go out of his way to help Jason with anything that he wants. If Jason feels a little depressed or exhausted some days, Tim would really like it if he could offer some support. Tim will have to ask first, and he'll be persuasive. He'll copy Jason, and tell Jason that it doesn't hurt me. Tim can bargain and split any task however Jason wants to split it, no haggling necessary. Hopefully Jason would understand that Tim isn't trying to replace him. Such a misunderstanding could be the very thing that changes Jason's mind. But that's not what matters. Tim just doesn't want Jason to suffer so much.

“Tim,” Jason says, really loudly, making Tim step back in surprise. Jason has reappeared, now holding a glass of water with a straw and a tablet. “I'm sorry,” Jason says, and he sounds like he feels awful.

“Why?” Tim says. “Thank you for bringing all of this.” Why would Jason ever feel sorry for being so thoughtful to even think of a straw, because Tim can see exactly where this could be going if he doesn't get it together.

“I brought something pretty strong,” Jason explains, referring to the tablet in his left hand. “Do you want to see the packaging first and read anything about it? Are you allergic to anything? Sorry, I should have thought to ask.”

Tim has always read the packaging, the instructions, the labels himself. He hates how much he likes it that Jason did the reading for Tim, and whether or not Tim wants to read is optional. Tim hates that he wants life to be like this more of the time. “I trust you,” Tim says, taking the opportunity to say it. Jason perks up slightly, as Tim hoped he would. “No, I'm not allergic to any medication that I've tried.”

Jason seems less nervous. “Let me know if you feel like you're having a bad reaction.” He hesitates, and Tim knows exactly what he's about to ask next.

“Thank you,” Tim says, alerting Jason that he's going to reach for the tablet himself, which is tiny, round, and white. Tim pinches his thumb and index finger around it, trying not to accidentally pinch Jason, and there's no strength left in his grip. But the alternative terrifies Tim, and fear gives him a burst of adrenaline which allows him to at least pick it up and bring it towards himself. The adrenaline isn't enough, and Tim drops the tablet on the ground, a catastrophic third outcome that Tim hadn't accounted for.

“It's okay,” Jason is quick to say. He bends down to get it. “Do you want me to get a new one? Don't worry about it. I have plenty.”

It's the same thing all over again. Tim gets to have plenty, and Jason pays the price. Nervousness buzzes around Tim's stomach. Hopefully this won't be the thing that changes Jason's mind. But whether or not Jason loves Tim shouldn’t matter. Tim is getting too attached. “No, don't get a new tablet. I'm sorry.”

Jason straightens with the tablet in hand, and he fishes something out of his pocket with the same hand. “You don't have any reason to be sorry.” Jason shows Tim a spoon. “I thought this might come in handy. Do you want to try taking the tablet using a spoon?”

“Thank you, Jason,” Tim says, genuinely feeling like he could collapse, regardless of the consequences, due to Jason's thoughtfulness (from Jason's attention to Tim.) But Tim can't let Jason take care of him so much. Tim has already gotten his needed dosage of attention. “But I can take the tablet myself if you drop it into my palm.”

“That works for me,” Jason agrees, not seeming to be offended that Tim has rudely rendered his effort in getting the spoon pointless. He drops the salvaged tablet into Tim's outstretched palm, and Tim really thought he could take the tablet this way, but he's not able to cup his palm at all, for some reason, and the tablet falls again, sliding off his palm when he tries to tilt it for his mouth. 

“No, oh my god,” Tim says. “I'll get it. I'm so sorry.” He's so annoying sometimes. How did he ever think that this would work?

Jason beats Tim to the ground, effortlessly picking the tablet up, for a second time. He smiles at Tim, but there's something sad about his expression. “It's really okay. Do you want me to get a new tablet?”

Tim doesn't deserve someone who will ask him the same question twice in a row just in case his answer happens to change. “It's really fine. I don't mind. Sorry.”

“You really don't need to apologise, Tim. It doesn't hurt me,” Jason says, and Tim strongly dislikes himself for forcing Jason to repeat himself, again. “Would it help to try holding the spoon yourself?”

Tim can't help but gape at Jason. They both know that Tim can't grip an almost-weightless tablet, much less a spoon. But Jason is going to let Tim try anyway, and then he'll pick everything up for Tim, and then what? He'll let Tim try and fail a fourth time and still pick up the pieces? Jason is actually insane.

“I don't think I can,” Tim admits, realising that his stubbornness is wasting Jason's time. “I think I need your help.”

“I'm happy to try to help,” Jason says in a way that forces the truth onto Tim, and that's annoying, after Jason said that they shouldn't force things on each other. “Do you want me to hold the water for you?”

You already are, and I need that. I'm sorry. Tim holds himself back this time, otherwise Jason has to keep repeating himself. “Thank you,” Tim says.

“No, thank you,” Jason says. He looks at Tim in a way that makes Tim suspect that he hasn't changed his mind yet, but Tim has always been good at imagining what he wants to imagine to get by. He needs to finally break the habit after all these years. Jason smiles, and his smile reflects an indescribable essence. “Thank you for everything.”

Those words might physically pain Tim. Tim can't take advantage of Jason’s death, again, and tell himself that he's so amazing for not exacerbating or prolonging what would otherwise have been an inhumane situation for Jason. Tim wants to run away from this notion that he should get credit or recognition on the back of Jason's torture and near-death, but Tim can't run anywhere. It's twisted to think that he deserves acclaim for happening to have more capacity to do something, for reasons that were never in anybody's control, and Jason should know it, too. “Jason, please, no. You don't understand. You were so strong for enduring what you did, especially after the number of times that it has probably happened before. Do not grovel at my feet because I drove you. I'm so sorry for saying what I did about being stuck in the cave system. I was just-”

“Tim,” Jason interrupts. His expression is both fond and dejected at the same time. “I really didn't mean it like that. I swear. I just meant that I'm grateful that you're here. I feel very safe with you. I never felt so safe before during an episode.”

Tim keeps coming back to the conclusion that Jason is so insane, because who the hell can relive their death and say that they felt ‘safe’ at the time. “Just-” Tim tries to make something productive out of this conversation. “Just tell me if you need anything else in the future.”

“I will,” Jason says, maybe just to put Tim at ease. Jason can't afford Tim's blind trust on this point. “Are you ready to take the tablet?”

No, Tim wants to say. I'm not ready for you to feed me. But Jason is right that a lot of people are dressed and fed and driven around by other people at some point in their lives, and to consider that shameful would be to insinuate that some people’s needs can be righteously ignored by virtue of being a two-person effort. At least Jason knows what he's doing, which was more than Tim could offer, and Tim wants to know everything about how it feels, so that he will never forget. “Yes, thank you.”

“Do not grovel,” Jason says pointedly.

“I didn't mean it like that,” Tim says, and he can't stop the words even as he sees their trajectory.

Jason smiles at Tim, point made. He manages to nudge the tablet into the spoon using only one hand, the other hand occupied with the water. Tim feels whiplash, having watched these same hands shake inconsolably for what felt like forever, and now they're perfectly dexterous. Jason raises the spoon with a knowing look. “I'm okay. It doesn't hurt me.”

Tim knows that he can trust Jason, for now. He just hates himself. He's trying not to hyperventilate, so that he doesn't choke on the tablet, and cause even more problems for Jason. He's checking himself, and he knows that he's not taking any enjoyment from the idea of being served. But he still wants attention from Jason, as much as it makes Tim so embarrassed that he could roll over and die, and he can't understand any of his reactions at first. 

Jason lifts the spoon to Tim's lips, hand perfectly steady. “Take your time,” he says.

Tim feels tears coming on again. He’s been crying too much recently. It's no wonder Iseult picked on him. He makes it too easy, doesn't he? His breaths come shallowly, and he's barely reigning in his diaphragm as it threatens to get away from him. “I'm so sorry,” Tim whispers before he can think it through, and he knows that Jason has to repeat himself now. Tim just can't get on with it.

“You haven't done anything wrong, Tim,” Jason assures. “We're not in any rush.”

But Tim feels like it's so stupid to be crying over a spoon, so he wants to explain himself. “When she tried to get close to me, it was just to get close enough to hurt me.” He chances eye contact with Jason, hoping that he doesn't sound like he's fishing for sympathy. He hopes, because Jason’s reaction wasn't mocking or critical when Tim tried to explain what happened at the end.

There's something deeply angry in Jason's eyes, which scares Tim at first, but Tim doesn't feel threatened by it, the longer he looks. “I know,” Jason says. “It's really okay. Take your time. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I promise.”

Jason isn't looking at him like that, Tim knows, and there might not be anyone that Tim trusts more with a task like this. But Tim is having to eat off a spoon that Jason is holding in front of him. It's so hard, because it doesn't mean anything to Tim in that sense, but now Tim is conscious about how Iseult might be looking at him like that if she was here, and he's embarrassed to still want to be cared for, even if it looks like how it can look to some people, and Tim can't stop his tears.

Tim can't even hide his face, because his head feels heavy enough that he'll probably fall all the way forward if he looks down. All he can do is cry blatantly in front of Jason, exposing the weakness that Tim left out for Iseult to exploit with ease, because maybe Tim hadn't voluntarily set his power aside. She took it without him noticing until it was too late, and he was deluding himself, with his male ego, or with the hundreds of reasons that tempt him to delude himself that he's better than he is.

Tim can tell that Jason is going to hold back, maybe take the spoon away to let Tim finish crying, and that's even worse, that Tim seems so fragile that he needs to finish crying before he can eat off of a spoon that someone else is patiently suspending in the air for him, and so Tim bites down, and he tries to swallow the tablet dry.

“Tim!” Jason exclaims, startled, but he recalibrates quickly. “You need to wash it down. Come on. I know you can feel it stuck somewhere down your throat. It's not going to work right like that. It could make you feel worse.”

Tim doesn't see how it could feel worse than drinking out of a straw that someone is holding out for him, or worse than drinking straight from a glass that someone is holding out for him, risking the dribble of liquid down his face. But Tim needs to regain as much of his function as he can. “Okay,” he tells Jason.

Jason evaluates Tim carefully before continuing. “Is the straw too much? I can help you drink from the glass. I promise I won't spill. It's up to you.”

Tim wants to get this over with, and that feels so shit, because Jason is trying so hard, and he's going through the effort of reading Tim like a book again. Tim won't let Jason's effort go to waste. The straw will be so much easier for Jason. “I can use the straw,” Tim says, trying to sound as unbothered as he can sound while crying through the last of his tears.

Jason holds the glass for Tim to drink out of. There's dread reflected in Jason's eyes, which helps, actually. It helps so much that someone else can see the situation in the same light that Tim does. The straw, the glass, the water, and even Tim's entire body feel much less tainted, which allows Tim to finish the entire glass of water without starting to cry again. 

Jason peers into the empty glass with a little surprise. “Do you need more to drink?”

Tim shakes his head, and his brain feels squishy. He wants to put off the next time he has to try to drink something for as long as he can, ideally when his grip strength returns. “I'm ready to keep going,” Tim says honestly. He's already motivated by the hope that the uncomfortable sensations ravaging his body will ease soon. He starts walking so that Jason feels comfortable to start leaving, too.

Jason matches Tim's excruciatingly slow pace, still not seeming bored or frustrated. “The tablet will probably take about thirty minutes to kick in, according to the instructions. You might feel drowsy. Do you want to lie down for a while?”

Tim still cannot bear to put weight on any part of his body other than his feet. The only reason his feet are comparatively tolerable is because of Alfred's artisanship, and because of Jason's help fitting the shoes just right, but if Tim explains himself, Jason might feel guilty. Tim trusts that Jason doesn't take the drive back as his fault, but Tim isn't going to draw attention to his injuries for no good reason. “I want to catch up with everyone” is the explanation that he chooses to disclose. It's still true. Tim needs to apologise to Bruce and Dick.

Jason gives Tim a wary look. “Okay,” he agrees pleasantly, nonetheless. “I guess we were going to do that anyway.”

In the lift, Jason stands noticeably close to Tim. Thankfully the downward force of the elevator doesn't topple Tim over into Jason because Tim really doesn't need Robin to rescue him. He wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it, and Tim can't become obsessed with thinking about Jason all the time again. Maybe Tim was very anxious that something was wrong, and maybe his fears were confirmed, but neither of those factors erase the impact of how he handled his anxiety and also his relief over Jason's ostensible wellbeing. Tim worries that he still hasn't proved himself enough to Dick and Damian. From that, he also worries that he's just trying to save himself from his own apocalyptic realisation, and that all of this is more about him trying not to be his parents, rather than about Dick and Damian, who it should be about. Tim is walking the fine line between demonstrating the care that they need to be shown and chasing a feeling into the night, a dilemma he's faced millions of times, so he's really experienced and he has no excuse. They deserve his best, and Tim will figure out how to make his proof sincere, as much of an oxymoron that is. For them, he'll make it work.

Tim follows Jason out of the lift into the manor, not knowing where they're going, but trusting that Jason knows. Tim is only feeling more and more tired. He tries not to slow down. Mercifully Jason turns towards a sitting room that isn't too far away, even by Tim's diminishing standards. 

Jason opens the door, ducking inside. “Thanks for waiting up for us. We're here.” He holds the door open for Tim, which makes Tim feel like he's making a dramatic entrance. Tim wants to cringe away and run down the hall, but he still can't run anywhere, even though this is too much attention.

Tim makes a substantial effort to get through the door as quickly as he can. He's already made Jason hold a door open for him for way too long. Jason was just insane, waiting and waiting and waiting. He should have slammed the door, or closed it from boredom. What ended up happening was not what Tim thought was going to happen. But Tim turns out to be wrong very frequently, so he's not sure why he's surprised.

This sitting room is very brown in a way that might exude pretentious stateliness in any other mansion, but here it's inviting. The seating is made of reddish upholstery leather and circles a crowded glass coffee table. A rougy Persian rug softens the arrangement of furniture with an intimate depth. The walls are panelled with a darkish walnut wood that Tim doesn't experience as too morose, but actually somewhat relaxing. There are large curtained windows on the far wall and multiple sources of warm-toned light, including a giant fireplace. The word ‘hearth’ comes to mind, and Tim scrubs the association out before it can attack him.  

It attacks him anyway. Tim already feels sleepy, as he tends to feel here, which he never felt in Drake Manor. Tim always took himself as the kind of personality who doesn't like to sleep because there's too much that he wants to do, and that's just who he is and what he's like, and that's fine. But the sleepiness he always feels in Wayne Manor breaks his identity apart, especially now, when he can't boost himself with caffeine without bothering someone else about it.

Bruce and Damian sit on the sofa facing away from the door. Dick sits on an identical sofa across the coffee table. Alfred isn't here, probably making dinner. Tim still feels bad about this morning. He will finish the food that Alfred makes, even if he chokes and dies in the process. He's optimistic that Jason has fixed whatever Tim's problem was, insofar someone like Tim can be fixed. 

Dick looks very happy to see Tim at first, but the brightness of his expression wanes as Tim approaches the seating area with Jason. Tim is too tired to figure Dick out at the moment, mental energy diverted to instead figuring out if he can get away with standing as they all talk, despite that it's very self-important of him to be looming over everyone else, demanding their attention. Tim resolves to sit down. The pain will prevent him from falling asleep, which is a good thing at this time.

Tim decides to sit on the armchair not directly across from Bruce and Damian, but also not directly next to them either. He focuses on sitting down without falling backwards into the seat, and he is determined to sit back and look comfortable. Tim's back and the backs of his legs burn like he's toasting his bare skin over the fireplace, but the medication will kick in so long as he's patient. He'll probably be able to stand on his own when it's time to go to dinner. He's fine. He's on the mend. Jason isn't.

Tim is pretending not to notice that Jason is following him around, even though he's grateful for the attention. He's also pretending not to notice that Jason has been carrying the empty glass and the spoon this entire time, and has only just now placed them on the already overflowing coffee table. Tim hopes that Jason will sit down quicker if Tim plays dumb. 

Jason doesn't sit down quicker. He scans Tim. “Are you sure you don't want to stand?”

“Yes, yes,” Tim says with enthusiasm. “I'm comfortable.”

“Are you?” Jason presses.

“Go sit down,” Tim tries not to beg. “It's been a long day.”

Jason seems to come to a conclusion. He goes to sit next to Dick. Once situated, Jason addresses Tim again. “Are you comfortable?” He repeats.

Tim reconsiders. He's not trying to do what Jason warned him about, trying to prove himself through his suffering or win the misery competition. But what if Tim is still making Jason feel ashamed for being more comfortable than Tim is? It's just hard because Jason clearly doesn't understand how not okay he is. Jason really needs to focus on himself. How is it possible to feel ashamed for not being tortured to death? Jason is so endearingly crazy. Tim does his best to compromise. “I'm tired,” he admits. “This feels better.”

Jason debates whether he wants to argue or not. Dick interjects during Jason's silence. “What on earth, Tim? What happened to you?”

Tim panics. How does he know? But obviously Dick knows. It's written all over Tim. Tim didn't think to roll his sleeves or pants back down. He almost races to rectify that, but Jason put in a lot of effort, and it's a relief to have a few areas of skin that don't sting upon contact with his clothes, even if the fabric is very soft. “I just bumped into things a little bit on the drive here. That's all,” Tim explains, and the word games are automatic, even when he’s really trying to be less annoying. He'll probably always be his parents’ own, no matter what he tries.

Dick is poised to argue, but Jason jumps in. “Tim wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He couldn't operate the Batmobile with it on. He sustained major injuries on the way down, and on the way through. He promised me that he didn't break anything, but he said that he has a concussion. I gave him a painkiller. Did I leave anything out?” Jason looks at Tim like he's in pain.

Tim hates that he's forced Jason into having to recount everything for him. It's probably so difficult not to feel like he's responsible, even if he technically knows better. On top of that, Jason should be the first person on the agenda to talk about. He's the one who got tortured. Tim was hurt too, but Jason already looked at everything and helped him, so Tim is getting too much attention and that's his honest determination. “Thank you, Jason,” Tim says apologetically. “That's-” He forces himself not to say that’s all. “That's everything.” 

Tim chances a glance at Bruce, who he has been avoiding this whole time. Bruce is looking at Tim with a stricken expression, and something clicks for Tim, that Bruce saw what Jason looked like almost dead, and also completely dead. Jason probably looked indescribably worse, but Tim probably shares some kind of resemblance, which is actually so ironic, because Jason looks completely okay, even though he would look worse than Tim if his wounds were visible. 

Tim is stealing the attention, again. Jason probably isn't going to change his mind over that. Tim is being unfairly uncharitable. Tim needs to stop acting like he has trust issues, when he trusts Jason even with what happened at the end. Jason possesses a warmth that few other people do. He'll help Tim on principle despite his personal feelings, which is basically what ended up happening towards the end of their first meeting. It's so unfair, so uncharitable, but it's exactly because Jason is so good that Tim can't trust that Jason loves him.

“I'm sorry,” Tim tells Bruce, looking at the slippers on Bruce's feet, because those are very approachable and undaunting, and he can barely face it that he didn't stop to consider Bruce's perspective.

Damian frowns to Bruce's side. “Why are you apologising? What is wrong with you?”

That's also what I would like to know, Tim agrees. “It's hard to explain. I haven't been doing a good job with explaining things. So I'm also sorry for the way that I explained things when we returned. I caused a lot of unnecessary stress. I didn't mean to remind Bruce and Dick of the worst moments of their lives.”

“Tim, please don't apologise for that,” Dick says, and he looks just as bad as Bruce, and Tim wonders if he also saw Jason. “You didn't deserve the way that we reacted. You were understandably scattered, and also seriously injured.”

“No, no,” Tim argues. “It's really fine. You couldn't have reacted any other way. I understand.”

“It's not fine,” Bruce says, and Tim thankfully doesn't have the energy to even jolt at the sound of Bruce's voice. Tim needs to communicate that he's over it so that they can talk about Jason. Then Bruce says, “Even if we couldn't have reacted any other way, it still hurt you when I asked you what you did. It still hurt you when I jumped to conclusions.”

Tim tries not to linger in that sentiment for too long, because when Bruce said what did you do? , something ancient was dredged up in Tim. When Jason beat Tim up, which was way less bad than actually dying, which Tim selfishly covered up, Tim was still so irrationally upset that nobody asked ‘what did you do?’ on Tim's behalf. It's just that Tim knows better than to act out of an angry entitlement to attention. Every safety rule and regulation is written in blood, is it not? But Bruce doesn't know that Tim knows better because Tim also selfishly covered that up.

“No, no,” Tim assures. “I completely get it. It makes so much sense to make sure that I didn't do something out of revenge. I’m sorry if I've ever seemed bitter. I'm really happy that Jason is back.” He can't help but look at Jason pleadingly, because Jason told Tim that he feels safe around him, and Tim doesn't want to break that feeling apart between them.

The look in Jason's eyes catches Tim off guard, and Tim can’t exactly place it, but he judges that it's a better reaction than fear.

Damian responds first. “I can guarantee you that nobody considered that, not even for a second.”

“Right,” Tim says quickly, so relieved, but scared to hear from Bruce and Dick. “In that case, I completely get that I wasn't the best candidate for the driver's seat. It was really difficult, I'll admit. Thankfully Jason was there to teach me.”

“That's not true at all,” Jason says. “You managed to drive perfectly on the first try, just from watching me, even though the pedals were almost out of reach, and you told me that you couldn't feel your arms and legs. And you were on your own for the last half of the drive.”

Tim almost tells Jason to stop, because Jason didn't deserve to sit there helplessly as Tim flaunted how much more he could do, but Tim tries to trust Jason that he doesn't mean it that way. He chances another look at Bruce, who doesn't look any happier, and another thing clicks for Tim. “It's not your fault,” Tim blurts. “The Batmobile is so well-engineered. It protected us.”

Bruce’s smile is self-deprecating. “I should have thought of you. Now I can't even hug you.”

You can, if you want, Tim almost blurts again, but he thinks of Jason, and Jason is so wise, and who is Tim to think that he knows better? “We will,” Tim promises instead, trying not to sound too excited at the prospect. “Besides, it's yours, not mine.”

“It's ours,” Bruce corrects, and Tim refuses to read into that.

“Back to what I was saying about explaining things,” Tim begins. He's delighted that they can now get a move on to the most important part of this discussion. “I'm not sure if what I said made sense, or if it's entirely accurate.” He looks at Jason, nervous that he's misrepresented something.

“You explained it very well,” Jason says. The slight smile he gives Tim threatens to blind him. “I don't think I could’ve described it better myself. I never told Tim much about anything. He figured it out on his own.”

“How many episodes have you experienced?” Damian asks. “If it is alright to use the term.”

“Seventeen,” Jason answers immediately. He looks up thoughtfully, and the expression on his face is vaguely cheerful, as if he's recalling cherished birthday presents as opposed to senseless remixes of dying and death. Tim does the math and he thinks that seventeen is more or less the number of birthdays that Jason was fully alive to experience. That's the kind of sadistic poetry that the Joker would revel in, and it pisses Tim off more than he can express in words. 

Jason continues, “I call them episodes, too. They're not always the full thing from beginning to end, but they tend to last about the same amount of time that the real thing did. I've only had five that reenacted a play by play of everything that happened in sequential order. Usually things are out of order, or certain parts repeat themselves randomly. The second type is usually more mild, especially when it's only the tamer parts that get repeated, so I can go about life pretty okay.”

An uncomfortable silence blankets the room, because Jason is really so insane, to say that he only relived the full thing five times, and that there are tamer parts. Jason isn't like Tim, who tries to be sneaky about what he really thinks. Jason sincerely thinks about the episodes in these terms.

“Tim thinks that you hear things,” Dick eventually locates the presence of mind to say.

“I do hallucinate,” Jason admits, a hint of painful embarrassment in his tone. Tim wants to stand up and shout that there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Alienation from the shared human experience is an essential element of the harm that was perpetrated against Jason. The degredation of Jason's sanity, the degredation of his self, and the feeling of being dragged down to die and to live on the same level as his perpetrator, and therefore becoming deserving of everything all along, is also torture. Back in the day Tim used to read military history to keep up with his parents' discussions about the artefacts they studied, and the way torture works is well analysed by scholars, sometimes to save people from it after the fact, and sometimes to understand how to best harm people with it. That's how Tim has always known that Jason trying to kill him was never about Tim, even though Tim considered ending it all after the fact. Everything Jason has done since the warehouse has been an unstoppable continuation of it, and the control and the domination of that day over the rest of Jason's short life and the rest of his slightly longer life is exactly what the Joker intended for Jason.

Tim thinks that Jason has to know by now that Bruce made a desperate effort to kill the Joker. Bruce mentioned it in a very veiled way, when he said that Tim 'noticed his working patterns changed for the worse,' not that Tim disagreed with killing the Joker, but it was a sign. Tim expected Jason to have more to say about the fact that the Joker is alive. Tim has been waiting and waiting for it to come up. He would do the deed himself, but Jason's life has been so out of his control for so long that Tim wouldn't take that decision on his behalf and deny Jason the agency to choose his own justice. Tim also understands that whatever Jason feels towards the Joker must be so difficult that it was much easier to fixate on Tim as a symbol of revenge, which is also why Tim knows that it wasn't about him, even if Tim may always have a niggling doubt that there might be something justifiably detestable about him that Jason should be tempted to kill, like the way Tim took advantage of Jason's absence to get what he wanted. Tim knows cognitively that the sabotaging of all of Jason's relationships to become as painful and distressed as possible, cutting him off from everyone in death and now in life, is just another of the Joker's parting gifts, but Tim has a hard time feeling that Jason could ever really love him, which is okay. 

None of that changes that Jason is so good. It would be a miracle that Jason turned out as well-adjusted as he is, if he wasn't who he is. Tim trusts Jason, and knows that Jason cares about him because that's who he is as a person. That's really good enough for Tim. He doesn't really need Jason to like him as a person when Jason needs someone to be steady for him. That's the only thing that Tim can do against a torturous death that's so far gone in the past that Tim is helpless, but also so inescapably alive in the present that Tim can't unsee it. Tim will not cut Jason off under any circumstances. If Jason changes his mind, Tim can live with it, even if Tim might have to take another vacation at first. Tim doesn't need to be loved by Jason. He wants to be, but he can live without.

Jason notes that nobody else seems to think that he's embarrassing for having been tortured and murdered, so he continues as objectively as he can muster. “I have auditory, visual, olfactory, and gustatory hallucinations, depending on what's on the programme for the day, but it's usually just auditory. And I don't think the sensations themselves are tactile hallucinations. They have a different kind of something to them. Sorry, I know I don't have anything to back that up with.”

“You know what you've been through,” Dick says. Tim thinks Dick almost trips on his words. Tim also wanted to tell Jason to stop talking when he compared the episodes to television programming. Tim hopes to god that's not why Jason decided on the term ‘episode’ in the first place. It probably is. Jason is such a hypocrite for telling Tim that he takes his wellbeing as a joke.

“I was told by Richard that you have exhausted existing treatments,” Damian says. “Do you have any leads that we could assist with?”

“The only thing that has ever worked was what Tim did for me today,” Jason says thoughtfully, as if seriously considering doing it again.

“No,” Dick says. “That's not a viable long-term solution. It's inhumane. Everything about this is inhumane, I know that. But there has to be a better way.”

“It's a lead,” Jason hedges, looking a little caught. He tries not to look at Tim. Tim knows what Jason is holding himself back from asking. It was beyond traumatising to watch, but Tim will do it again if Jason asks. Tim hopes it won't come to that. The episodes seem to be spaced far enough apart, even though the incidence of any episode is far too frequent for Tim's tastes, that at least a stop-gap solution can be pieced together before the next.

“It is a lead,” Bruce agrees. “BioTech can work with it.”

Jason tries and fails not to wince. There's dread in the way that he looks at Bruce, which makes Tim feel like Jason was bracing himself for this moment the entire conversation, or maybe even from the very first episode. “Thank you,” Jason says genuinely. “But I don't think I agree with that.”

“Is that a joke?” Damian demands.

Jason takes a deep breath, conflicted, but also strangely immoveable. Tim guesses that he's pondered this dilemma for hours. What else is Jason supposed to think about for over one hundred hours, other than how nihilistically bleak life is? “It's not a joke,” Jason says. “There are hundreds of health conditions fighting for their due funding within the research agenda, and those conditions are suffered by hundreds of millions of people. I’m just one person. The resources that have been allocated where they are, have only been allocated there by relentless advocacy.”

“Do not try to confuse us with a grand philosophy,” Bruce says, and it's definitely Bruce who says it. 

Jason tenses. This is hard for him to turn down, and Bruce is making it harder. Jason takes another steadying breath, planting his feet more firmly into the rug. “I mean it. The way I get my relief matters to me. I couldn't live with it otherwise. I want to get it, but only via a certain way. I know I sound like I'm trying to be a glorified martyr, especially after what I put Tim through, and especially because I've seriously considered asking Tim to do it again. But seeing Tim now makes me more sure about what I want.” He says the last part very honestly and very clearly. “I do not consent to any research being conducted in my name.”

Tim feels his stomach drop. Jason is scared of justice, that much is clear to Tim. It's probably because the first time that Jason tried to enact his own justice, Tim almost died, and now Tim has fallen apart a second time. Maybe it's no wonder that there's been radio silence from Jason about the Joker. Tim wants to say that he knows what to do, or what Jason ought to do, but he honestly doesn't have a clue. All Tim knows is that he can't force his own opinion onto Jason, even if Tim does develop an opinion. A resolve like Jason's, a resolve that is both brittle and steadfast, is the kind that is forged in the depths of hell, and it would be cruel of Tim to do anything but support it. He knows this is Jason's reassertion of his agency, his way of redeeming what happened to him, but a dire frustration sears Tim's insides anyway.

“This is really difficult for all of us to hear,” Dick says, and there's a gentle edge to his tone that tells Tim that he's trying to reign them all in. “But we may be overcomplicating the problem to begin with. The solution could be right under our noses. It's not necessarily mutually exclusive, to do things Jason's way, and for us to help get him his relief. And Tim made an excellent point with me that while using the paradigm of ‘illness’ is helpful in conceptualising Jason's experience, we can't assume what it is ontologically.”

There's a palpable ripple in the cords of emotion between them all that is so tangibly invisible that it's almost a hallucination in its own right. Tim can't help himself. He says in wonder, “Dick Grayson, there really is no one else in the multiverse quite like you.” There really isn't anybody else who is as creative and unassumingly eloquent and freethinking as Dick. Tim has no way to evidence such a claim, but love is blind. Tim must be a one-in-a-million bad apple to make someone like Dick feel second-rate.

Dick flushes to match the maroon of the rug beneath his feet, and a very tender smile blooms on his face, and stop and smell the flowers; a rose smells like a rose comes to mind. Tim wonders if that's another Jason thing that started with Dick. And now it belongs to Tim, as much as the shoes on his feet and the clothes on his back belong to Tim. Dick looks meaningfully around the room before his gaze lands on Tim. “But isn't there?”

Tim has absolutely no clue what Dick is trying to say. That's a lie, but Dick is still wrong about Tim. “I want to help,” Tim says in support of Dick's approach. “I want to help find the thing that might be right under our noses.” Jason's relief is unmistakable in his posture. “Just let me know what I can do.”

“I will also be thinking over a solution,” Damian promises. “Do feel free to come find me if I may be of assistance.”

“I don't understand how I'm supposed to be able to live with this,” Bruce says, not forceful in his opposition, but bitter.

 “Well,” Jason says, and Tim doesn't miss how Jason is trying not to lean into Dick. Tim concludes that the longing for someone to speak for Jason at the doctor's appointment never aged out of him, either. “I wish you'd understand that having you three on the case is worth more to me than the entire valuation of the Wayne BioTech research and development strategy.”

Jason's words puncture something in Bruce, and Tim's stomach drops for Bruce, too. Bruce is probably afraid of letting Jason down again, or he feels like he's already failing to protect Jason again. What was it like for Bruce to hear the number seventeen when the number one threatened Bruce’s will to live so severely that Tim felt like he had to say something, even if he lost Batman for himself, because the alternative might’ve been to lose Batman altogether. But Tim doesn't feel scared like he did the first time Jason came back, scared that Jason's way of doing things would push Bruce away. Tim isn't even scared that the inoperable open wound of Bruce watching a child die in his arms is going to drive Jason and Bruce apart this time. 

“I love you,” Bruce tells Jason. The bitterness is gone.

“I know. I really do know. I love you, too,” Jason says back, and he finally falters in his effort not to lean into Dick. Dick has a very self-satisfied expression on his face, and he immediately seizes the opportunity to put an arm around Jason's shoulders. 

“That was very brave of you, Jason,” Dick says with pride. “But you've always been brave.” He musses Jason's hair with affectionate amusement. “There we go. That looks better.”

Jason sighs. “No, it doesn't.” But he doesn't make any effort to fix it. “Thank you for understanding. I knew you would.”

Dick says, very quietly, “Of course. I know you, too.”

Tim is fascinated, because he never got to see Robin and Nightwing together through his viewfinder, but he feels a sense of deja vu anyway, and when he places it, he realises that he recognises the hair and the arm from silhouettes and five minutes of well lit interaction. Tim feels like a shadow on the concrete again, like a moth circling a neon sign again, but there's no high to pump the blood through his body for him. Tim's heart trails off in ellipsis, and every fibre of his being shrieks at him to make meaning from it, to take the shot, to mind the composition, to fine-tune the exposure settings, to stop breathing so that his hands are perfectly still, but he doesn't. Tim’s weary body breathes, and breathes again, and he wants to be in the picture so badly that he could die.

Jason addresses Damian, oblivious to Tim's apocalyptic realisation. “I heard from Dick that you want to play chess with me sometime.”

“That is correct,” Damian confirms. “I also heard from Dick that you won a tournament or two during your peak.”

Jason remembers with a smile. “I used to play blitz competitively. But I know you like to play classical games, and I don't mind those either. Let me know when you want to play a few games. I’m okay anytime. Just say when.”

“I will tell you,” Damian says. He looks a little embarrassed, and he tries to give more concrete advance notice. “I may not want to for some time. Richard is a formidable opponent.”

“That's perfectly okay,” Jason says. “There's no rush. And we can always play just to play. We never have to talk.”

Damian nods slowly. “I will keep this in mind. Thank you.”

“You're also a formidable opponent,” Dick tells Damian. He looks to the side with regret. “I really need to brush up on some other openings. I can't get away with luring you into the rarer gambit sidelines. You do some very solid preparation.”

Damian sighs like they've already discussed this. “You are predictable. It is a piece of cake to do solid preparation against the only two openings you ever play. If only you would stop playing your ridiculous gambits. Then we might actually enter the middle game with semi-decent positions for once, rather than the chaos you always throw us into.”

“But you see?” Dick says with a sly smile. “Your frustration was all part of my plan.”

Damian falls silent. “I was not frustrated,” he finally says. “I had fun.”

Dick's flush redoubles, and he scrambles to make the most of Damian talking about his feelings. “Oh, yes. That was also part of my plan,” he admits.

Damian returns his own sly smile. “I know.” He leaves Dick to flounder, addressing Tim. “I would like to play chess with you as well.”

“That means a lot to me, Damian,” Tim says. “I would love to.” He laughs nervously. “I'm sorry to say that I can only really play the closed Sicilian.”

“That is fine,” Damian says, thoughtful. “It is normal for a player at your rating. I do not mind playing the closed Sicilian with you. Anything is better than having to play through Dick's endless lines of gambits. But you have potential. If you studied, you could certainly diversify your opening repertoire.” He glances subtly away from Tim's face. “You will have a lot of time on your hands. I will help you study if you are interested.” He hesitates, debating with himself, but he says his mind. “I will move the pieces for you if needed. And I will not mind if you are not able to finish games at times.”

Tim wants to argue because chess was supposed to be about Damian, but there's something about the way that Damian is talking about chess, possibly reflecting buried excitement, and Tim suspects that Damian might be seizing the opportunity. Maybe he wanted to spend time with all of them playing chess. He's just a child. Obviously he wants people to play games with him. Tim is so clueless for assuming that Damian enjoyed playing out positions on the board by himself. 

“That sounds so lovely, Damian,” Tim says. “I really want to study chess with you. But don't worry about me. I already feel much better.” This is not a lie. The splitting ache radiating from Tim's bones through to his skin is dialing down to a more tolerable heat. The trade off is that he is beginning to feel too muddled and drowsy to function, which is almost more frustrating than the pain, because he's traded off a slightly more functional body for a significantly less functional mind.

“I always worry about you,” Damian says like he's commenting on the weather, like he's saying the sky is always grey over Gotham. He doesn't seem to understand that he's just said something that Tim will never forget. Damian looks up at Bruce. “I will be expecting you for our usual thirty-minute game tonight.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Bruce says. The way he says it cues Tim in that it's probably the highlight of his day. 

“Tim and I were wondering about something,” Jason says, still trapped under Dick's arm. “We wanted to ask if anyone knows how Babs has been doing recently.”

Dick answers first. “We talk to her all the time, and she's very busy, so I don't think that's what you mean. I think you mean her personal life. To be honest, I don't think she has a personal life.”

“I tried reaching out after she first moved to Metropolis,” Bruce remembers. His voice crackles slightly with a spillage of suppressed disappointment. “She wanted to focus on Oracle. I gave up. I wish I hadn't.”

“That was probably the right call at the time. Now Tim and I are thinking of trying again,” Jason says. “Does she have a way of getting over here?”

“Yes,” Bruce says. “She has a car. She chooses not to use it.”

That's a foreboding statement. Jason was probably onto something. Tim doesn't like to think that Jason understands something about how it feels to lose something as powerful as mobility, and Tim doesn't like to think about how Babs feels, if Jason can understand something about her.

“You must mind your timing,” Damian advises, nonplussed. “And I do not think she will appreciate being interrupted to talk about herself. I would recommend asking her advice on something. From there you may be able to extend an invitation.”

“That's a good way of approaching it,” Tim agrees. “Thank you, Damian.”

Damian fidgets. “Do not thank me before my idea has been proven to work.” 

“It’s a great idea. You had something to talk to her about, right?” Jason asks Tim. “That can be our segue.”

Tim nods to shake himself awake a little. “Yes.”

“Are you okay to talk to her tomorrow?” Jason asks.

Tim nods more vigorously, ignoring how he can feel the viscous movement of his brain with each nod of his head. “Yes. Of course. I don't have anything planned.” 

“Are you sure?” Jason presses.

“Why-” Tim can't remember if he promised to do something or be somewhere. “Why do you ask?”

“What do you mean, why ?” Jason says. He sighs. “It's fine. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Okay,” Tim agrees. He can barely keep up with the plain meaning of words anymore.

“I was also wondering about something,” Bruce says. “Winifred from Gotham City Bank contacted me. She wanted to give me advance notice that Gotham City Bank is no longer underwriting the ‘space nukes.’ She expects that this will undermine the procurement contract, and that may cause a scene, to put it mildly. She asked for my support. Tim, do you have any thoughts?”

“Um,” Tim says. He repeats Bruce's words over and over again in his head, but they don't have any meaning. 

“Were you two involved with this somehow?” Dick asks. Tim's vision blurs too much to make out the expression on Dick's face, but his tone isn't upset.

“I can't say what we talked about at the Henry estate,” Jason says. “I can only say what we'll write on the police report. We talked with Renee, her aunt, and her uncle about what Renee needs for her recovery. A plan was made to meet those needs, including that Renee does not want any future contact with her abductor.”

“Why was that ever up for debate," Damian says, stating his opinion more than asking a genuine question. "In any case, I suppose the auspicious timing is a happy coincidence,” he concludes dryly. 

“What approach is Winifred going to take?” Dick asks Bruce. “She probably has to find a reason to terminate the underwriting agreement, right?”

“It's going to be litigious,” Bruce says, agreeing. “Winifred knows that it's bad optics. Many of her high-value clients are in the defence sector, and the real reason she's backing out is obvious. She's worried that business is going to slow down. She asked if Wayne Enterprises could be counted on to find a reason to give her some business as the whole thing blows over, and to give Asco some time to source a new client base.”

“What do you think?” Damian asks.

“I wanted to pick your brains,” Bruce says. “What are you thinking, Tim? You had thoughts on this earlier.”

“Um…” Tim is struggling. He's still at the part where Bruce said procurement contract. Having a procurement contract means that the military has awarded the privilege of building the space nukes to at least one arms manufacturer. Underwriting agreement is what Renee meant when she said that Aunt Winnie and Uncle Asco help clients source money to use for their projects. Tim remembers reading this morning that the procurement contract is a cost-reimbursement type, meaning that the manufacturer needs to foot the bill up front, and the military will reimburse the manufacturer based on the actual expenses of the project upon completion, up to a maximum estimated cost. So without Gotham City Bank helping to finance the project, the manufacturer doesn't have the funding to commence it, and that will be problematic for the procurement contract that they've signed with the military.

Tim tries to answer Bruce, hoping that the third time will be the charm. “I think that a period of litigation has the potential to stall the space nukes through to the next election cycle. Maybe the next administration will be less hawkish.”

Bruce's face is illegible to Tim. No matter how hard Tim tries, he can't focus his vision. “That's not exactly what I asked,” Bruce says, not unkindly.

“Right. My bad,” Tim says. He thinks harder to finally answer the question this time, and the effort drains most of his remaining energy. “I think that terminating the underwriting agreement in response to a child abduction, a bomb threat, and an unauthorised nuclear reactor sends the wrong message in some ways. It proves to people that the ends can justify the means, even though I personally agree with the ends in this case. Although, I think that as a collective humanity we've always known that violence is a very effective avenue of change. That's the unsaid premise of our night shift. But it's political culture that determines whether violence is aesthetically pleasing and necessary to survival at a given moment, and I think that this series of events could shift our sense of reality in that direction. I completely understand the hypocrisy of such an observation, though, given that the glamour and efficacy of nuclear warheads is powerfully trumpeted by stakeholders with a vested interest in their proliferation. It doesn't sit well with me that political culture is criminalised, and vested interests are not. Ultimately I think that there's a grey zone with violence, the boundary between using violence because there's no other choice but to allow harm to be perpetrated, and violence for the satisfaction of harming people who we don't mind harming, or who we want to harm, or who we can gain something from harming. In many situations, I don't think that these two impulses can be separated.” Tim thought and talked so much that surely he must have answered Bruce's question at some point.

“That's also not exactly what I meant,” Bruce says, but he still doesn't sound upset. Tim might hear a smile in his voice, but Tim always hears what he wants to hear. “What are your thoughts on giving Gotham City Bank a helping hand?”

“Um,” Tim says, feeling very overwhelmed, because he's trying to backtrack and remember what ‘a helping hand’ means in this context. He’s trudging through sludge and more sludge, and eventually he gives out on himself. It takes him a few seconds to remember that he was supposed to be answering a question about his thoughts. “I don't have any thoughts,” Tim says honestly.

“Tim,” Bruce says slowly. “I'm sorry about this morning. Your opinion is very important to me. It's important even when it rubs me the wrong way. I was thinking about it. I'm a principled person, as you know. You have known for a long time, even when I didn't know you. I will not murder. I will not confuse my day and night commitments. But you and Jason have made me question everything. Even though the point of my principles is humanity, a principle is never human. A principle can never be protected, defended, praised, or believed the same way that a person can be. A principle can never be loved the way that I love you.”

Tim is about to have a meltdown. He can feel that Bruce is saying something really important, but he can't string the syllables that he hears into words, much less the sentences into a coherent message. He hates to admit it that he can't keep up with the discussion anymore, because keeping up with the discussion is one of those things that he's always been able to do- that's just who he is and what he's like- but there's something about Wayne Manor that breaks Tim's identity apart. Tim tries to explain because he would hate it more if Bruce felt like Tim wasn't listening. “I'm sorry, I don't understand.”

Bruce doesn't sound hurt, which Tim is very relieved about. “I mean that I don't love Jason any less for having killed people. I mean that I don't love you any less for wanting to use Wayne means for vigilante ends. Both of you may have a point, even though that's not who I am. I always assumed that the Wayne side of things was pure and bright, and that the Batman side was polluted and dim. On second thought, both sides are much more neutral than I realised.”

“Um,” Tim says guiltily, because that's so many words, and he cares about every single word, and every idea and emotion contained within, but Tim hasn't been explaining things well today. Bruce doesn't understand that Tim doesn't need more clarification. Tim needs a new brain. He hopes he won't draw too much attention to himself by saying this. “I’m so sorry, I meant to say that I don't understand because I'm tired. But it sounded like you were sorry for something, so I wanted to say that there's nothing to be sorry for. It's okay.”

“Oh, Tim,” Dick sighs. “Do you need to lie down?”

That's the attention that Tim doesn't need. “No, no,” Tim says. “I'm fine here. I'm very relaxed. You guys keep discussing.”

“Why would we keep discussing without you?” Damian asks.

Tim can blearily make out Jason stand up from his spot on the sofa. “Come lie down,” Jason says.

“You're sitting there,” Tim says.

“No, I'm standing here,” Jason argues a little petulantly. “Come on. How do you want to move over here?”

Tim fumbles to figure out what to say, clumsily calculating that lying down will make the attention end sooner. He realises that a full-body muscle weakness has set in, painkiller notwithstanding. Tim regrets the painkiller now, realising that he's actually traded off even more than he expected, all of his physical and mental functioning for a fifty percent reduction of the pain. It's not insignificant, but he could at least think and walk before he took it. He tries to remember that people are dressed, fed, driven, and even picked up by other people all the time. It's completely okay with Tim, but he still hates to want the attention to the point that he mostly just hates it. He wants other people to get the things that they need, but he might never understand why he deserves to get his needs met. It feels wrong whenever it happens, and it makes his skin crawl for reasons beyond his current understanding. Still, he'll lie down, and maybe they'll leave him alone. 

“I need to be picked up,” Tim says. He's trying to be matter of fact about it, but he kind of feels like breaking down into tears all over again. It's intimate like the intimate depth of the Persian rug beneath him scattered with rose petals, and the hearth, and a rose smells like a rose, those things that belonged to Tim now flit away into Iseult's grasp. Nobody is thinking about that except Tim. It's just Tim thinking about what he looks like and where he'll be touched, and what Iseult's opinion on all of that would be. It's just Tim feeling more and more feeble, more and more helpless, more and more victimised. The weakness that he left out for Iseult to exploit so easily skins Tim down to his bruised bones, and part of him thinks just destroy me then, I'll make it easy for you again.

Jason has appeared in front of Tim. He comes down to Tim's eye level, and Tim tries to seem unbothered about everything so that they don't repeat what happened with the tablet. Tim can predict what Jason will ask. “I'm ready,” Tim says. “I'm fine. Thank you.”

Jason laughs, but it's less like a laugh and more like the distorted beginnings of a sob. “You don't look very ready.”

Tim tries harder to look ready. He's holding everyone up. “I really am ready.”

“Are you sure?” Jason asks.

Tim can't let Jason ask the same questions over and over again in case Tim changes his mind. Tim tries to be more descriptive. “I will never be ready for this.” He can feel his eyes burning hot, and he hates himself even more for being so dramatic about everything. Tim has someone who will pick him up even after having just endured torture, and Tim dares to act this ungrateful about it. He's just begging for more attention at this point. Tim tries to salvage things. “So, I am ready. Hopefully that makes sense.”

“Yes, it does,” Jason says. “I'm sorry.”

There really is something wrong with Tim. He's managed to make Jason feel like he needs to apologise to Tim for helping him. The heat in his eyes stains his face, and Tim just doesn't care. He's easy. He's accepted it. It's fine. He's easy to hurt and he's probably impossible to love, which is such a stupid thing to think when Tim is literally being picked up. It feels even worse than he anticipated, so Tim tries even harder not to care as he feels weightless. He's easy to flip over and easy to beat and it's easy to make him sad and it's so easy to kill him that he's been tempted to do it himself a few times, because it would've been the easiest thing he's ever tried to do in his life. So why the fuck is he complaining when Iseult exploits that in him? Will he ever stop being a hypocrite?

They're probably looking at Tim. He tries not to imagine what he must look like through their eyes, but his mind goes there without his permission, and nothing belongs to him anymore. It all belongs to Iseult, even the privacy of his own mind. She would see that he's easy to flip over, easy to wound, easy to kill, and her gaze is so sharp, scraping down his skin in nice checkerboard mowing stripes, and Tim is ready to just roll over and die. Just take it, Tim thinks, so angry at himself because Jason is letting him down so carefully, and his touch doesn't hurt at all between his deliberate effort not to hurt Tim and the painkiller that Jason can't even use, and Tim is so ungrateful for wanting the pain back. At least pain protected Tim from weakness, so would someone, anyone- even Iseult can have a go at him if she wants- just take his fucking life? That would get him to stop crying, finally.

The sofa is a relief, even as it pricks every sore pressure point scattered throughout his skeleton at once. He tells himself that he'll finally be left alone, that maybe they can just tune him out, but crying is begging for attention and Tim is just begging for attention, something in him is just begging and begging and Tim doesn't have the grip strength to strangle it into silence.

“Tim, why are you crying?” Dick asks. He sounds very unhappy. “Does it still hurt really bad?”

She paid attention to me, and I liked having her attention. Tim almost blurts his most embarrassing secret, but Damian is here, and there are limits to these things. “Thank you, Jason. I'm sorry, it still hurts. I just want to make it stop. Please, I can't take it anymore. Somebody, anybody, just put me out of my misery. Oh my god. What is wrong with me?” He's so shit at explaining things today. They probably have no idea what he's talking about, and he's just reeling them in by their confusion, pleading for their attention.

“Please don't say that,” Dick says, terrified. “What would help you? Do you need help lying in a different position?”

“Probably,” Tim says, the weight of all of his organs crushing his spine, and he's too heavy, but also so easy to flip over that he should just roll over and die. Nobody is thinking about that except Tim because Iseult has probably forgotten about him by now. It's just Tim stuck in office hours for all time. “Right side,” he says, trying to stop reeling everyone in by their confusion. His right arm will be much more tolerable to lay on than his left.

“Right side sounds good,” Dick says. Tim feels the movement in the sofa as Dick stands, and it feels like a white flag bedazzled with gravel is whipping in the wind beneath him. Tim surrenders, he really does. He's been beaten by a few words and a whispering touch. That's all it took, so someone just take it all away from him. He won't bite. He couldn't even taste anything right.

“Are you ready?” Dick asks. He doesn't hover over Tim, giving him space. Tim is so ungrateful for feeling so impatient.

“No more questions, please,” Tim says, listening to himself sob, unable to even roll over by himself and suffocate that ungrateful part of him with the sofa. “I can’t think straight.”

“Oh, Tim,” Dick says. He's beyond unhappy, and Tim is just making it worse. “It's okay. I've got you. Please tell me if you're still uncomfortable.” 

The cutting white flag of surrender bores into Tim. He feels the gradient of pain in his body concentrate in different areas, and the most opaque hues are slightly lighter than they were once everything settles.

“Thank you,” Tim manages to remember to say. He's facing the back of the sofa, which feels private, and he feels like he might just be able to doze off, even though dozing off with the memory of Iseult's gaze in the back of his mind terrifies him to death.

“You don't need to thank me,” Dick says. “I really want to help you. I would go crazy if I couldn't help you.” Dick doesn't ask questions anymore. He unlaces Tim's shoes and slips them off without a word. Tim is too tired to feel sad that Jason's effort in pulling Tim back together with comfortable clothes and medical attention is unravelling so soon because Tim has finally lost the war against what happened at the end. Iseult did it. She won. She's conquered his territory. She's made his body uninhabitable. She can have it if she wants. He'll make it easy. He doesn't want it anymore. But there's no escape without asking someone to throw Tim off a high ledge for him.

“Here is a pillow,” comes Damian's voice from somewhere. That's not good. There have to be limits to these things, and Tim has to be way beyond them by now, having forced Damian to watch whatever this is. Tim is too ashamed to even say thank you.

Dick says it for Tim. The pillow makes all the difference for Tim's sore and malleable head. He might be ready to doze off. He's never ready to doze off because it would be stupid if the real reason that he burned the midnight oil all those years was that he was afraid to fall asleep by himself in a cold and dark house.

“You can fall asleep,” Dick says. He doesn't sit back on the sofa, but his voice sounds close by. His voice used to sound so far away, refracted by the whistling night wind, faded by the distance that Tim could never fully close. But Tim can catch every single word Dick says today. “Nothing bad will happen to you. We'll all be here.”

“I love you,” Tim says, letting it mean everything to everyone, but he hopes that Dick takes it to heart, having made Dick sound so unhappy. Tim's heart slows as he remembers Dick's happiness in the car, and Tim breathes, hands unsteady with the squeeze of his diaphragm, and as time slips away from him, Tim wonders if he was close enough to make it into the picture.

Notes:

this was kind of alluded to in the end note i deleted in ch 4 but i was originally inspired to write the undercover scene by a movie that i watched with someone and in the movie something crazy happened and i told him it was fucking insane and that person was like 'is it?' and i was like?? wtf??? are you okay?? what is this sexualised violence that society is okay to normalise and socialise acceptance for within the male-identifying population? this person actually has so much trauma what the hell. so this theme in the work is dedicated to him. yeah!

Chapter 12: i never promised you your dream boy...the heart i gave, it was a decoy

Summary:

why is this so big on desktop??? my bde perhaps? (no i need to stfu help, DNI with this joke esp minors pls I'm not flirting i just need to be put down before i publish another chapter) i had nothing to do with the size i'm just the one who embedded the image!!! credit to reddit for the meme!

*****content warnings*****: the meme counts as a cw, also some more sexualised violence discussions and explicit suicidal thoughts; slightly gory retelling of dick's backstory

(02-09-2025)

Notes:

guys...what is going on in the comics??? i keep reading tumblr posts and they're so helpful don't get me wrong (thank you so fucking much actually they are a godsend) but yeah what's happening? my greatest fear is that this work is really annoying and frustrating to read lmao and uh please someone let me down slowly if it is..haha..ha..but we're all comic book fandom enjoyers right? we love taking liberties and inconsistencies and making no baffling sense right? if so then this is the work for you!!!!! <3

chapter title from reboot by waterparks

Sleep does not come dreamlessly, which surprises Tim. He likes to sleep lightly just in case the creak in the floorboards is alerting him to a person. Originally he was honest with himself, and he knew that he was listening for his parents out of hopeless hope, the miracle thinking of a child. Tim knew his parents’ itineraries well, and they stuck rigidly to them barring factors out of their control. The creak in the floorboards definitely wasn't from them, and he knew that, but it comforted him anyway to pretend it could be them. He's always been good at imagining what he wants to imagine.

Tim was still honest with himself when his hopeless hope died, and he became more worldly-wise. Tim knew that nobody was going to come and get him if someone who wasn't his parents entered the manor, so he needed to be the first person to know. Not even the alarm system put him at ease. He was much more afraid of being woken up by the alarm than he was of waiting for it to go off. Eventually even waiting for it to go off scared Tim too much, and he wandered into the night to look for danger before it could find him.

Spotting Robin in the distance was when Tim started to lie to himself. How could he be scared of the dark when he loved running through the night? He was having fun. There was no reason to sleep when he could be having fun instead. When he first started staying the night at places other than Drake Manor, he was unnerved to realise that he wanted to sleep, and he remembered how everything began. Tim downed as much caffeine as he could to occupy himself, to forget, because there's no way he could be scared of the dark. He just likes to have fun. 

At this point Tim probably has to turn around and face the truth, however. Dick told Tim nothing bad will happen to you, and then Tim immediately fell asleep. That's pretty damning. Tim is not beating the allegations, especially because he's deep, deep asleep. He can't sense anything outside of himself, and he doesn't feel like he needs to. Why doesn't he feel like he needs to? Tim pleads the fifth. He knows the answer will incriminate him even more, and he has a right not to testify against himself.

Tim is apparently a very lucid dreamer, which he is now discovering for the first time, but he can't dig himself out back to consciousness. He's still so tired. He can sense a dream on the horizon, and he's scared to dream, which doesn't make sense when he spent years daydreaming like it was his day job. It's just that he can sense that the dream will take place at a time when nothing bad has happened to his body yet. Tim doesn't want to remember what that feels like because it's an illusion. In reality, he'll never feel the same again. The feeling is gone forever.

Then Tim realises that Damian has probably never known the feeling. Damian probably doesn't even have a memory of a time like that. He's probably deeply aware that something is missing from his childhood, that something was taken from him, but he said I don't know what happened to me and no matter how skilled and perceptive he was and is, he couldn't fight back against a kind of harm that was as normalised as breathing. All he could do was let an amorphous sense of defeat wash over him, his only recourse to pretend not to notice, to pretend it wasn't affecting him, and that's so upsetting to Tim, that a child should ever feel overpowered by anyone or anything.

Tim decides that he's going to remember the feeling for Damian's sake. He's going to study it, and he's going to reconstruct it for Damian brick by brick. Even if the feeling is gone forever for Tim, Damian will never know. There are limits to these things. Damian said don't do things like bring me lemonade anymore because you know nobody in my previous life protected my innocence, and that's fine, Tim won't bring Damian lemonade unless he changes his mind, which he has every right to do, but Damian can't afford for Tim to be the broken one between them. Tim is going to remember what it feels like, even if clarity only makes the absence of the feeling more cutting, because Tim needs to know for Damian's sake when something is wrong, and Tim needs to act like nothing is wrong with him. Tim can't teach Damian to be like him.

So Tim crashes into the dream, and when he looks up, he's in the library in Drake Manor. He's looking through the eyes of a body that nothing bad has happened to yet, so many things still out of reach. He's sitting at a desk, reading history, wearing clothes that he recognises instantly because he dressed himself back then. Tim was considered a precocious child, and as soon as it was clear that Tim could do everything for himself, his parents let him because it seemed to bore them to help him with things like getting dressed. There were more interesting things for them to be doing with their time, and Tim honestly can’t argue with that. Tim also feels like it is dull and exhausting to dress himself, until recently, because now it's hell, and he misses the boredom of it. He thought that the boredom was an objective truth until Jason said that he wasn't bored, and he took his time in a way that his parents hadn't, and he took his time in a completely different way than Iseult had.

Clothing is one of those things that Tim needs to figure out for Damian's sake. Tim tries to remember how he used to pick out clothes. So long as they were the right size and felt comfortable, Tim was okay to wear them. Tim ignores the slight problem that nothing feels comfortable anymore. He only means that the textures felt fine, and that Janet would approve. But something still doesn't sit well with Tim. Tim would never make Damian feel like Tim needs to approve of Damian's appearance for Tim to care.

Tim's mom has always had a sense of style that Tim has eternally struggled to emulate. Here she comes, speaking of the devil. Even working at home, browsing through the library, Janet always dresses up. She wears her hair in a complicated updo, and it is always so perfect. She has ways of giving her hair loose volume, effortless pieces of hair falling to frame her face, and she wears a dark lip that never rubbed off no matter the weather or what she ate or drank. She likes to wear pencil dresses in dark colours, cinched at the waist with a belt, but she never wears the same outfit twice. 

Tim felt comfortable that day because he worked very hard on putting his outfit together. He knew that Janet would have nothing to say, but he could see it in her eyes if she did have something to say. Janet was never explicitly mean, but sometimes Tim felt sad after she said something and it took hours of replaying the conversation in his head for him to learn the languages of passive aggression, PR speak, and plausible deniability. It's humiliation on another level, to be humiliated and have no idea that it happened at first, or to never be able to fully explain it or prove it to other people, and it's only Tim, who feels the sting of the burn, and Janet, who knows exactly what she meant, who will ever know the truth of the communication that passed between them, so Tim was determined to never fall behind in these language lessons.

Janet slides the book that she is looking for off of a shelf, and she comes to sit down at the large desk with Tim, absorbed in her thoughts, paying Tim no mind. 

“Good morning,” Tim says, long past feeling sad that he has to be the one to start the conversation. He's accepted that he's not half as interesting as the books in the library. He read as many as he could, hoping they could somehow make him more interesting, but it never worked. 

Janet looks up, smiles with a genuine warmth, always happy to see Tim in the library. She always liked it when Tim matched her and Jack. Tim guesses that she always wanted a mini-me. Luckily for her Tim also wanted to match them. Jack was harder to match because Tim rarely saw him. Between the two of them, Jack was more involved with the business side of things, always at the office. When he was home, Tim also didn't see him much. Jack was under the impression that childcare was Janet's role, and if Janet wasn't going to do it, then nobody was going to do it, and that was preferable to him doing it. Janet was home more because she led on research, well-rounded in everything that a person needed to know to use relics for extracting knowledge that the military wanted to buy, but she especially loved history, which Tim also tried to match. Tim suspects that Drake Consultants wasn't her true passion. Janet is practical, and Tim believes that she uses her wealth to pursue her hobbies freely. She volunteers her time at countless archives, museums, and universities. She consults on anything and everything she can pro-bono. Tim knows that the book she's reading now is for her pro-bono work.

“Good morning,” Janet says, very friendly today. She doesn't ask about Tim, and she returns to reading.

Tim anticipated this, and he's prepared with an irresistible conversation starter. “I think I hate history,” he tells her. He discovered that making them angry was the best way to get his parents’ attention. Either that, or it pushed them away even more. Tim was always willing to gamble until he went all-in and lost everything. Since then Tim has never been able to break his gambling habit. He knows that the way he talks pisses people off, even though he doesn't want their attention anymore. He wants them to go away, trusting that so long as he keeps going all-in, he'll lose everything again eventually.

Janet looks up from her reading and at Tim, already curiously entertained. “Do you?” She asks with a smile in her voice.

Tim already rehearsed what he's going to say, but he tries not to sound like he's reading from a script. “When I read history, I form an opinion that I understand how and why something happened, but then I read something else trying to persuade me that it didn't happen that way, and they have good reasons for saying that. I hate history because of that, because every time I turn the page I'm bracing myself to be proven wrong. I know that sounds very prideful, but it's true.”

Janet's eyes light up, as they do whenever Tim accidentally stumbles upon a decent idea. Tim feels accomplished, having successfully acquired her attention, and he's reeling her in to talk to him, hook, line, and sinker. She says, “Most of human history is conflict, and therefore most historiography- the history of history- are conflict narratives. The debates that historians have with one another tend to boil down to ‘they were weak’ or ‘they were evil.’ Neither are happy stories, are they? I don't blame you for hating to read history, but we don't have to read history this way.”

Tim can't believe the gold mine he's struck today. Not only is his mom still looking at him, she wants to talk more with him out of her own volition. She even wants to teach him how to do something, how to read history. This never happens, so Tim doesn't have to fake his rapt attention.

Janet even braces her elbows on the table, over her book, to speak with Tim more directly. “The only thing that we can definitively say happened in the past-” she begins, the look in her eyes passionate and serious, “-is suffering. That's the truth of what happened, the only thing that was real. It's what people saw, what people heard, what people touched, what they thought, what they said, what choices they made, what was important to them, who and what they loved, and who and what they lost.” She pulls over a volume of historical diaries from one end of the desk for Tim to see, and Tim can't remember the last time that something was done for him because he was probably pre-verbal. “These are the primary sources of history. Everything else, the arguments, the discourse, the narratives, are all secondary sources, social constructs. They only exist in our heads. They're at best a trend line that we strike through the data points- the primary sources- in an attempt to find the rhyme or reason, the formula, the factors, the pattern, the theory of why history had to unfold the way that it did. The trend line never happened in history. It's something we impose on the data to make meaning of all the suffering that we've witnessed.”

Janet pulls her book out from under her elbows and shows Tim the cover, that it's a history of how the Roman Empire fell. “This isn't to say that narratives are pointless. The collective memory of history is important because of the social and political implications of what we believe about the past. It's of paramount importance to derive trend lines that are self-aware of their own blind spots and inaccuracies, but it gets exhausting and I like to take a break from all that sometimes.”

Janet pulls over another something from across the desk for Tim to see, an artefact carefully stowed behind glass, a wooden children's doll that Tim knows enough to date to the eighteenth century. It's one of hundreds of artefacts in the library. At first glance the library looks less like a library and more like an archive or a museum. There are antiquated things all over the walls, the shelves, the floor, hanging from the ceiling, conscientiously maintained behind temperature-controlled glass if needed, the light in the library also meticulously controlled and monitored. It's very dim in the library, and sometimes Tim is nervous to even turn on the desk lamp. He wonders if that's how he got good at seeing things in the dark. Despite the meagre light, each artefact has been painstakingly tagged and catalogued. There are shelves of research diaries describing each artefact by object type, ethnic group, production place and date, materials, dimensions, location in the library, exhibition history, acquisition details, curator’s comments, and even a registration number. Tim also wonders if he tried out recklessness that one time so that he could be different from his parents, and that makes everything even worse.

Janet says to Tim, fingers lightly touching only the wooden base of the glass protecting the children's doll, “Someone loved this; someone lost this. Someone lived with this; someone died without this. This was important to someone; and we all forgot about it. Now we remember again. History is not a debate. History is an obituary.”

Tim was stunned speechless, completely derailed from his deliberately prepared script. It was such a beautiful sentiment, far more beautiful than Tim could ever be, so it was clear to Tim that he was being sacrificed for the greater good. He wholeheartedly agreed that it was important and good to write a beautiful obituary for the souls that have come before, because they matter, even being dead, or even being completely unknowable at this point, any record or trace of their existence long washed away by the tides of time, but Tim didn't feel important or good as a sacrifice. He felt insignificant and bad. He wasn't the greater good, so obviously his needs were wrong, and trying to meet them has been the wrong thing to do ever since.

For example, if nobody wanted to feed Tim because it was more good that lost things should be found again, then it felt a little embarrassing for Tim to feed himself. Nobody else seemed interested in whether he consumed sustenance or not. He felt like he was the only person who took an interest in the subject, the only person who had an opinion on whether or not he ate, and it's always uncomfortable to have the niche interest, the unpopular opinion. So when there are suddenly so many people who share Tim's niche interest and once unpopular opinion, it makes Tim's skin crawl. It's too much. It's wrong. They're going to embarrass themselves by getting so worked up over his dorky hobby. He's dragging them down with him, so he should stop them for their own good, for the common good.

Tim's expulsion from school just broadcasted to everyone else what Tim already knew to be true about himself. For the greater good, he can't be educated with other children. For the greater good, he needs to take up less space in society. For the greater good, he can't make friends. For the greater good, he needs to take care of himself, even when he's so tired, and it would be easier to roll over and die. Maybe it's all a sign that it would also be for the greater good if he died. It might be even better for the greater good if he never existed.

Tim has done the calculation so many times that he doesn't see how he's meant to come to any other conclusion. Because his parents could catalogue hundreds of artefacts and remember the minute details of each item, but they couldn't remember where they placed Tim’s birth certificate? Wasn't his birth certificate history, too? Wasn't it something that someone loved and that someone lost? Wasn't it something that Tim would live with and die without? Wasn't it important to someone, but was forgotten all about? Tim could only conclude that he wasn't part of the greater good because nobody wanted to remember him.

If nobody wanted to remember, then it's a little embarrassing for Tim to try to remember himself. That's why he burned the photocopy. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't because everyone saw the data points- the open flame burning right next to industrial chemicals- and they drew the trend line, and they wrote the narrative of what happened, and Tim let them. Who the fuck would ever believe that he needed to burn a photocopied birth certificate at school, because if he burned it at home, nobody would ever notice. Nobody would notice that he used the family account to buy a lighter. Nobody would notice that he fixed the fireplace. At least at school, Mr Brown might notice his lighter missing. At least at school, someone might smell something burning, and the janitor probably did. He came to investigate, and the narrative wrote itself.

It doesn't matter because Janet is wrong. The collective memory of what happened is more important than what Tim saw, what he heard, what he touched, what he thought. Nobody came to the primary source and cared about his suffering, the only thing that can be said to have truly happened. Not even his mom, the historian, the obituarian, thought to look at the primary source. Perhaps the social and political implications of the narrative were too much for her to overcome.

It doesn't matter because Tim knows better than to be so self-righteous when that's exactly what was done to him by his parents, and then that's exactly what he did to others, and even Dick and Damian. He didn't notice the cleaning cart because he was too focussed on his righteous purpose, just in the same way that his parents didn't notice him for the important services that they needed to offer to the world. It doesn't matter that he didn't mean to hurt anyone. It doesn't matter if the chemicals probably wouldn't have blown up the school if they caught alight because at the very least a fire or toxic fumes could have begun to spread. It doesn't matter that those things didn't happen because he scared other children with the collective memory of the event, and it was a good thing that he stood in front of them and apologised. 

There's no other way to slice it. Tim isn't part of the greater good. His needs are wrong, and the one time he tried to prove that they aren't, he was wrong again. He's wrong quite frequently, so he isn't sure why he was surprised.

Tim thinks that's enough deep sleep to last a lifetime. Dreaming is so shitty. He's glad that he spared himself from the experience for so many years. He digs himself out back to consciousness, still so tired, but he can't put up with his own mind anymore. The layered ache in his bones returns to his awareness at full intensity, and he's perversely excited, hoping that the medication is wearing off, and with it, the weakness. He's not so easy now, even though he still doesn't care. He’s still ready to roll over and die. 

At least Tim can roll over by himself. It's distilled agony poured over his skin and bones, but at least he can choose to do it himself. His vision doesn't have to adjust as much as he expected. It's much darker in the sitting room than it was, but it's not pitch black. The fireplace is still going, and there's sparse lamp light glowing around the room. He's clear-headed enough to make out the time on the grandfather clock standing straight in the far corner of the room. It's so late. They’ve probably all gone on patrol, and he's missed Alfred's cooking again. Moreover, he doesn't understand how it's possible to sleep for the most consecutive hours that he's ever slept in his life and still feel this shit.

“Tim,” Dick says, like he's saying it for the fifth time. He appears at Tim's eye level, not dressed to go anywhere. He's sort of wearing what Tim is wearing, and Tim isn't sure how to feel about that. “Good morning! I guess? It's technically morning. How did you sleep?”

Tim is both relieved and overwhelmed that Dick is still here for some reason. “I feel much better. Thank you for your help earlier,” Tim says, and he sits up by himself to punctuate that. He's fine. He's never letting any of that happen again. “Go to sleep. If you're not going out or back to Bludhaven, it's your bedtime.”

“Whoa, okay,” Dick says, clearly uncomfortable by Tim's sudden movements. He's kneeling by the sofa, and he leans back to give Tim more space. “Like I’ve been saying, you don't need to thank me. Also, this is definitely not my bedtime. I was thinking that we could hang out for a bit, if you don't want to go back to sleep. Oh, and if you don't need anything first.” He gives Tim a distant look that's almost sad.

Tim is excited about the idea of hanging out. He needs every opportunity he can get to prove himself. “I would love to hang out. Are you okay?” Tim asks, referencing the look that Dick is giving him.

Dick blinks, now looking embarrassed. “Oh, yeah.” He's trying very hard to look at Tim's face. “I was remembering. Did you know that you don't move at all when you sleep? It was scary. We thought about waking you up a few times, just to make sure that- uh- you know. But Jason said not to do that. He said that it's not very comfortable for you to be touched.” He's obviously waiting for Tim to elaborate on that point.

“It just stings a little,” Tim says, ignoring how the heat beneath his skin builds and builds the longer his clothes and the sofa press into him. Every instinct tells him to wrench away from the hot stove, but he's never trying a painkiller that strong ever again. It's ungrateful, he knows.

“Okay,” Dick says, expression almost amused, but mostly upset. “That’s why you were asking us to put you out of your misery, right?”

This is mortifying. Tim regrets the painkiller beyond words. Holy fuck, he should've said no. “Sorry that Damian had to see that. I hope he's okay. No, that's not why. That was about something else.”

“Something else?” Dick asks hysterically, and Tim knows he's picked another hole to dig again.

Tim remembers Dick's earlier question about needing anything else, and he's such a slimy person for using it to wheedle out of this conversation. “I need to go to the bathroom,” Tim says. 

Dick knows exactly what Tim is doing, and he doesn't like it, but he can't deny Tim the bathroom, and it's a really fucked up situation that Tim has set up. “There's a bathroom across the hall from us. I would give you your medication first, but it's not time for the next dose yet.”

“Thanks. I'll only be a few minutes,” Tim says. It's just across the hall. This is fine. He's well rested now. He's not, but it's fucking stupid that he's not well rested after all of that, so he's going to fake it until he makes it.

“Okay,” Dick says, very overwhelmed as Tim slides off the sofa around him. “Do you…” He can't finish.

“Thank you,” Tim says. He pushes himself up to standing on the armrest. “I'm okay, though.”

“Wait,” Dick says, standing up. “Um. I don't know. I guess I just don't believe you.”

“I just finished sleeping,” Tim points out.

“Yeah, but,” Dick says, searching for the gentlest way of putting things. “You don't look okay.”

“It's better than it looks,” Tim assures. He locates Alfred's shoes on the floor, and he considers stepping into them, but he'd have to sit back down to lace them up. The hardwood floors feel like lava, and the bathroom tile won't feel much better, but it's only temporary. He's on the mend. 

“Is it, though?” Dick refuses to let it go. “Even if it is better than it looks, that's a really low bar.”

“ Thanks ,” Tim says sarcastically, trying to get Dick off of his back. He trails his fingers on the edge of the sofa for support as he tries out the first few steps. How does it feel so much worse than the walk to the sitting room?

Dick scoffs. “You know I didn't mean it like that. That's so mature of you.” He sighs and rubs his shoulder. “No, we have to stop communicating like this. You deserve better.”

Tim pauses, also feeling ashamed. He was supposed to be proving himself. “You deserve better, too. Sorry.” Seriously, what is wrong with him? He's just making it hard for Dick to help him, and if he makes it hard for Dick to help, then Dick is going to feel useless. Jason warned him about this, and Jason is wise. Why is Tim so ungrateful? Maybe it was deserved all along that he never got attention because now that he has it, he's just being toxic. “It terrifies me to need help with the bathroom. I'm going to try not to need it. I'm sorry for taking it out on you.”

“Wait, no,” Dick says, also looking very ashamed. “I could have thought of that. I'm sorry, too. I just wish I could help you somehow. Like open the door? Something…”

“Opening the door would help,” Tim says. He tries to walk towards the door, but he is basically shuffling towards it.

“I just-” Dick starts, coming to stand behind Tim. “I just feel like it should be illegal for you to feel this bad.”

“It already means a lot to me that you think that,” Tim says. He's trying to see the situation from Dick's perspective. “It would feel a lot worse if I was picked up.”

“I did get that impression,” Dick says, waiting patiently for Tim to shuffle along. He's watching Tim carefully. Thanks to Jason, Tim doesn't feel like falling apart over that. Dick suggests his next idea gingerly. “What if I pushed you along…?” He trails off, taking in the change in Tim's expression.

Tim can already feel a razor sharp gaze scratching the word easy into his back, but he can't be an asshole about this. Dick would have a good idea to get a wheelchair for any other person. It's just Tim being fucking difficult. “I can't because of something else. I'm sorry. I tried.”

They've finally arrived at the door out of the sitting room, which Dick opens for Tim as requested. The hallway is so wide, but well-lit, and Tim can see the bathroom.

“You know,” Dick says, allowing Tim to pass through. “This ‘something else' is really starting to make me mad. Not at you. I'm really so sorry about how I reacted today. I would never think that you took revenge. I was just confused about the ethics of what you did. Even then, I could have been more understanding. ” 

“You’re already too understanding,” Tim says. He's so relieved to have all of this clarified, however. “I did hurt Jason. The ethics are blurry. It was what Jason wanted, and probably needed, but that doesn't absolve me of anything. I basically put him in so much pain that he almost died. We have to think of something better.”

Dick is looking at Tim carefully again. He finally says, “I’m not too understanding. I must not be understanding enough. You told us that you went on ‘vacation.’ I hate myself for thinking nothing of it because you disappear like that all of the time. You didn't think I would understand the nuance. You even thought I would blame you for ‘taking advantage of Jason's death.’” He doesn't wait for Tim's reply. “Jason told us about how you two met. We asked him what he did, specifically. He said that this is what you looked like by the end of your first meeting.” Dick fails in his longstanding effort to look at Tim's face. He takes everything in.

Tim waits to feel vindication, to feel righteous glee that Jason got the what did you do? question, but Tim feels horror instead. He feels so disappointed in himself that he ever wanted that. Tim knows how bad it feels first hand, and then he'd wish it on someone else? 

“Don't blame him,” Tim says quickly. “By the end he saw that I was vulnerable and he changed his mind. That's the kind of person he is. And then Jason helped me again today. He helped me with my injuries and with something else. It's harder to do that from his position, given our history. He's very strong. Torture is designed to drive people to ruin their own lives. That's how it works, and add upon it the ongoing psychological torture of having to live with the potent memory of his own murder for the rest of his life. Jason told me that he doesn't hate me, and that he wished he never hurt me, and that's all I needed to hear. I don't even have to forgive him. There's nothing to forgive. He was hurt, too. He was beyond hurt. He was killed.”

Dick smiles sadly. “Jason said that you were very persuasive when you first met. I guess I see what he means.” His smile fades. “He also said that you're very safe to be around. I completely get what he means with that, too. It worries me. I feel like people could take advantage of you. I think Jason did take advantage of you at first, and he knows that, even though he was technically the first to tell the truth.”

They've reached the bathroom door, which Dick opens. He even switches the light on for Tim in the bathroom. Tim wishes he left it off. He'll never stop being ungrateful, apparently.

“I think that's a bit of an overstatement,” Tim says, defeated by the overwhelming fear that he feels over walking into a bathroom with the light on. “I just make it easy. Thanks for the doors and the light.” He rudely steps in and manages to use his body weight to pull the door closed behind him without another word. He manages to lock the door, too, relieved that he only has to pull down on the handle to unlock it again.

The bathroom is both more simple and more difficult than Tim expected. He can understand why some people would need help with the bathroom, how they might not have a choice about it if they want to survive, and he thinks that must be another level of psychological horror that he doesn't want to contemplate at this time. 

“Dick, are you there?” Tim calls out.

“I'm here,” Dick says, his voice carrying clearly through the door.

“Do you know if I can use the toiletries in here?” Tim asks. He really wants to feel less disgusting. Mouthwash and deodorant is probably the best that he can do right now. A shower would probably literally kill him, and as tempting as that is, Tim knows better. It's probably better this way. Maybe being gross would make him less easy. 

“Of course you can,” Dick says. “You don't have to ask.”

Tim struggles with the drawers in the vanity. They’re all in front of the mirror, and his hands are still weak, every ligament, bone, and tiny muscle screaming at a fever-pitch when he uses them, but they're not entirely frozen and stiff like they were after he fell asleep on the ground. As long as he doesn't spill anything and make a mess to clean up, Tim can do this. He's not going to take forever, either. Dick is probably also tired, and he doesn't need to be standing outside waiting for Tim's body to get with the program.

“Can I help?” Dick asks after Tim has somehow managed to apply deodorant. Tim is bracing himself on the counter, chest heaving, trying not to audibly hyperventilate. How the fuck was Jason walking and talking almost completely normally during the interview? Jason is so not okay. He's too experienced. It should be illegal to be that experienced. Tim needs to get it together so that he stops taking the attention away. 

“Almost done,” Tim promises, and he's going to follow through. He unfurls himself, and the amount of force he needs to twist the cap off of the mouthwash makes his hands shake with pain. He feels like he's pressing his fingers onto hot coals, and he does know what that feels like from fixing the fireplace, and it takes everything in him to override his instincts, to not jolt away from the scalding heat. Tim's hands continue to shake as he tries to pour a very full bottle into a tiny cap. He manages, he rinses the cap, he stores everything away neatly, but Tim's hands won't stop shaking even once he's finished. This makes him so mad. Tim has trained his steady hand for years, and it's gone in an instant, and he doesn't know when he'll have it back. Sometimes he hates Wayne Manor for breaking his identity apart, and that's why he ‘disappears’ as Dick likes to put it.

Tim is also mad because for all his effort, Tim still feels very disgusting, and it doesn't make sense to feel the same amount of disgusting whether clean or dirty. It's fine, though. He surrendered willingly, didn't he? It's not his domain anymore, and there are no take-backs. The feeling is gone forever.

The door has a handle and not a knob, which Tim is very thankful for. He uses the weight of his arm to break the lock, but the door has to open towards him which is a literal pain. Tim remembers that Dick is waiting patiently in the hallway, and he steps back.

“Can you help me open the door?” Tim asks.

“Yes!” Dick sounds so excited to help that Tim's skin crawls. He opens the door slowly, checking that he doesn't hit Tim. He switches the light off for Tim after Tim shuffles back over the threshold into the hallway. Dick looks Tim over with focus. “Wait,” he says after a moment. “Why are your hands shaking so much?”

“They'll settle down,” Tim says, like he knows they will, even though he has no idea. He presses onward across the hall.

Dick is suddenly so upset. “Did I do something? To make you feel like…” He trails off again. To make you feel like we can't be in the bathroom together is probably what he means.

Great, Tim thinks. Now he's made Dick feel like a bad person. That's the last thing that Dick needs to feel about himself, especially when he probably already thinks that, and Tim is meant to be proving himself. This is why attention is wasted on Tim. “You've been everything that I need,” Tim tries. He wishes he knew how to say wise and comforting things. “It's because of something else.”

Dick tenses but keeps pace with Tim, which isn't hard to do. He's silent for a few beats, then says, “I listened to the confession tape.”

“I heard that it was hard to listen to,” Tim says, remembering what Jason said earlier. “Thanks for listening anyway.”

“It ended a little abruptly,” Dick remembers. 

Tim may never be ready to explain everything in vivid detail ever again like he did with Jason. He wasn't surprised when Damian said that he might not want to play chess for a long time. Tim refuses to let Dick feel useless or like a bad person, however. “At the end, she dressed me, touched me, looked at me, and talked to me.” Tim successfully doesn't say that's all, and he's proud of himself for slowly becoming less and less annoying. 

“Oh,” Dick says. He puts a hand over his mouth in the way that he does. “Oh, no.”

Tim suddenly remembers that Dick already had a conversation like this not long ago. “Jason already helped me with something else,” Tim reminds Dick. “I'm doing okay.”

“Okay?” Dick says in disbelief. “That's conveniently vague. You're letting me choose my own concept of the word, knowing that I'm going to be biased from my feelings towards picking the most optimistic nuance. I know what I'm doing too, Tim.” They've reached the door to the sitting room, which is still open. He stands to the side of Tim, not blocking the doorway. “Where,” he says quietly.

“Nowhere special,” Tim says, deciding to stand and wait with Dick. He owes Dick that much for going through the effort of trying to have this conversation.

Dick looks at Tim in a way that Tim might describe as loving if he wasn't notoriously delusional. “It's all special. It's all precious. You understand that, right?”

Tim wants to say not anymore, but he also wants to believe Dick. He stares at Dick, torn.

“Here,” Dick gestures. “Go on through the door. You need to sit down.” There's a knowing look in his eyes.

Tim is relieved to be excused of the burden of thinking of an answer. He's so excited for this final stretch. Between the floor is lava and the sofa is a hot stove, he's more in the mood for the hot stove at the moment. 

“Tim,” Dick starts to say after only a minute of Tim's excruciatingly slow progress. “Nothing bad will happen to you.” He comes around the front so that Tim has to look at him, but he's not standing in the way. “I won't let anything bad happen to you.”

Tim still doesn't know what to say. He had mentally prepared himself to be chastised as some kind of disgrace to the male gender, but it would have been worth it. Dick might have thought something very bad happened, and Tim didn't want to fish for Dick's sympathy even on accident. But Dick's reaction is so distant from Tim's assumptions that Tim kind of feels like falling over. He feels like he's been transported into a different reality. It's disorienting, but one thing is still clear. If he's easy, that's on Tim. It's not Dick's problem.

“I know,” Tim says, because he's not going to make Dick feel useless or like a bad person. “Thank you.” He knows that Dick is probably very disappointed that Tim still won't let him do anything for him. “I’ve always wanted to hang out with you,” Tim says. “It would cheer me up if you would let me interview you.”

“So persuasive,” Dick observes, not even a little upset. “You want me to talk about myself? You want me to do one of my least favourite things to do? Just because it would make you feel better?” His expression is very fond. “Of course I’m going to do that.”

Tim flops down onto the sofa against his best interests. His bones vibrate like tuning forks, and he can almost hear their painful ringing in his ears. “So predictable,” Tim teases. He pats the spot next to him on the sofa. “Do you want to sit?”

“Yes, I will, soon,” Dick agrees happily, coming to sit in front of Tim on the floor. “But first. Do you need anything else?”

Tim shakes his head. “No, but thank you.”

Dick laughs a little dryly. “No? Seriously? What about food? Water? What's next. You don't need oxygen anymore?”

Tim notes that his hands are still trembling. “Definitely not,” he says, ignoring the implications of the last part.

Dick stares at Tim, trying not to lose patience. “How,” he says after a moment. “How do you always make me feel like I'm doing something wrong by trying to care.”

Tim goes all-in before he can stop himself. “You are doing something wrong.”

“Oh?” Dick says very bitterly. “Am I? It's wrong to try to help you. Do you hear yourself?”

“It is wrong,” Tim bites out. “You're just embarrassing yourself by helping me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dick says, an incredulous smile back on his face. “You really like to make people feel as bad as possible when they try to help you.”

“It’s for your own good,” Tim tries to explain, even though he's been so crap at explaining. He really needs to get Dick to give up this dorky hobby. “You have no idea how bad I am.”

“You're not bad,” Dick says, frustration draining out of his voice already, but he's still upset.

Tim realises that he probably sounds so attention-seeking, reeling everyone in to give him reassurance. He wonders if he always sounds like that. It's a miracle that anyone still puts up with him. He really doesn't deserve them. Tim needs to explain properly. He needs to really go all-in. “I’m even worse than you think. I tried to set off an explosion at my school.”

“No,” Dick says, and his expression is almost amused. “I don't believe that even for a second.”

“I didn't mean to,” Tim amends. “I was reckless.”

Dick searches Tim's expression for the truth. “You're serious,” he decides. His expression turns dark, and Tim braces himself to leave the casino empty-handed. “Were you hurt?” Dick asks urgently.

Tim is speechless again. Dick's reaction is so distant from Tim's assumptions that Tim is glad that he's seated for this. It's disorienting, but it's also clear that it's on Tim for being needy. It's not Dick's problem. “You're missing the point,” Tim finally says.

Dick smiles sadly, and Tim strongly dislikes that Dick's smile is sad more often than not around Tim. “I don't think I am missing the point,” Dick says. “Were you hurt?”

Tim can't fix his skill issue with explaining things no matter how hard he tries. “It doesn't matter,” Tim says, still struggling, and holy shit he sounds like he's reeling people in for sympathy again. “Nothing happened, but it scared everyone.”

“Were you scared?” Dick asks. 

That's not the point, that doesn't matter, Tim wants to argue, but that's apparently not going to persuade Dick. “I was scared of myself,” Tim says, trying to take a different approach. “I realised that I wasn't harmless like other kids, that I was capable of harming other people in a way that was disproportionate to my age. I earned different treatment due to my life experience.” Tim thinks that's how Damian said it. Damian really has a way with words. He's articulate in a way that Tim can never be. Tim is relieved that he has Damian's wording to help him explain, even though he wishes Damian didn't have the words. It may be the best explanation that Tim has been able to give.

“What do you mean by ‘different treatment?’” Dick asks, something quietly severe in his tone. He was relaxed before, sitting back on the heels of his hands, but he's very serious now, arms around his knees.

“It was good,” Tim assures. He's still feeling defensive, and he can't quite grasp the reason why. “It was for the common good.”

“What was for the common good?” Dick presses. He’s poised like he's about to jump up and run somewhere.

“That-” Tim has never put words to this out loud, even though he's had the thought so many times. They seem to carve him to pieces on the way out of him. “That I should be forgotten.”

“You were forgotten for the common good,” Dick strings together. 

Tim realises how bad that sounds. “No, no,” he says. “I probably led you all on, didn't I? That I'm an orphan or abused, that I don't have anybody. I do have parents! I'm very lucky to have my parents. They financially support me. You've met them at the gala. I showed them your picture. So you can guess that it's a lot of financial support. Sorry for being so dramatic. I guess it's really frustrating for you and Jason, that I act like this when I still have my parents.”

Dick sighs, and he looks so pained. “You probably didn't really hear what Bruce was talking about earlier. That's a little frustrating, but, no, Tim. It's not frustrating for me that you were neglected. It hurts me, actually. It hurts me really bad.”

“No, no,” Tim says, quickly becoming overwhelmed and uncomfortable. “Don't get worked up over my unpopular opinion. Please. Don't do that to yourself.” Tim realises that he's back to making no sense and reeling people in by their confusion, but he feels helpless to stop himself. He also realises that he himself is really confused. What do the space nukes have to do with this? Tim replays the conversation in his head from top to bottom, able to make sense of everything much more easily. And then he sees what Dick means, and Tim knows what Bruce would say. He would say something like a beautiful sentiment can never be loved the way that I love you, and that's so fucked up after Tim calculated that Bruce changed his mind. How did Bruce know what Tim always wanted to hear? He doesn't even know Tim, Tim made sure of that. 

“What's your unpopular opinion?” Dick asks with trepidation, pulling Tim out of his thoughts. Why is Dick so scared? Tim just keeps leading people on, and he doesn't know how to fucking stop.

Tim will be clear this time. He will, even if the words scald his tongue. “My needs,” Tim explains. “They're a niche interest. They're a dorky hobby. Don't embarrass yourself by getting interested in them. Please. I can't take it. It embarrasses me, too.”

Dick is the one who is speechless, this time. He takes a breath, watching Tim with a confused expression. “I'm not embarrassed to want to take care of you,” he says, sounding shaky, like he never thought he'd put these words together in that order. 

“You probably should be,” Tim says, looking down despite the lingering crick in his neck. His hands still tremble wildly. This is not a happy discovery for Tim.

“I don't even know what to say,” Dick says after another pause. “I guess I answered my own question. I've always wondered if I taught you to be the way that you are. I know now that I didn't. I just don't know how to teach you to be loved.” He suddenly smiles. “Oh, well. It will be a very interesting subject to study.”

Tim can't do anything but stare at Dick in silence. He doesn't understand why everyone has been trying to speak his stupid language recently. First Jason with the photo, then Bruce going on about principles, and now Dick going along with Tim's impossible way of explaining things. 

“Okay,” Dick announces, saving Tim from trying to reply to him. “It's food time. You can have whatever you want.”

Tim doesn't want to inconvenience Dick too much, and he's still embarrassed by all of this attention, even though the embarrassment has a slightly different feel to it than before. “I’d rather drink something.” He tries to see the situation from Dick's perspective. “It can be a smoothie. Then I won't get hungry. You can make whatever you like. Get something for yourself.”

Dick looks so excited about his assignment that Tim could cry. How is it that interesting?

“Can you wait here by yourself?” Dick asks, already standing up.

“Yes, I'm fine,” Tim says. He tries to look comfortable.

“I don't feel great about leaving you here alone,” Dick admits. “I'll try to be really fast.” He glances over the coffee table. “Do you want something to look at?”

“Sure,” Tim says, trying to make Dick less anxious. “I'll look at one of Damian’s chess books.”

“Are you going to try to learn more openings before you play with Damian?” Dick asks, extracting a book from beneath a leaning pile of other books and magazines. 

“I don't know,” Tim says. “I barely remember the closed Sicilian. I probably need to review that first.”

Dick gives Tim a look. “I don't think it's possible for you to ‘barely remember’ anything, but whatever you say.” He flips through the book for Tim, so Tim can see that the cover says Modern Chess Openings. Once he finds a certain page, he bends the spine of the hardcover book and places it next to Tim. “Is this okay?”

The book lays flat on the sofa. The title of the page is Sicilian Defence: Closed Variation (main lines). It's a grid of six different main lines played out to the twelfth move, and beneath and on the next page are footnotes explaining even more variations on the main lines. Tim really admires Damian, and he's also really intimidated, and he's also jealous, and that's more or less the constant mixed bag of emotions that he feels around Damian. This book is so hard to read, especially without the board to help Tim visualise the moves. It's definitely going to keep Tim occupied. “Yes, thank you,” he tells Dick, because how could it not be okay when Dick is this considerate.

“I'll be back soon,” Dick promises. He messes Tim's hair up on the way out. Tim tries not to think about being in the picture, and he tries to focus on chess. It's hard to look down, and his back still feels like it's being blowtorched by the sofa, so Tim lays on his side and props the book up on the back of the sofa. Tim never studied most of the lines on this page, maybe one or two of them. There's so much to remember on this page alone, and then the book is thick. There are probably a thousand pages, and they're all probably densely packed with main lines and variations like this.

It's not hard to do solid preparation against the only two openings you ever play, Damian said, but even one opening is really fucking hard for Tim. Tim doesn't want to be too easy for Damian, though, boring him and making him change his mind about wanting to play chess together, so Tim tries his best. He reads through a line, and then he tests himself by closing his eyes and remembering what he read. Tim doesn't bother with trying to figure out the purpose behind each move because he can't visualise anything. He's also always had a difficult time with chess theory and opening principles, but he knows that chess openings have been solved by grandmasters who have really thought things through. Deviating randomly from a main line against a high-level player like Damian will either put Tim at a huge disadvantage or immediately lose Tim the game. As long as Tim remembers what chess grandmasters have already gone through the trouble of figuring out, Tim and Damian will at least make it to the middle game with a balanced position.

“Tim, I'm back,” Dick says, and Tim realises that he's dozed off again. Dick is reaching over Tim to get the book out of the way. “You're still really tired,” Dick notes.

Tim turns himself over groggily, and he notices there are two identical drinks perched on the glass coffee table. They both have straws, and Dick is sitting on the floor in front of Tim, again.

“Come sit,” Tim says. He mentally prepares himself to sit up.

“I think you feel better on your side, right? I'm okay here,” Dick says. “Are you ready to try a sip of your drink? He reaches for one of the drinks, and Tim has a bad feeling.

“I can do it,” Tim says before Dick can suggest anything. “I promise I won't spill.” If Tim can pour the mouthwash without a mess, he can surely do this.

“I'm aware that you can,” Dick says, balancing Tim's drink on his knee. “And a little spill doesn't matter. But I want to take care of you. It's very interesting. I love my niche interest.” The playful look on his face fades for something a little more genuine. “But seriously. It just doesn't seem very comfortable for you.”

“Nothing is comfortable,” Tim tries. He hopes he doesn't sound dramatic again.

Dick contemplates Tim. “I am so angry,” he finally says. “Not at you. I promise I'm not.” Dick swirls the straw, and he fidgets lightly with the bendy part. He comes to a decision. “I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you,” he tells Tim. “I would die first.”

“Don't say that,” Tim says, legitimately terrified.

“You take it back, first,” Dick says with a vague smile. “But you understand that I mean it, right?”

If I'm easy, it's not your problem, Tim wants to say, but he doubts he's going to be able to persuade Dick, who has dedicated most of his life to making things like this his problem. “I understand,” Tim eventually admits. “I can let you do it.”

“Thank you,” Dick says very excitedly, like he's accepting an award. Jason and Dick are both so weird for that. He holds the drink out for Tim, and Tim tries to be appreciative and take a long sip.

Tim is so horrible for assuming that he'd have to try to be appreciative. He can taste very well, and it tastes very good. It's one of his favourite flavors, actually. “How does it taste like coffee,” he says, and he takes another sip.

“I can't give up the secret ingredient that easily,” Dick says. “Then you won't need me anymore.” He reaches to take a sip of his own, maybe so that Tim doesn't feel awkward. “I'm pretty talented, though. Even with the secret ingredient, I don't think anyone else can make it this delicious.”

Tim tries not to laugh and choke to death. “I'll always love you,” Tim says, seizing the opportunity as he sees it.

Dick is the one who coughs, but the hand holding Tim's drink is steady. “You have to stop doing that out of nowhere,” he says, already flushed to his ears.

“It doesn't feel like that to me,” Tim says. “It's always on my mind.” He takes another sip as Dick coughs harder. Tim waits for Dick to recover before continuing. “I still want to listen to you talk.”

Dick sighs, taking a drink to procrastinate a little. “Okay,” he says. Tim knows that Dick always follows through with what he says he will. “Ask away.”

“How have you been doing?” Tim asks. He's almost completely done with his drink. The sooner he finishes everything, the sooner Dick can let his arm rest. Not that Tim thinks that Dick's arm is necessarily going to tire so soon, but Tim suspects that Dick is always much more tired, generally speaking, than he tries to let on.

Dick is very unimpressed. “Really? You had to start with that? Can't you ask me my favourite colour or something?”

“I'm not going to ask questions that I already know the answer to,” Tim says. He's almost finished. He's sad that the drink will be done, which is a feeling that he thought was gone forever.

“What's my favourite colour,” Dick says, stalling.

“It's hard to explain,” Tim says despite the stalling. He's here to prove himself. “A lot of your clothes are blue. January 3rd, seven years ago, you wore a blue parka getting off the plane from a trip to Stockholm. It was sleeting during the landing. I was afraid you were going to crash and die. You didn't die, though. Obviously. April 11th, five years ago, you were spotted at the high street shops. You were looking at a blue tie. I think I've seen you wear it. It might have been the one from the benefit gala two years ago on September 22nd. Nightwing is blue, too. I've also, um, dug up some old posters from the Flying Graysons time in your life, and your costume was blue in the art. I always took it that you were feeling blue. Then I realised that there's no blue in the Robin costume. And I also realised that Alfred helped you pick out your clothes at first, which makes a lot of sense. So I think that blue is a red herring, not that you have to wear your favourite colour at all times.”

Dick is looking at Tim with a scared expression, and Tim realises that he's being creepy again. “I'm so sorry,” Tim says. “I regret everything. I didn't think it through, how it would feel to you.”

“For a long, long time,” Dick says, ignoring Tim. “You've loved me for a long, long time.”

“You make it hard not to,” Tim says dissmissively. “Ah, sorry. Not to say that you brought my attention on yourself. That’s all my responsibility. I don't have anything to base this on, so you can think of this as my postulate, but I think that colour has always been part of the show, for you. So I don't think you'd choose to express yourself that way. I think it's precisely because you've worn so many colours through your career, and especially blue, that those couldn't be your favourite colours. I don't think you've been feeling blue. I don't think you like colours at all. I think you've been feeling gray for a long, long time.”

Tim finishes the last dregs of his drink, and he pushes Dick's arm down to help him set it down because Dick is lost in thought. “Thank you,” Tim tells Dick to stir him out of his pensive fog. “This was so good. You're very talented.”

Dick blinks, and he registers Tim's voice. “Oh, you're welcome. I'll make it for you again whenever you want.” He sets Tim's glass back on the coffee table, and he takes another drink of his own, still stalling.

“So, how have you been doing?” Tim asks again.

Dick huffs. “I thought you weren't going to ask questions that you already know the answer to.”

“I don't know the answer,” Tim says. “That was all just my theory. You're the primary source.”

“I'm the what?” Dick asks. “Also, you're contradicting yourself. You can't say that you know my favourite colour, but not how I'm doing.”

Tim sighs. “You do know what you're doing, too, don't you. I can't slip these things past you. But I do want to say that there is a slight difference between the two questions. For one, the answer is in your name. For the other, the answer is only yours to express.”

Dick hides behind his drink, but he's running out of stalling material which Tim thinks is funny. 

Tim decides to prove himself by asking a softball question. “You said that this isn't your bedtime. When is your bedtime?”

“I don't need a bedtime at my age,” Dick says, and his tone is so petulant that Tim has to smile. Dick notices, and he only becomes more frustrated. “And I don't need a lecture on bedtime from you.”

“I just set such a good example,” Tim says. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Dick looks to the ceiling, seeming to pray for deliverance. “I'm sending you out to talk at the next press conference. I want to see you drive those people insane.” He gives Tim a resigned look. “I do sleep like you just did. I sleep in between other things that I need to do. My bedtime is flexible.”

Tim is assuming that Dick means Tim dozing off while waiting for Dick to come back. That's not good. Dick probably feels like shit all of the time. “I like to sleep lightly, too,” Tim offers.

Dick nods, agreeing. “Dreaming is shitty,” he says. He takes the last drink of his liquid courage, and he reluctantly sets it on the coffee table next to Tim’s.

“I just dreamed for the first time,” Tim says, working from the assumption that Dick is more likely to say something about himself if Tim says something first. “I dreamed about my mom. She was very friendly in the dream. What do you dream about?”

“I also dream about my mom,” Dick says. He stares at his knees, legs outstretched in front of him. “Well, actually, I don't know if it counts. Is it still my mom as a corpse? It's hard for me to decide because I dream about her at the exact moment she hit the ground. Do you think she was alive for a second or two? Or do you think she died instantly, in a matter of milliseconds? I can't decide. I've watched it happen so many times, and I can never tell.”

“I'm so sorry for your loss,” Tim says, and he's so ashamed that it's the first time he's ever said so.

“It's okay,” Dick says in a way that doesn't make him sound okay. “Is it even my loss, you know? It's their loss. I've watched it happen so many times, and I can never tell if it hurt or not. I've watched their expressions, I've tried to pinpoint the exact time they lost everything, and I can never tell. I really want to ask them if it hurt or not, but I guess I'll never know, and they'll never be able to tell anyone if it hurt.” Dick is looking at a place far away from here, and Tim wants to get his attention away from there. Tim reaches out, and he tries to tap Dick's shoulder gently. He's not able to control his movements well, and Dick notices right away. He glances at Tim before looking away again, not processing anything.

“Sometimes I think I want to go and find out for myself, so that I can understand them, so that it won't be my loss anymore,” Dick says. His eyes are still a little dazed. “I dream about it, if I had jumped down after them, like a good son would have, and then I could have checked on them to see if it hurt. I feel really well rested after dreams like that. It's like a sign. It's telling me that it's the only way I'll ever stop feeling tired.”

Tim tries not to cry because Dick would feel guilty and stop talking. He knows that Dick has more that the needs to say, and Tim would hate himself if Dick started talking about himself and didn't get anything out of it by the end. “What stopped you?” Tim asks.

“The audience would have had to see it. They were already scarred for life,” Dick says. Tim smiles to himself, because Dick has always been obsessed with the common good, so obsessed that it's the first thing on his mind after his parents plunge to their deaths in front of him. Tim wonders if that's just where Dick came from, as an artist and performer, that he's always wanted to make other people happy, to be the bright spot in a world of pain, to be the saving grace, the child safe and sound at the top of the trapeze, the stark relief to the carnage around him, even if deep down he wished to be nothing at all. Dick continues, “I was planning to go somewhere more private. Bruce found me before that could happen.”

“I'm so happy that Bruce found you,” Tim says. He rubs Dick's shoulder clumsily, hoping his touch isn't too harsh. Dick is still too far away to process the contact for more than a second. Tim persists, hoping that gradually he can reel him in from wherever he is.

“I was happy, too,” Dick says. “I realised his parents were just like mine, and that scared me, so I was happy to be there for him. Bruce tried to hide Batman from me, but I made it hard for him because I couldn't sleep through the night. When I realised what he was doing, I knew I was going to do it, this time. I was going to jump down after him. I followed him down every time. I wanted to know if it hurt. He couldn't get rid of me because I was determined to find out this time. Bruce had no choice but to teach me how not to get myself killed. And then Jason came along, who died horribly, and then you, chomping at the bit to die for something, and now Damian, weaned on exploitation so that he doesn't know anything else. What have I done,” Dick concludes with considerable self-loathing.

“You haven't done anything wrong,” Tim says. He chances using more pressure on Dick's shoulder. Tim wills his hand to be steady, at least for a little while.

“That's what Jason said,” Dick says, looking into the corner. He's still very detached from the present. “I want to believe him. I really do, but maybe the line wouldn't have broke if I wasn't there, with my extra weight, my extra wear and tear. I don't think it should have been me. That's the cliche, right? But I don't think that. The audience is scarred enough as it is. I just think that I shouldn't have been there to begin with. Even though I try to be as light and gentle as I can, I feel like I'm still too heavy-handed for the world.” The focus finally returns to his eyes, and he notices Tim's touch. He pulls Tim's hand away gently and he looks even more miserable. “I'm doing it right now. I feel comfortable talking to you because I feel like you understand. I don't think I can hurt you any more than you've already been hurt. That's fucked up. I see what Jason means. I see it.”

“No,” Tim says, seizing the opportunity to apologise. “Don't say that. I'm so sorry that I made you feel like you're too much. There's no excuse. It doesn't matter what I was going through. All that matters is that you need to be happy, too. You saved me so many times. You saved me everyday for years. You have no idea.”

“Do I really need to be happy?” Dick asks genuinely. “I can get by.”

“A need isn't just for getting by,” Tim corrects, and he ignores that he's realising something about himself. “A want by any other name is just a need.”

Dick almost laughs. “Oh, I know where that comes from. Those were the days. I had to chase Jason through Crime Alley to read that play. He kept saying that reading the play was going to kill him, and he asked me if I wanted to kill him. It was so annoying. I could spend up to three hours chasing him down. When he finally sat down and read an act, it only took twenty minutes, and then he couldn't stop talking to me about it. I almost lost my mind.”

Tim does laugh, and he tries to suppress it because it feels wrong. Dick is looking at Tim in a certain way, and Tim is trying not to notice, and trying not to laugh.

“I love you,” Dick says out of nowhere.

Tim finally stops laughing. “I love you, too,” he says.

“Sorry it took so long,” Dick says, smiling, and his voice is a little airier than usual. “It's just more entertaining when you're not expecting it.” 

“So I'm just entertainment to you?” Tim asks.

“No, no,” Dick says in that cheeky Robin way that everyone has always wanted to copy. “You misunderstand me. Sneaking up on you with affection is entertaining. It's payback. Teaching you how to be loved is my niche interest. I love my niche interest.”

“Thank you,” Tim says, surprising himself that he doesn't feel the need to say sorry anymore. But he does need to get the conversation back on topic. “We need to fix your nightmares. There's no way you'll ever feel happy if you feel this exhausted all the time. What have you already tried?” Tim thinks back to the level of fatigue he felt earlier and wonders how Dick has learned to function through that, if not worse. They're all just too experienced, and it should be illegal. 

“I feel like I've tried everything,” Dick says. “I've had years to try everything. Well, maybe not.” He's remembering again, but he seems less lost than before. “I don't know how much you know about this, but the life of an artist is not glamorous. The glamour is all for show. My parents and I all slept in the same bed, a king-size air mattress, except when they booked a motel. I used to be so happy to have the bed all to myself. Now I regret ever feeling that way. I wish I could have grown out of it slowly.”

“I wish you could have, too,” Tim says, and he also wishes he was more effortlessly comforting and wise. He wants so many things from so many people to become his. 

“Hm,” Dick says. He swivels his feet restlessly. “I wonder if you're right, and that we don't ever grow out of bedtime. I also don't know how much you know about this, but trapeze really kills your shoulders. Some nights I was in too much pain to go to sleep, and my parents used to rub them for me, and it helped.” He gives Tim a knowing look. “Don't get any bright ideas. I really wouldn't be asleep right now because of patrol. I genuinely just wanted to hang out with you.”

“I did, too,” Tim says. He hopes he's been able to prove himself, but he also thinks that this is the kind of proof that has to be recertified every second of the rest of their lives, which Tim doesn't mind. It will keep him occupied. He'll stick around for that.

“I missed you,” Dick says. “I miss you all the time.”

“I missed you, too. I'm not going anywhere,” Tim says, as an alarm rings from somewhere. He can't help but tense, even though it sounds nothing like that old alarm did.

“Don't panic, that's mine,” Dick says, pulling his phone out of his pocket and switching the alarm off. “It's time for your next dose.”

“Okay,” Tim says, surprising himself again. He doesn't know when or how, but his resolve to never take a painkiller that strong ever again has been worn down over the course of hanging out with Dick.

Dick smiles. “Lovely ,” he says. He pulls over a glass of water that Tim is only just now noticing, and Dick helps Tim take the next dose. Tim doesn't have to read the packaging, the instructions, or the labels. He hasn't even seen the package.

Tim thinks about saying thank you, but he's learned his lesson that Dick will feel like Tim is overreacting, and he'll repeat himself about how much he loves his niche interest. Tim is determined not to be dramatic. “I wanted to ask you a question,” Tim says, seizing the opportunity. 

“Ask away,” Dick says. He looks tired despite his assurances, and Tim won't impose too much. 

“Do you think Bruce was asking me to choose whether or not to give Gotham City Bank a helping hand?” Tim asks. He genuinely needs this clarification.

Dick squints at Tim. “Of course he was.”

“Do you think he was asking me to choose how to help?” Tim asks just to really make sure.

Dick nods. “Yep.”

“That's too much power for one person to have,” Tim says. “I don't think I'm going to be able to make the right decision. Just think about it. All of the political and economic ramifications. People's jobs, people's livelihoods, people's lives are going to be affected by whatever I choose. And there are going to be unforeseen consequences that I'll never be able to calculate. Life isn't a game of chess.”

“You do have too much power,” Dick replies, not even phased. “All you can do is be honest with yourself about it, and you have been. I know you.” He gives Tim a fond look. “You've always been practical. Don't get all principled on me now. I'll tell you something that I hope is helpful. I don't really believe in right or wrong. Maybe I've been doing this for too long, but in my view, there are only choices, and consequences, and telling ourselves that some consequences matter, and others don't, because a moral or philosophical code says it’s the right choice, is a dangerous way of thinking. There will be consequences, and you'll manage them all, you'll face everything, because you're like that. You're a skilled manager.”

Tim feels his face go hot. “Can I have that?” He asks Dick.

“Have what?” Dick asks. He looks around himself.

“Can your view belong to me?” Tim asks, struggling to explain.

“Oh, no,” Dick says, also flushed now. “Please don't flatter my ego.”

“I can't help but want to be like you,” Tim says quietly. 

“Why does everybody want that?” Dick asks, very embarrassed.

“I just love you,” Tim tries to explain again.

“Why is everybody also saying that today,” Dick mutters. He sighs. “Of course you can share my viewpoint. It was about time that you made it into the picture.”

“Thank you,” Tim says, very excited. “I feel much better about making a decision, and that being said, it’s your bedtime now, and I'm setting a good example. I'll study the closed Sicilian a little more until I get too tired.”

“Hm,” Dick says. “I almost believe you.” He lifts Damian's chess book up off the coffee table, and he flips through the book. “Let's see,” Dick says, landing on a page. “I guess the main lines are mostly all the same up to the fifth move. Let's say that I play d6 on turn 5. What's your move?”

Tim settles into the pillow. “I'll play knight h3.”

Dick grins. “I'll play e5.”

“No,” Tim groans. “That's in one of the footnotes.”

Dick chuckles. “What's your move?”

“You're trying to wear me out,” Tim grumbles. “Um, I castle kingside.”

“My kingside knight goes to e7,” Dick says.

“I play f4,” Tim says. 

“I'll take your pawn on f4 with my pawn on e5,” Dick replies.

“Now you're avoiding the footnotes?” Tim asks. “There were so many losing lines down there that you could have played.”

“I know,” Dick says. “But I love you too much to waste your energy playing through lines that we all know not to play.”

“Ah,” Tim says. He’s been caught off-guard again. “I love you, too. I'll take back your pawn on f4 with my knight.” He thinks for a moment. “Does everyone know the closed Sicilian? You guys must know a lot of openings.”

“Of course we do,” Dick says as if it's obvious. “That's the one that you know. I'm castling kingside.”

“Dark squared bishop to e3,” Tim says, forcing himself not to overreact by saying thank you.

“I'm going rook to b8,” Dick replies. He doesn't really need to look at the book. 

“Queen to d2,” Tim remembers. He honestly has no idea what the board would look like right now. He feels like a fraud. 

“That's some very nice development you've got there,” Dick praises, as if he can see everything, as if Tim had any real role to play in creating this sequence of moves. “Almost all your pieces are in the game. Pawn to b5.”

“Pawn to a3,” Tim says. He wishes he could give Dick a similar compliment. “Thanks for quizzing me.”

“I’m having fun,” Dick says, still looking tired as ever. “Pawn to a5. That's our twelfth turn. Our position is balanced. We have equal chances. It's your move. Do you want to analyse the position together?”

“Um,” Tim says, forcing himself to spit it out. “I can't see it.”

Dick covers his mouth in embarrassment. “Oh, that's right. I'm so sorry. It's okay, Tim. I wish I could see what you see in your photos. I can't appreciate them enough.”

“They’re nothing really,” Tim says. They can't compare to chess at all. “It's all subjective. I just have fun with it.”

“I also just have fun with chess,” Dick points out. He looks at the chess set buried on the coffee table. “I think it's too much to bring the board out and set everything up. You look tired.”

“You look tired,” Tim says. The medication is starting to set in. He feels very fatigued like he did with the first dose, but his hands don't spasm with pain from every movement. 

“We may both be tired,” Dick allows. “I'll give it a whirl.” Tim knows he's talking about sleep.

“You don't have to try,” Tim says. “Only when you're ready.”

“I have a not bad feeling about it right now,” Dick says. “Which is new. Promising.” He reaches behind himself for a stray throw pillow.

“You're going to sleep on the floor?” Tim says with alarm. “Go sleep in your bed.”

“I've never been able to get used to the real mattress thing,” Dick explains dismissively. “It's just too soft for my fucked up shoulders. There's nothing like the feeling that the compressed air underneath you might explode beneath the weight of three people at any moment. The floor is a close second. Also, I still don't feel great about leaving you alone. I don't like the idea of you needing something, and then nobody is around. I think you need somebody with you, for now.”

Tim can see how this could work out. He lets Dick get situated. He's already been sitting parallel to the sofa, so it's not much for him to sort out the pillow and lay on his side.

“Turn to the other side,” Tim suggests. “If you can.” Dick looks ready to argue. “It doesn't hurt me. I took the medication. At least right now, my hand probably hurts even less than your shoulder does.”

“That's something that we'll never really know as human beings,” Dick argues very philosophically.

“If it really bothered me, you'd see it,” Tim says.

“Is that what the shaking means,” Dick considers sceptically. “Okay, fine.” He turns over to the other side, back facing Tim. He must feel like pure shit to give in so easily. Tim begins rubbing circles with his mostly functional hand, estimating that he still has time until the debilitating fatigue sets in.

“How did this happen?” Tim wonders. “Anything specifically?”

“Nothing specific,” Dick says, voice already sounding a little thick and muffled, maybe from suppressing a yawn. “Acrobatics is just one of those things. You have to consume your body for the art. But maybe also my age? Still growing, and shows almost every night.”

“You've put on a show almost every night for years,” Tim realises. He suddenly has a horrible thought. “Do you ever worry they might just give out?”

“All the time,” Dick agrees. “But that's just it. You have to consume your body for the art.”

Tim thinks that's a little fatalistic, which is hilarious for him to be judging. “Have you ever tried figuring out what exactly is going on?”

“No,” Dick says, audibly sleepy. “I think I'm a little afraid to lose it. It kind of feels like a family heirloom? Something passed down that I should treasure. I feel like I don't have anything left of that era of my life.”

“Oh my god,” Tim sighs. Every day he encounters a new dysfunctional grief processing strategy in this household. “I'm really sorry,” Tim then says seriously, catching how he might sound mean.

“Don't be,” Dick says. “I think whatever you're doing is working.”

“That's not an excuse,” Tim says. “We have to look into it properly.”

“Properly,” Dick repeats. “I like the words you use so much. So persuasive. I'm sold.”

“Go to sleep,” Tim says, not sure why he's embarrassed.

“You, first,” Dick argues, just for the sake of it. “Good night. Love you.”

Tim says it back, but he's pretty sure that Dick is fast asleep. He rubs circles as much as his leadened hand and arm will allow, and then he thinks about what else he can do. He finally understands what Dick meant when he said I don't feel great about leaving you alone, and Tim feels like he needs to stand watch for bad dreams, even though that makes no sense, and he definitely can't stand anymore. He spots Damian's chess openings book stowed back on the coffee table, and an idea comes to him. He recites quietly to himself the first main line of the closed Sicilian to himself, and then the second, and then the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. Once he's finished, he starts reciting the footnotes (a) through (t) for himself. He's nervous that he's remembering wrong, but it's not really the point. He just hopes that he's not making the dreams worse, and he thinks he's crazy for hoping that this could have an impact on the content of Dick’s dreams, but Tim has always been good at imagining what he wants to imagine. Tim will do anything on the off chance that white pawn to e4, black pawn to c5 becomes a tether for Dick to grasp onto instead of jumping down to see if it hurts. Tim imagines, and he hopes, and he doesn't feel that hopeless about it. A few of his dreams have come true in the past.

Notes:

i love the concept that dick grayson struggles with being the it boy XD

Chapter 13: and i never wished for anything more/than to find what i've been looking for

Summary:

********content warnings*******: another chapter that was kind of hell to write and so might also be to read, featuring - needing help with the bathroom (not physically graphic but /very/ emotionally graphic if that makes sense); more discussions around implied/referenced s.a.; jason-typical dissociation (not written from inside his head thank god lol)

writing about barbara this chapter scared me, can't do her justice, my flimsy defence is that i like to write 'what if xyz characters were severely mentally ill or something like that'... still don't feel like i've earned putting her in the tags but

i did /try/ to research & i found this obscure wiki page that said that oracle's gotham base blew up and now she's in metropolis but i'm too tired to find that wiki page again so we can all take my word alone that it's a thing right? /smiles convincingly, convincing everyone

Notes:

chapter title from wasting away by tonight alive

Tim loses count of the number of times he recites the six main lines and twenty footnotes of the closed Sicilian in Modern Chess Openings. He's afraid to stop because Dick doesn't seem bothered by what Tim can see, and Tim probably needs the practice. At some point he becomes too drowsy and confused to understand what he's reciting, but Tim just can't doze off, anxious for any sign of trouble. He watches Dick's back until he sees a stripe of pre-dawn light slip past one of the curtains, and he hears indistinct clamour from somewhere far away. Tim wonders if that's what Damian hears when he says that he can hear people returning.

Dick doesn't seem to hear anything, which puts Tim at ease, and he keeps reciting. He’s losing track of the footnotes, and he feels like he's been stuck on (d) or maybe (c) for a long time, so he starts from the top of the page. The blurry noises in the distance are sounding clearer and clearer, and Tim is beginning to hear creaks in the floorboards. Tim never thought he would ever feel excited to hear creaks in the floorboards. He can also hear familiar voices, and even if he can't make out the words, he's gotten good at hearing the emotion in voices distorted by the wind, or in this case, the walls. They sound okay, and Tim tries not to worry.

Eventually all of the noise dies down into silence, and Tim keeps reciting. The stripe of pre-dawn light reaching into the room brightens and widens. Tim feels nostalgic for the past in a way that he never has before. He hasn't watched the sunrise like this in a long time. He remembers staking out rooftops until the sun infiltrated his viewfinder, imposing a starry lens flare into his picture, back when he was still catching onto Batman and Robin. He remembers the aching emptiness of missing them, of waiting for them from dusk until dawn and seeing nothing, but today he doesn't feel hollow. He's happy that Dick hasn't encountered any danger as far as Tim can tell. Dick does move a little in his sleep, but he still doesn't seem bothered by anything.

The sunlight becomes more stark after a few more recitations of the closed Sicilian, and Tim can't look away despite that the light is too bright for his unadjusted eyes, or maybe his concussed head, or both. He realises that he needs to go to the bathroom, but he's still weighed down by the medication. He doesn't think he could sit up if he wanted to, which he doesn't, because he doesn't want to wake Dick up. Tim never had this problem in the past after learning his lesson the first few times. He made sure not to eat or drink anything too close to dusk, and he definitely didn't eat or drink anything from dusk until dawn. After he figured out the patrol schedule (more like, algorithm), he didn't have to be so extreme. Tim tries not to get scared thinking about what will happen to him if the medication doesn't wear off soon. The psychological horror of needing someone to help him with the bathroom was supposed to be something for him to contemplate at a later later time, not now later.

Tim’s throat is also very dry, and he thinks that's stupid when he feels like he's about to piss himself. He imagines what he would look like to Iseult, voice hoarse, unable to sit up, uncomfortable in the worst way, and he feels so disgusting, and he's ready to roll over and die. Tears bead at his eyes because he makes it so easy, and someone should just take it all away from him, and he decides out of desperation that needing help with the bathroom is going to be marginally better than this, and he needs that fucking margin before he makes a mess, but he's already making a mess. He can feel his tears slide onto the classy leather beneath him and he doesn't have the ability to soak them up with his sleeve. He doesn't even have the ability to roll over and suffocate himself before he makes an even greater mess.

“I need help,” Tim says quietly, hearing the way he sounds, and he sounds distressed, and he doesn't want to wake Dick up like this, but he can't move his hand to wake Dick up gently. Tim just shudders as he breathes, ruining what might be the first peaceful night of sleep Dick has had in years.

Dick stirs almost instantly, even though Tim is speaking no louder than he was when he was reciting chess. “Tim?” Dick says, sounding so tired, and Tim holds his breath, wondering why he didn't think of holding his breath and passing away sooner. Dick sits up and turns around so effortlessly and quickly that Tim is jealous, which makes him hate himself more, because there's no way he'd ever wish this on Dick. “What happened?” Dick asks, like he's woken up to a nightmare, and it's Tim's fault.

“I need help with the bathroom,” Tim says. He wishes he could look away, but he can't. 

Dick is already alert. “That's okay,” he says softly. “I can help.” He pulls his sleeve over the heel of his hand, drying the mess on Tim's face, but not the mess on the sofa. “Do you need to be picked up?”

“Yes,” Tim says miserably, ungratefully. “Thank you.”

“I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you,” Dick promises. He's still talking quietly, as if he's keeping everything private. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Tim says to simplify things, even though he's not ready to be picked up to need help with the bathroom.

“I know this is hard for you,” Dick says. “It's hard for me, too, but I would go crazy if I couldn't help you. Thank you for letting me help you.”

Tim chooses not to reply because he'd probably only cry harder. He’s somehow done it again. He's gotten Jason to apologise to Tim for helping him, and now he's gotten Dick to thank him for helping him. Tim knows there has to be something wrong with him. Dick is standing up, and Tim can't look away. He can't do anything but watch, watch as the sofa falls away from him, watch as the sitting room falls away from him, watch as the hallway falls away from him, and then he's in the bathroom, door closed, door locked.

Tim tries to remember what it feels like to use the bathroom in front of other people because it happens all the time in public restrooms, but he can't remember, the feeling gone forever. All he can do is sob uncontrollably, ungratefully, as Dick gets his hands dirty on the toilet handle, all he can do is listen to the echoes of his mess reverberate around the room, as if he's being tortured, and he's dramatic, he's overreacting, he's easy, but he's also so fucking difficult, and he can't even reach over to turn on the tap and drown himself into silence in the bathtub.

“I’m so sorry,” Tim says, trying and failing to calm down, seated on the ledge of the bathtub so that Dick can wash his hands. “I got you dirty. I dragged you down with me.”

“You didn't drag me anywhere,” Dick says, turning off the tap. “I picked you up. That's all on me. I know that's hard for you, but your wellbeing is all on me. It's precious. It scares me. This might have been the scariest thing I've ever done, and I've done some really terrifying stuff, but I won't let anything bad happen to you. Nothing bad should happen to you just because you need help with the bathroom.”

Tim knows that nothing bad happened to him, but something bad definitely happened to Dick. Dick had to look at Tim's disgustingly visible body. Dick says that he volunteered, that he wanted to help, that he consented, but there's no way he really wanted to. Dick just jumps down with people to see if it hurts, and it hurts, and Tim is hurting Dick.

“I'll wash my hands,” Tim says. He knows that he'll feel disgusting whether clean or dirty, but he can't help himself, feeling like he needs to do something to atone.

“You didn't touch anything,” Dick points out, still so considerate, still trying not to waste Tim’s energy on lines that they all know not to play.

“I'm dirty,” Tim explains, so desperate to at least wash his hands, even if only compulsively. “I'm so disgusting,” he whispers, the words slipping out, even though he’s not supposed to be fishing for sympathy or reassurance, even by accident.

Dick almost seems to flinch upon hearing these words, but he dries his hands with the hand towel and comes to kneel in front of Tim, to kneel in front of the fucking toilet, because that's how the bathroom is configured.

“Stand up,” Tim says, leaning against the wall so that he doesn't fall backwards into the tub, even though he thinks that he should, but it's just another mess for Dick to clean up. “Please, for the love of god, stand up.”

“I'm not going to stand up without you,” Dick says. 

“Let me wash my hands,” Tim says, and he coughs, unable to stifle it any longer, and he's just made the air between them even dirtier. “I'm sorry that I'm so disgusting. I just can't help it no matter how hard I try. I'm trying so hard. I swear. I'm so sorry.”

Dick looks very unhappy again. He was doing so well earlier, and Tim ruined it. His needs are wrong. They're so wrong. The universe gave him so many signs, and he ignored them all, and now he's dragged Dick down with him. Tim wouldn't even have to think to do this same thing for Dick, for Alfred, for Bruce, for Jason, for Damian, if they felt comfortable with him, but Tim knows that his flesh is disgustingly visible, and what has he done anyway? He forced this on Dick.

“Oh, Tim,” Dick sighs, and his voice trembles slightly. “Please. Stop objectifying yourself. You haven't done anything wrong by letting me see your body.”

“I can't,” Tim says, hating that he's arguing, but he can't find the energy to try to understand how he's supposed to stop. “I don't want it anymore. I can't want it no matter how hard I try. I'm trying so hard, but I don't think there are any take-backs. I surrendered. She took it, and I let her. She can take it, and I'll let her again. I'll let her again and again. She can take it all away from me. She can put me out of my misery. I'm sorry for being so easy. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for dragging you down with me. You have to listen about my disgusting body. I'm so sorry.” Tim only stops rambling because he starts coughing again, and he forces himself to turn into the wall, so that he doesn't cough onto Dick again. He knocks his head onto the wall because he can't control himself, half hoping that it will finally just kill him, but it doesn't, and he stabilises himself on his forehead, the crick in his neck heating to boiling point.

“Tim! Fuck’s sake,” Dick says, uncharacteristically desperate, and he slides his hand between the wall and Tim's forehead. “Oh, no. No. No. Please, no. Why is it always my family? Why do bad things always have to happen to mine?” He sounds so distraught, and it's not pretty like it used to be. It's not sonorous. It just crashes into the walls of the bathroom like the sound of Tim's mess did.

“It's not your problem if I'm easy,” Tim says, at his wits end, terrified that Dick is so unhappy, and Tim can't think of anything else to convince Dick not to be. Tim will never change. He'll never be any less annoying than he is.

“It's not our problem,” Dick agrees. “It's our privilege. Do you understand? Please try.”

Tim indulges in the feeling of being able to look at the wall, and he's not even mad at himself for being ungrateful anymore, for not wanting to look at the person who will kneel in front of a toilet for him. He's really not mad. He's furious. Tim has wasted enough of Dick's time with whatever this is. “I'm sorry that this took so long,” Tim says. “We can go back. I'm ready.”

Dick doesn't take Tim back, however. He sits Tim on the vanity counter. He turns the sink taps, testing the temperature until he's satisfied. “Waste my time,” he tells Tim.

Tim wastes it. It takes thirty seconds for him to process the situation and ask for Dick's help. Dick takes his time, prolonging every single step for no good reason.

“I love you,” Tim says when Dick is finished drying Tim’s hands, and also his own because he had to put his hands under the water again. With every passing moment it sinks in deeper how deeply unhappy Dick is, and Tim feels like he's stuck in the shallow end watching Dick drown.

Dick stares at Tim with an indescribable expression for a few seconds, and then he cries. He backs up against the wall where Tim couldn't reach even if Tim could reach, covering his face with the back of his hand, as he does. He looks somewhere beyond Tim, and Tim remembers that Dick had a similar conversation yesterday over games of chess. Tim can't take anything back, though, as usual, and how could he possibly forget that there are no take-backs? Dick's shoulders shake, and then he rubs his eyes. He looks at Tim. “I love you,” he says. Dick pushes himself off the wall. “You need to lie down,” he tells Tim. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Tim says, trying to avoid anything that he has to try to take back, since take-backs are impossible, as he has now learned the hard way twice. 

When Dick and Tim finally make it back to the sofa, Tim is surprised, because part of him truly believed they'd never make it. Tim was wishing for death, and then Dick said the bathroom was one of the scariest things he'd ever done, which made Tim wish harder. If his needs scare the people closest to him, then surely Tim's needs are wrong. There's no other way to slice it. Tim tries not to boil alive in the feeling of being wrong. If there are no take-backs, the least Tim can do is try to prove himself.

“Did you sleep well?” Tim asks, when he's back on his side.

Dick smiles a wobbly smile. “I did. Best sleep of my life in a long time.” He doesn't sit down on the sofa or even on the floor. “I think you need something to drink. I'm going to text someone to come over while I get something. What would you like?”

Tim is afraid to have a repeat of the bathroom, but he estimates that he'll be able to go when the medication is wearing off. “I like what you made earlier. Get something for yourself. Thank you.”

Dick smiles painfully. “Lovely. Will do.” He looks down at his phone, typing. “Jason will meet us here.” Dick waits standing, not looking at Tim, still typing.

“Will you get your shoulders looked at properly?” Tim asks.

Dick seems to genuinely smile this time. “But what happens if they get fixed? Will I ever get to fall asleep like that again?” He looks up briefly from his typing to see Tim's reaction.

“Obviously,” Tim says. “Whenever you want.”

Dick sighs, not that annoyed at all. “You really, really need to stop doing that out of nowhere. I can barely keep up with my payback.” He looks somewhere above Tim and grins. “Heya, Jason.” He grabs both empty glasses with one hand and messes Tim's hair up as he starts to leave. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Be safe,” Tim says, even though that doesn't make much sense. He feels very rude that he can't turn around and greet Jason. He waits patiently for Jason to round the corner of the sofa, but it takes a while. When he finally comes around, Jason also sits on the floor in front of Tim, which makes Tim feel very awkward all over again. Dick apparently likes sitting and lying on the floor, but there's no way Jason happens to have the same exact taste in things. But maybe some things are an acquired taste.

“Good morning,” Tim says.

“Morning,” Jason says. He looks a little nervous for some reason. Tim once again finds himself looking for traces of evidence that he can barely track. He wonders if the long sleeves are hiding anything. He worries that the sweatpants are a deliberately soft contingency just in case something happens.

“How was patrol?” Tim asks.

“It was patrol-y,” Jason replies, not seeming very interested in the question. “How was your morning?”

“Patrol-y sounds…” Tim has no idea what Jason means. “I guess it sounds like nothing out of the ordinary happened. I had a great morning.”

“Great?” Jason asks.

“I interviewed Dick,” Tim nods, aware that Dick and Jason may have been talking about him, but still not beyond the frustrating habit of playing dumb, and still not able to trust himself with the possibility that he might say something that he can never take back. “I had a very good coffee-flavoured drink that Dick made. I studied chess. I watched the sunrise. You should interview Dick sometime. You should ask him his favourite colour. You should also ask him what his bedtime is. He’s so interesting. He's the best paradox ever. He thinks that for the common good that he needs to stick around and stick out, but he also thinks that for the common good that he needs to become nothing. That's such a Dick Grayson dilemma to have. I just love him.”

“For the common good he should do what?” Jason asks. 

“Interview him,” Tim presses. “I just love the way he talks.”

“You’re leaving me on a cliffhanger,” Jason says, obviously intrigued. “Very persuasive of you. We were supposed to get ice cream, so I'll make sure that happens sooner rather than later.”

“I also have a theory that I want you to test,” Tim says. He feels giddy with excitement, like he's filling diaries with his favourite subjects, which is an ancient high. He then thinks through what he's about to say, and he sobers up. “If you can. Don't ask if you can't. We know how Dick feels about his parents. I wonder if he feels the same way about you.” Tim could spell out how Dick was once again the only survivor at the top of a high place, the saving grace in a world of pain, but Tim doesn't think that Jason needs to hear that. Tim does think that if Dick is going to think about Jason in that sense, Dick can talk to Jason about it, and ask if it hurt. Jason will have an opportunity to talk about whether it hurt if he wants to, and he will probably also somehow manage to be effortlessly comforting and wise through it all, and there's that. 

“I’ve never thought about that,” Jason realises with horror.

“You have plenty of disturbing thoughts about your murder to sort through on a daily basis,” Tim says, trying to match Jason's preference of being funny about it. “Allow me to lighten the load. I can also back off. Anything you want.”

Jason almost laughs, and he smiles. “Thank you for thinking of me. Yes, you may continue to do so. I don't mind asking Dick about it. We'll have much to discuss.”

Tim realises. “Dick went to get me something to drink. Do you need anything?”

“He took my drink order, don't worry,” Jason says. He pauses, seeming to want to say something.

Tim tries to guess what Jason could be thinking about, unapologetically stepping around the topic of put me out of my misery. “When do you want to talk to Babs today?”

Jason almost winces. “Are you still up for that?”

“Yes,” Tim says. “I had a great morning so far.” He tries to see the situation from Jason's perspective. “I feel very fatigued and groggy, but I can hold a conversation, even a difficult conversation. I think I'm acclimating to the medication a little better. The pain relief is still working well.”

Jason nods along, unsurprised. He's too experienced. “I messaged Babs last night to give her some advance notice, per Damian's advice about timing. She says she doesn't mind talking sometime this morning. That works out for us.” 

“Yes, I know what I want to talk to her about,” Tim reminds Jason, who still seems nervous. 

“It kinda sounds like you want to call now,” Jason observes.

Tim doesn't want to wait and overshoot the pain relief, ruining the phone call by taking the attention away because he can't hide the pain well enough. “If it's a good time for her,” Tim says.

“I hope it will be,” Jason says. He still looks like he wants to say something to Tim.

Tim tries to guess again. “I know it hasn't been very long, but have you put any thought into what could be right under our noses?”

“Not yet,” Jason admits. “Sorry.” He seems to lose energy just from thinking of an answer to the question. Tim guesses that Jason gets tired of thinking about it.

“Don't be sorry,” Tim says. “You don't have to think about it. Sorry if I implied that, but if you are thinking about it, I'm always interested to know what you're thinking.”

“I know,” Jason says. He looks to the curtained windows. “You're always thinking about me. Between the two of us, I think that's more than enough ‘thinking about me.’”

“But you're the primary source,” Tim tries to explain. 

“I'm the what?” Jason asks, looking back at Tim.

“You know what you saw, what you heard, what you thought, what you felt,” Tim says. “You're alive. You don't need me to be your obituarian.”

Jason tilts his head in puzzlement, but something seems to click for him. “I feel like you're referencing something,” Jason says. 

“I'm referencing-” Tim hesitates, but he worries that Jason won't get the idea if he doesn't explain more. “I'm referencing my mom. She's a historian.”

“She's a historian,” Jason says, oddly cheered by this information. There's humour shining in his eyes, and he's about to say something, but Tim is tired of talking about himself and regretting everything. He understands Dick's aversion to talking about himself more deeply than ever.

“I'm ready to call,” Tim says. “Are you? I’m worried that you're very affected by listening to other people. I feel like you've always been like that, but I mean that it affects the episodes.”

Jason stares at Tim in disbelief. “I wish you would follow that logic just a little more. But I know you, and you're not going to bring it up. That's okay. I have a way of dealing with it. Thanks for asking.”

Tim is not ready to deal with the idea that Jason might have been very affected by listening to Tim, which isn't really a pressing issue since Tim is going to avoid take-backs from now on, so he skips to the last part of what Jason said. ‘A way of dealing with it' does not usually bode well for this group. “What do you do?” Tim asks.

Jason shifts, already feeling uncomfortable. “I float away.”

“Does it work?” Tim asks.

“Yes,” Jason says, seeming somewhat surprised by this line of questioning. “If I can float away.”

“That’s so good,” Tim says, genuinely impressed. “You've already achieved a lot figuring out how to do that. Not that it's an acceptable status quo. I doubt that floating away is a very pleasant experience, but you've done really well protecting yourself so far.”

“...Thanks,” Jason says with uncertainty. He seems a little flushed.

“Do you think you can float away if needed this time?” Tim says, having no idea what exactly this means, but taking it from Jason's reaction that he doesn't want to elaborate. “Can I help?”

“I think I can,” Jason says consideringly. He looks at his hands. “Because you're here. I would need you to carry on the conversation if I can't.”

“That's all?” Tim says with relief and also disappointment. “You’re too experienced. I barely have to do anything.”

“Thanks…” Jason says, still seeming confused. “I don't understand how you do this.”

“Do what?” Tim asks.

“Actually,” Jason corrects himself. “I know this about you. You're very practical.”

“Dick also said that about me,” Tim remembers. “We were talking about giving Gotham City Bank a helping hand. What do you think?”

“You want to know my opinion,” Jason says, like it's a hard pill to swallow. 

“Obviously I want to know,” Tim says. It's very confusing to Tim that they can have one of the most formative mid-breakdown conversations that Tim has ever had, and Jason is still surprised that Tim wants to ask his advice.

Jason sits up straight. He is taking Tim's request very seriously, and Tim is a little overwhelmed that Jason wants to help Tim this much. “I think you need to think through your intentions. I have a feeling that you want to give Gotham City Bank a helping hand. Is it because of Renee?”

Tim feels like he's sinking into the pillow, his head already heavy with thoughts. “Yes. She's part of the common good, along with everyone else.”

“I love you, Tim,” Jason says with a smile. “That's why I have to tell you that ‘common good’ is a little vague. I'm a little more principled, like Bruce is. I think that it’s important to consider the probable impact or consequences, but I think it's flawed to believe that anyone can accurately predict them to the point that a decision can be based on consequences alone. I think that our intentions are one of the only things in our control. So what's the common good to you? In what way would everyone be better off if Wayne Enterprises gave Gotham City Bank a helping hand?”

Tim is still recovering from the first sentence. Jason hasn't changed his mind yet. Hopefully Tim's opinion won't change Jason's mind, but Tim can live with it if it does. It's more important that Tim tries his best not to ruin people's lives with the decision that he makes. “I love you, too. I think that giving Gotham City Bank resources and stability will help them litigate more successfully and withstand a war of attrition. I want that stalling time so that there's a war on two fronts for the manufacturer, dealing with Gotham City Bank and also the procurement contract with the military. The manufacturer isn't going to let such a high-value contract go easily, even if the military is going to try to get out of it and choose a different manufacturer. Bureaucracy will hopefully ensure that a new procurement contract can't be drawn up within at least the next fiscal year, with the difficulties of reallocating government funding and resources that have already been set aside for other things. If all of this can keep on keeping on at the glacial pace that legal matters do, I think that the space nukes can be stalled until the next election. I think that an election could herald a different approach to space nukes.” Tim looks at Jason nervously. 

“I like your thinking,” Jason says, and his tone is very warm despite his critique. “But we're still talking about consequences. Why do you want to stall the space nukes until the next election? How is that for the common good?”

Tim feels like shrivelling up, even if Jason is being as gentle as he possibly can. Thankfully his body feels too heavy to show any body language, even instinctively. “I don't think the space nukes are for safety, security, or self-preservation. I think they're for the glory of it and for the glory of possessing overwhelming power over people.”

Jason grins brightly so that Tim has to blink the light out of his eyes. “There's your principle. Power for glory's sake is not for the common good. Is that it?”

“Yes,” Tim says. He feels exposed.

“I like your principle,” Jason says, still very happy for some reason. “But you'll have to manage the consequences of stalling the space nukes. Just because you think you’re doing something for the common good doesn't mean that you can dismiss the people who might be sacrificed along the way. The impact on them is real, much more real than the thoughts in our heads.”

“Dick explained that to me,” Tim agrees, leaving out that he learned first-hand how bad it feels to be a sacrifice. Even if Dick came to the wild conclusion that Tim was neglected, Tim is worried that Jason won't see it that way, and would stop liking Tim as a person.

“You got the speech!” Jason says even more happily. 

“He said that I could keep it,” Tim says a little nervously.

“Of course you can keep it,” Jason says, and the way he looks at Tim makes it clear that he knows what Tim is worried about. “You probably need to have your drink before we call Babs.” 

Tim ignores the dread freezing his insides cold, entangling with the mostly-suppressed heat emanating from his bones, and he feels like hot glass about to shatter on a block of ice. He ignores everything because he will get on with this so that they can call Babs. “Can you hold it for me,” Tim asks as casually as he can.

“I can,” Jason says. He seems relieved. Tim decides to finish the drink, the eventual consequences put out of mind for his own sanity, because his throat is still very dry, and he's not going to start coughing during the conversation and take away the attention.

“What's your drink?” Tim asks. It’s the colour of honey, and Dick also put a straw in it, probably to make Tim feel less alone.

“Apple juice,” Jason answers. He returns Tim's empty glass to the table, and he picks up his own. 

“Do you like apples?” Tim asks. He remembers Jason telling him just say that you don't like apple cider next time. Tim feels soft. Jason's feelings were on the line with that indirect question. Tim is relieved that he answered the way that he did.

“Yes,” Jason nods. He takes a sip. “Applesauce is my favourite food. I always looked forward to having dessert when I could get it.”

Tim stares. He doesn't know how to respond. He was always able to buy any food that he wanted so long as he went through the trouble of acquiring it and preparing it, but he's guessing that Jason had the opposite experience, going through a lot of trouble and not acquiring anything that could even be prepared. 

“The Wayne Foods brand is especially good. Best value and sweet,” Jason explains, noting Tim's silence. “Have you tried it?”

“No,” Tim says, but he's happy to collect these small details about Jason. “I want to try it,” he offers because he doesn't want to sound disgusted by accident. He's not even a little bit disgusted, just disappointed that the sweetest things in Jason's life for the longest time were apples, and apples aren't even that sweet. All things considered, Tim would say that apples are fairly tart.

“You won't be disappointed,” Jason says confidently. He sets his drink down. “I'm good to go. Are you?”

“Yes, I’m ready,” Tim says, but he can hear Dick enter the room by the sound of the door.

“You took my spot,” Dick says from somewhere behind Tim. 

Jason smiles with the delight of being obnoxious. “Yeah.”

Dick comes around the sofa balancing two drinks. “That's my niche interest.”

“Your what?” Jason asks.

“I guess I can share. Sharing is caring, and all that.” Dick takes in the mortified look on Tim's face. “So entertaining. Okay. I'll set these here.”

“What about yours?” Tim asks.

“I will get mine,” Dick says, pushing the two drinks precariously onto the minimal empty space left on the coffee table. “I promise I didn't forget. I was a good student, you know?”

“We were about to call Babs,” Jason says, still squinting at the endless nonsense coming from Dick. “Did you want to talk to her too?”

“Yes! I do want to talk,” Dick says happily. “I just think three people is a lot. I don't want her to feel outnumbered if you try to take the conversation in a direction she doesn't like, which you are planning to do. I will find my own time to talk. Don't you worry. I do not feel put out.”

“Thank you for everything this morning,” Tim says as Dick starts to leave.

Dick stops at the end of the sofa. “Thank you, too.” He starts to smile, anticipating Tim's question. “I'm gonna go finish my assignment. Love you both. Bye!”

“Love you,” Jason says.

“I love you. I want photographic evidence,” Tim calls so that Dick can hear as he walks to the door.

“Photographic evidence?” Dick groans. “Do you understand how intimidating it is to take pictures for you?” He sounds like he's stopped at the door.

“I will also accept eyewitness testimony, corroborated with that of a second eyewitness,” Tim allows. He feels bad that both Jason and Dick are so scared to take pictures. It's really just for fun, but he understands if other people don't find it fun. It's also fun to think about Dick wandering around the manor asking people to witness him holding a drink. 

“I took a picture yesterday,” Jason announces, something mischievous in his tone. “Tim said it was lovely.”

“It was!” Tim agrees. “You should have heard the way he explained the photo. Jason is very talented.”

“I hate that this is working on me,” Dick says, very frustrated. “Fine! Photographic evidence it is. Bye for real now. I'm closing the door if that's okay.”

“Okay, thank you,” Tim says. 

“That's fine,” Jason says. Tim hears the door close softly. Jason brings out his phone. “I'll message Babs and ask her if she still wants to talk.” He types, and he waits, and his phone vibrates. “That was fast. But she always replies fast.” Jason has to hold the phone for the both of them as he dials Babs and puts the phone on speaker.

“Hi,” Babs says pleasantly after not even one full ring. She gets to the point. “You had a question for me?”

“Hi,” Tim says. He's genuinely looking forward to talking, and he feels like it's a shame that they don't talk to Babs about random stuff like this more often. “I had a question. Before that, Jason is also here.” He wants to facepalm because it's obviously Jason's phone and he was just texting her. Tim may be too tired, but he's going to use his powers of delusion to not to be too tired for this conversation.

“Hello,” Jason says. He's smiling. “Thanks for calling us.”

“It's no problem,” Babs says. “I work on my passion projects in the morning. I don't have anything that I have to do right now.”

Tim wonders what a passion project entails, having learned never to take anything anyone says at face value. He worries that the anonymous tip intake is a passion project. If so, Tim wonders what other very important things Babs considers ‘passion projects,’ and how important something has to be for her to call it something that she ‘has to do.’ Tim feels like it should be impossible to work under that much pressure at all hours of the day and night.

“I wanted to ask about the anonymous tip form,” Tim says. “Did you design it? I really like it. I thought it was easy to fill in.”

“Yes, I did,” Babs says, sounding surprised. “You liked it, huh. Thank you.” There's rustling on the other end of the line. “I want your feedback. What did you like? Was there anything you didn't like about it?”

“No, no,” Tim says emphatically. He wasn't expecting the conversation to take this turn, but he's happy that Damian's advice is working because it seems like Babs still wants to talk. He just doesn't understand why Babs, a world-renowned information broker, is deferring to Tim for feedback on how to collect information. “There was nothing I didn't like about it. I liked a lot of things about it, though. I thought the closed-ended prompts were helpful, and it helped me fill in the open-ended part at the bottom. It's hard to know what to write.”

Babs is definitely smiling. “That's so good to know. It's important to consider the public burden of providing information, so I wanted it to be easy. It’s difficult when I also need to collect specific information to keep useful records and analyse data over time.” There's the sound of typing, and it sounds like 300 words per minute to Tim. Tim can't believe what he's hearing. “Thank you for that. Be honest now. I know it wasn't perfect. What didn't you like? You won't hurt my feelings.”

“Um,” Tim says, feeling very awkward that he, knowing nothing about anything related to information science, is being asked to critique a form that was so thoughtfully designed to be easy, but he still almost gave up on. “I have no idea what's good or what's bad, sorry. To be completely honest, I did a pretty bad job of filling the form, so I don't think I'm the right person to ask. Sorry to not be of more help.”

“I see. I would argue that you are the only right person to ask as someone who had a reason to fill it out,” Babs says, and she has a very objective and factual way of talking that makes Tim feel like he's being taken way too seriously. “What makes you think you did a bad job? Whatever it is, it's something that I can improve when I next update the form.”

It takes a moment for Tim to fully understand what he's being asked. Wasn't Tim supposed to be asking for Babs’ insight on the form to learn from? What happened to this conversation? “There's seriously nothing wrong with the form,” Tim says, feeling like he's always failing to explain things, and he can never understand the root of his problem. “It's just me. I talked around the issue, so I felt like it wasn't a very actionable tip.” Hopefully that's crystal clear for Babs, that if Tim can't spit it out on even an anonymous form, that's just his own problem.

“That’s useful feedback,” Babs says after she finishes typing. “Thank you, Tim. I have ideas. Would you mind if I asked you to give feedback on a new design? I would compensate you for your time.”

“What,” Tim says. “I would really like to see whatever you're working on whenever you have the time. I'm sure I would learn a lot. Don't even think about compensating me.”

Babs doesn't seem to think before she speaks, but she must. She always instantly knows what to say in a way that makes Tim feel like he's being swept away by a current. “I'm asking you for your time as someone who has filled the form, so you need to be compensated. If you want me to explain my projects to you as Tim, that's different.”

Tim really doesn't need compensation to read a very easy form that was carefully designed to be easy and is going to be updated to be even easier on his behalf, but he has a feeling Babs won't agree no matter what he says. He focuses on the latter point. “I think everyone would want to listen to you explain your projects. You could, um, come over, and then we could...hear better.” Tim would bury his face in the pillow if he could. That was the worst segue he's ever heard. He's not too tired for this conversation. He's not.

“I can share most of them digitally,” Babs says, pointing that out as almost an afterthought. “I wanted to ask. I'm surprised you had a reason to send an anonymous tip. Are you okay?”

“Yes, completely," Tim answers quickly to clear up this misunderstanding. “I sent a tip about Renee. I suggested that there should be a police interview.”

“Which one?” Babs asks. “If you don't mind me asking. There were several that suggested that.”

Which one? makes Tim feel like an ego he didn't even know that he had is suddenly dying. He's trying to fathom the idea that he could have done nothing, that he could have sat on his hands, given up on the easy form, and the interview would have happened anyway. He doesn't know how that idea can feel so bad and so good at the same time. It breaks him down to his essence and then hugs him for all of his grief. We're all geniuses, Tim thinks, and his thoughts circle around the idea like flies to the core of a discarded apple, the husk of the idea that it was all up to him. 

Babs notes Tim's silence. “You don't have to tell me,” she says. “I only asked because it’s not what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?” Jason asks, and Tim is startled by Jason's sudden entrance into the conversation, not that he wasn't welcome.

“There was a tip that came in earlier this morning. It was written about Tim. Do you want me to read the tip?” Babs asks Tim.

Babs has already seen the tip. Jason has already seen Tim. Still, Jason is looking at Tim meaningfully, and Tim can sense that playing dumb is going to cause more of a scene than not.

“Sure,” Tim says. 

Babs waits a beat for the first time in the entire conversation. “It says: Wasn't the confession tape recorded during office hours? I've been to office hours. You should ask them both what happened at the end.”

“That's so kind,” Tim replies quickly because he refuses to let there be some kind of dramatic pause that draws undue attention to this. “Nothing happened, don't worry. No need to ask her. I hope that person is okay.” He feels like he's lost control of this conversation, which is a foreign feeling for Tim, who is experienced at wheedling out of what he doesn't want to talk about. There's also something very homey about this feeling, and he follows the echo of the feeling far back in time, to the time when he wrote the words You save your city. Your city will save you too on the back of a photograph. He follows the feeling back towards the present, to Titans Tower, collapsing into the moment when he heard himself say You are also the city.

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Babs says. Her tone is delicate but her voice still seems to rip Tim out of his apocalyptic realisation. She doesn't argue, and she doesn't allow the tension to linger. “Was there anything else you needed to talk to me about?”

“There was if you still have time,” Jason says, rummaging through his pocket with one hand and holding the phone with the other, and Tim wishes he could help. “I have a list of questions that Bruce wanted to ask you.”

“He's sweetening the deal by using a list,” Babs notes wryly. “I appreciate it. I'll hear the list.”

Jason pulls out a folded piece of yellow legal pad paper, and he unfolds it with one hand on his leg like he's undoing origami. “One moment,” he tells Babs. Jason shows the unfolded piece of paper for Tim to read. Bruce has very good handwriting. Tim is not going to copy that because Tim likes his laptop, but he still might. Tim looks at Jason to tell him that he's done reading. Jason turns the piece of paper back towards himself. “They're all about your car,” Jason says. “Bruce is looking for your advice.”

Babs exhales sharply, almost laughing, but definitely not amused. “He knows that I like to help people find what they're looking for. He knows that I like lists. He knows that I don't like to talk about the car.” Babs pauses for only the second time in this entire conversation. “I do not need him to patrol what I am doing. He's sweetened the deal too much.”

Jason waits, so Tim waits in silence with Jason. Tim takes the opportunity to think over what the conversation must feel like from Babs’ perspective. It makes sense to Tim that Babs likes to help people find what they're looking for because she used to be a librarian. She may still be a librarian of sorts, but she's not the kind of librarian that she was. Tim thinks that she could still be, but she doesn't like to go outside which throws a wrench in that possibility. If she likes lists, and she likes helping people, and those two things are teetering on the line between manipulating her into talking about what she doesn't want to talk about, and making it easier for her to talk about things that are having a significant impact on her, then Tim guesses that this conversation has to feel horrible from her perspective.

Babs eventually sighs. “He really cares. I would appreciate it if you could read the list to me from top to bottom.”

Jason doesn't leap onto Babs’ acquiescence. He takes his time rustling the paper, and he smooths it out on his leg, not that it was too crinkled to read. It was folded very neatly and carefully. “First item on the list. Does the car lower enough when you open the door? I think he's trying to figure out if you like the grade of the ramp. Second item. Does the cabin feel crowded to you, and how tight is the turn you have to make to move into the driver's side? Third item. Are you able to use a manual chair without injuring your hands or fingers when moving into the driver's side? Fourth item. Have you had any issues with the bolt on the bottom of your chair and locking securely into the driver's side? Fifth item. How is it for you to take the seatbelt on and off? Sixth item. How is the low-effort steering for you? Seventh item. How is the steering column and is it too close or too far? Eighth item. Do any of the hand controls chafe against you or your chair? Ninth item. Do you like the fabrication of the gear selector? Tenth item. How long does it take for you to get in and out of the car?” Jason doesn't ask if he needs to repeat anything. Babs is probably restless, listening to information being much slower than reading it herself.

Babs pauses for the third time in the conversation. “I don't know. I'm sorry. I will go find out. Bruce is probably worried that there's an issue with the car. He modified it for me, even when I wouldn't give him anything to go on. Despite that I doubt there's an issue. It's just me.”

“There's no issue with you,” Jason says. “There’s no right way or wrong way for you to live. There's no such thing as having a bad attitude about your mobility.”

“I do have a bad attitude,” Babs says. There's a hint of bitterness that pollutes her voice, a voice that is usually clear and unmuddied by anything except pure focus. But it's clear to Tim that the bitterness only taints her own veins. “I wanted more. I wanted to do it all. I used to make this joke. I used to say, ‘you haven't even seen my full power yet.’ Now everyone has. This is it. This is the limit. It's not just that I'm slow. It's my energy. It's the pain. I can be the person who does the most good that she possibly can, or I can be the person that does some good, giving up all of the other good so that I can have free time, whatever that means. In the past I could do it all. Now I have to lose an identity to gain an identity. I don't think that what I'm doing is any more or less good than what I did before, but this isn't the only kind of good I wanted to be.” She seems to catch herself. “Sorry. I'm going on and on about what I want. Bad attitude. Case in point.”

Tim feels teary. Everyday he encounters a new dysfunctional grief processing strategy in this household. He wonders to what extent the dysfunction is actually a choice in Babs’ case, and to what extent she's picking her favourite terrible choice out of a range of terrible choices. She says she doesn't know what free time means, so maybe the feeling of freedom is gone forever, and she can't remember no matter how hard she tries. “I'm really sorry for all that you've lost,” Tim says, feeling like he's trying and failing to console a bereaved person, and the language feels misappropriated, but he doesn't know what else to say in this situation.

“I'm not even dead,” Babs says with bitter humour. “I was saved, and I'm acting like I've been killed. But I felt dead when he was standing over me, when he ended my life as I knew it. At least we know now that he's only the kind of serial killer that will torture a child to death but not rape a woman. The duality of man. I'm glad I was able to test that out and make sure. That was good of me, right?”

Tim looks to Jason, heart pounding in his chest because Babs is not okay, and he feels like a complete jerk for not thinking through Babs' attempted murder thoroughly enough, for not seeing a dimension to it that is so fucking obvious. How long has she been waiting for someone to see it? It's been way too long, and she had to bring it up herself. Babs didn't even get an anonymous tip to advocate for her. Speaking of things that should be fucking obvious, how is Tim supposed to know when Jason is floating away? But Jason should have the first word to say about the Joker. Tim isn't going to cut in now and take that away. But what if he needs to? Not to mention the topic at hand. Jason doesn't do well listening to this topic. And then Tim might be left alone trying to be the effortlessly wise and comforting presence that Babs needs. Fuck, the silence is drawing too long. If Jason isn't going to say anything, Tim has to say something. Tim remembers falling apart in the bathroom, and how unstoppable his words felt, how they felt linked together in an iron chain, inseparable, tightening around his neck until he set them free into the air, only to regret everything.

“Babs,” Tim says quietly, kind of reassured that Jason is still able to hold the phone. “You don't have to talk to us about anything you don't want to. We'll never repeat anything you tell us, unless you want us to. The phone is on speaker, but the volume is low, and we're in a private room with the door closed. Nobody is going to come in. I think everyone knows that we were planning to call you. Do you want to end the call?”

“No,” Babs says instantly. “No, I'm so sorry. Jason, are you there? It just slipped out. I didn't mean to say it.”

“Don’t apologise,” Jason says. “You didn't say anything that wasn't true. You didn't say anything more disturbing than what I've already thought to myself. You have every right to tell people what happened to you. I'm fine. I'm sorry for springing this conversation on you. Are you sure you don't want to end the call? The point was to invite you to come over and make sure you have a way of getting over here that's convenient for you.”

“Thank you for the invitation,” Babs says with what Tim detects as a hint of surprise and maybe happiness. “I want to visit. I miss you all. I also want to keep my mobility separate from myself, which I can do if my chosen identity doesn't involve going anywhere. Deep down, I still think that I'm fast, even though the world only sees that I'm slow. I think I must be delusional. My bad attitude keeps getting in the way. I know I haven't been showing it, but tell Bruce that I really care. I appreciate the list.”

“You are fast,” Jason says, and the expression on his face is sincerely confused. “I can barely keep up with you.”

“Yes, agreed,” Tim says. “It's like you don't even have to think, but you do think. You just think really quickly. Everyone sees it. It's hard to miss.”

Babs almost laughs again, but it's not amused, again. It's still pained. “You're both too kind. I don't deserve it. I’m ungrateful. All I can think about is how even my relationships with people are disabled. I never wanted to have this kind of good relationship, the kind of good relationship where you both have to ask me for my advice because my attitude is so bad that I wouldn't speak with you otherwise. This isn't the kind of good I wanted to have in my life. Ah, here I go. I'm complaining about what I want, again. Sorry.”

“Well,” Jason says, his tone very soft. “You are the exact kind of good that we wanted to have in our lives. We miss you.”

Babs actually lets out a real laugh this time. It sounds stunned. “Oh, alright,” she says, laughter still distorting her voice. “Alright…” She's not laughing anymore. Everyone who cares about her is too far away to do anything about it, and that distance is exactly how she likes it to be, her favourite terrible choice out of a range of terrible choices.

“I don't want to go home and lose so much of myself again,” Babs says, her voice thick with tears. “The first time was hard enough. The second time, seeing everything in the rubble, almost killed me. If there's a third time I'd rather just die with Oracle. I'm tired of feeling afraid of the past and of the future. I don't ever want to go through it again, waking up, having been cut into without knowing it, and it's fine because it saved my life. I'm tired of not wanting to be looked at. I’m tired of not even knowing how I want to look, when I'm always so happy to want and to want more. I feel like no matter what I do, they'd say I'm trying too hard. They’ve always said that, but I'm afraid it will be even worse now.”

“Who said that you're trying too hard?” Jason asks. There's something dangerous in his tone.

“No one in particular,” Babs explains, her voice steadying slightly. “Everyone and everything. It's something in the air. It's in the doors that are opened for you and in the doors that aren't. It's in the way that I was surprised when he stood over me but turned around and left me to die. Fuck. Here I go again. I’m so sorry.”

“You haven't done anything wrong,” Tim says quickly. He glances at Jason but focuses on the phone, the screen having long since fallen asleep. Tim wonders if he's ever been part of the something in the air despite all his efforts not to be, but he doesn't need to ask for Babs’ reassurance. He thinks he's already made a major blunder by not ever considering that dimension to her attempted murder. So Tim can figure it out without burdening her, and he can keep trying not to be. Tim thinks of his mom and wonders if anyone ever told her that she was trying too hard.

“You didn't say anything wrong,” Jason agrees. “I'm also afraid all of the time.”

“You were always a brave kid,” Babs remembers. “If even you can feel afraid all of the time- I despise it. I understand it. You didn't deserve it.”

“Neither did you,” Jason says. “You're way braver than you think. You assumed that something could happen, and you went out and did good anyway. You still take on a lot of risk. Your previous home was destroyed, and you're still Oracle.”

“Thank you,” Babs says. “That means a lot." Her voice sounds stronger, mostly purged of grief, for now. "I will go through the list. I don't know when I will come over. Please know. I do want to come over.”

“Would you ever want us to come over?” Jason asks.

“I don't know,” Babs says. “Sorry. It's not because I don't want you to.”

“Don't be sorry,” Tim says. “You won't hurt our feelings. We all love you no matter the kind of good you want to be in our lives.”

“Alright,” Babs says, not literally agreeing, but saying something to say something rather than be speechless. “No, sorry for my reaction. It was just sudden. I love you both, too. Send my love to everyone. Oh, I just remembered. Would you tell Damian to please hurry and play a move in our daily game? I want to execute my plan.”

“You have a daily chess game with Damian?” Jason asks. “You play a move a day?”

“We can play as many moves as we want per day,” Babs explains. “The maximum time limit to make one move is one day. I think our record is finishing three games in one day. Damian introduced me to online chess. It's good fun.”

Tim feels a lot better knowing about online chess. Damian really is a prodigy in all things, even emotional intelligence, somewhat surprisingly. Tim likes to think that it's something that wasn't abused into Damian for profit, that it's something original that Damian kindled into existence for himself and helped him survive. Tim realises that he loves Damian, somewhere between his overwhelming feelings of intimidation and insecurity. Tim almost can't believe that he could overlook such a gem. Almost, because only someone like Tim could manage to do that.

Tim decides to follow Damian’s example. “I want to play a daily game with you. I'll message you once I figure it out. I can only really play the closed Sicilian, though.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” Babs says. “I would be happy to play with you. You can take as much time as you need. Start a three or seven day game if you want to. I'm only bugging Damian because he could play much faster. He just doesn't so that he can get under my skin.”

“I like to play blitz chess,” Jason offers. 

“Finally,” Babs says. “Someone else who prefers blitz. We'll have to do that sometime. Do you like three minute games?”

“I do like them,” Jason agrees. “I like them way better than five minute games.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Babs says, and she sounds cheerful, and Tim kind of hates himself for ever liking the measured and objective way that she speaks when her voice sounds so much better expressing her subjective feelings. 

“We've taken a lot of your time,” Tim observes. “Do you need to get back to work?”

“You didn't take anything,” Babs says. “I'm glad you called. I do have a few deadlines to meet. Don't forget to send my love.”

“We could never forget,” Jason promises. “Hope to play chess with you soon. Love you.”

“Love you,” Tim says succinctly. He feels like ‘a few deadlines’ could mean anything from 10 to 100.

Babs laughs for real. It's a sweet sound, much sweeter than apples or even honey. “You're both too kind. I love you. Thanks for calling. Bye.” Babs ends the call, always getting to the point, and Tim really likes that about her. If only he could get to the point. He feels like he's always trying to slip away from the point. On the other hand, Babs says things like It's in the way that I was surprised when he stood over me but turned around and left me to die so bluntly. She doesn't hide behind her words. Tim hopes that it's one of those things that could become his own one day. For now, Tim is still too afraid of take-backs.

“How are you doing?” Tim asks Jason.

Jason stares at the ceiling. “Better than expected.” 

Tim knows that could literally mean anything. “Did it work?” 

Jason nods slowly. “It's working.”

“Right,” Tim says, trying to move the situation along. “I don't think you don't need the floating away anymore. Correct me if I'm wrong, though. How do you make it stop?”

“I don't know,” Jason admits. “I've never tried.”

“Can we try something?” Tim asks, anxious that whatever floating away means is actually very bad.

“Okay,” Jason agrees distantly.

“What do you want to try?” Tim asks because he has no evidence, not even a trace of anything to go off of.

Jason blinks and looks at Tim. His expression turns guilty. “We can't.”

“We probably can,” Tim reassures.

Jason considers Tim, looking more and more conflicted with each passing second. He breaks. “I think Dick is right. The answers are right under our noses, or at least some of them are. I also think that you might be right.” Jason pauses, and then the words tumble out of him like he pushed them off a cliff. “I want to try hugging you.”

Tim almost says why not? but he's a fast learner. He’ll give himself that much. “The medication is working. It wouldn't hurt me any more than lying down is already hurting me.” He tries to think of anything persuasive that he can add. “You didn't hurt me at all when you picked me up.”

“I didn't?” Jason looks like he wants to believe Tim. “But you said-” He doesn't finish.

“That was about something else,” Tim explains so that Jason can just hurry up and do what he needs to do to stop the floating away.

“Something else,” Jason says. He smiles bitterly. “Oh, yeah. Got it.”

“I want a hug,” Tim says because Jason is moving at a glacial pace, and Tim is tired of feeling like a legal matter, like a crime, when Jason is the one who was actually murdered.

“You want one,” Jason repeats, taking longer than usual to process each sentence. Tim will hazard a guess that it's part of the floating away. All he can do is hazard guesses and hope that he's not disastrously wrong. Jason realises, “Of course you want one.” He puts his phone away back in his pocket and carefully folds Bruce's list back up.

“Yes, yes,” Tim confirms to encourage Jason. He doesn't tell Jason to hurry up, worried that would be cruel, because maybe Jason is going as fast as he can. Tim waits patiently for Jason to put the list in his pocket. Jason checks his pocket for the list, and then he checks his pocket for his phone, and then he checks for the list again. Tim decides not to comment, feeling like that would either confuse Jason more or make Jason feel criticised. Jason doesn't stand up, but he kneels in front of the sofa with uncertainty.

“You didn't hurt me at all,” Tim reminds Jason.

“I believe you,” Jason says, a more focussed demeanor coming over him. He seems to have come to a decision. “Ready?” he asks.

“Yes,” Tim says, condensing his full thoughts on the matter, which is that he is not ready to be propped up to be hugged, but he feels unable to help Jason in any other way, and he wants a hug anyway.

Jason once again manages to move Tim without causing unnecessary pain, which Tim attributes to Jason's personal experience, and Tim feels very frustrated again. As Jason hugs him, all Tim can think about is how even if the hug thing works, it's definitely not enough. He said I'm afraid all of the time, and how couldn't he be, knowing that it doesn't take much to set off the chain reaction, probably enduring several near-misses like this each week, and even if Jason didn't have whatever he has, he'd probably be afraid all of the time to begin with. Whatever is happening needs to stop happening for good, and Tim believes in Dick that the answer has to be right under their noses. Tim has to be overly optimistic because if he misses something out of despairing self-pity and lets Jason endure even a second more of this hell than necessary, that would be the kind of regret that Tim could never wash away.

“How are you doing?” Tim asks Jason. He can't hug Jason back which is really disappointing, so he's trying to be present in other ways.

Jason doesn't reply at first. “It's working,” he says after a few seconds, and his voice is very wet.

Tim can't even say ‘That’s good’ because if Jason has to feel sad for it to work, then what the fuck, and Tim wants to scream again. “Are you okay?” Tim asks even though he already knows the answer.

“Not yet,” Jason replies. His voice is weighed down. Tim can't hug Jason back, he can't help without making Jason sadder, and he can't look at Jason. He can't even pay proper fucking attention. Jason tries to exhale the emotion out of him, having to comfort himself. “Why do bad things always have to happen to our family?” he asks Tim with considerable sadness.

Tim tries to set aside his eerie discomfort that Jason is saying the exact same thing that Dick said earlier, and Tim tries to focus. He hates to be right that listening to Babs affected Jason. Tim wants to know why he can't ever be wrong when he wants to be. He calculates, feeling like Jason's emotions are a knot. If he pulls on a thread, he'll either tighten everything up, or he'll get lucky and unravel the whole thing. He doesn't trust himself to get it right. Dick can figure that one out. Tim tries to talk about something different but not too jarringly out of left field. “I can write the report,” Tim offers. “The medication will wear off. I'll feel less fatigued. I want to try writing.”

Jason laughs a little. “Thank you for offering, but you can't fool me. I can write the report. I promise. It will be a paragraph at the longest. But I'll show you, and you can tell me what you think and if you want to change anything.”

“If you're sure,” Tim says.

“I'm sure,” Jason promises. “I'm experienced, as you said.”

“You've done really well, getting through,” Tim says, disappointed he didn't think to say so earlier. “You were amazing yesterday, too. I would be so tired if I were you. I wouldn't want to do anything.”

Jason seems to find something funny. “You are tired. You can sleep if you want.”

“Do you sleep?” Tim suddenly realises. He has a strong suspicion that sleeping doesn't come naturally to anyone here. 

“Don't worry so much,” Jason says. “I slept well last night. Not every night, so I think that's why I like to keep busy. If I tire myself out, I dream less.”

Tim thinks that's some ultimatum for Jason to live by, to either work himself to the bone and risk tripping off an immersive reenactment or to relive the end of his life every night anyway. Tim wonders if Babs is the same, and if busyness keeps certain things at bay, and Tim concludes for certain that all she has to choose from is a range of terrible choices. But Tim feels a little fond, guiltily, that sleep seems to be everyone's least favourite terrible choice.

“I want you to sleep,” Jason says. “Dick says that you probably didn't sleep this morning.” He seems to think for a moment. “Damian wants to play chess with you, remember? If you're this fatigued you won't be able to enjoy the game.”

Tim tries not to feel embarrassed. “That's very persuasive of you to say. But I want to ask first, are you sure that it's working?” Tim isn't so tired that he can't wait out the floating away. He's not sure how it works, if it disappears instantly or if it fades into the distance, and he's frustrated that something so important can be invisible to the naked eye.

Jason hesitates. “Yes, but. Did you know that you don't move at all when you sleep? It reminded me of something. I told you about it. I dreamed that you died a few days ago.”

Tim remembers that Dick told him the same thing about the way that he sleeps, but he has no idea what Jason is talking about otherwise. “Did you? I don't remember that.”

“How do you remember everything but not that?” Jason exclaims. He sighs. “I don't know why I'm surprised. The point is that I want to be able to see you breathe. So…”

Tim fills in the blank in his head. He doesn't mind, but he feels like Jason has better things to do. Depending on how long Tim sleeps, it could get pretty boring. Jason does have his phone with him, which makes Tim feel a little better about it.

“Are you sure you didn't have anything else planned?” Tim checks just in case.

Jason takes a deep breath. He doesn't answer the original question. “No, Tim, your exhaustion does not bore me.”

Tim feels exposed again, as he tends to feel around Jason these days. “That's not what I asked,” he says defensively, but he lets it go because it's exactly what he meant. “I don't mind, then. I can fall asleep like this.”

“Are you sure you're comfortable?” Jason asks.

Tim thinks that's such a funny question. Tim would accuse himself of taking advantage of Jason's death if Jason wasn't the person who brought up the hug idea first. Tim is also very sure of himself that he didn't plant the idea in Jason's head in the Batcave on purpose. It was just the first thing that he thought of after the hug from Bruce seemed to convince Jason that he wasn't laughing. Tim isn't going to deny that he really wants to be hugged, though. “I’m comfortable. Do you have anything to look at?” 

Jason huffs like he's trying not to laugh. “Yes, I have something to look at.” He doesn't elaborate. If he doesn't want to tell Tim about it, Tim isn't going to pry. “Sleep now,” Jason reminds Tim. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I promise.”

Even if you change your mind? whispers an unfair, uncharitable part of Tim that likes to make him act like he has trust issues even if he knows that Jason is so good. It's just that Jason changing his mind, even harmlessly, quietly and without fanfare, feels like it might be the worst bad thing that will ever happen to Tim. And Tim feels like it would only be his own fault if Jason did change his mind. Tim sometimes feels like it's unfair and uncharitable to act like Jason hating him is all the Joker's fault. It could really be that there is something justifiably hateful about Tim that people should be tempted to kill. After Jason came Damian, and Tim felt like he was stuck with the unpopular opinion again.

“I love you,” Jason says, sensing that Tim is still awake, and that unfair, uncharitable something in Tim heaves a sigh of relief. He still hasn't changed his mind yet, Tim thinks, and the weight of that thought pulls Tim under faster than he can remember to say it back.

Notes:

sorry to set up a similar thing as before but boys being kind to girls is something i really needed to write to soothe this endless pain inside me hahahahahahahaaha (i'm ok)