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Jason Todd was in hell.
Not the Lazarus Pit kind—though, yeah, that wasn’t far off. No, this was new: this was the very distinct kind of hell that came from voluntarily quitting cigarettes after more than a decade of chain-smoking like his lungs were trying out for Gotham’s Most Eligible Chimney.
He clenched his jaw, molars bruising down on mint gum, chewing so violently that the corner of Alfred’s eye twitched when he passed by the drawing room with the tea tray.
Three days ago, he’d pitched the last pack of Reds into the Manor fire. Damian had toasted marshmallows over the crackling paper, smirking like he’d won. Jason hadn’t thought that was particularly funny.
Now, with nicotine long gone from his bloodstream, Jason was jittery, short-tempered, pacing the halls like a caged animal. The Manor wasn’t exactly the safest place when you were vibrating with the urge to punch walls—too many antiques to destroy—but Bruce and the others had drawn a line. *You’re not quitting out there alone.*
Jason hadn’t argued too much. Maybe he’d wanted the safety net. Maybe he was tired of hearing the rasp in his lungs every time he descended a fire escape.
But hell, if he was going to do this, he had to *do* something besides chew gum until his jaw fractured.
Which was why, one particularly restless night on the verge of tearing his hair out, he found himself wandering past the music room—a vaulted chamber stuffed with heirloom instruments polished within an inch of their life.
And that was when it hit him: if he was going to obsess over keeping his mouth busy, he might as well keep his *hands* busy too.
Jason opened the case with the delicate care he normally reserved for firearms. Inside, laid against deep velvet, was a violin.
“Don’t even *think* about it,” came a voice, ripping through the silence like a slash of cold steel.
Jason turned. Damian Wayne stood framed in the door, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. His usual resting scowl, but sharper. It was the exact look he got before lecturing someone about using the wrong fencing grip or misidentifying 14th-century Persian art.
Jason arched a brow. “What, afraid I’ll break it?”
“It’s not yours,” Damian shot back instantly. “Those Strads have more history and refinement than *you* do.”
Jason smirked at him, gum cracking. “Story of my life, kid.” He plucked the violin from its case anyway.
Damian stalked forward, squaring off in front of him with all the hauteur of a general defending castle walls. “You don’t even know how to hold it correctly.”
Jason balanced it against his shoulder, experimentally tucking his chin onto the rest. It felt—it felt real. Tangible. A focus. More grounding than the pack of gum wrappers currently crumpled in his jacket pocket.
He crooked a grin at Damian. “Guess you’ll have to teach me then, won’t you?”
For a moment, Damian looked like he’d rather eat broken glass. Then something flickered in his expression—not quite soft, but close enough. He straightened. “Very well. At the very least I can prevent you from butchering something my father pays good money to maintain.”
And so it began.
If chewing gum was the rope keeping Jason tethered to sanity, violin practice was the anchor.
At first, it was chaos. Fingers clumsy, elbow awkward, the bow screeching across strings like a banshee dying in the walls. Every failed note grated in Jason’s already frayed brain—but it was something to *focus on*. Frustration was better than emptiness. Cursing under his breath over scales was better than pacing like he was waiting on a gunfight.
Damian was merciless.
“Your wrist is collapsing. Again.”
“You’re flat. Again.”
“You’re sawing at it like it owes you money, Todd. Stop that.”
But beneath all the barbed commands was a spark Jason hadn’t seen before: genuine investment. The kid didn’t half-ass his music the way he pretended to half-ass naps or movies. The violin was sacred to him. And maybe—just maybe—he was actually glad someone else was touching that world too.
Jason didn’t say it out loud, of course. He just doubled down, jaw working his gum, bow dragging across another string.
The rest of the Manor noticed quickly.
Tim was the first to comment. He wandered into the music room mid-afternoon to grab coffee (because where *else* would he leave it but on the grand piano lid, irritating Alfred to no end) and froze halfway through the doorway.
“…since when do you play the violin?”
Jason glanced up, gum cracking. “Since two days into nicotine withdrawal.”
Tim blinked, brow furrowing; then the inevitable smirk tugged at his lips. “You’ve been smoking since you were twelve.”
Jason’s eye twitched. “Shut up.”
Tim’s smirk widened. “I’m just saying. Big leap from cigarettes to Stradivari.”
Jason shifted the bow deliberately, squeaking a purposefully atrocious note that had Tim wincing into his coffee. “Keep talking, and I’ll practice outside *your* room at three in the morning.”
Tim nodded as if considering, then gestured toward Damian. “Can’t believe you found the one person patient enough to endure listening to you learn.”
“I am *not* patient,” Damian snapped instantly, though his bow was correcting Jason’s grip an instant later in quiet precision.
Tim just murmured into his mug. “Uh-huh.”
Dick, of course, found the whole thing *adorable.*
He showed up at dinner one night draping his arm over Jason’s shoulder, grinning wide enough to make Jason want to hurl a fork at him.
“I heard my little brother’s turning into a Renaissance man,” Dick announced to the table.
Jason glared. “Don’t.”
“Violin! Gum! Next thing we know, you’ll be painting still lifes of bowls of fruit and quoting Byron.”
Jason shoved him so hard his chair nearly toppled. Damian muttered under his breath, “Grayson, if you trivialize the instrument again, I *will* relocate my bow into your jugular vein.”
Everyone ate in companionable silence after that. Well—except for Alfred, who offered Jason a discreet tin of tea meant for soothing nerves. Jason took it, grateful despite himself.
And Bruce?
Bruce just watched.
He didn’t interfere. Didn’t say much. But sometimes Jason felt those eyes on him longer than usual, like he was cataloging every squeaky scale and every crack of gum. And far from being suffocating, it was… grounding. For once, Jason wasn’t screwing up or self-destructing. He was just… trying. And Bruce, the eternal sentinel, was letting him.
Weeks passed. Gum wrappers piled in Jason’s pockets like confetti. His jaw ached nonstop. But his hands started remembering—small muscle memory slowly growing steadier under Damian’s strict watch. Notes stopped screeching, started forming something real.
And when he finally stumbled through the last bars of a piece Damian had shoved under his nose weeks before—halting, flawed, but *recognizable*—Damian didn’t say a word. Just nodded once, short and sharp. Approval, as close as Damian Wayne could manage.
Jason sat back, smirk faint but proud. “Guess I didn’t completely butcher it.”
Damian looked at him, chin lifted. “You are… adequate.”
Jason snorted, jamming another stick of gum into his mouth. “High praise. Don’t get emotional on me.”
Something in the air softened, imperceptible but there. Not a truce, exactly, but something like brotherhood shimmering in the silence between notes.
Jason let the gum snap between his teeth and leaned back in his chair, violin hanging loose in his hand. Withdrawal was still hell. His lungs still ached for smoke sometimes.
But for the first time in a long time, he thought maybe he could breathe anyway.