Chapter Text
Jason stared at the mark on his wrist. A simple line drawing without color. Completely dormant compared to the vivid design he had seen in his dreams.
A dream so vivid that even now he couldn't forget it.
The face of the man who was supposedly his soulmate had gradually faded with time, worn away little by little until almost nothing remained except the memory of his eyes.
The most beautiful blue eyes Jason had ever seen.
Eyes that looked at him with such affection that his breath still caught whenever he thought about them.
He wished he could remember more. Remember his name. Or that he had asked better questions in that dream. Asked when they had met.
Pushed harder when his soulmate refused to explain everything. Demanded to know what had happened.
What he had done to hurt him.
Jason clenched his hand into a fist and shook his head. Going down the same spiral over and over again wouldn't get him anywhere.
Almost two months had passed since the dream, and no matter how hard he tried to recover those missing fragments—through sheer stubbornness, through magic, through anything that might work—he got nothing.
The only thing left was the certainty that, sooner or later, it would happen.
He looked away from his wrist as Batman approached. The conversation with Gordon had ended. Now it was time to move.
Jason leaped onto the next rooftop, forcing himself to focus so he wouldn't miss the landing. Forcing himself to keep pace with Batman, even though lately he felt slower. Heavier. As though something unseen kept tugging at him whenever he tried to move forward.
Just one moment. Just a second longer. Just long enough for the picture not to come out blurry.
Jason faltered. His boot scraped against gravel.
Picture?
He came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the rooftop.
Batman immediately turned toward him, concern hidden beneath the cowl.
"Something wrong?"
"He's watching."
The words left Jason before he could stop them. Barely louder than a whisper.
Slowly, he turned in place, scanning the darkness around him.
"He's always been watching."
His soulmate had said it. Twice. With absolute certainty. They had always been there.
"They told me," Jason continued quietly. "That I was the picture they treasured most."
Treasured sounded like a relic. Like a memory someone refused to let go of.
A memory that suddenly made the scar stretching across his torso feel far heavier.
His stomach dropped.
"I died."
Batman froze.
For the past two months, Bruce had watched him more carefully than usual. Ever since the dream. Ever since the endless conversations about soulmates and destiny and the certainty that everything would eventually fall into place.
Jason didn't think Bruce had been prepared for that conclusion.
"What?"
Jason barely heard him. His gaze swept across the surrounding rooftops.
Searching.
For what, he wasn't entirely sure. A clue. A sign. Anything.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he caught the unmistakable flash of a camera.
Jason spun toward it.
A figure ducked hastily behind a stone wall.
His heart lurched.
He didn't stop to think. If there were consequences, he would deal with them later.
He broke into a sprint across the rooftops, a single objective fixed in his mind.
A destination that, if fate truly existed, Jason intended to rewrite with his own hands.
He would keep that pain from ever settling inside those beautiful blue eyes. He wouldn't allow it. He would do better than whatever version of himself had come before.
His boots hammered against the rooftop as he rounded the corner.
Just in time.
A boy crouched against the stone wall. Barely younger than Jason. His hands trembled around the camera clutched against his chest.
Jason reached for his mask without hesitation, ignoring whatever Bruce was shouting somewhere behind him.
His fingers caught the domino mask and pulled it free.
The moment those bright blue eyes met his own, the world began to glow.
His soulmate's eyes widened.
Slowly, almost reverently, he raised his wrist and stared as the design there filled with brilliant color.
Jason didn't bother looking at his own.
The light spilling around them was enough.
The bond had already begun to form.
All they had to do was keep moving forward.
"I'm Jason. Jason Todd."
He extended his hand. Partly because it felt right. Partly because he wanted to help him stand.
"I..."
The boy stared at him for a moment before accepting it. Jason pulled him upright with effortless ease.
"I'm Tim. Timothy Drake."
A pale blue, calm as a quiet sea, edged with white and threaded through with soft yellow, spread across Jason's soulmate mark.
Tim's bloomed with a blue touched by the faintest traces of green, like rain falling over untouched grass, woven through with strokes of red.
Jason wondered what those colors meant.
Why they were different from the ones their counterparts had carried.
But those were questions for another time.
Questions that perhaps would never have answers.