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For Jason, his resurrection comes in flashes. Clawing out of a coffin, fingernails peeling and lungs choking on stale dirt, everything dark and cold and smelling of earth. Mindless haze, danger, crunching bones and the thwack of flesh as he defends himself against an enemy his is not aware enough to see. The green. Cutting off his air, stitching his mind back together in a rush of pain and confusion and madness and stifling all-controlling rage. A woman's arms, the scent of gunpowder, the iron tang of blood his knife, the warm metal of a gun, photos of Batman, pictures of a replacement, fury, Talia.
Most days, Jason can't string the flashes together, can't cut through the green long enough to form a narrative that means anything other than anger. It leaves him itching in his own skin, bones feeling too long, limbs stretched out. It makes him restless, eager for revenge, prone to lashing out.
And Bruce? Bruce is a man Jason would gladly see hurt, forced for once to face the Robin he destroyed, to take responsibility. Jason wants to see Bruce writhing and trapped in his own guilt. Bruce deserves to be hurt for what he did. If Bruce had held a knife to his own throat, Jason wouldn't have batted an eye.
But Tim isn't Bruce, and despite their fights--despite their past--Jason doesn't want to see Tim looking at him with eyes so tired, so done, that a knife to his throat is a viable way out (can’t shake the image of blood dripping down Tim’s collar, blending into his suit, disappearing as if it were never there, as if Tim himself is just as fleeting). It's that thought that forces Jason from his usual patrol route the Sunday after his altercation with Tim, intent on finding the younger bird.
He hasn’t heard from Tim since their fight, and chatter in the channels leads Jason to believe that the others haven’t heard from Tim either. It’s concerning. To say the least. Because Tim is many things, a detective, a replacement, a Bat. But beyond that Tim is a child, barely turned eighteen, and far far too young to look at Jason with a smile dyed red and a knife glinting silver at his throat.
Tim is a mystery to Jason. First a source of anger—the replacement, a failing of Bruce, proof that the Batman refused to remember him. Then a source of frustration—intelligent in ways that Bruce never was, glass-shard eyes that rend Jason to his core, strip him of his armor, look through the hood to the roiling green in his mind, only to ignore it. Finally, a confusion. A picture-perfect doll with a sleek smile, graceful in his choreography, a reaction to everything, emotion to none of it. Where Jason is swear words and heat and jagged edges torn with bullets, Tim is a glacier, vast and unfathomable, beautiful in his stillness (but he is moving, Jason realizes, so slowly they could not tell, in a direction none of them could understand). Perhaps, Jason is realizing, Tim is melting away.
Tim’s brownstone is not what Jason expects. It is unassuming, exactly like the one beside it, with a lock on the door and little else. The welcome mat is brand new. The blinds are shut. For a moment, Jason considers crawling through a window, tempted by the familiarity of the action, the comfort of movement. (But Tim would hate that, wouldn’t he? Would hate the echoes of a vigilante in a place he clearly considers his, a place that is obviously not a safehouse, but instead his home). Jason rings the doorbell.
Tim doesn’t answer.
Jason rings again, the chime shrill in his ears. There’s fumbling inside. A blind shifts up, blue eyes meeting Jason’s from behind the crack. Jason presses the doorbell again, watches Tim’s eyes narrow (because this is out of routine isn’t it? This isn’t what they do. Why is Jason at Tim’s house instead of a rooftop, why isn’t he in his armor, where is his hood?). Jason calls out.
“Open the door Tim. I wanna talk.”
The blind drops shut. Moments later Jason hears scrambling at the door (locks clicking open, one two three four, is that a deadbolt? the brownstone is more secure than Jason thought). The door opens a crack, Tim barely visible in the dark room. “What do you want Jason.” His voice is cold but his fingers tremble against the door (Jason is remembering now, a flash of green, a photo of his replacement, he is frozen, the fury comes out but inside he is shaking, is afraid, cannot believe he’s been replaced, was that what he was feeling? Not anger but grief, terror at being forgotten, fear of becoming hopeless?). Jason stuffs his foot in the opening of the door.
“Let me in.”
“Why?” Tim is tense, coiled like a snake, posture tight (he is ready to flee, shrinking in on himself, running away, and suddenly Jason can see it, can see how deeply being a Bat has scarred him, sees the jagged tears in his armor, the poorly bandaged wounds, the brittle nearly breaking).
Jason spreads his hands, palms up, in prayer or placation, who can know. “Because you aren’t gonna let anyone else in. And I told you, I wanna talk.”
Tim stares for a moment, eyes wide and unblinking, gaze seeking past Jason’s words, into his intentions, the dark recesses of his mind dip-dyed in rage and left to rot. The door swings open. Jason leaves dirt on the welcome mat when he walks inside.
The brownstone is clean. True, there is a leftover pizza box on the coffee table, three slices—pepperoni—hard and cold inside. Dirty laundry spills from a room on the right. Dishes are piled in the sink. But still, the place is clean. Vacuum lines still streak the carpet. The tang of bleach lingers in the air. Everything about it screams staged acting set fake and Jason wonders for the first time if Tim is ever honest at all, wonders where his home is, if this brownstone is as false as the rest of him.
Tim falls into his couch with a huff, the move relaxed if not for the way Jason is noticing now, seeing the way Tim’s shoulders shift and grow tight, the tension in his arms, the too-light impact on the cushions. He quirks an eyebrow. “Well Jason? I let you inside. Now,” Tim’s gaze flattens, voice hard, “what do you want?”
And Jason sits too, shifting the pizza box aside to perch on the coffee table, knees dangerously close to Tim’s own. He leans forward, breaching Tim’s space (staring into his eyes, drilling into them, searching for the barest speck of authenticity).
(He finds a sea, blank and cold, uncanny in its stillness, brittle breaking almost shattered, grey where Jason is green but just as all encompassing.)
“You aren’t that important.”
The words come out harsher than Jason means, a skipping stone, spreading ripples all through cold still water. Tim flinches. “Is that what you came here to say?”
Jason groans (because he does this doesn’t he, delivers words tinged with green, even when he tries to speak in blues and yellows). Tim doesn’t give him the time to reply.
“Because if that’s what you came here to say, you can leave.” He says it like he’s said it a thousand times, like he doesn’t expect anything else (like he is a boy at a gala being scolded by his mother, Jason hiding behind the balcony curtains to hear her hiss, long red fingernails digging into a slim shoulder, you are not the kind of person that people love.)
And oh.
Oh. Tim knows he is a replacement. He, more than anyone, feels the impermanence of his position, the ticking clock that will not stop, only beats forward, pushing him towards the moment when he is no longer needed, his position filled by the original, no space left for him. Jason can see it now, the fear in him, simmering under his skin. The brownstone is clean. Jason wonders if Dick sees it, when he inevitably comes over, climbs through the window with a bad movie and his incessant need to bond, or if he only sees the normalcy. The messy clothes, the dirty dishes—everything a normal eighteen year old’s home should look like, excepting the part where no eighteen year old should be forced to be alone.
“That came out wrong,” Jason whispers, not daring to look Tim in the eye, not brave enough to face the defeat there (because Tim was defeated, Jason’s return had made sure of that, reminded him with every moment that he was not a Bat, even as they danced across rooftops, as Jason slashed and wounded, and Tim, not Jason limped back to Bruce, even though Bruce without fail sent Tim to medical, hardly batting an eye before burying himself in his vengeance, searching for Jason, searching for the son he could not bring back). Jason licked his lips, the skin cracked and dry. “That’s not what I meant.”
Tim leans forward, his face in Jason’s space now, his breath hot against Jason’s neck as he hisses (and there are no fingernails, red and sharp, but the words dig into Jason anyway), “Then what. Did. You. Mean?”
“I don’t want to fight Tim.” The words feel useless in the tension, a stopgap measure, like taping a bandaid over a black hole.
Tim laughs, a dry, choking sound. “Then what do you want? Jason?” He spits the question out like it’s something dirty. His hands clench into fists. “Fighting is what we do.”
Jason shakes his head (because he doesn’t know how to say this, can’t even admit it to himself, doesn’t know how to admit it to Tim when Tim’s eyes are sharp like flint and his mouth opens and flames are spewing out).
“I hate Gotham.” Jason chokes on the words as he says them. Tim is quiet, and Jason takes it as permission to continue.
“I hate Gotham,” he says again, more clearly this time, “and I don’t want to fight. Especially not with you. I just,” he looks at Tim now, afraid of what he’ll find there, unsurprised but grateful to see nothing more than flat, unfeeling grey. “I was afraid. Okay? And I hated Bruce—I hate Bruce.
“Fuck,” Jason mutters, running a hand through his hair, wishing for the first time for his hood, for familiarity, for something to hide himself and all his jagged edges away (because he can’t do this, doesn’t know how, can’t look past his green to Tim’s grey and he is choking, gagging on all the words he needs to say but cannot speak). “I get angry, Tim. Everything goes green. The pit, you know. The pit was green. Lime, 7-11, slurpie green. I just, the pit it brings you back, sure, fixes what was broken. But it doesn’t bring you back right. It’s like a toddler, jamming a puzzle back together, bending things that don’t fit and ignoring lines that don’t match, so long as it gets you back in one piece.
“And I just, I didn’t come back right. I didn’t. And I remembered dying. And I remembered clawing my way out of my coffin. And I remember being hit, over and over while the Joker kept making these awful puns. How’s my backhand? Not hard enough? You really know how to raise the bar.” Jason shudders (drowning in the memory, lost again and so so afraid). Tim’s knee brushes against his own.
“And then,” Jason continues, rushing now, not stopping to breathe, because if he stops he won’t start again, and he has to get this out (has to tell Tim, make sure Tim understands). “And then Talia showed me a picture of you. In the suit. Robin. This scrawny kid, skulking behind Batman, not more than 100 pounds and I just—I was livid. Bruce had forgotten me, replaced me, yeah. That hurt. And I was pissed. But the thing that really got to me? I had died. Because I was associated with Batman. Because I had been Robin, Joker had killed me, and Bruce just turned around and got himself another Robin to kill.
“And then, when I came back to Gotham, finally saw Bruce, saw you.” Jason shudders, frowns at the memory. He picks up a stray napkin with Domino’s printed on it proudly in blue and red and starts to rip it to shreds. Tim is still, face blank, but his gaze is focused, laser sharp on Jason. His voice drops to a mewl, something secret and injured. “There was no place left for me. Nowhere for me to return to. I didn’t belong anymore.
“I was a perfect soldier,” Jason hisses, “but a poor son.”
Tim recoils. There’s no other word for it. He springs back from Jason like a broken rubber band, spine snapping against the back of the couch. He stares at Jason, eyes wide. “What are you talking about?” Tim chokes out (he’s a cornered animal, hackles raised, injured but unwilling, ready to wound at the briefest kindness). “Bruce loves you.”
Jason shakes his head (his mind is somehow clear, the green suspiciously absent). “Bruce loves an idea of me, what I used to be, before the pit.” (And the duffle bag full of heads, Jason doesn’t mention). “He loves who I was before I killed, when I still believed he was absolute, when I was still his perfect little soldier.”
Tim draws his legs up tighter on the couch, burying his face in his knees. “He doesn’t love me either.”
“I don’t think Bruce loves anything,” Jason agrees, the words dust on his tongue (and look at them, the two of them, founding members of the Failed Robins club). “Just his crusade. And he loved us when we fit that crusade. But now that we don’t,” Jason shrugs. “Now there’s no place for us anymore.
“Which is why I said you aren’t important. We aren’t important. We could disappear if we wanted, leave Gotham, and it wouldn’t matter.” It’s a poisonous idea, a niggle of a thought that wormed it’s way into Jason’s mind that morning and hadn’t left.
Tim jerks a little, reacting to the words despite himself. He lifts his head, staring at Jason, grey eyes choppy for the the first time, something stirring in the sea. “Leave?” The word slips out an unbidden prayer, barely audible and weighted down with something like disbelief (because Tim does not leave, Jason is learning. Tim is tied to duty and obligation and guilt, a slave to his commitments, shackled to the Bat emblazoned on his chest that never needed to be his).
Jason nods. His motorcycle is outside (all gassed up, and Roy and Kori and an island are only a few hours ride away, a phone call in the making). He Has an extra helmet stowed away.
“It wouldn’t be forever,” Jason says, knowing that that would be too much, too hopeful (Tim could never leave his responsibilities behind for too long). “But it would be long enough. You know. Long enough to relax. Get a tan. Long enough to never—“ Jason pauses again, his hand creeping subconsciously up to his neck and grazing just below his Adam’s apple (in the same spot where there is a bandage on Tim’s neck and an injury that both of them are steadfastly ignoring). “Long enough to never do that again.”
Tim’s eyes melt into something like molten silver, burning in their intensity and filling the jagged tears of Jason’s soul in a way he never thought possible, couldn’t begin to understand. “We’ll come back?”
“Eventually,” Jason agrees. (Not for a long time, he doesn’t say.) “What do you say baby bird?” (He ignores the way Tim’s ears pink at the nickname). “Come with me?”
Tim is quiet for a long time, minutes ticking by while Jason waits, fidgeting, for his response. Finally, when the sun has gone low and gold light is sneaking through the blinds, streaking the room in sunset, Tim takes a breath. Holds it. Lets it out.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll go.”