Chapter Text
Jason crouched next to Timothy hardly shivering as the rain pounded against their backs. It was a cold night in Gotham, and the biting chill of the rain cut into his bones.
It reminded him of nights curled up in an alleyway, trying to hide from a father who blamed him for his mother’s death. Like Jason had wanted his mom to die as he was being born.
His father’s anger had led to many wet and lonely nights, and there was something comforting in the fact that Gotham was still a cold bitch to its children.
“He’s in there,” Tim murmured, passing the binoculars to Jason. He took them with a grunt.
Jason gazed through the lens, focusing on the man he used to call an older brother. The tug of their familial connection was almost non-existent now. It had snapped along with his bones in a foreign warehouse.
“Security?” Jason asked, and the younger man next to him shifted. Rain rolled off his stringy wet hair and dripped next to his boots.
“Standard Bat fare. Nothing special.”
Jason didn’t need to look at Tim’s face to know that his cunning mind was sifting through a hundred plans. Tim’s brain moved at a speed he couldn’t comprehend, and it filled him with pride. He didn’t mind waiting, familiar with this part of the mission because they had done it dozens of times before.
Ra’s had made a calculated decision when he brought both of them back to life and trained them together. A calculated and deadly decision.
“Jason,” Tim’s voice was faint, but it was enough to perk him up. He shifted towards his little brother like instinct, brushing their shoulders together. He met his sibling’s eyes and the other boy grinned, teeth as shining and biting as the cold Gotham rain.
It sent a thrilled shiver down Jason’s spine and he couldn’t help but give Tim his own vicious smirk.
The green inside both of them twisted in delight at the promise of blood.
“Yes, brother?” Jason mused, his tone as sharp as the knife he was pulling from his belt.
“I do think it’s time for a family reunion, don’t you?”
The warm, golden light of Dick’s Bludhaven apartment flickered as the man they called an older brother walked in front of a window as he turned in for the night. The light died out suddenly like a bird shot from the sky.
Rain pounded on apartment windows fell to the ground like broken glass.
Jason’s smile widened.
“Yes, Timmy. I think a family reunion would be wonderful.”
Breaking into Dick’s apartment is ridiculously easy, though perhaps that’s unfair because it’s two bats against one.
Tim went in first, his thin body slipping into the shadows like he was born for them. He was silent, like he always was and angled slightly towards Jason. He waited, a cool grimace written into the lines of his face.
Lightning crackled overhead, bathing the apartment in silver. It made the white streak in Tim’s hair shine and his clouded, blind eye flash. The jagged scar that ran across the side of his face looked even more gruesome when it was lit up by the storm.
The Pit had healed many things, but it didn’t heal everything.
Jason didn’t follow Tim into the apartment immediately, and he could instantly see the tiny signs of anxiety beginning to roll through Tim. To anyone else, his little brother would look perfectly calm, completely cool and collected, but Jason knew better.
He caught all of Tim’s slight twitches, the jerk in his finger, the subtle tightening in his jaw as he waited for Jason’s familiar presence to return to his right side.
Tim had been attacked on his blind side way too many times to feel comfortable without Jason there.
Jason came in through the window, padding up to Tim’s right side and gently shoving their shoulders together. “I’m here,” he whispered, and Tim nudged him back.
For a flash, Jason was reminded of a much smaller version of Tim. One with two bright eyes and full of childhood innocence that looked at Jason like he was a hero. When he saw Jason, he saw Robin.
Hell, they both saw Robin, because Jason had been just as fooled as Tim. They thought a boy could be a protector. They thought a symbol could be a shield.
But that symbol meant nothing when they were both broken and shattered on the warehouse floor, clutching each other so they didn’t have to die alone.
In the end, they couldn’t depend on anything but each other. Not Dick, who was supposed to come, who was supposed to be there if anything went wrong. That’s why Jason had asked him to come with Tim and him when Jason sought out his birth mother in Ethiopia. He had trusted both his brothers back then, and wanted both of them at his sides.
That had been a stupid decision that landed him with his trust in Dick shattered, Tim in a grave next to him, and haunting questions to ring in his head during his resurrection:
Why hadn’t Dick cared enough to come?
Why had he thrown them away?
Had they done something wrong?
The sting of Dick’s betrayal hurt more than the crowbar blows and tore him apart in ways that metal never could.
He had promised them a family. He had promised them that they were brothers. He had tricked Tim and him. And what had they gotten for that?
Iron to the head for both of them and a warehouse turned into smoke.
And after that?
The world turned on without them, apparently.
Like the two boys that had been betrayed and beaten were trash to be thrown away.
Dick and Bruce continued their lives as if Tim and Jason hadn’t mattered.
But they had mattered, something small and nearly drowned by the Pit whispered into his mind. They had mattered to Dick and Bruce, once upon a time.
They had held them like Jason and Tim were something they loved.
Jason looked out at Dick’s apartment and his eyes caught on the scar on Tim’s face. He remembered when the Joker put it there. Tim had struggled as much as he could on two broken legs, each jerking moment causing him more pain. He had whimpered. He had screamed. He had begged and begged and the maniac’s laughter had never stopped.
How the Joker had cackled as he carved a scar into Tim that even the Lazarus Pit couldn’t take away.
Jason remembered crying for help, pressing the comms that he knew Dick was connected into. He remembered the silence and that no matter how much he pleaded for Dick to come save Tim’s life, he couldn’t get an answer back.
Dick had been in Ethiopia that night. They all had been. And yet, only two out of three birds died.
The green inside of Jason solidified and fury rolled in his stomach. It twisted through his veins and spoke evils into the back of his mind.
He didn’t give a rat’s ass if he hadn’t mattered enough to Dick, but Tim should have.
Tim was their baby brother . They had both been there when Bruce brought Tim home, a shivering heap of a boy that had been thrown into the Gotham winter in some sick form of punishment. It was only by luck that Bruce had stopped by their neighbours’ that night to ask for Jack Drake’s signature on some charity thing that WE was partnering with.
Instead of a welcome mat, Bruce had found a tiny child huddled in front of his own house, pleading to be let back inside and be taken out of the literal snowstorm that was brewing.
When Bruce had brought Tim home, he gave him to Jason and Dick and they had bundled the boy up in front of the fireplace, all curled together under a dozen blankets. It had taken them hours to ease the shivers from his body.
Jason never could figure out whether they had been from the cold or lingering fear.
Tim’s adoption took longer than Jason’s, but the end result was the same.
Timothy Drake became Timothy Wayne and he settled into their house like he had belonged there all along.
Those were the happiest years in Jason’s life. The years when they all changed from three lost souls into an actual family. It hadn’t been perfect, but it was pretty damn close.
Dick had still been a god to Jason back then. A figure that he had one day hoped to be. He looked up to him, even though he shined so brightly it hurt his eyes.
How couldn’t he have?
Dick had seemed infallible.
He had bandaged his wounds and held him close and tricked Jason into thinking that he was someone worth loving.
Dick had been the perfect golden son.
A standard that Dick himself had failed in its most essential moment.
Jason understood why he had been thrown away. He was street trash. Difficult. Too coarse and unmannered to appeal to the Gotham elite. He knew that he hadn’t been the easiest for Dick to get along with back when he had first been brought home.
But Tim...
Tim, their baby brother who they had promised to protect… Tim should have been enough.
He should have earned Dick’s protection.
He should have been allowed to live a life that wasn’t cut way too soon.
Jason sighed heavily, trying to banish the almost instinctual uneasiness that came with being in this apartment. The green inside him was screaming for Jason to burst forward and lash into everything that Dick had value more than his little brothers.
But Jason held it in check. Tim was here, and he couldn’t afford possibly leaving his brother vulnerable if Jason went into one of his rages.
Jason met Tim’s eyes, one vivid blue clashing against a milky pale shade. He leaned in, pressing their foreheads together just to know that Tim was actually there and death hadn’t swallowed him whole again. Tim startled a bit, but also pressed back.
When Jason pulled away, there was a question clear in his good eye.
Jason didn’t say anything, he just stalked forward into the apartment and towards the brother who had let them down.
Two out of three birds had died. It was time for a complete set.
Jason was acting strange.
Well, stranger than normal, but still strange.
Tim padded next to him, keeping his brother on his bad side, so Jason could be his eyes if he needed them. Tim didn’t think that there was going to be some kind of surprise lurking for them in Dick’s apartment, but they could never be sure, especially since he had been Bruce’s first protege.
He thought that Jason would have been happier. They were going to do it. They were going to kill Dick and show him what happened when you left brothers to die. They were going to have their big finale, their last hurrah and then…
Tim didn’t know what came after this, but he hoped that it would ease the haunted look in Jason’s eyes.
Secretly, he hoped that Jason would want to be finished. That the green in their bellies would finally be extinguished and then they could finally run far away from Gotham and Robin and Bruce. He hoped they could settle down, lose their identities, forge new ones, and just… live.
They had gotten a second chance at life. Tim didn’t want to spend it fighting and dying just like he had spent the first.
New Zealand sounded nice.
Killing Dick came first, but then maybe after that, Tim could convince his older brother that they could live in the Lord of the Rings.
It sounded like the end of a fantasy novel. Two warriors finally coming to rest after betrayal and loss and a resurrection that hurt as much as it healed.
It was the kind of peaceful ending he was desperate to have.
Jason left his side briefly, padding through the apartment like a predator. His eyes were blazing, the green of them was vibrant in the dark. He looked like a wolf, closing in on Dick.
Tim only had hazy memories of their oldest brother, flashes of smiles and fights with Bruce. He remembered Jason screaming for him, and the horror of realising that he wasn’t coming for them. He remembered that Dick left them to die, that was the bright smiles and shining eyes were a facade. Tim knew he should remember more, but the beatings and the Pit made everything from earlier swim in his head.
What he did know was that the Pit inside him wanted Dick’s blood. When he thought of Dick, it clawed in his throat and made him feel like he was drowning. It wanted to pull him under and make him lose himself in its thirst. It made him smile with all his teeth when he thought about the satisfaction of finally sating it.
Killing Dick meant vengeance, but more importantly to Tim, it meant finally getting rid of the piece of the Pit that constantly shredded him from the inside out.
And then Tim could finally have himself back.
Jason led him to Dick’s bedroom, padding through the home until he had his hand on the doorknob. He silently looked at Tim, an unspoken question floating between them.
Ready ?
The corrosive slither of the Pit rolled inside him. He could almost imagine its face widening into a sick smile at the promise of Dick’s coming death.
The feeling of it made Tim want to vomit.
Soon, he promised himself. It will all be over soon.
Tim met Jason’s eyes and nodded his head.
His brother smiled when he opened the door.