Chapter Text
Jason is fucked.
The night had started perfectly pleasantly with Jason finally putting the final steps of his plan in motion to put a stop to some new drug organization that was heading Gotham, especially the poor part of Gotham, viciously.
Of course, the fucking Bats all had to get themselves involved into something that was definitely none of their business. Of fucking course.
Logically, Jason knows that his so-called family probably saved his life half a dozen times tonight, but the irrational side of him, the green soaked angry side of him, would literally rather die again than owe any kind of debt to the Bats.
Bruce and his army of child soldiers thought that they could interfere with his case, on his territory, and Jason had had enough of it. He was gonna show them the consequences of ignoring his warnings to just leave him alone.
It was a horrible plan, and Jason was stuck pondering the absolute idiocy of his plan as he discreetly followed the Batmobile back to the Cave from his bike. He was willingly riding to what could very well end up as his own trial, but he was tired and irritated. Very irritated.
Jason tore into the cave, stopping his bike and ripping off his helmet.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Jason demanded angrily, his furious glare fixating on the man exiting the big fancy car. A short figure popped out of the car before he could even finish his sentence. The small Robin whipped out a sword, pointing it right at Jason.
“Father does not have to justify his reasoning, especially not to the likes of you Todd.” Damian declared righteously. Jason just brushed the sword away, ignoring the sting of the sharp blade slicing through his glove and into the back of his hand.
“Your Father actually has a lot of explaining to do kid.” Jason replied coolly, stepping closer to the Batman himself.
“I am not a child!” Damian cried, fury dancing across his face, looking very much like a tiny Bruce.
“Damian, please.” Bruce took off his cowl, dragging a still gloved hand down his face. Jason was suddenly struck with how much he looks like a tired dad. Bruce then turned to Jason, tired eyes hardening with a stubborn resolve. “You needed backup Jason, I stepped in.”
“I was fine!” Jason shouted, loud enough to draw Dick and Tim in from the showers.
“You were outnumbered 40 to one and your judgement was most definitely impaired.” Bruce replied, still calm as he took off his gauntlets and began typing up what Jason could only assume to be his report of the night.
“Says who?” Jason growled, feeling what little control he had on his emotions slip away completely.
“I did.” Tim stepped closer to Jason, wary of his anger but not scared of it. “I was in the area, on a case that ended up connecting to your bigger drug case, I didn’t know that until tonight otherwise I would have let it be and left it for you to handle.”
“That doesn’t explain why you decided to butt into my business instead of just turning around and flying back to Daddy Bats.”
“I stuck around, just to see how it wrapped up so I could have a conclusion to my report, and then something changed, and I had to call for backup Jason I’m sorry.” Tim’s shoulders hunched forward as he finished his explanation.
“Don’t apologize Timmy, you were right to call for backup, it was a big drug organization.” Dick’s words had a semi-calming affect on Tim, but they only made Jason tense up further.
“No Replacement, please elaborate and what exactly you saw that made you call the whole damn Bat squad down there? Why didn’t you just rip my helmet right off my head and step in for me?” Jason was well and truly enraged, his hands itching for the comfort of a gun and his body was bracing for a hit that in all likelihood would never come.
Tim’s face betrayed hurt at the dig, before quickly switching into his Red Robin/board meeting face. A cold mask, the only sign of life found in his eyes, which were sharp and lit up by an intelligence few people possessed.
“There was a moment during the fight, a visible switch, where you were no longer fighting to win, but fighting to survive. Your movements were wild, like a cornered animal, and though you may still have won, I decided backup was necessary to ensure your safety.”
“I would have been fine! I can take a hit.”
“Jason please,” Bruce had switched back to his role as a dad, rather than as Gotham’s dark knight, “You didn’t have to take all the hits. Your case was still closed, and the entire organization was successfully shut down without any injuries.”
“Tt. Your foolishness no doubt would have only allowed for the criminals to get away.”
“That’s really not helpful Dami. Jay, isn’t it better to just have a quick and clean end to the case?”
“Yeah, nobody likes getting hit harder than they have to, I’m sorry you didn’t want the backup, but it had to be done to avoid you getting seriously hurt.”
“It’s not a fucking victory if it doesn’t hurt!” Jason’s loud statement managed to silence the barrage of voices flying at him from all corners of the cave. Even Bruce’s steady typing had stopped.
That sentence leads us to the present, in which Jason is fucked
In this moment, Jason very much regretted speaking up. In fact, he regretted the events of the entire evening for leading up to this moment.
He is so fucked.
Damian was the first to break the silence, though he didn’t speak. He turns and walks away. Jason always thought that that kid was smart. He’s glad to see that he was right.
Jason attempts to escape in a similar manner, though he was going to sulk on his bike while driving to one of his nicer safehouses, rather than mope in the shower like Damian was surely doing.
“Jason,” Bruce says, voice even and natural, not a trace of Batman or Playboy Brucie in it, “What do you mean by that?”
Jason takes pause at the question. He was losing valuable escape time, but Bruce’s concern was so confusing he had to stop and take a second to process it.
“Nothing, forget it.” Jason mumbles, damn him and his stupid mouth saying stupid things without his explicit consent. Doesn’t it know that anything besides an enthusiastic agreement means no? Jason does not remember ever saying ‘Hell yes, let’s overshare a dumb and rather intrusive thought with our entire sort-of family’.
He feels like he really would remember if that had happened.
Another rather long pause followed. Jason knows he really should be leaving, but something that felt quite a bit like shame (so stupid, stop caring what they think) keeps his feet glued to the Cave’s floor. He looks down at his hands, noticing for the first time the still bleeding cut caused by the brat’s sword. He quickly tucks it into the pocket of his jacket (not the first time he’s had to get blood out of this pocket, and probably won’t be the last), hoping that nobody notices.
It was a foolish thing to hope for. Jason watches Bruce’s eyes narrow, not in anger like he’s used to, but worry. Dick is pale, in between about-to-vomit pale and about-to-die pale.
Tim though, Tim’s reaction is simultaneously the worst and the weirdest.
He stands up, and sprints for the stairs, lacking his usual grace, stumbling clumsily out of Jason’s sight.
Jason doesn’t understand what’s happening.
“I’m gonna go now.” Jason turns to get on his bike but is stopped by a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Ordinarily, Jason would punch his assailant, but this whole night has really messed up his ability to think, and act, rationally.
“What do you mean, Jay?”
It was Dick. Jason really didn’t feel like chatting. Turning towards the older man, Jason saw that Bruce was making his way upstairs, presumably (hopefully) following Tim.
Jason should have kicked Dick, or at least made his mistake. He blames The Cave and its memories of better times making Jason all mushy, because he stays.
“It’s nothing Dickwing. Ignore it.” The ignore me went unsaid.
“Do you hurt yourself? Or do you want to?”
Jason has never known the family to be this upfront with feelings, even Dick preferred to ignore the bad feelings in favour of easier ones. Jason wants to deny it, he should deny it.
“None of your goddamn business.” That wasn’t the denial Jason wanted to say.
Did Jason hurt himself?
The answer was a definite yes.
On nights when nobody managed to hurt Jason (rare occurrences giving that he often let someone get a lucky hit in)., he’d go home and do it himself. Burns, blades, bruises, he wasn’t very picky, just needed the pain.
Jason has a handle on it. Everything’s fine.
Besides, is it even really a bad thing? It keeps him in line, this pain is the one thing keeping him tied to his humanity.
When he gets hurt stopping criminals, it’s his punishment for not being faster. It’s a reminder of all the people that got hurt because Jason wasn’t good enough.
Dick was looking at him. He wasn’t judging, Jason could tell, it seemed like he was almost curious. Which sounds bad, but Jason could tell that it was not in an envious kind of way, more of a concerned kind of curious.
“Jason?”
“Yes Dickie, I guess I do.” Jason must have been drugged or something. Honesty was absolutely not the best policy, especially when it came to the Wayne Family. He knows this. It was probably one of the damn crooks’ idea of a good prank.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Dick offers.
Instead of giving an answer, Jason walks to the showers. He knows that refusing to talk about his confession (stupid fucking mouth) was not an option. He might as well get comfortable before Dick (and probably Bruce) engaged him in the most uncomfortable discussion of his life (yes, even worse than The Talk with Bruce, which was bad, so evil the Justice League should have stopped it). Light footsteps indicated that Dick was following him. Jason waits as Damian escapes from out of the showers and up the stairs, before shooting a glare at his kind-of brother.
“I’m not gonna slit my fucking wrists in the shower Dickhead, do not follow me.”
“I wasn’t going to follow you into the showers, I was just wondering what you were doing.” Dick replies diplomatically. Jason is impressed with how calm Dick manages to be, even in what Jason could only describe as a… difficult situation.
“I figured I’m not escaping a conversation; I might as well be comfortable for it.” Dick nods his agreement, turning around and heading to the Batcomputer, where he would presumably wait for Jason.
As Jason stands under the warm stream of water, he debates leaving. Now would be the best time, only Dick would get in his way, and he probably wasn’t expecting an escape attempt.
However, Jason really wants to find out what was going on with Tim. He tries to ignore the annoying voice in his head (Jason thinks it might be his conscience) telling him that he owes the kid for the whole beating and almost murdering thing, but Jason really isn’t ready to be back in the family, and he doesn’t know if he ever will be. Caring about the kid feels too much like becoming a brother, becoming a son again.
Jason is pretty sure he doesn’t want that.
Or maybe he’s too scared to admit that he does.
He lets the sting of the water reaching into still healing wounds draw him out of his thoughts, and he quickly finishes washing off. Stepping out of the shower and into the changing room, he grabs a pair of pants and a shirt that could fit him, ignoring the fact that they’re probably Bruce’s (borrowing clothes is a level of intimacy that Jason is not comfortable with).
“Alright Dick, I’m gonna be quick and blunt. No, I do not want to die, no I don’t have a problem, and no I do not want, or need, any help. Understand?” Jason speaks rather loudly, as he towel dries his hair, failing to notice that it was no longer just Dick in the Cave anymore, but that Tim and Bruce had returned.
Tim’s eyes were red, he had most definitely been crying. The big red eyes got impossibly bigger as they widened at Jason’s declaration. Bruce looks puzzled, and what Jason thinks is heartbroken.
And Dick…
Well, Dick looks furious.
Bruce stares at Dick. A very obvious non-verbal way of telling him to go cool his ass down.
For the first time that night, for the first time since Jason had woken up in his own grave, Jason feels fear.
Cold dread trickles down his spine as the possible repercussions of all that he had said hits him.
They probably wouldn’t fight him, they probably think it would be counterintuitive, given the whole ‘I enjoy pain and not in a kinky way thing’, but with Bruce, you never know.
Would Arkham be a possibility? The thought alone makes Jason want to hurl, but it had been a possibility before, so why would it not be an option now? Though, Jason wasn’t killing anyone anymore, generally.
Jason’s mind was really starting to kick into overdrive, but his thinking process/borderline panic attack stopped when his eyes drift to Tim.
Tim, who looks like he is about to break.
Tim, who is trembling so violently, Jason wonders if there is an earthquake happening that he can’t feel.
Tim, who meets Jason’s eyes.
“I know Jason,” Tim inhales shakily, his gaze holding steady, “I know.”
Damn it all to hell.
Tim knows.
Jason hears it in the way he speaks, he sees it in the way Tim stands.
Tim doesn’t just know what Jason means, what Jason is doing. He understands, he’s been there.
It was probably a little bit Jason’s fault too. Jason hopes to hell it wasn’t anything more than a little bit.
“Kid,” Jason speaks softly, softer than he’s spoken to anyone since before, “I am so sorry.”
Tim’s eyes twinkle, so subtle Jason wonders if he imagined it. But it’s there, a spark of something amidst pure misery.
“I know that too.”