Chapter Text
Alfred has sent him some of his old books.
He’d sent others as well, ones Jason didn’t recognize that probably came from the extensive library back at the manor. The thought of the spacious, comfortable rooms he had spent so much of his short childhood in pangs uncomfortably in his chest, but Jason does what he does best and pushes it aside.
The peace between him and the bats was tentative at best, but he was trying, really trying, not to cause too much commotion in Batman’s territory. After everything he had gone through antagonizing them wasn’t worth the trouble anymore, and while he was loath to admit it, a small part of him hoped that they would one day be able to mend all the bridges Jason had so angrily set fire to.
The books arrived packaged neatly on his doorstep, a handwritten note proclaiming; I thought you might enjoy some light reading while on the mend. Because of course Alfred knew about the bullet hole in his shoulder and the fracture in his wrist that’s kept him out of the field for the past week, and was likely to do so for another.
Jason sighs and flips through one of the poetry books Alfred had sent, kicking his feet up on his beat up coffee table. He had been spending more time at this specific safehouse, one of his nicer ones in the alley, if only for the convenience of his injuries. He tells himself his lack of movement was due to his injuries, and ignores the tickling sensation at the back of his neck that speaks the truth; that he really just wants something a little more permanent.
The first book in the pile is a poetry collection. Dream Work, by Mary Oliver. He knew of her, has heard her name circulating before but poetry wasn’t something he had studied extensively back when he actually had time to study. He’d skimmed some of the poetry works held in the manor but none had held his attention for long the way fiction had.
He opens the book and skims through the pages, worn and wrinkled and well loved. It must be one Alfred has visited many times before, and the thought shifts something else in his chest, uncomfortable and tight, as if this is a shared secret between the two of them, a small piece of Alfred’s heart he is willing to share with Jason, something that is more precious than just an old book with well worn pages.
“You’re getting sentimental in your old age, Todd,” he mumbles under his breath, the only time this month he’s glad Roy is out of town and can’t hear him talking to himself.
His fingers rifle through the pages, stopping on a poem called Rage, and he snorts at the irony.
He reads it once.
Reads it again.
Reads it a third time, sitting completely still as it unsurfaces more than just the pure green anger that is always simmering just below his skin, but memories of wet nights on the streets doing anything for survival-
He slams the book shut and throws it across the room, and vows to himself to never open anything by Oliver again.
Later, at night when it is quiet and deafening, he reads the whole book twice.
He finds himself stuck on Wild Geese. Thinks to himself that Damian would like this, maybe I should show him.
He knows he won’t, because he doesn’t talk to Damian. Not really. The reminder sits heavy in his chest, shackled and weighed down with his own insecurities, and he goes back to flipping through the pages, if only to give his shaking hands something to do.
It is quick to read, and the bubbling under his skin has mellowed to a quiet hum, leaving nothing more behind but an aching sorrow that he once again misjudges as anger.
Jason holds the gun level between the mans glassy eyes, ignoring the terror stretched across his ugly brow. Good, he thinks to himself as the man begs for his life. He has been following a trafficking trail for the better part of a month, exhausting all his resources as every time he shows up to catch them they're already long gone. He's almost desperate enough to call in the bats, but he isn't foolish enough to think the case isn't already on their radar.
His hands itch to pull the trigger, all of the work and effort he had put into rebuilding trust with the bats blown out the window registering as only a mild inconvenience at this moment. The itch under his skin hissing at him to do it, do it, do it!
He’s going to. His finger is tightening on the trigger... it’s just that his wrist hasn’t fully healed yet, and he’s a little slower than usual.
“Hood.”
He curses under his breath as his name echoes out softly through the warehouse, a familiar voice that surprisingly fills Jason with dread. He knew it would have been naïve of him to hope the bats weren't pursuing this, too, but it seems to be getting too big for just him. He hates how his heart simultaneously clenches with unease and relief, but he’s already disappointed the kid enough. He doesn’t want him to witness this, too.
“Hood, drop the gun. It’s okay, it’s-”
“No,” Jason snarls at the command as rage filters back in, because it isn’t okay and he isn’t going to drop the gun. “He’s selling kids, Red,” Jason seethes, and his entire body is vibrating as he wrestles with every negative emotion he had spent so many months trying to learn to tame. “They know what happens to people who sell kids in my territory.” The mechanized voice hides the waver in his voice, but Red is beside him in an instant. He places a gentle hand to Jason’s shoulder, masked eyes glued to his helmet.
“Hood,” and it’s Tim who says his name, soft and slow, as if Jason is a wounded animal he can coax out from under the brush. Jason glances down at his would-be brother, and his non-confrontational stance that radiates pure trust, and he wants to scoff and tell Red exactly where he can shove his misplaced pity.
“I’m not going to sit by while actual traffickers-”
“I need him alive,” Red says calmly, dropping his hand from Jason’s elbow with firm authority. Jason tries to be angry at the obvious takeover of one of his cases and not miss the warmth, but fails. “He knows more than he’s letting on, and I need him alive. I want this ring eradicated just as badly as you, but we need him alive. You’ve done enough, Hood. I can take it from here.”
Tim is confidence and strength and unwavering mental fortitude in the field, and Jason staggers.
He’s giving him an out- an excuse to retreat while he can before he makes a Grade A Bat Mistake, one that would drive another wedge into the already splintered thing he can barely call a relationship between him and Bruce. Any other day he would fight it, would push the replacement out of his way and take the shot, non-lethal or not. It's days like this when he knows he'll never be a bat in the pure sense that Bruce wants. Not when Gotham's victims remain unavenged.
But Tim crosses his arms, and even beneath the cowl Jason can read the disgust that radiates off of him in waves. He knows Red Robin would never take the shot, but Jason takes small comfort in knowing that on some level, Tim doesn’t find the man before them to be worth much either. He feels a little less insane, if only for a moment.
The thought buoys the turbulence in Jason’s mind and he finds himself clinging to Tim’s calm but firm demeanor. The metaphorical boat shifts each time the piece of scum on the floor moans in pain, and Jason has to beat down the urges to put as many bullets into his skull as his guns can carry. It would be a lot.
“I-”
“I can take it from here,” is all Red Robin repeats, and with a weary sigh, Jason manages to let go. He finds he doesn’t want to make a mess, not tonight, and takes Red up on the offer to dip before things get ugly.
“Right,” is all he manages to mumble out as he lowers his guns with shaking hands and turns to leave. Red is surely to call in the others or GCPD, neither of which Jason wants to be present for, but he doesn’t like the idea of leaving a small Robin alone with a human trafficker.
“Um, call if you…” he clears his throat and tries again. “Call if you need backup.”
He flees outside and fires his grapple skyward before Red can respond, knowing full well that Jason would be the last person Tim would reach out to for backup if things somehow managed to escalate.
He barely makes it to the rooftop before he’s vomiting. It’s pathetic and disgusting, and his body heaves with tremors as he gags across the stone building with shame and revulsion at his own weakness.
Weeks of being on his best behavior, and one overweight balding little man had managed to take a wrecking ball to the delicate glass dome of his life that he had painstakingly been gluing back together since his death. His hands were still bloody and scarred, no matter what he did.
Many deep breaths later and his stomach finally seems to calm down enough for him to catch his breath. The night sky is dark and dreary in the way that only Gotham ever is; what might even be considered a nice night by the natives, given the circumstances, and for the briefest of moments Jason wishes he were someone simpler, with less red in their history.
You do not have to be good.
Jason pulls off his helmet and runs a hand through his sweaty hair as he breathes in the cool autumn air as the words from Alfred’s poetry books run through his mind, over and over like a banner on the bottom screen of a breaking news announcement. This just in: You do not have to be good! You just have to not murder and kill every man you disagree with that crosses your path. It’s easy! More at eleven.
He snorts to himself at his own joke, on the edge of hysteria.
“Something funny, Hood?”
Jason swivels abruptly with a mumbled curse, startled out of his own thoughts only to once again come face to face with Red Robin, who has managed to silently sneak up on him. Tim's arrival pulls him out of a spiral and he gratefully takes in a gulp of air before putting on a mask to feign normalcy.
“Nothing at all, little bird,” Jason drawls, aiming for nonchalance, or maybe threatening, or some mix of the two. Neither come out and Tim smiles. He glances down at the dirtied pavement but makes no mention of it as he crosses the few steps between them to sit beside Jason on the rooftop, his feet dangling over the edge of the building.
They say nothing as they listen to the sirens below, communicating only in soft grunts and subtle shifts atop the cold stone, playing mindless observers as the busy streets filter traffic, and foot pedestrians hurry through the damp streets trying to outrun the coming chill. Almost a typical night for a bat, and Jason hates the way the familiarity of it all worms its way into his heart, warming it ever so slightly despite the autumn chill.
Tim continues to say nothing, probably afraid that anything he does say will be reason enough for Jason to finally finish the job, and the silence stretches on until it passes comfortable and lands directly in suffocating.
“B gone?”
“He was never here,” Red replies. “I called in Gordon. B’s off world, should be back by the end of the week. We should have the ring dismantled by next week, probably. We'll call you in, of course.”
Jason huffs in nonverbal agreement, and Tim nods. He assumes that that’s it, and Tim will take his leave, but they sit there together in silence for a moment longer. It’s the longest they’ve been alone together in…possibly ever.
Later, he'll blame the blinking streetlights, or the waxing moon. The gloomy fog that clings to the buildings or even the faint sound of honking horns from a few blocks over. He'll blame anything and everything to explain what possesses him to stare down at his hands and whisper, “I’m sorry,” into the faded moonlight.
Tim turns a startled head towards him before masking into cool and collected.
“Nothing to apologize for. It was your op, I didn’t mean to intrude-”
“No,” Jason says as he watches Tim misunderstand, and it’s suddenly very important that he says this aloud to him. He had worked with Tim a few times since their truce, even saving him from a kidnapping, and a drowning, and a- damn, the little bird really needs better self preservation skills, but he hadn’t ever said it aloud. Until this moment, he hadn’t thought he needed to.
“I’m- fuck, Tim, I’m sorry.” Tim stares at him in shock as the name drop slips his lips, but Jason can’t find it in him to care. He’ll never be able to wipe all the red from his hands but he wants to try, and that thought is almost as terrifying as choking out this pathetic excuse of an apology.
“I’m so…I’m-”
Tim shakes his head softly and reaches out to hold Jason’s aching shoulder once again, grounding him even as they sit hundreds of feet above the earth.
“I wanted to hate you, you know,” he says, because Tim is the smartest of them all, and catches on quickly. Jason nods. “I wanted to hate you so much. I think I did, for a while.”
Jason stares at him through his domino. Dick had thrown the hero worship in his face back when he was attacking them all, trying to guilt Jason into feeling bad for hurting somebody who had spent most of their adolescence adoring him. It didn't work then, but had come back to bite him in the ass now.
“You should,” Jason whispers but Tim shakes his head quietly.
“I don’t, Hood. Not anymore, maybe not ever. I think I know who you are, even if you don’t.” Jason doesn’t miss the unspoken I always did, but his head spins with the weight of Tim’s trust and he says nothing.
“I mean, I’m not gonna lie it…it sucked and I’d definitely prefer it if you never did that to me again, but I forgive you.”
Jason nods quietly, unsure of what to say, unsure of how to take this fragile gift and keep it whole when all he’s ever known since he came back was how to destroy.
“You should come home, Jay,” Tim says as if it’s an option, and Jason snorts loudly. “Everyone misses you.”
He gets up quickly and stretches his legs, suddenly wanting to put as much distance between him and this rooftop as possible. Tim watches unmoving underneath him.
“I can’t go back, baby bird,” Jason sighs, defeated and annoyed that this isn’t obvious to Tim, who is supposed to be the smart one. Tim clenches his jaw.
“I thought things were better. Things are better, Hood. You help us and ask for assistance and you haven’t even tried to shoot one of us in months-”
“Better, yes,” Jason interrupts, because things are better. They’re just not fixed. “But this is as good as it’s gonna get, Red. I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, and neither should you.” He turns on his heel ready to leave this conversation behind.
“Bullshit,” Tim says and Jason stops in his tracks. “Just ask for forgiveness! You won’t even ask. You know B is bad at reaching out first, but all you have to do is ask, Hood. You can come back and-”
Jason spins on his heel and lifts the lens of his domino so that his green eyes shine menacingly in the night. This should spook the kid enough to get him off his back.
“I will not beg for forgiveness at the foot of Batman,” he sneers, resenting the thought even though he wanted nothing more than Bruce's acceptance once again now that he miraculously has Tim's. “I can’t go home, and I don’t want to, little bird. Now leave before I change my mind about clipping your wings.”
Tim stares with unshakeable confidence even in the face of Jason’s threats, unshakeable in the way that only No-Common-Sense-Or-Self-Preservation Timothy Drake can be, and hits Jason with a banger that nearly leaves a hole in his chest.
“You don’t have to keep punishing yourself.”
Tim’s voice dances gently across the breeze as Jason stands frozen to the spot.
“I do,” he says quietly because Batman would, and Bruce would, and Dick and Damian would, and Jason would deserve it until he was left begging on his bloody knees, voice raw from asking for forgiveness he knows he doesn't deserve. He isn’t sure he can stomach it when they tell him no.
He hopes that he was lucky enough for Tim to not hear him, but luck had never been on Jason’s side.
“You don’t,” Tim says again more forcefully, and Jason is so sick of fighting him that he almost caves.
“I guess we can agree to disagree,” he tells Tim quietly, a phrase that is thrown around a lot in relation to him and the bats when they're on cases, and Jason smirks despite himself when Tim pulls frustratedly at his hair, not missing the irony.
“Fine,” Tim snaps as he reaches for his grapple, “Fine, have it your way. But when you’re ready to come home, Jason, you can. I forgive you, I did a while ago. B did too. Just talk to him, or N. He misses you.”
Tim gives him one last pleading look and jumps off the building before Jason can deny him again, leaving him to wonder if the kid is as delusional as he seems, or if there was actually a chance he could return to whatever semblance of normalcy he had left behind when he was fifteen.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting
He thinks maybe Alfred is trying to mentally sabotage him.