Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason is going to die.

It was just supposed to be a simple patrol. Jason wasn’t even supposed to be here. It had been a coincidence they had met up at all, a whim that made Tim suggest they team up for the night. He hadn’t really expected the Red Hood to agree. It was supposed to be a slow night.

And now Jason is going to die.

The thought echoes over and over in Tim’s head, propelling him forward as the silver barrel lifts in slow motion. He’s reaching out to grab the goon, yanking their arm away, but it’s too late. The sound of the gunshot is already ringing in his ears.

He sees Jason stagger, and feels the impact in his own bones. Every nerve stretches, screaming in agony as Tim instinctively yanks.

He’s only pulled a wound this extreme once before and had hoped he’d never have to again, but he wasn’t going to let Jason die, not when it was Tim’s own stupid fault he was here in the first place. It sucks he won’t even be able to say goodbye to anyone, but at least his death protocol is in place– he feels the bullet wound snap through his heart–

–and vanish so suddenly the lack of pain makes Tim’s head spin. The goon crumples, and Tim stumbles at the sudden deadweight, his grip on the goon’s arm suddenly the only thing stopping his opponent from hitting to the floor. Tim stares at the red suddenly blooming across the goon’s chest. Right over their heart.

No.

Behind him, he hears Jason groan. “What the hell was that, Replac–”

Tim can only assume Jason sees the body (body, body, the goon used to be alive and now they’re just a corpse) and suddenly he drops the arm like it burns. The thud that echoes as the goon hits the floor will haunt Tim’s nightmares forever.

They’re dead. Tim killed them.

Tim just killed someone. Wasn’t even trying either. Wasn’t thinking about it at all. He had just been trying to stop Jason from dying, and now he’s killed someone. The goon hadn’t even gotten the chance to scream.

Tim– Tim had just touched them. He hadn’t even known he could do that. If he had known, so many things might have gone different, he might have been able to keep his spleen, he might have been able to take down Ra’s so much sooner, been so much more useful– and Ra’s might never have let him go. Because he can kill people with this power. He just killed someone with this power, and he hadn’t even meant to.

He hadn’t meant to kill him, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he had meant to or not, he doesn’t have control over it, he could hurt someone– he already had– what would Bruce think if he knew, if he found out not just about Tim’s meta ability, but the fact that he could kill someone in a heartbeat. That he just did.

Bruce would hate him. There’s no other option. Tim’s the two things that Bruce hates the most– A metahuman and a murderer.

Oh god, he’s a murderer. It was– well, it wasn’t fine when he was just a metahuman, but then he could pretend that the lies were worth it, that he was still doing something good, but now he can’t even argue that he’s using his powers for good.

There’s a corpse on the ground, staring up at him with blank, empty eyes, staring into his soul and tearing apart all the lies and excuses that he’s buried himself under all these years.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he registers the way his lungs have seized up into a thousand knots and his heart feels like it’s going to fly straight out of his chest, and distantly notes that he’s probably having a panic attack right now, but the thought is immediately overwhelmed by the blood that’s flooding across the floor.

His feet are rooted to the ground, and he can’t look away even if he wanted to, can’t look away from red that’s now reached his boots, that pools around him and threatens to pull him under. God there’s so much blood. One and a half gallons of blood that pumps around the human body, that keeps a person alive, and it’s all just spilling out across the ground, because they’re dead, and Tim killed them. Oh god, Tim killed them. He knows he should move, should do something, anything, but his brain’s stuck on the fact that there’s a body on the ground and Tim’s the one who put it there.

“-- Replacement?”

And–and Bruce, and Dick, and Steph, and Cass, and Damian, and oh god, he can’t. They’ll hate him, hate him, hate him, Cass never wanted to kill, hates even the idea of it, and Dick who literally trained an assassin out of killing and Damian who would use this to kick Tim out forever and he can’t he can’t he can’t live without them, but they won’t want him now.

It feels like he’s dying, and maybe it’s better if he’s dead, if he dies before he can hurt anyone else. Clearly he’s dangerous, out of control, what if he hurts his family next– what if he kills one of– no.

“Red? Red, you–”

No. He can’t, he wouldn’t– but what if he already has? What if he’s given Dick injuries before without realizing, what if he’s been forcing his injuries off on everyone, what if someone dies because they were in worse condition than they realized because of him, what if–

“Red– Replacem– babybird, you gotta breathe.”

For a moment he drowns at the thought, and it’s not the goon that’s staring blankly at him, but Bruce’s face, slack and pale and lifeless. Suddenly Tim’s legs give out from under him, knees landing hard in the blood that’s completely enveloped him. He blindly catches himself from falling face first into the corpse in front of him, and the feeling of warm wet seeping through his gloves causes something inside him to snap.

“Babybird, can you hear me? Breathe, goddamnit!”

Tim feels his mind start to exit the situation, and he gladly lets it, a distant voice the last thing he registers before the world fades out into white.

***

Jason doesn’t know what the fuck is happening right now, and he’d really like an explanation. Unfortunately the only one who could give him that is currently in the middle of one of the worst panic attacks Jason’s ever seen, which is saying something, considering some of the shit that he’s seen as his time as Robin and Red Hood and just straight up as someone who crawled out of a goddamn Lazarus Pit.

Speaking of which. He should be dead. Again. He knows he should be dead, felt the bullet pierce straight through his armor (Kevlar is great and all, but sometimes a point blank shot is just a death sentence, even in the practically-a-tank Batsuit.), but somehow he’s alive right now, and he has the sneaking suspicion his miraculous state has everything to do with the blood pooling around the crumpled corpse on the warehouse floor and one currently hyperventilating birdy.

He does his best to talk to Tim, trying to calm him down, but nothing he says seems to help in the slightest, as Tim goes crashing to the ground, hyperventilating even worse until it all just… stops. Calling Tim’s name does absolutely nothing, so Jason steps around the body to try and get a look at Tim’s face and– oh. Tears leak out from under the cowl, and his breathing is still a little shaky, but other than that, Tim looks blank.

If Jason had to guess, he’d say Tim decided to just check out of the situation entirely, leaving Jason to just deal with everything. Of fucking course.

Right. Well. Step one: Stop panic attack, complete. Kinda.

Step two: get Tim away from the corpse.

Seeing as how Tim is completely unresponsive right now, Jason doesn’t even bother trying to ask him to move. Instead, he picks Tim up around the middle and slings him over his shoulder before exiting the building.

Now that he’s actually touching Tim, he can feel the way that he’s still trembling and his breath hitches every few steps as he makes his way out to his bike. Jason has a safehouse a few blocks away, and while he doesn’t like the idea of bringing a bat to one of his hideouts, he’s sure as hell not going to drive to the batcave with a dissociating Tim draped across a motorcycle.

Manhandling Tim onto the bike, Jason wrestles him into the straps that will keep him upright and attached to Jason so he doesn’t fall off during the drive before mounting the bike and finishing attaching the rig to himself. He’s honestly a little surprised that Tim doesn’t snap out of his dissociation while Jason was strapping him in like a baby in a sling just to avoid the humiliation.

But no. Either whatever he did took more out of him than Jason thought, or it’s the shock of accidentally killing someone. Or probably some combination of both. The kid clings to Bruce’s code harder than any of them, honestly probably the only bat out of all of them that hasn’t ever broken the no-kill rule besides Bruce himself. ‘Course it would hit him hard. Of course, Jason can’t bring himself to feel all that guilty about it. It wasn’t like the dude didn’t know the stakes when they signed up for the whole ‘evil goon’ gig, and Jason’s kinda stoked not to be dead in a warehouse for a second time.

Still, he feels a bit bad for the kid. He obviously didn’t mean to kill them, with how shocked he looked when the goon dropped. Which really brings up the point, what the fuck did Tim even do to the guy?

One moment Jason was going down with a bullet to the chest, the next, the goon’s dead on the floor with the exact same injury. Clearly there’s something superhuman happening here, which is hard for Jason to wrap his head around, because again, it’s Tim.

The good one. The success story. The one who actually follows Batman’s orders ninety percent of the time, which is eighty-five percent more than any other Robin Bruce’s had.

How the hell is this kid a meta? And better question, how did he manage to hide it all these years from Bruce? Yeah, Bruce can’t see two feet past his own personal cloud of angst on a good day, but he’s also the most paranoid bastard alive and a snoop to boot. There’s no way that he didn’t test Tim’s DNA at some point, which either means that Tim managed to hack into the system and alter the evidence so thoroughly that neither Bruce nor Oracle spotted the discrepancy, or there’s something else going on here.

Too bad Tim’s in no shape to actually answer any of Jason’s questions right now. Pulling up in a side street, Jason parks and hauls Tim off the bike. He’s still unresponsive as Jason hauls him through a hidden side door and up the four flights of stairs to his apartment, and it’s starting to make Jason a little nervous.

When Jason comes back from sweeping the apartment, Tim’s still sitting on the ratty sofa where Jason left him, staring off into nothing. Jason pauses, looking him over. At some point during the sweep, Tim seems to have regained enough consciousness to take the cowl off, although his eyes are still glazed over. Without his face covered, it’s all too obvious just how pale he is, with tear tracks still glistening down his cheeks. His hands still tremble minutely in his lap, his posture rigid and tense. Something about his pose reminds Jason of the people he used to see at galas, the few times Bruce got him to go. Expression frozen, neck stiff, and shoulders unnaturally still, almost statue-like.

It’s like he’s trying to mask all his emotions under this façade of forced calm, either to convince himself or everyone else that nothing is wrong, and Jason’s frankly a little terrified about how well he’s pulling it off. Obviously he doesn’t look well, but it certainly doesn’t look like he just killed a man. Except for the blood covering most of his suit, which is now almost certainly also all over his couch. Goddammit.

Well, Jason can deal with the blood stains in his thrift store furniture later. First he has to make sure Tim isn’t secretly bleeding out right now.

“Tim,” he tries carefully, and the kid twitches, but doesn’t do much else.

“Tim,” he says again, “are you hurt anywhere?”

There’s some sort of joke that could be made here about mental wounds, but honestly, Jason’s brain isn’t functioning enough to deal with humor right now, and he doubts that Tim would appreciate it much either.

Another twitch that could be interpreted as a headshake.

“Tim, I’m gonna need you to use your words here. I don’t need you bleeding out from a hidden wound right now.”

Finally, finally, Tim responds, in a low rasp that makes Jason wince in sympathy, “...no, not hurt.”

Which is great, but also a fucking lie, because Jason had seen the kid take a metal pipe to the ribs and a knife slash to the leg, and was willing to bet that he hadn’t managed to see his only injuries happen. So either Tim was too far in shock to tell, was lying, or…

“Hey kid, do you mind if I check your leg?” Jason tries to keep his voice even and non-threatening, but Tim flinches anyway.

“Don’t– You can’t– Don’t touch me.”

Jason waits for a moment to see if Tim will elaborate further, but when nothing else seems forthcoming, he sighs as he gets up to grab the medkit. Pulling out the box, he rummages around until he finds the medical tweezers and goes over to sit on the ground by Tim’s leg.

“This alright?” he asks, holding up the tool in front of Tim’s face. “I won’t touch you at all.”

After a moment Tim reluctantly nods, and Jason sets to work. It’s easy to find the tear in his uniform, but actually pulling back the fabric is made a hundred times more difficult because Tim still jerks away every time Jason gets close to actually touching his skin, despite the tweezers.

Eventually, though, Jason manages to tear the cloth back far enough to reveal… huh. There’s no gash, no scar, just some blood crusted in the shape of a slash, with further dried rivulets running down Tim’s ankle and into his boot.

Extremely accelerated healing? Or did Tim somehow manage to foist his own injuries onto the goon as well as Jason’s? Something about that idea doesn’t sit right with Jason. He’s missing a crucial part of the puzzle, but he doesn’t have all the clues necessary to figure out what that piece is.

But hey, the one source of information about this absolute disaster is sitting right in front of him, and he’s not even actively disassociating anymore!

“Hey Timbers, mind telling me what the fuck this whole meta thing is about?”

So Jason probably could have worded that better, if the way Tim’s breathing instantly picks up and his shoulders practically launch to his ears is any indication. Sue him. Jason’s stressed too. And confused. And really really would like some answers and maybe a forty-eight hour nap.

“I can… steal injuries,” is what finally tumbles out of Tim’s mouth, and doesn’t that raise a thousand more questions.

Because that was definitely not what Tim had done. Tim wasn’t the one who had ended up with the bullet wound to the chest, it was the goon. And Jason suspects that if he were to check the body for injuries, Jason would find his own bruises on it as well. And the cut that was supposed to be on Tim’s leg.

Tim had thrown both of their injuries onto his attacker, but if he’s saying that he can steal wounds, not pass them on like the world’s most fucked up game of hot potato, then that probably meant he hadn’t known he could.

Tim hadn’t known.

Which. Which meant–

Fuck.

Tim had expected to take Jason’s bullet. He had taken the bullet. He just… hadn’t kept it. And he can see by the way awareness is steadily coming back into Tim’s eyes, if he doesn’t call it out, Tim will pretend like he’s always known. That it was just a calculated risk, not him literally choosing to die for Jason.

Tim was willing to die for Jason.

Fuck.

He has to wonder about this kid, because he doesn’t understand him at all. Jason should be the absolute last person Tim would want to save, what with Jason almost murdering him twice and generally being an asshole to him the rest of the time.

One supremely awkward aborted attempt at an apology does not forgiveness make.

Except, apparently, if you’re Tim.

It reminds him of someone, niggles something in the back of his mind, but he can’t think of who or what or why. It’s something about Tim’s stupidly loyal self-sacrifice in the face of grief, without the expectation of ever being recognized for it. The way that he plods on day by day by day, without complaint, without cowering. The way that he’s willing to protect others, save others, forgive others despite everything that they’ve done.

Jason knows that Bruce did some pretty fucked up stuff to Tim, and that Bratgirl did too, not to mention whatever shit went down with Dickhead and the murder gremlin. But Tim’s still working with them, even if he’s more distant.

Tim feels a lot like– fuck.

He’s like Catherine.

Desperately trying to hold it together in the face of impossible odds and doing the best they can to not let it show until– until. Until they can’t.

Fuck.

Fact: Catherine Todd was one of the strongest people that Jason’s ever known, who stayed to take care of Jason despite her abusive husband, who always did her best to raise Jason and provide for him and get him an education and let him be a kid despite everything, who protected him the best she knew how.

Fact: Catherine Todd died. She died a death over silent years of succumbing to addiction to try and make her load a little bit lighter. She died of an overdose with regret in her eyes but a smile on her lips. She fought and clawed against the world alone, and she lost.

Fact: Not everyone uses drugs to cope with problems heavier than the goddamned planet. In fact, most people don’t. Drinking, sure. Violence, maybe. Listening to depressed person music for hours on end. Refusing to get up in the morning. Or, y’know, dressing up like a giant fucking bat and going out to punch people in the night.

Fact: Bruce only hasn’t died yet because of Alfred and Tim. Because Bruce had people making it their entire job to drag him back from the edge, even with him kicking and screaming the whole way. Jason doesn’t know much, but he’s done enough poking around after the Pit rage finally receded enough for him to actually think straight to figure that out. Even if no one else wants to acknowledge it.

Fact: Tim is alone. Sure, he works with the bats and still sends reports to Oracle sometimes, but most of the time he patrols alone. He doesn’t have the Titans anymore, as far as Jason’s aware, and he’s clearly distanced himself from Bruce and the rest of the batclan.

Fact: Tim tried to take a bullet for Jason tonight.

As Jason looks at Tim’s face, he can’t help but see some of the same desperation, the same bone deep, soul deep exhaustion that had dragged at Catherine. And he can’t help but wonder if Tim’s already shattered too.

The thought terrifies Jason.

“Okay,” he sighs before straightening up. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. You go shower while I find you some clothes, and then we’re going to eat and get some actual sleep. The rest of this can all wait until morning.”

Tim blinks at him, expression hovering between fear and resignation, voice quiet as he asks “What… what about the body?”

Even though he’d been half expecting it, the question is still sort of surreal to hear out loud. Jason had honestly never thought the day would come when one of the bats would come to him about how to deal with a corpse, and if one ever did, he figured it’d probably be the gremlin or maybe the purple menace. Definitely not the Replacement. But Jason’s very quickly realizing that Tim’s full of surprises.

“We’ll leave it. When you give your report to Oracle just say that I killed him. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.” Jason shrugs, trying not to let his unease show through.

Here’s the thing. The Bats would believe it. They know Jason hasn’t stopped killing despite his switch to rubber bullets and uneasy cooperation. They probably wouldn’t even investigate the body any further if Tim told them Jason did it. Wouldn’t ever see the suspicious wounds under the corpse’s clothes that have no right to be there.

It’s not that he needs Batman’s approval to validate his life, but despite everything, the threat of Arkham still weighs on him enough that he catches himself wondering if this is the kill, if this is the act that will drive the batclan to lock him back up again, this time without a dead Bruce and a Tim desperate enough to break him out.

He’s more than willing to take the fall for Tim though. Although he’s ninety-four percent sure that Bruce wouldn’t kick Tim out of the family for it, he can still definitely see why Tim’s freaking out at the thought of him finding out. Bruce has always seemed to hold Tim to a higher standard than the rest of them, though god only knows why. Sure Tim’s quiet and reserved and acts more mature than the rest of them put together sometimes, but Jason’s seen the kid decide it was a good idea to try and stuff thirty-seven marshmallows in his mouth, or do a kickflip on the top of a fifteen story building in his civvies and nearly plunge off the side. Tim’s just a dumb kid who had to grow up too fast just like the rest of them.

Granted, a kid who apparently managed to hide the fact that he’s a meta from Batman for five years, but still. Just a kid.

And despite everything, he’s a kid that Jason can tentatively say he likes. If it weren’t for the massive amounts of awkwardness that beating him into the ground twice caused between them, Jason’s pretty sure they would have become friends– brothers even– long ago.

Tim’s smart and snarky and isn’t even afraid of calling Jason out on his bullshit these days, which is just as annoying as it is a relief. He’s also one of the only people who actually laughs at Jason’s gallows humor, unlike Dick and Bruce who just flinch. So Jason’ll take the fall for him, and won’t even hang it over Tim’s head for the rest of eternity. Probably.

“...Okay.” Tim sounds exhausted, which probably explains why he’s not putting up more of a fight about the lie right now. A completely lucid Tim would probably be nitpicking at all the evidence that’s left in the warehouse that doesn’t collaborate perfectly with the alibi and generally being a pain in the ass, but tired Tim clearly doesn’t have the same hangups.

Which is fantastic for Jason, because there’s no way in hell he has the energy to argue Tim into letting it go, and even less of a chance that he’d actually go back to the warehouse at this point to fix all the discrepancies.

As it is, he barely has it in him to make sure Tim eats some reheated curry after they shower and force him into taking the bed before Jason’s crashing on the probably-still-bloody couch. He’s out within seconds.

Chapter Text

“So. Give me the rundown.”

Tim glowers silently at Jason over a half-eaten stack of pancakes, and Jason stares back evenly, mentally gathering every scrap of patience he has. It’s become obvious that disassociating Tim had left some time during his five hour nap, and been replaced with, ironically, sleep deprived Tim, which is the worst version of Tim, in Jason’s opinion. Lucid Tim is snarky and overconfident and comes up with the most certifiably insane ideas, ideas that not even actually, clinically, Lazarus Pit insane Jason could have come up with, but at least he feels like an actual teenager. Lucid Tim is stupid and reckless and completely, reassuringly normal, but sleep deprived Tim is decidedly not.

Well. He’s still stupid and reckless, and also definitely insane, but unlike lucid Tim, sleep deprived Tim doesn’t have the mental capacity to maintain the self-restraint that all Bats have to possess to keep from being instantly admitted to a psych ward. Which is why Jason woke up this morning to find Tim, still wearing Jason’s definitely way-too-big-for-Tim clothes, trying to climb out the window that doesn’t lead out onto a fire escape, with a reusable grocery bag containing his Red Robin gear slung over one shoulder. With no shoes on.

Tim even had the audacity to swear at him when Jason pulled him back into the apartment away from certain death, and only really poked at the absolutely amazing pancakes that Jason made. It’s Alfred’s recipe for pancakes. You just don’t not eat Alfred’s pancakes.

Like he said. Fucking insane.

The other thing about sleep deprived Tim that Jason absolutely hates is the fact that he seems to function entirely off of spite. At least lucid Tim has coffee. But Jason only managed to find two stale tea bags, leaving Tim without caffeine, and at this rate Jason is seriously considering running to McDonalds just to get him some before continuing this conversation. He’s not right now only because he doesn’t want to have to drag Tim with him, and doesn’t trust Tim not to disappear the moment he takes his eyes off of him. And Jason isn’t letting him get out of this conversation that easily.

Not that this conversation is happening at all right now. Tim’s given him about three words since sitting down at the table, and two of them were a very begrudging thank you as Jason handed him the plate of pancakes. Lucid Tim might at the very least respect the fact that Jason gave up a safe house to get Tim out of there and throw him some information, but a sleep deprived Tim means a spiteful Tim who will do absolutely everything he can to fuck Jason over just on principle. Which means giving Jason the silent treatment.

Did Jason mention just how much he hates this version of Tim?

But whatever. It’s not like Jason wasn’t also trained under Batman, the man who could out-brood a thunderstorm and would try the patience of a fucking tree. Bruce practically patented the silent treatment. Jason can totally wait him out.

“Look Tim, either you tell me what the hell that was about last night, or I’m calling Dick in.”

Can wait him out, not will. Look, he's a busy guy. Crime lording’s a full time gig, what with all the meetings he has to go to and emails he has to write. Why did Talia not warn him that ninety percent of the job was just communication and making sure no one did anything too outrageously stupid? Of course, he’s starting to think that the second one is a lost cause, between all his men playing keep away with their one remaining collective brain cell and Tim’s shit now hurtling into his life.

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me what happened last night, you were there too.” Oh, Tim’s grouchy now too. That’s fun.

Jason takes a moment to mentally count down from ten before forcing out in an even voice, “You know what I’m talking about. How long have you known you were a meta?”

“Why do you care?” Tim snaps back, and really, did Jason mention just how much he fucking hates sleep deprived Tim?

“I don’t know, maybe because I actually fucking care about you?!”

No. Stop. Raising voice bad. Jason forces his shoulders to drop back down again and leans back in his chair. Focus. He has to get this right, or Tim will fuck off and die because there’s no one there to fucking help him out anymore, and Jason can’t tell if it’s because he won’t let them or they just haven’t realized that he needs it.

“Sorry. Tim, I– Look. You don’t have to tell me anything. I can make some guesses and maybe it really doesn’t feel like I should care, but I do.” Jason’s not entirely sure where he’s going with this, but Tim isn’t looking any more hostile so he’s just going to roll with it. And maybe Tim has already forgiven him, but it doesn’t feel right to try to help him without first acknowledging Jason’s own part in Tim’s many many problems.

“I’m sorry for snapping, and I’m– I’m sorry for trying to kill you twice, and blaming things on you that weren’t your fault, and being kind of a dick to you in general. But I do care about what happens to you, and if I know what your abilities are, I can at least have your back with these things. You know I’m not going to run to Bruce about it or anything.”

And if he knows what’s happening, it will make it easier to find ways to give Tim support and make sure he doesn’t passively conduct his own suicide, since there’s really no good way to directly talk to Tim about actual healthy coping mechanisms. If he suggests professional help, Tim will probably never trust him again, because Bruce set the standard for how to view therapists in this messed up family: with extreme suspicion and from at least a few miles away. Unless the professional is Harley Quinn, in which case it’s with extreme suspicion and a couple dozen extra batarangs.

Either way, it’s really fucking unhelpful when dealing with mental issues like depression and suicidal thoughts that someone with actual training could actually help with. Really, really just fuck Bruce.

Or throw him in therapy. Doubles as both maybe an actual solution in the long term and torture for the short term. But that’s a thought for another day.

“I realized it when I was nine.” Tim’s words are so soft Jason almost misses them in the midst of his musings.

“What I told you last night was– it wasn’t everything. I can steal injuries, yeah, but I can also kind of… sense where people are hurt, I guess. When I touch someone, I feel what’s wrong. That’s actually how I figured out that Bruce is Batman. And how I learned that this wasn’t exactly a normal thing. I went to a gala and shook Bruce’s hand and immediately threw up all over his shoes from the pain of it.” Tim laughs, and it isn’t a happy sound. “I’ve learned how to block it out better now, but– yeah. Anyway, a lot of the injuries were in the same exact places where I knew Batman had been hurt, and everything just kind of fell into place after that. I knew I couldn’t be normal, because otherwise everyone would have figured out that Bruce Wayne is Batman by now, so it had to just be a me thing.”

Jason’s stuck trying to wrap his mind around the idea of tiny nine year old Tim believing that having a clearly meta ability is somehow fucking normal, and just what kind of shitty people his parents would have to be for him to not even be able to ask them– hell, for them not to just notice it– but Tim keeps plowing onward.

“I found out the whole quadruple flip thing afterwards, when I was searching for additional evidence. I guess the first time I realized I stole an injury was when– when my mom had a bruise on her face and she grabbed me and– well, it was pretty obvious what had happened. Everything else just kind of snowballed from there.”

“And what you did last night?” Jason keeps his voice level, calm. Maybe even a little bored. He kind of wants to scream right now over all the fucking awful implications about the information that Tim’s casually dropping, but there’s nothing that will scare Tim away faster than even a suggestion of pity.

Tim hesitates. Jason can practically hear the cogs turning in his head, running the calculations, the cost-benefit analyses of telling the truth, of lying. Trying to figure out how much Jason might know, and how much he might have guessed.

“That– that was something new,” he says finally, reluctance heavy in his tone. Jason nearly does a spit-take at the honesty. “I didn’t know that would– would kill him. I just couldn’t let him kill you.”

Well. That’s. That’s something.

Jason’s just going to not deal with the implications behind ‘I couldn’t let him kill you’ and the weird feelings that are happening in his chest right now. Emotions: shelved. Bam. See, he can compartmentalize with the best of them.

“Thanks for not letting him kill me, babybird.” His voice is dry and steady, but clearly he can’t quite keep the sentiment out of his expression because one look at it and Tim freezes for a second before softening.

“I do actually like you being alive, you know.”

Okay.

Oooooookay. Wow.

Jason blinks rapidly at the stinging in his eyes, trying to ignore the sudden lump in his throat. No. He’s not going to cry. He’s compartmentalizing, dammit. It’s so stupid that he’s getting choked up over something as basic as someone liking him not being dead in the ground.

It’s– It’s just that. It’s just that Jason can’t really remember the last time someone actually said that to him. Sure, Bruce tried to make him feel welcome in his own emotionally constipated bat way, and Dick practically smothered him in physical affection, but neither of them are great with words. Dick’s a whole lot better than all of them put together, but even he tends to do better showing care through actions instead. Alfred might have said it when he first came back, but it’s been years since then. Kory and Roy are great, but they don’t tend to go there, and they just aren’t around all the time.

Jason knows there are people that appreciate him, he does, but just hearing it out loud is– it’s a lot.

Clearing his throat, Jason swallows down the sob building in his chest before pushing onward.

“I appreciate it, but you know we have to talk about the fact that you were willing to die, right?”

The tension comes rushing back into Tim’s shoulders all at once and he shoots up in his seat.

“What– wait, what?! Jason, I’m not suicidal.” His tone suggests that this should be obvious, that Jason is being stupid for even thinking about it, but Jason can’t help but see the way Tim’s hands tremble ever so slightly on the table. He must have been silent for too long, because Tim’s eyes narrow, scanning his face for… something, Jason’s not sure what, before he sits back with a huff, arms crossed.

“Seriously Jason, I can’t believe you’re the one bringing this up to me out of everyone. People in this business die. Like all the time. You can’t be here without accepting that risk. You know that.”

“Of course I fucking know that babybird, but you can’t tell me you didn’t know you were going to die when you took that bullet for me.”

Tim shoots to his feet.

“He was going to kill you Jason! I wasn’t thinking about me dying, I wasn’t thinking about anything! That’s the point! And wasn’t it better that I took that bullet rather than you? I at least knew I had a chance of surviving. You didn’t. And even if I didn’t survive it’s not like–”

Tim cuts himself off sharply, eyes darting away from Jason for a moment before he flops back into his chair with a sigh.

“Look. I get that it looks bad, but it’s fine. I’m fine. It wasn’t my intention to die, and I don’t particularly plan to kill myself off any time soon either. I’m fine.”

Despite Tim’s insistence, Jason’s really starting to get the feeling that Tim is the farthest fucking thing from fine.

“Even if you’re not actively trying to kill yourself, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t passively waiting to die,” he points out coolly, and Tim’s eyes shoot back up to meet Jason’s, all the fight rushing right back in.

“You think I don’t know that?!” Tim’s voice cracks with the sudden volume. “You think I don’t know about passive suicidal ideation when I was the one who took care of Bruce after you died?! You think I don’t know about wanting to die? My mom died, and my dad died, and my step mom died, and my girlfriend died, and two of my best friends died, and Bruce died, and I lost Robin, and the whole hero community thought I was crazy, and Dick thought I was crazy, and I thought I was crazy and you don’t think I know what suicidal feels like?! Because trust me Jason, I do. So when I say I’m fine, that means I know I’m fine. I’m better now than I have been in almost a year. So fuck you. Fuck you, Jason.”

Yeah, Jason’s definitely the least qualified person ever to deal with this shit. Honestly, he’s stuck somewhere between being impressed by Tim’s sheer guts for making that argument and horrified by everything he just said.

“Alright,” he says placatingly, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’m glad you’re doing better. And I can’t exactly condemn functioning through a suicidal attitude. But I can say from experience that just because you’re doing better doesn’t mean you’re doing good.”

Tim opens his mouth, no doubt to argue, but Jason cuts him off.

“Look, I meant it when I said I want to have your back with these things. With the whole… meta thing,” and wow that's still weird to think about. “But also with just Red Robin shit. With Tim shit. Let me help you. Not because I don’t think you’re perfectly capable of handling yourself, which you clearly are,” he hurries to clarify. “But because sometimes it’s easier to have support.”

Tim’s silent for a long moment, and Jason holds his breath, waiting. There’s about a fifty-fifty chance Tim still rejects him just on principle, but there also isn’t the fighting gleam in Tim’s eyes anymore. He just looks… tired. Exhausted in a way that no one should really be, let alone a teenager.

Finally Tim says “No killing.”

Jason nods sharply, shoving down the spark of optimism that lit at the words. It’s not an agreement yet.

“No Bruce.” Tim continues and Jason nods again.

“No Dick. Or Damian.”

Jason scoffs. “When have I ever hung out with the Demon Brat?”

Tim glares. “No Dick.”

“No Dick.” Jason repeats reassuringly, and Tim slumps.

“Okay,” he breathes, so quiet that Jason senses the word more than he hears it. “Okay.”

“Okay?” parrots Jason, hope blooming warm in his chest.

“Okay,” Tim says louder. More confidently. “We’ll work together. You’ll make sure I don’t off myself or whatever, and I get free backup.”

“Yup.” Jason says, popping the ‘p’ cheerfully. Holy fuck he might have actually done it.

“And since you’re now committed to making sure I don't die, you’re going to take me to get coffee.” The little gremlin has the audacity to smirk at him. Part of Jason takes offense at the bossy tone, but most of him is too busy being relieved at seeing normal Tim behavior to even care.

“One disgusting McDonald’s coffee coming right up, your highness,” he snarks back, and the smirk blooms into a full on grin.

Jason’s certain that this won’t be the end of it. He hasn’t forgotten about what Tim said about his past suicidal mindset, or the way he cut himself off in middle of what was probably an explanation of why it wouldn’t be as bad for Tim to die as Jason, or the aching tiredness that still lurks in Tim’s eyes. They haven’t even really addressed the dead body that led them here in the first place, and Jason can’t tell whether it just hasn’t hit Tim yet properly or if he’s intentionally ignoring it.

But when he does finally have a crisis over it, Jason will be there. He’ll be there to fend off the lectures from Bruce, the worried looks from Dick, the scathing comments from Damian if they find out. He won’t let Tim die, won’t let him be dragged back down to the place he was a year ago, at least not without a fight. And Jason can put up a hell of a fight.