Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s nothing Jason hates more than a scumbag with a bomb.

“Found it yet, Hood? ” Oracle says. The tinny sound of her typing seems to beat upon the backs of Jason’s eyelids.

“Nope,” He grumbles back. There’s a pistol in one of his hands, an arm-length blade in the other. He stalks through the dim hallway on silent feet, squinting as the fluorescent lights overhead flicker sporadically. “You’ll be the first to know when I do.”

Oracle makes a quiet, displeased sound. “ Nightwing, any civilians left in the building?”

“Not unless they’re very stupid or sneaky! ” Nightwing replies. There’s a faint windy feedback on his end; he’s outside. That’s slightly relieving, even if Jason would never admit it aloud. “ All civvies accounted for and out of the boom-boom zone. Got the Bat here with me too. ”

“Perfect. Stay out – that means you too, Batman. I don’t want anyone nearby until we’ve located this thing. ”

“Noted. ” Bruce somehow manages to sound petulant with a single word.

Oracle scoffs. “Don’t make me sic my dad on you. Robin? Any sign of anything? ”

“I– ” Tim’s voice comes in heavily crackly. “I think I’m a little lost. Followed some of the wires and shit into the basement, and it looks like they’ve got a system of tunnels down here. Freaky stuff. ”

“Well, nothing better for a bomb search than a sprawling expanse of tunnels! What are the chances of finding it down there? ” Oracle asks. 

“Uh, I’m not– ” Tim’s voice fades into static. “–this shit everywhere. It just keeps going. ”

“You’re cutting out,” Jason says, poking his head around another corner. Deserted. If he doesn’t get to shoot a guy within the next five minutes, he’s going to start getting antsy. He might shoot Dick just to take the edge off. “Repeat what you just said.”

“Sorry. I said that the wires and shit are everywhere. I keep expecting to find the bomb, but the wires just keep going. It’s weird. ”

“I don’t like the sound of this ,” Bruce grumbles. “ Robin, Hood, abandon mission. Find the nearest exit and meet Nightwing on the rooftop. I’ll go in there myself. ”

“Fat chance, old man!” Jason says, overlapping with Tim’s worried, “ I don’t think I can get out! These tunnels go on forever! ”

“Bat, stay where you are. I mean it. ” Oracle types furiously for a couple more seconds. “Bomb squad should be here soon. The baddies have probably already fucked off. Just get out, guys. I don’t think it’s worth it. Hood, see if you can– ”

“Wait! ” Tim’s voice is tight. “Wait, guys. Fuck. Fuck.” A beat. “Fuck! ”

“Not what I like to hear, ” Oracle replies. “What’s wrong? ”

“I just tore out part of the ceiling. There are wires everywhere. Like veins, almost. They’re connected to these little bundles. ” Tim pauses. “This isn’t just one bomb, guys. This whole building is rigged to blow. ”

“What ?” Bruce says. 

“Fuck,” Oracle says. 

Scratch that. There’s nothing Jason hates more than a scumbag with hundreds of bombs.

“Abandon mission. I need both of you out of this building, ” Bruce orders. “Now .”

“Robin, I’m coming to find you. Stay where you are.” Jason breaks into a jog, stealth be damned. He’d rather have some bad guy hear him coming than be blown to smithereens. Again. “Are you still in the basement?”

“Hood, no, ” Batman growls. “I can find Robin. ”

Jason swings open a heavy door, revealing a spiral staircase. The old metal whines as he sets his weight on it. “Too late, already descending. I’ll be in and out in no time.”

“The lights are flickering. Fuck this, ” Tim says. “I’m getting the fuck out of– ”

His voice cuts off abruptly with the distinctive sound of a weapon hitting flesh. Tim gasps, cries out, and another blow lands with enough force to make Jason wince. Deserted building, my ass! “Back off! ” Tim shrieks to his assailant. “You piece of shit— “

His line goes dead silent. 

Jason breaks into a sprint. 

It’s been a few months since the whole seven-layer-dip-of-fear-toxin shit went down, and things have been… peaceful. Jason still holds most of the bats at arm’s length, but he’s managed to keep his weekly attendance to Sunday breakfast and can make it through a patrol with Nightwing without wanting to drive a fist through his face. He’s cordial with Bruce, hesitantly affectionate with Alfred, and Oracle is in his ear more often than not, even on nights he patrols alone.

His relationship with Tim in particular, though, is almost what Jason would call good . He’s loath to call them friends, because that’s a dangerous word Jason always tries to avoid,  but there’s a certain level of comfort between them that he can’t pass off as surface-level politeness. His little replacement is an odd creature, with a sharp intellect rivaled only by his complete inability to take care of himself, and he’s taken to gravitating into Jason’s orbit both in and out of costume. He’ll find Jason on patrols and stay nearby like a brightly-coloured shadow, come knocking on his safehouse doors when Dick or Bruce are bothering him, and once crashed on his couch when he was too tired to make his way back to the manor after a late-night mission. Jason often finds himself wishing Tim had enough fat on his scrawny body to be able to scruff him by the back of the neck every time he does something dangerous. The kid wouldn’t know a survival instinct if it smacked him right in the face. 

The stairs fly by in a gray blur, and Jason finds himself shooting through identical hallways like a bullet. He curses into his helmet. This kid would be dead if it wasn’t for me. 

The kid will be dead in a few minutes if Jason can’t get to him in time. They’ll both be dead if building erupts around them and vaporizes them. 

Jesus, Jason fucking hates bombs.

He turns a corner and catches the tail-end of a dark shadow disappearing around the far bend of the hall. He raises his pistol and is about to shoot when his eyes land on the brightly-coloured heap crumpled against the wall. “Shit!” Jason looks up. The shadow is long gone. “Damn it. Tim!” 

He falls to his knees at Tim’s side and tugs him onto his back. Tim moans, stiff as a board, and his legs kick weakly as Jason maneuvers him into his arms. “Someone get you, Birdie?” He chuckles nervously, hefting Tim into the air. Jesus, someone has to feed this kid a cheeseburger. “Eh? Tim?” He curls his hand against the kid’s forehead and flicks a piece of hair away. Tim’s got the domino mask on; Jason can’t tell if his eyes are open or not. His nose is gushing blood. When Jason jostles him lightly, his head lolls back and another moan escapes his lips. “You with me, kid?” 

“He—“ Tim shudders. A broken half of his bo staff slips from his limp fingers and clatters to the ground.  “He slammed me into the wall. I think my ribs are broken.” 

Given his incessant trembling and the raggedness of his breathing, Tim’s probably right. He needs a painkiller and a still, even place to lay down, stat . So far he’s only got Jason, who for all he tries can’t quite manage to sprint back down the hall without jiggling him with each step. Sorry, Timmy. I’ll owe you some nice espresso beans after this. 

“—Report! ” Oracle’s voice cuts in so abruptly it makes Jason start. “Hood! Robin! Can you hear me? ” 

“Yes!” Jason huffs. “The service is garbage down here. I’ve got Robin and am trying to find my way back up to the stairs. Have the car ready when we get out; kid’s got a few broken ribs, a bloody nose, and probably a concussion to boot.” 

“Is he conscious? ” Bruce asks.

Jason steals a glimpse at Tim. He’s got his face pressed into Jason’s bicep, expression pinched in pain. “Sort of. You’d better have a painkiller ready for him when we get out.” 

Nobody responds; Jason takes that to mean that the signal’s gone out again. Wonderful. He can only hope they heard most of what he said. “Fuck these tunnels, man.” Jason whips around another corner and sees nothing but another hallway stretching out before him, identical to the one from which he’d just come. “Any idea where we are, Timbers?” 

Tim weakly lifts his head from the ever-growing patch of damp bloodiness soaking through Jason’s sleeve. “I don’t feel well,” he mumbles.

“I can see that,” Jason says. “Any idea which direction to go in, though?” 

“Ow,” is Tim’s only reply, before his head lolls back once more. Jason wants to hit his head against the wall. Definitely concussed. 

“-ood! ” Jason’s earpiece roars to life again. The signal is too choppy to make out any of the words, but the stark terror in Bruce’s voice is enough to drop a pit in Jason’s stomach. “—Out — Jay — Blow— “

Blow. 

A rattling boom from above shakes the world around them. Survival instincts kick in, and Jason’s world narrows to the ground under his feet and the air whistling past his helmet. Nowhere to run. Bruce and Dick and Babs are still shrieking into his ear. Nowhere to hide. The building above him begins to roar. The lights flicker madly. Jason is lost, blind. He thinks Tim might be screaming too, now. Perhaps that’s just the blood pumping in his ears. Shit. Fuck. Fuck everything. 

He slides into a corner shoulder-first and drops to his knees, Tim pressed between him and the wall. The cacophony of noise around him rises to a maddening crescendo. “Tim!” He shrieks, though he knows he can’t hear him. “Hold on!”

The world implodes around them.

Consciousness comes back to Jason like a bat to the fucking head. He’s not sure how much time has passed, if any, but the world around him is now eerily silent. For one stomach-churning moment, Jason thinks he’s dead. Again. 

Tim coughs and begins to squirm. “Fuck.” 

Definitely not dead. Score. 

“Jesus Christ.” Jason sits back on his heels. His whole body is vibrating. He unlatches his helmet and practically rips it off, wiping the layer of sweat off his jaw with the back of his hand. “I hate this fucking job.” 

He glances around. The roof has caved in at either end of the tunnel they’re in, trapping them in an L-shaped section that can’t be more than twenty or thirty feet long. Half the fluorescent lights have gone out, dotting their impromptu bomb shelter with patches of shadow. There are no doors, no stairwells, no promising-looking holes that could lead up to higher floors. They’re trapped. Well and truly trapped. 

Tim shifts, breaking Jason’s thoughts with a pitiful whine. “Shit, sorry.” Jason pushes himself backwards and lets Tim collapse onto his back. “Birdie’s first bomb survival. How are those ribs?” 

“I don’t feel well,” Tim says, reaching up with one bloodied hand to pull uselessly at his domino mask. “I don’t feel well. I don’t—“

“Heard you the first time,” Jason says. He pulls a bottle of solvent from one of his pockets and helps Tim worry the mask off his face. His nose is still dripping blood, but it doesn’t immediately look broken. With so much blood covering the rest of Tim’s face and neck, it’s hard to gauge for any more injuries. Jason leans closer, grasping Tim’s chin with one hand. The skin is noticeably warm under his fingers. “Let me look at your pupils. Hold still.” 

Tim winces, eyes fluttering. His eyes look alright, to Jason’s surprise. A quick scan of his hairline doesn’t reveal any darkening bruises. He’s probably concussed, even if I can’t see it. Jason swallows a lump of anxiety. There’s no other explanation for how he’s acting. 

Then he sees it. A bruise, no bigger than Jason’s thumbnail, stamped into the side of Tim’s neck. There’s a pinprick in the middle of it. An injection mark. 

Jason goes cold. It must show on his face, for Tim frowns nervously. “What’s wrong?” 

“Did you get hit with something?” Jason peers closer at the mark. “I see a puncture mark.” 

“I don’t know. I barely saw the person; they just came up from behind and attacked me all at once.” Tim throws a hand over his eyes. “I feel really sick, though.” 

“Like concussion sick?”

“Everything sick.” Tim pulls at his bloody costume. “I’m hot.” 

Fear shoots through Jason’s stomach like a bullet. No. No. It can’t be. It can’t. He feels Tim’s forehead with a shaky hand. It’s hot. Plenty of things make you feverish. This means nothing.  He shrugs off his jacket and hands it to Tim, who immediately covers his bloodstained face with it. Jason holds back a snarl. Now I have to wash that. Thanks, little bastard. “Stay here. I’m going to try and get a hold of the bats before Bruce has a conniption.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Tim grumbles. 

It's a slight comfort that the sass hasn’t been knocked out of Tim, but Jason’s stomach is still a pit of roiling snakes as he jogs to the end of the tunnel and hefts himself up on a large piece of rebar that’s fallen through the ceiling. He hovers there for a moment, moving his head back and forth. He probably looks ridiculous, but he can’t bring himself to care. The last thing he needs is for Bruce to think he’s gotten himself and his precious little Robin blown up right as things are starting to go somewhat well between them. He couldn’t deal with the smothering. Or the anger. 

“Come on, you—“ Jason’s ear buzzes with static. He winces. “Hello? B?”

The static intensifies. If Jason listens closely enough, he thinks he can hear a voice cutting through the gray noise. “We’re alive!” He says for good measure. “We’re both okay! Sort of!” 

“Can you hear anyone?” Tim asks, still curled up on the floor. 

“A little, I think.” Jason hoists himself a little higher, inches away from thrusting his whole head through the ceiling. “Batman! Oracle! We’re okay!” 

“Hood! ” Oracle practically cries. “Jesus, my— building caved, and — bombs — still unexploded— “ 

She’s talking at the speed of light, undoubtedly relieved. Bruce’s deep voice slips in there too, but Jason can’t make out what he’s saying. Still, Jason’s chest grows lighter. They know they’re alive. 

“Jaso— Hood! ” Bruce says. “Are you injured?” 

“Nope. Still didn’t appreciate being blown up for a second time, though.” 

“How is Tim?”

As if on cue, Tim lurches up onto his knees and retches. The pit in Jason’s stomach grows deeper. “He just puked. Says he feels feverish. There’s a puncture wound in his neck.” 

“—antidotes on you? ”

“None. Let me check if Tim’s got any on him.” The name slips free before Jason can control it. If Bruce scolds him for it, the service is too bad to hear it. He darts back over to Tim and unclips his utility belt, sliding it off him before Tim can collapse back onto his stomach. “Don’t get puke on my jacket, Robin. You’ll regret it.” 

Tim lets out a shuddering groan. He’s visibly shaking. Jason rifles through the utility belt, but he doesn’t see any syringes. “Idiot,” he hisses. “Bruce got on your ass about not carrying antidotes around like a week ago.”

Tim makes a weird little motion that might be a shrug or might be a small seizure. Jason isn’t sure at this point. “I— I haven’t had time to synthesize them yet.” 

“Even with all those extra hours you spend not sleeping?” 

“Shut up.” Tim burps. It looks painful. “Fuck off.”

It’s not like having an antidote would be much use for this particular situation. If Tim’s been hit with the 48-hour fear toxin, then an antidote doesn’t even exist yet. It’s still in test tubes in the Cave, bubbling and changing colours and being entirely fucking useless. 

“Jason,” Tim murmurs. “I think I got hit with something.” 

“You’re like ten steps behind me, buddy. How do you feel? Is it familiar?”

“No.” Tim shakes his head. “It’s really hot in here. I feel sticky .” 

“That’d be the fever. A fever isn’t fatal, though, so that’s good.” 

Tim somehow goes whiter than he already is. “Is— is this how you felt when you got hit with the toxin?” 

Down to the unbearable fucking dampness. Jason shrugs weakly. “Lots of things make you feverish. Don’t jump to conclusions.” 

“Jason, if I’ve been hit, we need to—“ 

“You haven’t been hit.”

“But if I have—“ 

“You haven’t!” 

“How do you know?” 

“I just do!” Jason stands up and chucks Tim’s utility belt back to him. “Stay there. I’m going to talk to Bruce.” 

It takes a minute for the signal to connect, but Jason’s never been more relieved to hear Batman’s voice. “No antidotes,” he says shortly. “Tim’s got a fever.” 

“That child! ” Dick exclaims in the background. “He never has his fucking antidotes on him! ”

Jason’s glad Tim didn’t hear that. “Any chance this is fear toxin?” Bruce asks. “Your stuff?”

Your stuff. Of course that’s what they call it. “It better not be,” Jason snaps. “I’m not fucking dealing with that.” 

Going through a toxin trip of his own was hell on earth. Having to witness someone else’s trip while trapped under a dilapidated building without so much as running water or a painkiller? Unimaginable. The world wouldn’t be that cruelly ironic. It couldn’t be. 

Well. Jason swallows. Don’t kid yourself, Todd. 

“We won’t — hours,” Oracle says. “ Keep him calm — yourself too. The last thing — is for both of you to lose your marb—“ 

The line goes dead. “Well,” Jason calls to Tim. “Guess there’s nothing to do except wait to be rescued.” 

Tim raises a weak, bloody thumbs up. 

With any luck, they’ll be rescued well before any bullshit can come to fruition. 

Spoiler alert: the world is , in fact, that cruelly ironic. The world also sucks ass and hates Jason Peter Todd a whole lot in particular. Which is quite fair, to be honest, but that doesn’t mean Jason has to like it. 

“What? ” Jason clenches his fist to keep his voice level. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” 

“Half the bombs didn’t go off. It’s only because — shitty terrorist work that you and Tim weren’t crushed to bits.” Oracle says.

“How long is it going to take to disarm them? Tim’s getting worse by the minute. He hasn’t managed a coherent sentence in an hour and a half.” 

“That remains to be seen. We’re working as fast as we—”

Jason leans his head into the wall and purses his lips. “Not fast enough.”

“If we cut the wrong wire and – bombs go off, the piece of tunnel you guys are in will collapse under the rubble. Not taking any chances! ”

Bruce takes that moment to pipe in. “Stay calm, Jay. If Tim’s been hit — going to trust you to be the adult — him safe.” 

Jason lowers his voice to a whisper. “If he’s been hit, B, that means he’s about to enter the rage phase. I don’t have so much as a curtain to hide behind. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

“I trust you. I know you can keep both of you safe.” 

That’s Batman-speak for ‘Keep Tim safe at all costs even if it gets you hurt’. Again, that’s fair, but Jason still finds himself getting less and less fond of his situation as the minutes tick by. He wishes he at least had somewhere to store his weapons; the last thing an injured rage-high Timothy Drake needs is a loaded gun. 

Actually, in any other situation, that would be hilarious to witness. Just not when Jason is trapped alone with him in an underground chamber less than 40 square feet large.

“I’ll try, Batman,” Jason says, for that’s about as much as he can promise. It’s pathetic, but it’s true. 

“I trust you, Jay. You can do this.” 

The signal goes dead again. “Alright, Timbers. Looks like we’re stuck in here for the time being.” Jason hops off his rebar perch and walks to the corner that Tim’s been curled up in for the past couple hours. “Report. Tell me how you’re feeling.” 

Tim drags his arm off his face and fixes Jason with a spacey glare. “Bad,” he spits. “The same as I’ve been feeling for the past two hours .” 

Jason narrows his eyes. “I’m just trying to keep us on the same page.”

“Well, we are. Now leave me alone.” Tim laboriously curls onto his other side and presses his face into the wall. “I don’t even want to fucking look at you.”

Perhaps his rudeness would be comedic if it didn’t make Jason’s stomach lurch. Though his own memories of the fear toxin trip are fuzzy at best and nightmarish at worst, he does remember the slow, torturous descent into the red-hot, pulsing, all-encompassing fury of the toxin’s first stage. Tim had been a quiet, trembling lump of docility no more than twenty minutes ago — his sudden turn into aggression is uncharacteristic, but not all that unexpected. Jason’s gone through all this himself before, after all.

Shit. He’s really about to go through this again. 

“Fuck. Fuck my life.” Now Tim’s really starting to sound like Jason. “Fuck my fucking life .” 

“We’ll be rescued soon, birdy boy. The medbay’s going to be a much better place to ride this out,” Jason says. Preferably with me locked in my room upstairs under a pile of blankets.

“This was supposed to be a routine fucking patrol,” Tim hisses. “Piece of shit criminals. If I get my hands on them, I’ll–”

“Hey.” Jason nudges Tim’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. “No violent daydreams. Those are my thing.”

“ Fuck off! ” Tim twists and throws himself up with a grunt, catching his hands in the pockets and belt loops of Jason’s pants. The movement visibly pains him, but the agony of jostling broken ribs only seems to incense him further. “Fuck you!” He barks, pulling at Jason’s clothes as though he were trying to climb him. “I fucking hate you !”

It begins, Jason thinks ruefully. Tim’s weight against him throws him off balance, and his grip is tighter than Jason is expecting when he goes to pull him off. Tim actually shoots forward and bites Jason’s wrist the moment it’s in reach. “Fuck– Tim !” Jason tears his hand away. “Cut that out!” 

Tim’s only response is to drive his forehead into the soft part of Jason’s thigh, knocking him backwards. He falls to his ass, and in the moment it takes to regain his bearings, Tim is already on top of him, snarling so much he’s practically drooling, and clamping his hands down on the column of Jason’s throat.

“Get—“ Jason grabs him by both shoulders and shoves hard . “Get off!” 

Tim’s back hits the wall with a thud and he crumples, limp. Jason takes the chance to scramble backwards as far as he can go without cornering himself, raising a hand to the raised indents of Tim’s fingernails stamped into his throat. His instincts scream to reach for a weapon, the tiny blade hidden in his boot if nothing else, but he staves it off. Tim’s hardly 140 pounds soaking wet, has a few ribs that are bruised if not entirely broken, and doesn’t have so much as a bo staff to attack with. Jason could beat him in a fight with his eyes closed.

The hard part is going to be not killing him in the process of keeping himself safe.

Tim rises to his feet, shuddering, teeth clenched and bared. He looks like something straight out of Bruce’s nightmares — a ghoulish child in a bloody Robin suit, eyes so dark with anger it’s almost otherworldly. Tim’s never been touched by the Lazarus Pit, but you wouldn’t know it just by looking at him. That kind of rage doesn’t come all that easily to people like Tim. Good people. People who aren’t built for violence and violence alone.

“Coward!” Tim snarls. “Where’s all that bravado now? You didn’t hold back last time.” 

Jason holds his hands out in defense. “I’m not going to hurt you, Tim. You’re under the effects of a fear toxin.”

Tim’s features twist. He lunges with surprising speed and Jason has to duck out of the way of his leg as he goes to kick his stomach. “Red Hood’s found his heart! How fucking cute.” He lunges again, raking his nails down the side of Jason’s face as he sidesteps away. “Come on, big brother! Don’t you want to put your replacement in his place? Don’t you want to take away every fucking thing in his life that he loves?”

His words feel uncomfortably familiar. “No, I don’t. We’re not enemies. I don’t hate you, and you don’t hate me.” 

Tim laughs. It’s icy. “Trying to convince yourself of that?”

The instinct to go for a weapon washes over Jason once more. Not to attack, though. To protect himself. The realization is as stark as it is unpleasant. “I know we’ve had our differences, but—“ 

“Differences?” Tim starts to stalk around, switching directions whenever Jason gets too far away. “Is that what we’re calling them nowadays? Differences? ” 

It’s like I’m being circled by a rabid raccoon, Jason thinks, and the thought isn’t as funny as he thinks it’s going to be. He wants to keep his mouth shut; anything he says is just going to provoke Tim even more. He may not be able to avoid the rage, but he can try to delay the worst of it as much as possible. “Me being an absolute piece of shit. Those differences, I mean.” 

“You don’t deserve a single thing you have right now.” Tim’s eyes narrow to slits. “You deserve to be in a fucking cell !”

“Yeah, probably!” Jason replies, because what else is he supposed to say? Defending himself is only going to make things worse.

He’s also not wrong, a nasty voice whispers in Jason’s ear. Don’t act like dear old daddy doesn’t have Arkham on speed dial for the day you lose your shit.

Tim dives for him once more, crashing into the wall when Jason ducks away. “You are a monster!” He screams. “You tried to kill me!” 

“And I apologized!” 

Tim jolts back as though he’s been shocked, eyes wide and mouth agape. Then a grin splits his face in two, exposing his bloodstained teeth. Jason’s blood goes cold. “Apologize?” Tim tips his head back and cackles. “You think you can apologize for the shit you’ve put me through?”

No. No I absolutely can’t. “I can try, Tim.”

All at once, the smile drops from Tim’s face. “You really are stupid. The only reason that nobody’s put you in another grave is because Batman would lose his shit if his darling little serial killer got blown to smithereens again.” He scoffs and lurches around, stumbling off in another direction. “What would we do then? Find another Robin to work their ass off to make sure the Big Bat doesn’t get himself killed?”

Jason swallows. Part of him wants to cover his ears. Part of him wants to knock Tim out cold. You’ll never stop proving Tim right, Todd. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll prove that to you and Batman as many times as I need to.”

Tim spits on the floor. “I tried so fucking hard. So. Fucking. Hard. And what did I get in return?” He spins around and drags a finger across his throat. “Not a fucking thank you, that’s for sure.”

“Thank you,” Jason blurts. “I was a piece of shit, Tim. I know. I know–”

“Shut up!” A line of bloody saliva trickles down the side of Tim’s jaw. “Shut your fucking mouth!”

Perhaps it’s gruesome to say that Jason is glad when Tim comes barreling towards him, fist raised and aimed straight for his face, but it’s the truth. I want my helmet, he thinks, letting Tim’s bony fist collide with his shoulder. I can’t listen to him anymore.

“I hate you!” Tim goes for his throat again, this time with his teeth, like he’s some sort of wild fucking animal. God, he practically is . “I hate your fucking guts! You ruined my life!”

Jason sticks his forearm in the way of Tim’s jaws and bites back a curse as Tim’s teeth sink into the leather. Apparently the Drakes are half fucking alligator. “I didn’t,” He grits out, yanking his arm away and forcing them both to the floor with a strong hand square on the center of Tim’s back. “Ruin anything for you. You have everything I want. You have Robin. You have a family.” 

“They only want me because of you! Because of your fuck-ups!” Tim hisses. His energy is leaving him by the second, but he’s always been someone who could run a mile on nothing but adrenaline. He throws his head back, narrowly avoiding Jason’s chin, and arches his back to avoid being forced to his knees. Jason catches him by one arm and throws him to the floor a little harder than he’d wanted to. There’s a familiar burning in his gut – Pit Rage. It feasts on his hurt like fire to dry tinder. From the look on Tim’s face, he can see it too. “Going green, Hood?” He asks, shaking with exhaustion. He’s smiling. Jason feels like he’s talking to a stranger. “Do it. Do it. Hurt me like you want to.”

Jason takes a careful step back. “No,” he says firmly. 

“Batman’s never going to kill the Joker. He’ll never fucking do it. Stop playing this stupid little game and clip Robin’s wings before you go soft.”

There are green flames licking up the back of Jason’s throat. “I’m not hurting you.”

“Hurt me! ” Tim bellows. “People only fucking care about me if I’m bleeding out!”

“You–” Jason turns and slams his fist into the wall. Don’t lose it, Hood. Don’t fucking lose it. That’s what he wants. He wants a fight. “That’s not true. You’re the son that Bruce Wayne wants, not me. Everyone loves you.”

“Then why is everyone in that fucking manor so obsessed with you? All you do is hurt them and hurt them and I am the one left to pick up the pieces.” Tim’s voice cracks. “I put myself through Hell for you guys! For you ! You were my fucking hero!”

Jason knocks him out cold with one blow to the head. He hopes it isn’t enough to concuss him.

The Pit mellows. 

“B?” Jason keeps his voice low. The last thing he needs is an angry Tim sneaking up on him while he’s got half of his head in the fucking ceiling. “Batman, come through. It’s Hood.”

Silence. Jason wants to tear his hair out. The one time he actually needs him, and he’s not even there. Go fucking figure. “B. Batman. Bruce.” Jason closes his eyes. “Piece of shit. Idiot. Bane of my fucking existence. Come through.” 

The radio hisses. A sliver of voice comes through, but Jason can’t tell who it is. “Rage phase has begun,” He says to no one in particular. “I repeat, rage phase has begun.”

“ -- is he?” A voice cuts in. “Are eith– you hurt?”

Jason exhales. “Dick?” 

"And balls. How are you holding up?”

“Where’s B?” 

“Bomb duty. It’s slow going, but–” Dick’s voice fades into crackling static. “The clos– easier it’ll be for the signal– pick us up–”

“Thank God,” Jason mutters. “Tim’s out. I don’t know when he’ll wake up again. I’ve probably only got another minute.”

Just to be sure, he glances furtively at Tim, who is still crumpled against the far wall. Looking at him for more than a few seconds gives Jason a headache. “ Out?” Dick asks. “ Is he okay?”

“Not exactly!” 

“You know what – mean, ass–”

“I had to knock him out. He was attacking me.” Jason pauses to let his shame sink in. “I’m trying to save my energy. I’ve got hours of this left, Dick. Hours.”  

Dick is silent for a moment. Just as Jason thinks the line’s gone dead, he speaks once more. “ Don’t hurt him. ”

The words hit Jason like a bucketful of ice water. “I won’t,” he forces out. “I’m just doing what I need to survive this.”

“I–” 

The line goes dead. Jason doesn’t wait around to see if the signal comes back. 

It’s hard to tell how much time passes. Without so much as a watch or sliver of sunlight to ground himself with, Jason is forced to rely on his timekeeping instincts, which are shit on a good day. He knows it’s been an hour at least, but the minutes blend into each other. For all Jason knows, they’ve been there all night. Or maybe only forty-five minutes have passed. It’s hard to tell. Not like Tim’s much help, either. Being stuck with a kid genius is worthless when the only emotions said kid genius is capable of feeling are violent rage and icy resentment. Honestly, Jason isn’t sure which state he hates more – it may be an exhausting nuisance to continuously defend himself against Tim’s vicious rage-fueled attacks, but at least he doesn’t fucking talk as much.

“I didn’t – I didn’t steal anything from you,” Tim slurs. He’s taken to pacing back and forth, steps unsteady and uneven. Hitting the wall only sends him staggering off in the other direction like a demented pinball. “You fucking died. I didn’t fucking know .”

This is possibly the thirtieth time he’s rattled off those lines. Jason nods silently from where he sits against a piece of rubble, one leg stretched out in front of him. His calf burns; Tim somehow got ahold of a piece of metal piping while Jason was distracted trying to talk to Dick over the radio and promptly went for his knees with it. He was too physically exhausted to do any permanent damage, but a pipe to the side of the leg hurts like a bitch no matter how scrawny and weak the pipe-bearer is. 

Safe to say, the Pit had not enjoyed the sound of a piece of metal dragging along a concrete floor. The twisted, torn-up remains of the pipe scattered at Jason’s side is proof enough of that.

Tim snarls through his teeth, flecking his lips with blood. “Dick wouldn’t do anything. He was going to let Bruce die. He was happy to sit back and fucking watch.”

“Dick likes to abscond when things make him uncomfortable,” Jason says. “Believe me, I know.”

“I’m just a kid!” Tim cries, slamming into the wall temple-first. He doesn’t even blink. “I’m just a kid! I’m so fucking tired!”

Jason closes his eyes. You and me both, Timbo.  

“My parents don’t even know where I am right now! They don’t even fucking care about me!” There’s the sound of something dull hitting the wall. Great, Jason thinks. Now he’s going to have bloody knuckles. 

“I hate them! I hate everyone!” Tim’s voice cracks. “I fucking hate everything!” 

He makes an odd little noise, half a choke and half a grunt, and that’s enough to get Jason to open his eyes. Tim’s bent over at the waist, leaned against one of the walls, face flushed dark red. His eyes are screwed tightly shut, his teeth all bared, and his shaking hands are fisted in his hair. It takes a moment for Jason to realize he’s pulling at the strands. “Hey!” Without thinking, he grabs one of the smaller pieces of scrap metal and chucks it at Tim. “Cut that out!”

The piece of metal hits Tim in the side. He whirls around, tearing his hands from his hair in the process. There are little clumps of black hair stuck between his fingers. “Fuck off!” He barks. “I don’t want to fucking talk to you!”

“Stop pulling out your hair then, asshole!” Jason snaps back. “The last thing you need is a god damn bald spot.”

Tim’s bloodshot eyes glitter dangerously. He brings a hand to his head, grabs a tuftful of his hair, and yanks with all his might. The force is enough to throw him sideways, but he doesn’t let go, even as strands start to audibly snap under his fingers. “Tim.” Jason rises to his feet. “Tim! Stop that!”

He reaches Tim in two long steps and grabs him by the forearm. Tim decides then that it’s a wonderful time to drive his free fist straight into his mouth. The sound of his knuckles hitting his teeth makes Jason wince. “Stop that, you little bastard!” He tries to wrangle Tim to his chest, but Tim seems to have gotten a second wind and squirms out of Jason’s grip. The moment his hands are free, they’re back at his face, tearing and hitting and scratching. It’s frightening. “Stop!” Jason cries. He grabs Tim by both wrists and twists him up against the wall. “You’ll gouge out your fucking eyes!”

Tim shrieks wordlessly. He looks like he’s just had a fistfight with an angry cat and lost. “Fuck you!” He thrashes wildly, kicking at Jason’s legs and stomach. “Get off of me!”

“Stop hurting yourself!” Jason yells. 

“Fuck off! I hate you!” Tim drops to his knees, dragging Jason down with him. Jason leans back and sits on Tim’s legs, pinning them to the ground. He has to let go of Tim’s wrists to keep himself from being thrown off, and Tim immediately goes back to clawing at his cheeks and neck as though the hounds of hell themselves are trapped under his skin.

“Stop it!” Jason bellows, grasping Tim’s face in both hands. Tim starts screaming, scratching at both his face and Jason’s with desperate frenziedness. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop! ”

Tim’s thumbnail catches in Jason’s lower lip and splits it open. Jason pitches sideways, spitting blood, and Tim uses the momentary distraction to land a solid kick to Jason’s stomach and send him crumpling to the ground entirely. Jason throws his arms over his head, expecting a hail of blows, but all he feels is Tim’s body scrambling out from under him and hitting the opposite wall. For a moment, there’s silence. There hasn’t been a moment of silence with Tim conscious in hours. 

Jason looks up. Tim is curled up against the opposite wall, drawn as tight as a wire, eyes wide and glassy with terror. 

Rage phase over. That’s a pyrrhic victory if there ever was one. Now onto the panic phase. 

Laboriously, Jason rolls to his feet. Tim lets out a strangled whimper and folds himself even smaller. That can’t feel good on his injured ribs, but terror can be a decent painkiller in the short term. It’s not like telling him to lay back down will do any good.

“You shouldn’t compress those ribs, Tim,” He says anyway, if only to lighten the weight bearing down on his chest. “It’ll hurt a lot more.”

Tim jolts like he’s just gotten a taser to the side. His eyes meet Jason’s, so wide they’re practically bulging. It looks as though he’s on the verge of speaking, but whatever he wants to say becomes caught in his throat. Jason raises an eyebrow. “What?”

The control Tim has over his shaky breathing seems tenuous. He inhales through his nose. “Hood, my— my parents have money. I promise they do.”

Jason pauses. “What?” He repeats, dumbfounded. 

“I don’t know how you know who I am, but it doesn’t matter. My parents have money. Batman has money. I have money.” He starts to pat his pockets. “I swear I do somewhere. I swear–”

“I don’t want your money. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

Promises mean fuck all; Jason, if anyone, should know that. But perhaps he’s a little more like Bruce than he’d like to be. Tim, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to take to his words either. “Please let me go,” he whispers. He looks smaller than he usually does. Without the sass and the sharpness and the genius wit, all that’s left of Timothy Drake is a frightened tenth grader who should be at home right now, arguing with Bruce over his sleep schedule or his absurd caffeine dependency. Instead he’s injured, stuck in a tunnel under piles of rubble and unexploded bombs, with a hellish concoction of artificial terror coursing through his veins. To make matters worse, Jason’s the only one there to keep him safe. Jason, who began their relationship with a violent ambush and has only recently stopped feeling a tingle of Pit-rage whenever Tim walks into a room. Wonderful. Fantastic. A certain recipe for disaster.

“I’m not trapping you here. We’re both stuck.” Jason motions around. “Bombs.”

Tim looks up at the ceiling, the flickering fluorescent lights, then at the rubble strewn around them. “Bombs?” He whispers. “Where?” 

“Above us. Batman’s trying to get us out. You’re safe, I promise.” 

Tim looks like he doesn’t quite know what to make of that. He’s currently biologically hardwired to be unable to calm down, so Jason guesses his comforts mean fuck all. “Please don’t hurt me, Hood.”

Jason presses his lips together. “I won’t.” 

“You can–” Tim coughs. Driving a fist into his face has sent another wave of fresh blood dribbling down his chin, and he wipes his tongue over his lips in an effort to clean some of the stickiness off. “You can have Robin back. It’s yours. I won’t fight you.”

“I don’t want it back. I’m not going to hurt you.” Jason feels a bit like a broken record.

“Please. Please, Hood.” Tim’s eyes fill with tears, then squeeze shut. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

Biting his tongue, Jason turns on his heel and walks over to where his helmet lays abandoned. His gun falls out of it as Jason picks it up – unloaded, as Jason made triple-sure of during one of Tim’s knock-out stints – but Jason promptly decides to leave it where it is when Tim lets out a shaking gasp. “It’s unloaded,” he says, though Tim looks no less terrified when he turns back around. “Look, Tim.” He holds out the helmet and takes a step forward. “I’m going to–”

“No!” Tim scrambles back, sliding along the wall. “Hood, please! You can have Robin back!”

Jason holds out the helmet. “I’m not going to hurt you, Tim. I just want–”

“Come on, man! You don’t have to do this!"

“Tim, just listen–”

“Please! ” Tim’s eyes fill with tears. “Jason, please don’t hurt me. Please!”

Jason stops where he stands, closes his eyes, and tries to breathe through the feeling of being punched in the gut. “Okay. Okay. Look.” He sets the helmet down between them. He’s not even sure Tim is actively breathing anymore. “It’s yours now. You can hold it, you can leave it there, you can kick it away, but it’s yours now. I won’t touch it.”

“Jason,” Tim whispers. “Jason, please. I don’t want to die.”

Is this what it feels like to have your heart break? “You’re not going to die, kid.” Jason says, stepping back. Putting distance between them seems to be the only thing that even marginally calms Tim down. Of course it does. My heart’s been broken before. “I’ll– I’ll keep you safe.”

His comforts fall on deaf ears. With one hand wrapped protectively around his battered chest, Tim scoots himself back until his back hits the corner between the wall and the mound of rubble blocking their way into the rest of the tunnel. His breathing is laboured, his fists balled in agony. One of the deep gauges Tim scratched into his cheek is bleeding, and he winces as a tear runs over the raw flesh. Despair flows from him like blood from an open wound. 

What a stark difference this is to the kid who let Jason crawl into his room in the middle of the night and apologize for his sins. Who hovers nearby on patrols and keeps Dick out of Jason’s favourite seat at the table so he can sit there during Sunday breakfasts. Who sat there for nearly forty-eight hours and let Jason drag him through Hell.

Maybe this is who he really is, the nasty voice whispers. And that kid was nothing but an act.

They sit in near silence for the next long while, curled in opposite corners. Seeing Tim so quiet is agonizing. After hours of hearing hours of his furious rambling, Jason had half-expected Tim to careen into his panic phase screaming like the devil. But Tim wears fear like he wears most every other emotion – silently. After all, what’s the point in screaming and crying if there’s no one around to hear you? Jason swallows a mouthful of bitterness. Or if screaming is only going to make them want to hurt you more?

A muffled boom from above them rattles the walls. The flights flicker madly for several seconds. Tim shrieks, claps a hand over his mouth, and quietly sobs into his bloody palm. 

“That’s Batman,” Jason murmurs, once he trusts his voice to remain steady. His upper lip is tingling, and his fingers feel cold. “He’s coming for us. I promise.”

Tim gives him no answer. The silence is about to drive Jason mad. He’d take Tim spitting insults over begging not to be hurt. Jason, please don't hurt me. Jason, I don’t want to die. 

Jason.

Jason. 

Jason. 

Not Hood, the sum of all his faults; not Robin, everything he was and could have been – just Jason. He’d begged Jason not to hurt him. Something about that left Jason with a deep ache in his chest. What would Bruce say, if he were here right now? Would he say anything at all, or would he just look over at Jason with those dark, all-knowing eyes and just shake his head?

Fuck. Jason had been okay with how things were going with the bats. Hell, he’d even been happy with it. He’d long since resigned himself to always being on the outskirts of the bats until he gave up his guns and his name, but meeting with them for patrols and Sunday breakfasts had become a part of his routine that he’d inwardly enjoyed. Tim was, admittedly, a good Robin. With his freakish memory and recon skills that would put a navy SEAL to shame, he probably was more useful to Bruce than Jason and his sub-par education could have ever been. For a little rich kid, he had a good heart too, even if he did do things like complain about the quality of his espresso beans and turn his nose up at hot dogs that had fallen onto the ground.

Seems like his good heart hasn’t gotten him anywhere good, Jason thinks miserably. Gotham chews good people up and spits them out cold.

Thump. One of Tim’s hands slides off his head and hits the ground. The other one, trapped between his body and his knees, hovers in mid-air, fingers now lax where they’d been tangled in his hair. His quiet crying has come to an end. When did he stop? “Tim?” Jason leans forward. Did he knock himself out from crying so much? “You okay?”

Tim, once again, offers no answer, but the silence that follows feels different somehow. It’s deeply unsettling. 

He’s still, Jason realizes, with a deep sense of foreboding. He’s not even moving.

Carefully, slowly, Jason pushes himself forward and shuffles until his knees are almost touching Tim’s. He knows that if the kid looks up and sees him so close, he’ll probably have a heart attack, but that’s a risk Jason is willing to take. “Tim?” He repeats at a whisper. “Tim. Come on.”

He nudges Tim’s head, still buried between his knees. His other hand comes loose and falls limply to the floor. Jason’s stomach drops even more. “Tim!” He nudges him again. And again. And again, harder this time. Tim slumps over entirely, hitting the floor with enough force to make Jason’s breath catch. He’s completely unresponsive. Jason takes him by both shoulders and shakes him roughly. He’s as limp as a ragdoll. “Tim! Timothy!”

Jason tears off his gloves and throws them aside. Tim is cold under his bare hands. Tim is cold and limp and he doesn’t so much as twitch when Jason cracks a palm straight across his face. “Tim!” Jason repeats, and he knows his voice is growing frantic. “Tim, wake up. It’s me. Open your eyes, kid. Come on.”

There’s hair falling in front of Tim’s face, stuck to his forehead and cheeks and temples by streaks of half-dried blood. Jason starts to wipe at them, a little madly, all the while his heart drums with terror in his chest. “Timothy Jackson Drake, you open your eyes this fucking instant. I mean it, you catatonic bastard.”

A memory comes to him then with all the delicacy of a speeding freight train. Three ways the catatonia phase can go. Jason’s own words ring between his ears like the tolling of a death knell. Sleep, stare at the ceiling, or die. 

“No.” Jason drops and presses his ear to Tim’s chest. “God, please. No .”

Silence. 

Time slows. Jason is half certain his own heart has come to a halt. No. No. This isn’t happening. He swings a leg up and straddles Tim’s chest, holding his face in both hands. His mouth hangs open. His eyes remain firmly shut. Jason is staring down at a corpse. 

Jason is fifteen again, choking on the stench of death, and nobody is coming to save him.

“Come on!” The first compression is so forceful that Jason feels Tim’s broken rib shift under the palms of his hands. He rears back, chest heaving, and takes a moment to breathe into his trembling fingers. “Come on, Robin. Don’t do this to me.” He sets his hands on Tim’s chest again, grasping at fuzzy memories of Bruce and the batcave and one of those stupid foam dummies he beat up Dick with with the second their first-aid lesson was done. “Come back to me, kid.”

One, two, three, four. No more ribs break, but they click under Jason’s palms with each compression. Click, click, click, click. Tim moves with the force of them, boneless. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Part of Jason wishes it were a bomb under his hands. Anything but this. Anything but this. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. He’s probably going too fast; he was never quite smart enough to remember all those songs Bruce said had the right tempo. He’d wanted Bruce to listen to them with him. They’d never gotten the chance to. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty…

“Come on, Tim.” A frantic chuckle bubbles out of Jason’s lungs. “You’re going to give me more of a tragic backstory? I’ll be fucking insufferable. It’ll be all your fault. Is that what you want?”

He realizes with a jolt that he’s lost count of his compressions and resists the urge to claw his own eyes out. “Fuck it!” He gasps. He dives forward, grasping Tim’s chin in one hand and his nose and the other, and breathes a mouthful of air into his lungs. Tim’s chest rises, falls, and rises again when Jason pushes another lungful of oxygen into his body. His mouth tastes like blood. His flesh is frigid. Jason’s whole body feels like it’s on fire. With metal on his lips and terror on his tongue, he starts the compressions again.

On the second round of compressions, Jason hears another rib crack. He doesn’t stop.

On the fourth round of compressions, Jason’s forearms start to burn. He ignores them.

On the eighth round of compressions, Jason’s eyes are filling with tears. When he goes to give a rescue breath, it comes out as a choke. He has no more air to give. 

No. No. Don’t fucking do this, Jason. Pull yourself together. Jason cracks an open palm across his face. His cheeks are wet. Bruce will never fucking forgive you if he dies.

He bears down on Tim’s chest once more, but his arms have turned to jelly. “Come on!” He screams, and his voice is hoarse. He can hardly hear himself. The world around him has become a cacophony of noise. “Come on!” 

A great force yanks him back and Jason goes sprawling. His back hits something warm, alive, but his eyes are trained on the massive shadow breezing by him and descending over Tim’s body. “No!” He shrieks, not thinking, his brain a whirlwind of pain and fear. He reaches for a knife, for a gun, for something with which to fight off the specter of death as it comes to tear his little brother from his undeserving hands, but his arms do not move when he wills them to. Jason realizes there is another pair of arms wrapped around him, pinning his own to his body. A shadow leans over his shoulder and presses itself into the crook of his neck. “It’s me, Jaybird,” A voice says, sounding far away. “It’s Dick. You’re okay. We’re here now.”

“You’re hurting him,” is what leaves Jason’s mouth. What remains of his strength leaves him, and he slumps hopelessly as he watches a long syringe disappear into Tim’s neck. “Don’t hurt him. Please.”

“We’re not. I promise.”

“He’s dead.” Jason’s throat closes. “He’s dead.”

“Shh.” The arms around him grow tighter. “Is he breathing yet, Bruce?”

The black shadow of Batman hovering over Tim doesn’t answer. A gloved hand reaches out and cups Tim’s face, tapping his cheek. “Come on, chum,” Bruce Wayne’s voice murmurs. “Come on. You’re okay. You’re okay now.”

“Oh, God.” Jason closes his eyes. He can’t stop the shaking. “He’s dead. He’s dead .”

“No, he’s not,” Nightwing whispers in his ear. “The antidote will start up his heart again. It has to.”

Another dark hand shoots out and grabs one of Tim’s limp ones, rubbing the back of his palm with a leathery thumb. “Come on, Tim. Come on. Please, come on.”

Tim seizes with a choked gasp. Nightwing cries out and buries his face in Jason’s back. “That’s my boy!” Batman breathes triumphantly, rubbing Tim’s chest as he coughs once, twice, and then inhales. 

Tim is alive. Tim is breathing. 

The next few minutes happen… blurrily. 

Batman and Nightwing shove Jason’s helmet on his head. Tim is breathing. 

Nightwing takes him by the arm and drags him up and out of the dilapidated building, ignoring the swarms of paramedics and concerned onlookers. Tim is breathing. 

They shove him into the Batmobile. Tim is breathing. 

They lose the crowds and the ambulances. Tim is breathing.

Alfred is waiting by the front door. Tim is breathing. 

They make it down to the medbay. Jason finds a chair by Tim’s bedside. Tim is breathing. 

Jason sits and watches him breathe. The rest of the room is a haze of motion and noise.

Tim is breathing. Tim is alive.

For some reason, Jason still feels like he’s sinking.

Chapter Text

Tim sleeps for the next two hours. 

Perhaps sleeps isn’t the right word. Tim exists for the next two hours – he breathes, he twitches, and the array of machines around him continue their steady, disjointed melody of beeps and clicks. There are pads on his chest connected to wires that hook up to some of those machines. Jason doesn’t know what they do, but he’s glad they’re there. He doesn’t trust Tim’s heart not to give out again, even as Dick tells him over and over that there isn’t actually anything wrong with it. The catatonia phase is merely caused by a temporary paralysis agent; as long as you survive it, it won’t leave the sufferer with any long-term effects. Tim was given the antidote before his brain could die from lack of oxygen, so he’ll basically be fine. Totally peachy.

Jason's not sure if there is anything left in his stomach, but he knows it'll be coming up pretty soon if there is. 

Things are quiet in the medical bay. Bruce, after ten minutes of pressuring, has gone to take a shower. Dick is curled up in the chair on the other side of Tim’s bed like a sad pretzel. Alfred moves around in the shadows, appearing only to take vitals and temperatures and wipe away the droplets of sweat that trickle down the sides of Tim’s face. It’s hard to remember the last time the kid looked this bad – his nose is broken, covered in shades of darkening reds and purples that stretch all the way up to the corners of Tim’s eyes. His bottom lip is split and swollen from when he struck himself. The gouge lines torn into his cheeks are red and inflamed, glistening with the dab of antibacterial gel Alfred had gently covered them with. He looks all the part of something someone would have pulled out of a pile of rubble. The lone survivor of some horrific natural disaster.

“Jason?” A gentle voice says. Jason starts violently, then turns to see Dick leaning over his shoulder. He hadn’t even noticed him rise from his place on the other side of Tim’s bed. “Why don’t you go upstairs for a bit? I’m sure Alfred and I can—“ 

“No,” Jason snaps. “I’m staying here.” 

Dick purses his lips together, but he relents, standing up and walking towards the med bay stairs. “You’ve got to rest, Jason. We all have to.” 

“I’m staying here.” 

“Stay here for a little while longer, but I want you going upstairs when Tim wakes up.” 

When Tim wakes up. Half of Jason madly, desperately wants Tim to wake up. Half of him fears it like he’s feared nothing before. Alfred had already broken the news to them, in somewhat gentle terms, that the antidote given to Tim would not be enough to stop the toxin in its tracks. Rather, it would only hasten the effects and run it out of his system faster. Though it is still an improvement to spending the next twelve hours with Tim under the influence, Jason’s stomach still turns whenever he thinks of what Tim might say or do when he’s conscious again. He grabs a chunk of Tim’s hair and tugs on it gently. “Who let his hair get so long? Bruce had like… mandatory fucking haircuts when I was around.” He drags his thumbnail over a clump of dried blood gluing several strands together. “Makes him look like an idiot.”

Dick takes a moment to answer. “Jason…”

“Would you stop saying my name like that?” Jason says icily. “I’m not the one unconscious in a fucking hospital bed right now.”

“Master Jason,” Alfred chastises in a low voice. “Master Dick is only trying to help.”

If I hear my name one more time in the next five minutes, I’m going to punch someone. Jason puts his face down into Tim’s mattress and pushes a sigh through his teeth. “Well, he’s not. So he can piss off.”

The silence that follows is thick and heavy with hurt. Dick’s footsteps draw away, up the stairs and out of the med bay. Alfred’s footsteps are silent as always, but Jason can tell when he turns away and melts back into the shadows. He knows he’s being cruel. When the world no longer feels like it’s crumbling around him and the sound of bomb explosions stop ringing in his ears, he’ll apologize to Dick and Alfred. He always comes crawling back at some point. That’s kind of his thing now, it seems.

Jason laces his sore fingers over the back of his neck and holds them there, letting the weight of his own grip ground him as the world fades into a quiet jumble of beeping and movement and steady breathing. The last twenty hours feel like a vague, blurry nightmare; perhaps if he thinks hard enough, he’ll wake up in his safehouse bed. Alone. 

Jason squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them. He’s still staring down at the med bay’s white sheets. It’s hard to tell whether he’s relieved or disappointed at that.

“Master Tim!” 

The sound of Alfred’s voice draws Jason’s head out of his arms. He blinks, eyes twinging momentarily at the sudden light. Tim is staring at him, gaping in shock.

“Hey,” Jason says quietly, and reaches out to brush the hair off Tim’s forehead. 

Tim screams like he’s just been shot.

The whole room erupts into chaos. Tim throws himself backwards off his hospital bed, tearing out every wire connected to his body in the process. The machines burst into a chorus of mechanical wailing. Alfred materializes from somewhere and rushes to Tim’s side just as Bruce and Dick barrel down the stairs. Everyone is yelling and talking over each other and all the while Jason can only stare because Tim’s eyes have never left him once, not even as he crumples to the floor and starts dragging his poor battered body backwards, kicking at anyone who tries to get near. “Hood,” he’s saying, over and over and over. “Hood, please. Please don’t do this.”

“Tim,” Jason replies, numbly. He takes a step forward. 

“Please!” Tim’s voice jumps a desperate octave. One of his arms lays limp in his lap; Jason briefly remembers the sound the thin wrist made as he shattered it in one deft twist. He’d wanted to make sure his replacement could never hold a grapple hook ever again. “Please, Hood. You don’t – it doesn’t have to be like this.”

Dick gently pushes Alfred aside and kneels beside Tim. “Come on, Tim. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He grabs him by both shoulders and tries to stop Tim’s movement, but Tim’s insistence to put as much space as he can between him and Jason is strong. He hardly seems to notice Dick is there at all. 

No. In his poor mind, it’s just him and Jason. He is alone, defenseless, and unarmed in the face of an attacker with no one around to save him. Jason suddenly feels like he’s just pressed unpause on the world’s worst movie.

“Tim. Timmy.” Dick grunts as Tim’s elbow collides with his sternum. “Just breathe. Come on, buddy.”

Tim’s head goes abruptly flying back as though he’s just been kicked in the face and he sprawls in Dick’s arms, gasping. He brings his hand to his broken nose and grasps it. “Please!” He repeats, and his voice catches on a sob. “Please!”

“What stage is this?” Jason hears Bruce ask Alfred in quiet, horrified awe. Tim jolts again, shrieking in pain, and curls into a ball with his hands curled over the top of his head. The phantom blows strike him without mercy again and again and again – one to the legs, one to the stomach, one to the ribs that leaves him breathless and gasping like a fish out of water. Dick’s given up on trying to snap Tim out of his horrific memories, but he stays curled up on the floor with him, one hand cushioning Tim’s head so he won’t crack his skull open on the med bay’s concrete floor.

“He’s regressing into past memories,” Alfred whispers back. He almost sounds defeated. “I believe he thinks he is back in Titans Tower.”

Bruce makes a hurt little noise. “God.”

They’re watching this. They’re all watching this. Jason lurches sideways, whacking his hip on the bed’s metal frame. Tim is still screaming, still trying to crawl away despite Dick’s best efforts to keep him stationary. There’s a new trickle of blood dribbling from his nose, and he spits flecks of blood onto himself with each desperate plea. They’re watching what I did to him.

A hand lands on Jason’s shoulder. Jason whirls around and shoves, blind with panic, and Bruce goes stumbling into one of the medical cabinets. “Jason,” he says, startled. “It’s alright, bud. I need you to–”

He reaches for him again. Jason ducks out of the way, twists mid-step and staggers backwards, hands raised. He wants a gun. He wants a weapon. He wants to get away. “Don’t. Don’t touch me. Get the hell away from me.”

Bruce lowers his hands in surrender. “Jason,” he says slowly. “Breathe. Breathe.”

Jason bares his teeth. “Shut up!”

“Master Jason–” Alfred starts.

“Everyone shut up!” Jason claps his hands over his ears. There are sparks flying under his skin. The stone walls of the med bay are inching in on him. His mouth tastes of bile and metal and green .

“Jason!” Dick whispers shrilly from behind him. “Please stop screaming–”

“Jason–”  

“Master Jason–”

“ Jason! ” Tim shrieks, and his voice reverberates against the med bay walls. “Jason, stop! Stop !”

Jason somehow makes it all the way up the stairs before he’s throwing up everything left in his stomach onto the manor’s hardwood floor.

I have to get out. That seems to be the only coherent thought he can manage. I have to get the fuck out of here. 

Jason stumbles out of the study, knocking books off shelves and papers off the desk as he fights the waves of roaring nausea, and takes off down the hall in a dizzying sprint. My helmet! He stops in his tracks with enough force to trip him over his own feet and send him slumping to the floor. His face feels naked, exposed. Where’s my fucking helmet? His thoughts seem to be coming a thousand miles per hour, and he can barely hold on to one long enough to make sense of it. Fuck the helmet. I have to get out of here! 

The stairs appear, pass by in a blur, and Jason practically tumbles down the last dozen of them as his knee collapses beneath him. When he rises to his feet once more, the world is spinning. Someone, somewhere, is screaming.

Jason mercilessly drives his fist into the shadow that dives in front of him when he goes for the front doors. The shadow gasps and hits the doors like a sack of dead weight, but they reach for him again too fast for Jason to be able to dodge. Two hands grab him by the side of the face and hold, hold him steady, even as he yanks himself backwards and winds up his fist for another blow. “Jay!” The shadow screams. Dick’s voice, Dick’s face melts out of the blur. “Jay, it’s me. It’s Dick. It’s just me.” 

“Let me go!” Jason screams. “I have to get the fuck out of here!” 

“No you don’t. You’re safe.” Dick spins him around and suddenly he’s holding Jason by his wrists and shoulder, maneuvering him back up the stairs. “Come on, buddy. Come on. We’re going to your bedroom.” 

He’s using his Nightwing voice, the I’m-talking-to-a-frightened-witness policeman voice Jason had always found particularly grating. Scowling, he rips himself out of Dick’s grip and goes to dart back down the staircase, but Dick merely wraps his arms around Jason’s waist and drags him back down the hall as though he doesn’t stand three inches shorter and forty pounds lighter than Jason. 

Maybe Jason’s simply a lot weaker than he realizes.

“Not a fucking chance you’re leaving this house,” Dick grits out. He’s practically pulling all of Jason’s weight now; Jason isn’t even sure if his knees would support him if Dick suddenly let go. “Just walk with me. I got you. I got you.” 

Together they stumble into Jason’s bedroom, and the moment Dick’s hands leave him, Jason collapses into bed. The moment his head hits the pillow, Dick is pulling the covers out from under him and crawling in between them, pressing himself to Jason’s side as though he’ll float away if not weighed down. “You’re okay, Jay,” he whispers, and Jason realizes his breath is coming ragged and his eyes are burning. “You’re okay. You did it. It’s over.” 

“ Fuck, ” is all Jason manages to say before his voice cracks. His veins are filled with fire ants and his lungs feel like they’ve been punched clean through with a hole puncher. Suddenly the blankets that cover him are too hot, too restrictive, and he kicks them off of him in a panicked frenzy. “I can’t breathe, Dick. I — I can’t—“ 

“You’re panicking. Just keep breathing through it.” Dick’s hands are on his face, his shoulders, carding through his hair. Jason can’t even muster the strength to push him away. He’s not even sure he’d want to even if he could. “You’re okay. Tim’s going to be alright.” 

A lump rises in Jason’s throat. He sobs once, claps a hand over his mouth, and feels the second one leak through his teeth with a strangled squeak. “Oh my god. Shit.” He gasps. The air has no oxygen. “Jesus fuck .” 

“Let it out. Let it out, Little Wing,” Dick croons.

The old nickname sends a jolt up Jason’s spine. Despite himself, Jason turns into Dick’s chest, tucking his arms close to him so Dick can envelop him in a hug. He feels like a child again, twelve years old and all alone in the world, reaching desperately for the warmest hand that won’t strike him. The next breath he draws in tastes of salt and guilt and grief. “He’s scared of me, Dick.”

“He’s not. He’s not,” Dick says into his hair. “It’s just the toxin speaking. You know that.” 

“He is!” Jason feels a rush of humiliation at how much his voice cracks. He’s a grown man; he’s the fucking Red Hood, but all he feels like right now is the sniveling child who slept curled up under his bed because it was the only place he felt safe. “He said— he said my fucking name !” 

“He’s sick. He’s sick, just like you were sick, and he didn’t mean anything he said.” Dick pulls him in tighter. “It’s okay, Jase. Tim loves you. He loves that you’re home. He loves that you’re here , with us.” 

No shit. Jason screws his eyes shut. That’s been his goal all along. 

Timothy Drake is nothing if not a martyr, and a damn good one at that. Jason should have probably been suspicious that Bruce wanted anything to do with him after Titans tower, but he’d been blinded by the rush of endorphins that his old man still cared and hadn’t given Tim’s opinion on the matter a second thought. Then he’d fucked it all up again with the fear toxin shit, but they’d actually talked it through, and Jason had actually let himself believe for a moment that he and his laundry list of sins been forgiven. 

“I’m an idiot.” Jason fists his hands in his hair. “I’m a fucking idiot.” 

“No, you’re not. Tim would have died down there if it wasn’t for you, you hear me?” Dick grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him away from his chest so he can look him in the eye. “You did well, Jason. I’m proud of you.”

“Fuck you, man.” Jason pulls himself back into Dick’s chest. “I had – I had to watch him die .”

“And you saved him. You kept his brain alive. I’m so glad you were there to help him.” 

“He died, Dick! Right there in front of me!” There’s a screaming child trapped under the surface of Jason’s skin, desperately clawing at the thin barrier of tissue. “I looked over and — and he was just limp , and cold , and it all happened so fucking fast —“ 

“I know, I know.” Dick’s hands are warm against his back. The column of his throat vibrates against Jason’s forehead as he speaks. “I’m sorry you had to go through that again.” 

Again. That’s the straw that shatters the camel’s spine. Jason finds himself heaving, gasping for air that never seems to come, uncaring of the pitiful noises leaving his mouth in his frenzy to get a mouthful of oxygen. He grasps at Dick like a drowning man, capturing his spindly ankles between his own and holding him in place as he weeps. Dick lets himself be crushed under the weight of Jason’s desperation, one hand in Jason’s hair and the other rubbing slow circles into his back, and Jason’s painfully reminded of why he once idolized his older sort-of-brother. “Fuck you, man,” he moans miserably. “Fuck this— fuck everything.”

“We’ll figure it out, bud.” Dick sounds like Bruce. Part of Jason hates him for that. “I just need you to breathe for now.” 

Jason grits his teeth, tasting salt on his tongue as his tears drip onto his lips. “I don’t— this doesn’t change anything. I still fucking hate you guys. I just—“ 

“That’s fine,” Dick says, lifting his head from Jason’s hair. “Don’t think about that shit right now. Just breathe.” 

How dare you, Jason wants to scream, but he’s shaking too much to do more than press more of his weight into Dick’s arms. How dare you see me like this. How dare you break me down to this. How dare you make me feel like a child again. 

The rage burns and burns and burns within him, but Jason feels nothing but cold. 

So he breathes. And he breathes. And he breathes.

It doesn’t help. Not one bit. 

“Gentle. Gentle, now.” Alfred helps guide Tim’s body back into the bed, then tucks a clean sheet over him. “He’s probably frightfully dizzy after all that.” 

“Probably,” Bruce murmurs. He’s loath to remove his hand from its place along the back of Tim’s head, where his fingers can gently card through the long strands of inky hair. He cups Tim’s face with his free hand and gently drums against his cheek. “Eh, chum? Feeling alright?” 

Tim’s eyelids flutter, and his tongue darts out and runs over his broken lips. “He’s not screaming anymore,” Bruce says. “Do you think he’ll be calmer when he wakes up?”

Alfred leans over with a damp cloth and starts dabbing away at the blood bubbling on Tim’s upper lip. “Perhaps,” he says softly. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. He isn’t running a fever yet.”

Bruce puts a hand on Tim’s forehead. The skin is clammy and cool; It’s a wonder Tim isn’t shivering. Perhaps he’s simply too exhausted to do anything except lay there. “Oh, Tim,” Bruce whispers, taking one of his pale, battered hands in one of his own. “I’m so sorry.” 

Things had been good up until that fateful bomb mission. Tim, if Bruce dared to say it without jinxing it, had seemed happy. Jason’s increasing presence around the manor excited him, and he was as sharp and tenacious as ever while out on patrol. He’d even been doing decently well at eating breakfast every day. Things with Tim are never what Bruce would call regular, but they were stable, and being stable is worth its weight in gold in Bruce’s humble opinion. Whatever keeps Tim smiling and sharp and poking his nose into the case files Bruce tries to hide from him in an attempt to coax him into bed. 

The Tim laid out on a sterile hospital bed, bruised and bloody and half-conscious, is the farthest thing from stable. 

Square one, my old friend. Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose when a headache blooms behind his eyes. “Do we know how Jason is?” 

“He’s upstairs with Master Dick,” Alfred says. “I’m sure we’d know by now if something had gone awry.”

Bruce nods. If there’s anyone he trusts Jason with, it’s Dick. “I have never seen him like that before, Alfred. Not even when he was the one under the effects of the toxin.”

Alfred pauses in his tracks. His face is set tight and withdrawn. “I can imagine that finding a loved one suddenly unresponsive is awfully unpleasant.” 

Bruce bites his tongue. His headache gets worse. “I more meant the — yes, that too.”

“Master Tim gave him a pretty nasty shock when he woke up as well. We should have prepared him more, given a warning that Master Tim might say or things he doesn’t mean.” Alfred sits down on the other side of Tim’s bed and wraps his hand around Tim’s skinny bicep. “It’s only natural that his mind regressed into his most potently negative memories.” 

A memory of Tim being brutalized by the force of his own mind plays in technicolor on the backs of Bruce’s eyelids. “Jesus. Do you think that’s actually —“ He motions vaguely. The proper wording escapes him. “—how it… how it happened?”

Alfred, bless his soul, seems to understand. “Master Tim may have been scant with the details about what happened in that tower, but the medical file doesn’t lie. I assume you don’t need a reminder.” 

Bruce absolutely does not. He waves the thought away and winces. “I should have helped him more. I could have found someone for him to speak to.” 

“Master Tim doesn’t like to speak to anyone on a good day. I doubt he would have been receptive to our efforts.” 

“I should have talked to Jason more, then. Gotten him to apologize.” 

“At that point in time, Master Jason wouldn’t have let you within fifty feet of him without trying to take your life.” 

“It doesn’t matter!” Bruce clamps his mouth shut when he realizes he’s raising his voice. He glances furtively at Tim, and relaxes a little when his eyes remain closed. “Christ, Alfie. This wasn’t supposed to happen again.”

Alfred nods slowly. “I know, Master Bruce.” 

“I need to go see Jason. I need to make sure he’s alright.” Bruce grabs one of Tim’s chilly, bony hands. “But I can’t risk Tim waking up alone.” 

As if roused by the sound of his name, Tim shifts, face pinching in discomfort. Bruce swallows his pain and leans in close, cupping Tim’s face with one hand. “Tim?” He asks gently. “You coming back?”

Tim opens his eyes, then closes them with a weak groan. “Bruce?” He murmurs hoarsely. 

“Mmhmm. I’m here, chum.” Bruce pushes the hair off Tim’s forehead. “You’re okay.”

Alfred dims the lights, and when Tim’s eyes open once more, they focus on Bruce’s face looming above him. The first thing Bruce notices are his blown-out pupils. “Mr. Wayne?” His voice is quiet, shaky. “What are you doing?”

He knows who I am. Something in Bruce’s chest loosens, despite the fact that Tim hasn’t called Bruce ‘Mr. Wayne’ since he was eleven years old. “Just sitting here with you. How are you feeling?”

“I–” Tim looks around, suddenly ill at ease. “Where are we?”

“The cave,” Bruce answers. “It’s okay. Everyone is safe.”

“The cave?” Tim looks confused. 

“The basement,” Alfred interjects. “It’s where we keep our medical supplies.”

Tim nods again, but the crinkle of worry on his brow is stark. “I–” he brings a hand to his face and gingerly touches his nose. “What happened to my nose?”

“You broke it, buddy. It’s all patched up now; it just has to heal.” Bruce grabs his wrist and gently moves it away from his face when Tim goes to pull at one of the bandages. “No touching for now. It’s okay.”

Tim blinks at him owlishly. Despite his confusion, he doesn’t look all that… afraid. Bruce knows better than to let himself get his hopes up too much. The second shoe has to drop at some point. It has to. 

Tim swallows nervously. “Where are my mum and dad?”

Bingo. 

“They’re… out.” Bruce smiles nervously. “It’s okay. You’re with me.”

Tim looks at him with wide, watery eyes. “Did… did they go home without me?”

Bruce gives Alfred a fleeting, panicked glance. “Ah, uh – no, of course not. They’ll be back soon.”

Tim doesn’t seem convinced. He mumbles something unintelligible. 

“What was that?” Bruce asks. 

“Is the gala over?” Tim’s talking like he’s in slow motion. Even his blinks seem to take three seconds each. “I’ve… I’ve got to get home.”

Gala? Tim obviously isn’t as lucid as Bruce thought he was. He puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder to keep him steady as he goes to sit up. “Whoa, Tim. Stay down. You took a bit of a tumble.”

“I have to get home!” Tim repeats, a little more frantically. “I need to get–”

He tries to swing his legs over the side of the bed, but goes rigid with a strangled gasp as his broken ribs protest the movement. Bruce catches them as they slide off the bed and gently set them back amongst the sheets. “You’re okay, Tim, but you can’t get out of bed just yet. You had a bit of a rough day.”

“Ow,” Tim gasps, grasping clumsily at his bandages. “My chest – my chest .”

“I know, bud. You just took a fall. You’re okay.”

Tim’s eyes screw shut. “It hurts. My – my face –”

Bruce turns to Alfred. “Can we give him any more painkillers?”

Alfred shakes his head, pained. “I’ve given him everything I can for the next six hours.”

“Shit.” Bruce takes one of Tim’s hands in his own and squeezes it tightly. “Breathe through it, Tim. It’ll pass. I’ve got you.”

“Ow,” Tim moans. “ Ow .”

Tim doesn’t say ‘ow’. Tim never says ‘ow’ unless Dick’s ruffling his hair a little too hard or he’s been staring at a computer screen for a few hours too long. “It’s okay,” Bruce whispers, brushing the backs of his fingers against Tim’s jaw. It’s striking, the reminder that Tim is only fifteen. He’s got another couple years before he’s even out of high school. Jason was fifteen when a bomb tore him to shreds, his mind hisses. Jason was fifteen when you let a man beat him within an inch of his life with a piece of metal. “It’s okay, Tim. I’m here. I’m here.”

“I want—“ Tim hiccups. “I want my mum.” 

It’s then that Bruce realizes, with a great ache that ripples to the ends of his fingertips, that there’s nothing he can say or do that will make Tim feel better. There are no words that will ease his pain. There is no cure for the agony of an abandoned child. 

“I want my mum,” Tim begs. “I want my mum and dad.” 

“They’ll come,” Bruce whispers, pushing Tim’s sweat-damp hair off his forehead. He’s got a spatter of acne on his temples and down the sides of his face, just like Dick once did. He wishes he’d paid more attention to Jason’s young face when he had the privilege of looking at it.  “But for now, it’s just me. You’re safe, Tim.” 

“Bruce,” Tim says, and then bursts into tears.

Bruce leans down and hugs him then, hugs as much of him as he can grab without jostling his ribs and holds onto him tightly. With his face buried in Tim’s shoulder, collarbone jabbing into the flesh of his cheek, he’s once again reminded of just how frightfully thin Tim is. I thought he was putting on weight, Bruce thinks, a little hopelessly. But I’m afraid I’ve just let him waste away under my nose again. 

“They’re not coming, Bruce,” Tim whimpers. “I know they aren’t. I know they aren’t.” 

Bruce shushes him quietly. There is nothing more to say, no answers to give. No matter what he says, Tim always ends up hurting even more because of it. “They’re not coming,” Tim continues, tears dribbling over the awful cheek scratches. “They never come. They’ll never come for me. I’m alone.” 

“You’re not alone,” Bruce says. “I’m here. I’ve got you, buddy.” 

“I’m alone. I’m alone.” Tim sobs. “Oh, God. I don’t want to be alone.” 

“You aren’t alone, Tim. You’ve got me and Alfie and those two big goofballs upstairs who love you. They love you so much.”

“I want my mum. I want my mum .”

“She’ll come.” She won’t. Bruce knows that. Tim knows that too. “She’ll come back.”

Tim sobs himself into another stupor, and it’s only when he’s completely limp that Bruce dares separate them. “I–” He starts, and his voice is hoarse. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”

Alfred nods silently, taking his place at Tim’s bedside as Bruce stands and stumbles for the door. He manages to make it to the bathroom without stumbling over his own tingling feet, but he’s only able to take a full breath of air after he’s splashed his face with frigid water. In the silence of the small room, with nothing but his own pale reflection staring back at him, the great weight that’s been bearing down on his shoulders since the moment Red Hood disobeyed his orders to get out of that rigged building finally lightens.

Another Robin dead. Another Robin revived. Tim is alive , and he’s safe, and he didn’t have to be dunked into a Lazarus Pit and turned into a weapon for it to happen. Bruce knows he should be thankful, but his exhaustion makes it hard to feel anything but a wide, aching numbness. It’s better than grief, at least. 

He stays in the bathroom for several more minutes, running his hands under the cold water until they sting. Alfred’s waiting for him at the doorway of the med bay when he finally walks out. “Still asleep,” He assures Bruce. “With any luck, he’ll be well out of his despondence and into the fever when he wakes up.”

“Speeding up the toxin’s effects was the way to go. I admire your ability to think on your feet.” Bruce forces a smile. “I’m sure Jason is too.”

Alfred breathes a chuckle. “The antidotes were already mostly finished. It was only a matter of luck.”

“Give yourself more credit. I’m not sure if Tim would have made it out of there without you.” The words burn like dry ice as they leave his tongue. Bruce averts his eyes. “Forgive me. That came off a little harsher than expected.”

Alfred steps forward and cups Bruce’s cheek in one hand. You’ve been doing that since I was ten years old, Bruce thinks warmly, leaning into the warmth of his palm. And it’s felt the same through all these years. “Don’t apologize,” Alfred says. “It’s been a hard couple days for everyone.”

“I want to go see Jason. I need to make sure he’s alright,” Bruce confesses. “But I can’t leave Tim while he’s like this. Not after he just…” He motions vaguely. “I can’t even imagine him waking up without me there.”

Alfred closes his eyes and takes a deep, mournful breath. “I understand. It is an awful feeling,” He says, rubbing his thumb over Bruce’s cheek. “To not be able to give comfort to a grieving child. Complete and utter hopelessness. It's miserable.” 

Bruce looks at him for a long moment. “You’ve been in that position before, I take it.” 

Alfred takes the roundabout question for what it is. “You would ask for them for hours, Bruce.” 

Bruce closes his eyes and wishes he had a table to hold onto. “Oh, Alfie,” he says, then blindly leans forward and engulfs him in a hug. “I don’t know what to do.” 

“Go be with him,” Alfred murmurs. “All that child wants is someone at his side.”

Breathing deeply, Bruce nods. “I can do that. I can do that.”

“You can do a whole lot. I have faith in you.”

That makes one of us. “Are you going up to see Jason?” Bruce asks. 

“I will go up when Master Dick would like to come downstairs. For now–” Alfred cocks his head towards the med bay doors. “Let’s just go sit.”

Bruce nods, collects himself, and follows Alfred back to Tim’s bedside. He may not be able to do much, but he can ensure that Tim will wake up with someone who loves him holding his hand. Perhaps, just perhaps, that’ll be good enough for the moment.

Jason’s asleep when the door to his room opens, spilling light into his cocoon of protective darkness, but it's not hard to rouse himself when his eyes land on Bruce’s features. He sits up with a groan, breaking the airtight seal Dick seems to have on his body, and rubs at his crusty eyes. His face feels swollen, his tongue like a piece of thick cardboard. “Hey,” He croaks. “I’m fine.”

Bruce hovers in the doorway, looking unsure. “You– you sure?”

A gentle hand comes to rest against his back; Dick must be awake now too. Great. Jason shakes it off. The waterworks are done, and the last fucking thing he needs is to feel pitied while curled up in his childhood bedroom with the Boy Wonder practically spooning him. “Very sure,” he mutters. “I need a glass of water.”

Bruce turns to leave, but Dick’s hand pokes around Jason’s side and points at the bedside table. “It’s a gatorade,” he says quietly, as though there’s an invisible film covering the room that’ll break if anyone talks above a whisper. “Got it for you when you were asleep.”

“Mm.” Jason swipes it off the counter and down half of it in one go. “Thanks.”

He doesn’t want to look at Bruce. He doesn’t want to look at Dick. He doesn’t want to look at anyone right now, especially not after the grade-A mental breakdown he just had. He feels entirely sapped of energy, but the terror and guilt that had consumed him still sit on his skin like a fine layer of gasoline, ready to immolate with a single spark. His veins must be full of static electricity, if the shaking of his hands means anything. Bruce takes a step into the room but opts to keep his distance, for which Jason is internally grateful. Any more smothering might send the Pit into a frenzy or have him unraveling entirely. “I’m proud of you, Jason. You did well.”

Jason shrugs. “I did what I had to.”

“And you did it well. I’m… I’m lucky to have not lost another child tonight. I don’t think any of us could have predicted that mission going so sideways.”

Jason takes another swig of his gatorade. It tastes like ash. “Glad I could have been of use, B.”

“I’m not–” Bruce looks momentarily flustered. “I’m not proud of you because you were useful. I’m proud of you because you were brave.”

Jason scoffs. “Brave,” he spits. “What am I, five?”

“You kept Tim alive down there. He wouldn’t have made it if he’d gotten stuck down there alone.”

“He’d have been down there alone if I had listened to you!” Jason snaps. “You wanted me to leave him!”

“I wanted to go in there myself and save him, but I admit that I was wrong. I doubt I would have made it to him in time before the building collapsed.” Bruce raises his hands in surrender. “You were right. Thank you.”

Something hot and sharp and bitter burns in Jason’s lungs. He goes to swing his legs off the bed, but stops when he realizes that there is a zero percent chance of them holding him up if he tries to stand. Funny, he thinks humorlessly, twisting his fingers in the sheets. Every time I’m in this room, I always seem to be having the worst time of my life.

Unable to respond, Jason lets the conversation go dead. The silence stretches so long it’s almost painful. “Jason?” Bruce finally says, and God , Jason still hates the way that man says his name. “Listen, chum. It’s okay if you’re not up for this yet, but–”

“I’m not a fucking child, Bruce. I’m a grown man.” A grown man who just sobbed in the arms of the pseudo-older brother he hardly even likes for the past hour and then fell asleep, but a grown man nonetheless. “Stop sugar-coating shit. I can take it.”

“Okay.” Bruce purses his lips. “Tim wants to see you.” 

Apparently the invisible film over the room did exist, because Jason feels it shatter over him like a glass skylight. “Nope. Not a chance. I can’t see him. I can’t.” 

Bruce manages to look somehow small despite his stature. “He’s conscious. Feverish, but he knows where he is and what’s happening. He’s been asking for you.” 

“ No . No, you listen to me. That kid is scared of me,” Jason forces out. Dick grabs his shoulder comfortingly. “He thought I was going to hurt him!” 

“It’s fear toxin, Jay. It warps the mind. He and Hood had a rough history, but that doesn’t mean you two haven’t—” 

“He called me by name, Bruce! He begged me, Jason , not to hurt him again! Again !” Jason’s eyes fill with tears; Bruce’s shadow dissolves into fragments. He’s on fire now, and the flames feast on his guilt like dry tinder. “I can’t go see him. I can’t look him in the eyes right now. I can’t be anywhere fucking near him.” 

“Tell him Jason’s asleep and exhausted and that I’ll be down in a bit. We’ll figure this out later,” Dick says quietly. His hand presses down on Jason’s shoulder until he’s gently but firmly maneuvered onto his side. “Don’t mention anything else.” 

Don’t mention that Jason’s figured out your game, Jason thinks bitterly, unable to keep from shuddering. That he’s figured out how much of a god damn martyr you think you are. 

Bruce makes a small noise of acknowledgment. “I’ll be back upstairs in a few minutes. Don’t leave him alone.”

“I’m not—“ Jason coughs. “I’m not the one who got hit with the fucking toxin this time. Focus on the kid!”

“Tim’s not the one having a panic attack right now,” Dick snaps. 

Jason shrugs out of Dick’s grip. “I’m not having a fucking panic attack!”

“You nearly threw up on me like half an hour ago!”

“Shut up!” Jason shoves him hard. “Shut your fucking mouth!”

“Boys!” Bruce shouts. Jason’s almost ashamed of how fast he freezes. “I don’t need you two starting up again. I can focus on Jason and Tim just fine.”

“Tim’s the one who needs your god damned attention, not me,” Jason says, turning his face into the pillow. “I’m fine. Leave me be.” He twists around and hits Dick’s side. “You too, octopus. Go smother the little brother that just fucking died before our eyes.”

Dick sits up, putting one hand on Jason’s arm. Almost spitefully, he holds on when Jason tries to shake him off. “No. I’m staying here for now. I’ll go downstairs in a couple minutes.” He looks back up at Bruce, whose eyes are trained on his restless hands. “Tell Tim I’ll be down in a bit. Jason is sleeping and exhausted, but he’s alright. Got it?”

With a great sigh, Bruce nods, and walks out of the room with one last somber glance thrown at Jason over his shoulder. When his footsteps have faded, Jason lets out a shuddering breath. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired. Grief sits within him like an infection, sharp and sticky and a constant sting against his raw insides. He wants to be alone. He wants to sleep for a thousand years and not be dragged back into consciousness against his will this time around. 

Dick sinks back down against him, breath warm on the back of Jason’s neck. “You okay?” He asks, and for a moment he sounds like the invincible seventeen-year-old Jason had once thought was magic. 

Silently, he nods. Dick leans into him. “I love you, man.”

I can fix this. Jason closes his eyes. Sleep finds him quickly. If Tim won’t do it himself, I’ll do it for him.

When Bruce walks back into the medbay, Tim is curled on his side in bed, facing away. He’s alone; Alfred’s gone upstairs to put on a pot of tea. “He doesn’t want to see me, does he?” He asks in a small voice. 

Bruce swallows. “Jason’s asleep and exhausted. Dick’ll be down in a bit to see–”

“Bullshit.” Tim curls into himself even tighter. “He doesn’t want to see me. Not after the shit I just put him through.”

“Tim,” Bruce says.

“You know it’s true!” Tim snaps. “Don’t fucking lie to me!”

“He’s not angry with you, Tim. He’s just in a bit of shock.”
Tim threads his hands into his hair and makes a wounded, aborted noise. “Fuck. Fuck .”

He sniffles weakly, and Bruce finds himself darting to Tim’s bedside and drawing him into his arms. The angle is odd and uncomfortable, but Bruce won’t risk letting him go. “What did I say to him?” He whispers. “What did I do to him?”

“Nothing that is your fault,” Bruce murmurs back. 

“I don’t want him to hate me, Bruce. We were almost friends —“ 

“You are friends. Jason did so well keeping you safe, and he knows we’re proud of him. He’s just going to need a bit of space to let it all sink in.”

Tim hides his face in his hands. “God damn it. I hate this so much.”

“I know, chum. I know.” Bruce threads his hand in Tim’s hair. “But we’ll figure it all out, okay? I won’t let things go crazy.”

“I don’t want him to run away again.”

“And he won’t. I won’t let him.”

“Neither will I,” comes Dick’s voice. Bruce cranes his neck and sees him leaning against the doorway, shirt wrinkled. “He’s staying in the manor for tonight, Tim. Don’t worry.”

Tim pushes himself out of Bruce’s arms so he can reach for Dick and Dick practically sprints to him, wrapping him in a hug that leaves him choking. “Ribs!” Bruce says tightly. “Ribs, Dick. Don’t crush him.”
Dick jolts back and lets Tim fall back against his pillow, grimacing. “Shit, sorry. Forgot about those.”

“Fucking thugs,” Tim spits, breathing through the wave of pain with his eyes screwed shut. He grabs Dick’s hand and squeezes it tightly. “Must have – must have got me good. I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.”

Dick shoots Bruce a fleeting, incredulous look. Bruce purses his lips. I was building up to that. “Well, Tim. There, uh–” He flounders helplessly. “Something happened while you were under.” 

Tim immediately looks worried. “What?” He asks, shuffling up onto his elbows before Dick wordlessly pushes him back down. “What happened?”

Bruce rubs at his face. “Your body didn’t, well – didn’t respond well to the toxin. You had a pretty severe reaction.”

“Yeah, captain obvious.” Tim snaps. He always snaps when he’s frightened. “Get to the point. What the fuck happened ? Why are you both looking at me like that?”

Dick puts a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, and Bruce can’t help but feel a rush of relief. Dick’s been better with words since the day Bruce met him. “ Tim ,” He says softly, looking up at the ceiling. “When you hit the catatonic phase of the fear toxin, your heart stopped. Jason kept you alive with chest compressions until Bruce and I got there with the antidote.”

Tim’s face goes slack. There’s a long, painful moment of silence. “What?”

“A third of all fear toxin trips involve spontaneous cardiac arrest, Tim. It’s pretty common,” Bruce says. “As long as the brain is kept alive–”

Dick squeezes his shoulder. “Father dearest,” he says, in that tone of voice Bruce knows means ‘ shut your mouth, old man’. “Let’s not overwhelm him with information.”

“I died ?” Tim cries.

“Only clinically!” Bruce replies.

Dick claps a hand over his face. “ Bruce– ”

A cold hand grabs Bruce’s wrist. Tim stares straight at him, eyes swollen and red but cried dry of tears. “How long?” He demands. “How long did he have to keep me alive for?”

Nine minutes and thirteen seconds. Bruce doesn’t say that, though. He’s not sure he could force the words out of his mouth even if he wanted to. “A couple minutes, Tim. It really doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. It matters to me.” Tim squeezes Bruce’s wrist until he can feel the sting of each of his nails. “Tell me, Bruce. How long?”

“Almost ten minutes,” Dick says, defeated.

Tim’s face crumples. He lets his grip on Bruce’s wrist go loose. “Oh my God.” He closes his eyes. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, Jason.” 

“Alfred’s with him now. He’ll make sure he’s alright.” Dick leans in and takes Tim’s hands in his. “None of this is your fault. Not a single fucking bit.”

“I get it,” Tim says numbly. “I get why he doesn’t want to see me now.”

Dick scowls, eyes watering. “No, no . Don’t start thinking like that. Bruce, tell him.”

“Dick’s right,” Bruce says. “None of this is on you. None of this is on Jason, either. You’re both blameless.”

“I still died!” Tim brings his hands down hard against the railings of his bed. “Jason still had to revive me!”

“You say that like it’s something you forced him to do!”

“I basically did!”

“You weren’t fucking breathing! ”

Now both of them are screaming. Bruce’s head hurts. “Boys,” he says, for the second time that night. “Wind down. We’ve done enough screaming for the day.”

Tim wilts, and Dick sits on the side of his bed, hand still clutched around Tim’s wrist. “Sorry,” he said tiredly. “It’s been a long day.”

Bruce pats his knee. He’ll have to thank Dick properly when he can next; he’d undoubtedly be even more hopeless with his other children if his eldest son hadn’t grown into the empty spaces Bruce’s emotional incompetency leaves behind. It pains him to see Dick always thrust into the role of comforter, but it frightens him more to think of the mess he’d make if Dick wasn’t there to pick up his slack. “It’s alright. Thank you for all your help today.”

Dick smiles weakly and gives a little salute. “I’m the oldest. That’s my job.”

“I want to go to sleep,” Tim whispers. “I want a painkiller and I want to go to sleep.”

Dick and Bruce share a long look. Dick breathes in, and Bruce watches as his comforting persona slides on like a second skin. “Want me to sleep down here with you? Keep you company?”

“Yeah.” Tim laboriously scooches back and gives Dick room to lay down sideways, half of his long legs still hanging off the side of the bed. “Thanks, guys. I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“You’re never alone, chum,” Bruce says. He’s said those words so many times today, but it feels nice knowing Tim is actually lucid enough to hear him. “We’re all here for you.”

“Yeah. You’re my favourite little brother,” Dick chuckles. “Tied only with Jason.”

Tim huffs. It might be a laugh. “Sure.”

Bruce stands. “I’ll leave you two to rest. God knows we all need it.”

“You go rest too,” Dick says. “I don’t need you collapsing on me after all this.”

“I’ll be fine. Call if you need me, alright? You know where I’ll be.”

“In bed?” Dick raises an eyebrow.

Bruce winks. “No promises.”

He doesn’t go to bed. He doesn’t even make it all the way up the med bay stairs. Halfway up he finds himself sinking forward and sits on the concrete step, one shoulder pressed against the wall. Once he’s down, he can’t quite muster the energy to rise again. So he sits in limbo, not quite needed anywhere and not quite sure where to go. Above him is Jason, with Alfred, who’s been taking care of broken young men for more than double Jason’s entire lifetime. Below him is Tim, with Dick, who still manages to make him laugh after the day he’s had. Tim’s alive, breathing, laughing. Bruce can’t ask for anything more. He just sits, alone, and breathes in the silence.

I’m never answering a bomb call ever again.

Chapter Text

“Hood!” 

Jason turns just in time to see Nightwing land silently on the roof behind him. He’s smiling, hair damp with sweat. “Fancy seeing you here,” he says, bouncing an escrima stick in one hand. “Got what I need?”

Jason rolls his eyes and grabs the envelope sitting in the inside of his jacket. Nightwing takes it from him eagerly, folds it in half, and slips it… somewhere, because that stupid kevlar costume somehow has pockets. “You’re the best, Hood. I owe you one.”

“You owe me many,” Jason replies. “Tell B to tell me when you guys launch your sting. I don’t want to be getting a frantic call from Oracle because you idiots got overpowered.”

Nightwing shrugs. “We’ll be fine.” 

“That’s what you always say.” 

“First of all — rude. Second of all–” Nightwing steps closer and drops his voice for a whisper. “Are we still good for Friday night?”

Jason rolls his eyes again. He’d made the fatal error of allowing Dick to show him a new TV show a few weeks back, and now Dick expects him to drive all the way out to Bludhaven every week to watch the newest episode with him. The one week he dared to miss, Dick had whined so much that he’d gotten fed up and carted himself to Bludhaven on a Wednesday just to shut him up. The only reason Jason humors him is because the Tv show itself is pretty decent. “We’ll see,” He says, because that’s what he finds himself saying every week. “I’m pretty busy.”

“Too busy for that crazy cliffhanger?” Nightwing wiggles his shoulders playfully. 

“Oh, she’s not going to die ,” Jason scoffs. “The main character never dies halfway through–”

Nightwing holds up his hands. “Alright, speak for yourself. Guess I’ll have to watch it without you.”

Jason swings at him and Nightwing dances backwards, laughing. It’s almost hard to imagine the days where the two of them meeting on a dark rooftop would have certainly ended in bloodshed instead of Dick’s hawkish laughter rippling into the open air. It feels like a lifetime ago. Though Jason would never say it to his face, he finds it quite easy to think of Dick as a friend now. It comes naturally.

“Nightwing!” There’s the familiar chink-krrr of a grappling line, then Robin’s silhouette melts from the shadows. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Nightwing turns to him, breathless and grinning. “Well, you found me! I’m just hanging with my buddy Red Hood.” 

Robin looks up at him, and Jason feels a wave of sudden discomfort. “I’m just on my way out. You two characters have wheedled enough time and information out of me tonight.” 

Nightwing blinks and frowns, but Jason’s already turning away. “See you later, birdies.” 

He purposefully avoids catching a glimpse of Robin’s face as he glides over the rooftops. Perfect. Everything is going according to plan. 

Despite the recent dumpster fire that was Tim’s fear toxin trip, things have actually been pretty good. Jason can’t remember the last time his relationships with his sort-of family have ever been so stable. Being around Bruce for too long still aches, but the bitterness grows easier to swallow with each day the two of them get along. He’d looked so pleased when Jason showed up on a random Tuesday evening demanding food that he’d smiled all throughout dinner, though he’d tried his best to hide it. Alfred now greets him at the door with a pat on the shoulder and says goodbye with a kiss to the side of the head. A little mushy? Yes, but Jason’s never been one to deny Alfred of what he wants. Old man rights and all. Between the TV show nights in Bludhaven and the increasingly frequent patrols Jason finds himself tagging along on, he and Dick are closer than they’ve ever been in their entire lives. It’s a mere echo of what they could have been had Jason not been ripped from the family just as Dick was beginning to accept him, but it’s sweet nevertheless. Jason hasn’t felt this at peace in years.

The best part? He’s stayed the hell away from Tim. He stays out of his space, keeps conversations to a minimum, and whenever possible acts like he isn’t even aware the kid is there. Whenever Tim shows up, Jason melts back into the shadows, without fuss and without a scene. It does suck sometimes to have to remove himself from a nice conversation with Dick or the comfortable silence he and Bruce manage to share in the cave on occasion, but after all Jason’s done to Tim, the least he can do is give him the space to be comfortable in his own home. Look, he wants to say. I can do it all on my own. I don’t need you to martyr yourself just to keep this shitty family in one piece. 

That isn’t to say that he doesn’t miss Tim. He’d actually come to enjoy the presence of the little idiot prodigy in the weeks they’d spent on good terms, and the dry wit he shoots at Bruce on patrol reminds Jason of another little Robin with whom he used to be familiar. It aches to pull away from him, to stare ahead when he knows Tim’s looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Rejection stings, and Jason knows that personally. Dick wasn’t always as much of an eager older brother as he is currently.

That being said, Jason knows that what he’s doing is for the best. Tim’s better off away from him, and he’s better off away from Tim. As much as their relationship was nice, Jason’s confident that it’s not something he’ll miss. Being alone is not unfamiliar to him. He’s been far more alone in life before. Timothy Drake doesn’t need him, and he certainly doesn’t need Timothy Drake.

And if he jolts awake in the middle of the night doing chest compressions on a pillow, that’s nobody’s business but his.

Shaking rain off the back of his hoodie, Jason shoulders his way into his apartment building and makes his way into the rickety elevator. He’s got a bag of groceries in each hand, dripping with raindrops. My bread better still be dry, he thinks. I’ll be pissed if it’s all mushy. That’s good sourdough. 

It’s rare for him to be home on a Saturday night. He’s usually up at the Manor, gorging himself on Alfred’s food like it’s the last time he’ll ever eat. But he’d been informed by Bruce earlier in the week that this week’s dinner would be in celebration of Tim and the successful sting operation he orchestrated alongside the GCPD and had promptly come up with an excuse as to why he had to miss it. Tim’s chronically overlooked on a good day; the last thing he would need during his own celebration dinner is to be glancing over his shoulder all night. Bruce and Dick will smother him just fine without Jason there to draw any attention away. That’s my gift to you, kid. Jason takes his keys from his pocket and stuffs them in the lock. One extra day without me around. 

The last thing he’s expecting to see when he walks through his door is a soaking, furious Tim Drake standing in front of his living room window.

“Do you hate me?” Tim demands, rain dripping off the end of his nose. 

Jason blinks. The ability to speak evades him for a moment. “Huh?” 

“I said— “ Tim scrubs at his face with his sleeve. It’s hard to tell whether the moisture on his cheeks is from tears or the rain. “Do you hate me? Because if you hate me, I’d rather you just fucking say it.” 

Jason holds his hands up, letting his grocery bags fall to the crooks of his elbows. “Roll back. Pause. How the hell did you get in this apartment? That window is booby-trapped.” 

Tim’s face twists into a scowl. He swings a little bag off his shoulder and throws it down into the floor at his feet. “Yeah, and it’s a shitty booby trap! I got through it in ten minutes. Now answer my fucking question.” 

Jason’s head is spinning. “Okay, we’ll get to that in a second. Let me put my bags down.” He walks into the kitchen, Tim glaring after him as though he’s expecting Jason to try and make a run for it. As he’s dumping his bags on the counter, his eyes fall on the little mechanical clock on his oven. “Holy shit, it’s dinner time! Do Bruce and Alfred know you’re here?” He darts back out into the living room, where Tim’s still looming in front of the window like a rain-soaked gargoyle. From the look on his face, the Wayne manor and its inhabitants are most likely not aware of his little traipse into Gotham. “Did you seriously come all the way out here in the middle of a fucking rainstorm to accost me in my own home? You’re — you don’t even have a coat on!” 

Tim looks down at his soaking running shoes and shifts uncomfortably. “I wanted to talk to you,” he says. “Telephones exist,” Jason says pointedly. 

Tim scoffs bitterly. “Like you would have answered my call.”

“I would have!” Sure, Jason’s been giving the kid his own space and staying well out of his way, but he hasn’t been ignoring him. If Tim called him on his personal phone, he probably would have answered, if only to make sure he wasn’t tied up for ransom in some random warehouse in the middle of nowhere. “You haven’t called me once in weeks!”

“Because you hate me!” Tim cries, and those are definitely not raindrops gathering on his eyelids. “I know you fucking hate me!” 

“Okay, I think we’ve found the root of our issue.” Jason pinches his brow. This is definitely not how he thought he’d be spending his Saturday night, but Fate seems to enjoy fucking with him in particular. “Okay, just — take your nasty ass shoes off, go take a shower, and I’ll find you some dry clothes. I can’t take you seriously when you look like a drowned rat.” 

Tim clenches his fists, but there’s a certain trepidation to him as he kicks off his ruined sneakers and stomps to the bathroom. It’s not quite fear, but it’s also not quite not fear. Wonderful, Jason thinks with a sigh. The kid’s forcing himself to be around me just to talk .

Jason walks to his bedroom and sits on his bed. It’s honestly a surprise that he hasn’t received a frantic call from the manor yet, given Alfred’s steadfast refusal to let someone miss dinner. Slipping his phone from his pocket, Jason dials in Bruce’s personal phone number and lets it ring. Bruce picks up no more than a second later. “I was just about to call,” He says, sounding breathless. “Is this about–”

“Tim?” Jason interrupts. “Why yes, it is. Care to explain why he felt the need to break into my apartment and corner me?”

“Is he okay?” Bruce asks.

“Physically yes, but he’s certainly not happy. Came in here demanding to know why I hate him, which is odd, considering I don’t hate him. Have you guys been telling him I hate him?”

Bruce makes a confused noise. “Of course not. Tim seemed fine this morning. Dick’s up from Bludhaven for the weekend for Tim’s celebration dinner. I thought he was having a good day.”

He was supposed to, Jason thinks, pinching the bridge of his nose. Without me there.

A slight movement in his bedroom doorway pulls his eyes upward. Tim’s peeking through a crack in the door, wrapped in a towel. The water in the bathroom is still running. Jason lowers the phone. “That’s not showering!” He says. “If you want to be a stalker again, then you can come talk to Bruce yourself.”

Tim disappears in a flash. Jason groans. “Now he’s creeping at me through the door. I don’t know what’s up with this kid.”

“Do you want me to come and get him?” Bruce asks. “Alfred’s making his favourite at home.”

“Let me talk to him first. You’re sure you didn’t pull any bullshit to upset him? People don’t usually come sneaking over to my place in the rain without good cause.”

“Well,” Bruce says, pausing thoughtfully. “I did tell him that you wouldn’t be coming over this weekend. I wouldn’t say he seemed overjoyed about that.”

“We’ll work with that, then.” The water shuts off. “That was fast. I’m going to find this kid some dry clothes. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Alright. I’ll be here if you need me. Love you.”

“See you.” Jason clicks the phone off and tosses it onto his bed. Luckily, laundry day was only two days ago, so it isn’t hard to find a suitable sweater and sweatpants and leave them in front of the bathroom door. “Clothes are just outside, Tim,” He says aloud. Tim gives him a quiet grunt in reply. “I’ll be out in the living room when you’re ready to talk.”

By the time Tim finally comes sulking out of the bathroom, drowning in a pair of Jason’s sweatpants rolled up at the waist and an old jersey he stole from Roy, Jason’s had enough time to put away all of his groceries and make two mugs of tea. “Finally,” he says, kicking his legs up onto the coffee table. His mug is warm beneath his fingers. He gestures to the other mug sitting on the other end of the table. “Sit down. We’re having a chat.”

Tim stares ruefully at the mug of tea, swallows, and then collapses into the old loveseat. His wet hair hangs in clumps down his cheeks and the back of his neck. He says nothing. Jason opts to take the lead. “So,” He says, taking a sip of tea. “You’re here. Care to elaborate?”

Tim clenches his jaw and looks away. He’s wound about as tightly as a wire, and discomfort rolls off him in thick waves. Jason almost feels like he’s the one who broke in demanding answers. “Listen, kid. You’ve got to give me something to work with. I can’t read your mind.”

Tim exhales through his nose. “You–” He bites down hard on his lips. “You bailed on dinner.”

So it is about this. Jason leans back and sighs. “You came all the way here to get mad at me for bailing on a Saturday night dinner? Jesus, Tim.”

“It was my dinner!” Tim says tightly. “It’s supposed to be all of us there! It’s always all of us there!”

Which is why I figured it might be nice to give you a break from me! “Sometimes I get busy!” Jason says. “It’s nothing personal!” It’s definitely, absolutely personal!

“You never miss the dinners. Ever . Except the one time that it’s my dinner.” Tim crosses his arms over his chest. “Just admit it. You fucking hate me.”

“I—“ Jason sets his mug down on the table and buries his face in his hands. “You really are a mini-Bruce. Confusing, dramatic, and incapable of handling your emotions like a normal human being.” 

Tim scowls. “You’re the one who’s been ignoring me!” 

“I haven’t—“ Jason stops. He definitely has been ignoring Tim, but not for the reason Tim seems to think. “I don’t hate you. I’m sorry if I made you think I hated you, but I don’t. Are we fine now?” 

“You’re lying to me!” Tim cries. “I know you’re lying!” 

“I’m not !” 

“You are !”

Now they’re screaming. Jason’s going to get a noise complaint if he doesn’t calm things down. “Shh,” he hisses, and Tim shrinks back into his seat like a scolded cat. “Drink your tea and quiet down. I’m not Bruce; you can’t shriek me into submission.”

Tim takes a pointedly aggressive sip of his tea. Jason watches him with narrowed eyes. If he asks me for coffee, I’m kicking him out. 

Tim lowers the mug from his mouth but keeps it clutched between his hands. He doesn’t meet Jason’s eye. “This is the most we’ve talked in weeks,” He says quietly. 

Jason shrugs uncomfortably. “I’ve been busy.”

“Not too busy to hang out with Dick every week.”

“That was his idea.” Jason’s not sure why it’s suddenly uncomfortable to tell the truth. “I can’t say no to him.”

“You’re talking to Bruce more often too. I don’t think I’ve seen you at the manor so often ever in my life.”

I’m trying to do what you were forcing yourself to! Jason thinks a little hopelessly. “Forgive me for trying to patch things up with the old man. I thought that’s what you and Dickhead wanted.”

“It is what I want! That’s not what I’m talking about!” Tim says. “It’s the fact that I’m the only one you seem to be ignoring!”

Jason flounders. “I wasn’t – I didn’t mean to ignore you. I was just giving you some space.”

“Space? You were giving me space ?” Tim looks incredulous. “Why?”

“I thought you needed it after the shit you went through!”
“The shit I went through? You mean the shit we went through? Together?”

“Yeah, I guess!” Jason throws his hands up. “If that’s how you want to explain it!”

“And you thought I needed space ?” Tim’s face twists with annoyance. He sets the mug down on the table, hard . “I call bullshit. Just admit that you can’t stand the sight of me anymore. You’ve already made it pretty fucking obvious.”

“Stop putting words in my fucking mouth!” Jason snaps. “You don’t know a fucking thing about what happened down there. I won’t let you blame me for wanting to give you space after that.”

Tim goes quiet and grits his jaw. Jason’s words hang in the air between them, going more and more stale as the seconds pass in silence. “I do know what happened down there,” Tim mutters. “And I’m not blaming you. I get it.”

“What, Dickhead told you all the gory details?” Jason chuckles emptily. Then he pauses. Tim looks like he’s on the verge of exploding. “Wait. How much did he tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me anything.” Tim swallows. “I watched it.”

“You watched it?” Jason repeats, confused. 

“I…” Tim trails off. “I found the cowl footage. From the toxin trip.”

“Cowl footage?” Well, that’s unexpected. Jason only knew of Bruce having a camera in his cowl lens, and he only saw the tail end of those many horrific hours. “Whose?”

“Mine. Bruce tried to delete it, but I found it anyway.”

“You watched your own fear toxin trip?”

“Yeah,” Tim murmurs in a wavering voice. “It kinda – kinda fucking sucked, not going to lie.”

That draws an incredulous laugh from Jason. “Yeah. You can say that again.”

Tim nods, looking down at his hands as his eyes grow watery. “I heard what I said to you. When — when I was angry, and—“ His voice goes high and shaky. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it, man. I’m sorry.” 

He turns away with a shuddering breath and covers his face with one hand. After a moment of tense silence, he doubles over at the waist to hide his face entirely. Jason stares at him, awestruck. He’s speechless for a few seconds. “What the – what? ”

“I’m sorry,” Tim repeats into his knees. He sits up again, composing himself with a shaky sigh. “The shit I said to you was awful, and then I thought I was back in the fucking tower, and I know you’re probably going to say some dumb shit about how it wasn’t my fault, but—“ 

“You think I’ve been ignoring you because of the shit you said to me while blasted on fear toxin?” 

“I told you that I hated you! That you belonged in a cell!” Tim cries. “I tried to goad you into hurting me!”

“It’s fucking fear toxin! ” Jason replies. “Do you think I was expecting you to sing my praises?” 

“I don’t know!” Tim’s voice cracks. His lips start to quiver. “You never came down to see how I was doing and then you proceeded to barely fucking look at me for the next three weeks and—“ 

“Stop. Just stop.” Jason puts his mug down and rubs at his face. “You’ve got every part of this wrong. This isn’t a punishment, Tim. I was doing you a favor.” 

Tim leans forward, eyebrows furrowing. “A favor,” he repeats. “You thought you were doing me a favor.” 

The tone of his voice makes the back of Jason’s neck itch. Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid. You’re smart enough to know the game you played. “Yeah,” he answers sharply. “A favor. It’s a good thing you do for someone else.” 

“I know what a fucking favor is, Jason,” Tim snaps. “What I’m wondering is why you seemed to think pretending I didn’t exist was in any way a favor to me.” 

Jason grits his teeth. “Because you weren’t going to do it yourself!”

“Do what? Ignore myself? Look through myself like I’m a worthless fucking shadow?” 

“You weren’t going to stay the fuck away from me!” Jason shouts. “You weren’t going to stop martyring yourself for Bruce and Dick’s benefit!”

“What the actual fuck are you talking about?” 

Jason’s frustration boils over. He slams his hand down on the coffee table hard enough to rattle the two mugs. “You are fucking scared of me, Tim! I know you are! Stop lying to me!”

Tim stares at him, mouth agape. Then his features twist. “You think I’m scared of you?” 

“I know you’re scared of me,” Jason replies. He stands up and walks into the kitchen, dragging a hand down his face as another wave of rage-filled heat blooms in the back of his neck. “And that’s fine, really. What I have an issue with is you pretending you’re not.”

“I’m not scared of you!” Tim cries. 

“Stop being a little liar. The jig is up, bird boy! You are scared of me!”

“That’s not fair!” Tim replies angrily. “You can’t decide how I feel about you!” 

“I just fucking did!” 

Tim rises to his feet. “Fuck off! I came here to figure out why you hated me , not for you to come out and twist it around in my fucking face. Do not act like this whole thing has been something I orchestrated!” 

“You know what? Fuck this. I’m calling Bruce.” Jason turns on his heel and stalks into his bedroom, grabbing his phone where it’s still sitting on his bed. Tim follows him, scowling.  “You’re going to let yourself get picked up and fussed over and then you’re going to enjoy a nice celebration dinner with the guys who don’t show up in your godddamn nightmares, alright?” He opens Bruce’s contact. “I’m not going to—“ 

“No!” The phone is yanked from his fingers. Tim twists around and launches it at the far wall, where the screen audibly shatters upon impact. He’s flushed a deep red, eyes blazing. “You’re not calling anyone!”

Jason grabs him by the collar of his oversized shirt and backs him into the wall. “The fuck is wrong with you? You are out of your fucking mind!” 

“Fuck you!” Tim shrieks, shoving Jason away by the shoulders. “I’m not fucking scared of you!” 

“Keep acting like that and you fucking will be!” 

“Try me!” Tim dances backwards, arms raised defensively. “Come on! Prove to me that I should be scared of you!”

Familiarity floods Jason’s tongue, sour and stinking of rot. “I’m not going to hit you,” he grits out, not rising to the bait. 

“Why not?” Tim pants. His gait looks ungainly, though he tries to hide it. Jason wouldn’t be surprised if he bullied Bruce into letting him back out on patrol before his ribs were fully healed. “Are you scared of me? Big guy Jason Todd’s afraid of a scrawny little teenager?” 

Tim’s eyes flash as Jason steps towards him, but Jason only shoulders by him and walks back out into the living room. The green is creeping into the corners of his vision, and Jason refuses to let himself lose control over the taunting of a fifteen-year-old. “I’m not–” he repeats, sitting back down and taking a white-knuckled sip of his cooling tea. “Going to hurt you.” 

Tim tears the mug out of his hands and throws it to the floor. Shards of cheap porcelain go flying in every direction. “Come on! Stop playing Mother fucking Theresa and prove to me why I’m scared of you!”

Deep breaths. Jason closes his eyes. “That was a nice mug.”

He’s grabbed by the front of his sweatshirt and dragged from his seat. “Stop playing with me!” Tim snarls, throwing Jason bodily to the floor. Jason forces himself to go easy, to stay limp, even as he feels his knees hit a puddle of cold tea and broken shards of porcelain. “Show me! Fucking show me why I should be scared of you!” 

“Fuck off, Tim.” Jason winces as his back collides with the floor. “I’m not doing this.”

“Why? Why are you being so fucking mean ?” Tim drops down on top of him and drives his fist across Jason’s face. “Show me why you hate me! Show me why I need to be afraid of you!”

Jason opens his mouth, but another blow to his cheek steals the breath from his lungs. “Tim–” Tim hits him again, and again. Jason rips his hands from where they’re trapped under Tim’s weight and covers his face. Tim’s fist collides with the back of his hand hard enough to send a jolt of pain through his knuckles. “Stop, Tim – stop it! I’m not going to hurt you!”

The last punch is softer, hardly more than the impact of Tim’s fist as it limply falls against the back of Jason’s palm. Jason cracks his fingers apart just enough to open one eye and sees Tim staring down at him, looking stricken. “Oh my God,” he says weakly. “I did it again. I did it again.”

“What?” Jason replies hoarsely. His nose throbs.

“I just–” Tim buries his face in his hands and tips sideways, hitting the side of the couch with his shoulder. “What I did under the toxin. I just did it again.”

Jason presses his lips together. “Yeah, uh – yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Only took you, like, five minutes to snap out of it this time.”

The joke falls flat. Silently, Tim pulls his knees to his chest. Unsure of what to say, Jason sits there in silence with him, rubbing a sore spot at the base of his thumb. 

Tim lets out a shaky sigh. “You can call Bruce now. If you want.”

Jason huffs emptily. “Running from your sins?”

“I don’t think you want me here.” 

“I don’t want you swinging punches at me, that’s all.” Jason lifts himself to his feet. “Come on. I’m not chatting with you on the floor.”

Tim looks up, watery-eyed. “ Up ,” Jason says, a bit more forcefully, and Tim obeys without complaint. Jason points to the loveseat. “Park your ass there and don’t get up until I tell you to.” 

“Are you going to call Bruce?” Tim asks sheepishly, collapsing back into the cushions. 

“Scared I’m going to tell daddy bats that you attacked me in my own home?” Jason asks. Tim looks down at his hands and starts fiddling with his nails. “No, I’m not calling Bruce. We’re going to talk this out, you and me. No Dick, no Bruce.” 

“I’m not scared of you,” Tim says tightly. Looks like they’re starting already. 

Jason flops back on the couch. “And I don’t hate you. Glad we got that into the open.” 

“Then why have you been ignoring me?” Tim tucks a leg under him and wipes at his eyes. “Usually, when people stop talking to me and start pretending like I don’t exist, it’s because they’ve decided that I suck and they want nothing to do with me anymore.”

“You were better off without me.” Tim gives him a withering glare. “I thought you were better off without me.”

“Really? It had nothing to do with the fact that I threw every bad part of our relationship back in your face and tried to get you to kill me?”

Well, perhaps that has a little to do with it. It stings to be reminded of all the many ways he’s fucked up, and to know that Tim’s mind will always drag him back to what happened in that fucking tower the moment he’s compromised leaves Jason with a raw feeling in his chest. He shrugs. “Well, like – that wasn’t pleasant, but I can’t say I blame you for going back to those memories. I would also think that I was a scary, unstable bastard.”

“But I don’t think that,” Tim says emphatically. “I like you being around, and I like being around you as long as you’re not going all jolly green giant on me.”

“You–” Jason can’t help the laugh that escapes him. The corners of Tim’s mouth hesitantly curl up too. “You just like it when Dick and Bruce are happy. That’s kind of been your whole schtick as Robin.”

Tim’s face drops slightly. “Well, yeah. They’re like my family. You’re like my family. I want you guys to be happy.”

And therein lies my issue. “I just want to make sure that you haven’t been disregarding your own boundaries just to keep peace between all of us.”

“Jesus, who dragged you to therapy?”

“Nobody who I let live long enough to get me in the door.” Jason leans back in his chair. “And admit it. If you were scared of me, I guarantee you'd still force yourself to be around me if it meant Bruce got to have his big happy family back.”

Tim averts his eyes. Jason sighs. “See what I mean?”

“But that’s not what I did! I’m not scared of you! I mean it!” Tim leans forward. “I just–”

His voice cuts off with a pained gasp and he leans back, grasping at his chest. Jason’s on his feet before he knows it and crosses the coffee table in one jump. “What’s wrong?” He says, scanning Tim’s pinched features. “What hurts?”

“My ribs,” Tim mutters, pushing Jason away with his free hand. “I may have forgotten that most of them are still broken.”

“That’s it? Just the ribs?”

“Yeah. Chill out, dude. You look like you’re going to throw up.”

Jason realizes that his breath is coming in pants. He takes a step back on tingling feet and sits on the coffee table, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry. Don’t know what the hell happened there.”

Still cradling his ribs, Tim shifts sideways and looks up at the ceiling. “Could that have anything to do with the fact that you watched me die approximately three weeks ago?”

Oh. Right. Jason feels a bit like someone’s just dumped ice down the back of his shirt. “Mm. Fantastic detective work, bird boy.”

Tim breathes out quietly. “How can I apologize for that without you threatening to smack me?” 

“Don’t even try.” 

“Figured that’d be your answer.” Tim thinks for a moment. “I’m… I wish you hadn’t had to see that.” 

Jason nods. His mouth tastes bitter. “Me neither. It was unpleasant.” 

Jason is no stranger to death. He’s caused it first-hand more times than he can count and been dragged into it kicking and screaming when he was no more than a teenager. The blood on his hands doesn’t scald him like it used to. 

No. The cold, silent descent into lifelessness is what he haunts him when he wakes up screaming.

“Thanks for keeping me alive,” Tim says shakily. When Jason meets his eye, he’s clenching his jaw. “I kind of don’t want to die just yet.” 

Jason leans forward and hugs him. Tim fists his hands in the back of Jason’s shirt and buries his face in his shoulder. He’s shaking. “Believe me, kid,” Jason murmurs. “Death fucking sucks.” 

“Guess I’m part of the Dead Robins club now,” Tim laughs tearfully. 

“God, don’t say that around Dick. He won’t sleep for the next week.” 

“I’ll pull it out the next time he bothers me. I expect you to give me a high-five.” 

“We’ll make a whole secret handshake just to torture him with.” 

“Promise?”

Jason feels warmer. “You’ve got my word.” 

They end up on the couch. With the state of Tim’s ribs,  he can’t comfortably do much more than stretch out on the couch with his head near Jason’s lap on a folded-up pillow. Jason feeds him a painkiller, a glass of water, and a bowl of the shitty microwave ravioli that Alfred’s had banned at the manor since Jason was thirteen. By the time he sits down and puts on one of the poorly-acted made-for-TV crime shows he uses for background noise, Tim looks sleepy and full and quite pleased with himself. 

“You know,” Jason says, putting a hand on Tim’s arm. “Alfred’s going to be pissed that you skipped out on your celebration dinner to come fistfight me.” 

Tim shrugs blearily. “I’ll go back tomorrow.” 

“ Two celebration dinners? You really are spoiled.” 

“Chef Boyardee is hardly a celebration dinner.” 

“Then why did you eat two whole cans by yourself?”

Tim smiles. “I’m a growing boy.” 

Jason rolls his eyes and flicks Tim’s cheek. He keeps his other hand on his bicep, rubbing slow circles with his thumb. “You’ve been the same height since you were twelve.” 

“Rude.” Tim closes his eyes. “I might still grow.”

“Sure.” 

“I might.” 

The episode credits are half over when Tim starts to snore. Jason turns the TV off and lets himself listen to it. In, out. In, out. He matches his breaths to Tim’s and rests his hand on Tim’s sternum, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest. Tim is warm, Tim is alive, and Tim is right here with him. 

Tim has also never snored a day in his life. Tim is most definitely awake. 

Jason doesn’t let him know that.

Instead, he bends forward and threads his fingers through damp, dark hair. “I’m glad you’re still alive,” he whispers, as though it were a secret. “Thank you.” 

And Tim sleeps on. He’s a crafty little bastard, Jason will give him that — no one else but him would have doubted that the kid was dead to the world. But Jason is smart, and Jason is observant. 

He knows what Tim wouldn’t believe if it was told to his face. 

With his free hand, Jason opens his phone. The screen is cracked, but it’s still usable. He pulls up Bruce’s contact, but can’t quite bring himself to click the call button. He opens their sparsely-used text chat instead.

Tim is okay. Will bring him home tomorrow. 

Ok.. 👍 

Fed him and gave him a painkiller. He’s sleeping now.

You are a good brother..

Jason rolls his eyes. If there’s one thing he can always count on Bruce for, it’s a sentimental flair.

Damn straight. 

Despite Jason's best efforts, Bruce catches him alone after Tim’s celebration dinner, when he’s lacing up his boots in the cave. “Not staying for the show?” He asks.

“Dick and I have already watched up until that point. Dick’s just forcing Tim to get caught up so he has another person to drag to Bludhaven every Friday,” Jason says. He finishes one boot and moves onto the other one. “That kid has dominated enough of the last 48 hours for me.” 

Bruce looks back up the stairs. “Tim would probably appreciate it if you stayed.” 

“Don’t try and guilt trip me, Bruce. It won’t work.” It would work, though — that’s why he wants Bruce to cut it out. 

Bruce raises his hands defensively. “Sorry, sorry.” 

Once Jason’s other boot is laced up, he stands up and walks to where his motorcycle is parked alongside the Batcave’s many vehicles. Bruce watches him in silence, looking as though he’s got something to say. Jason’s on the verge of just telling him to spit it out already when Bruce says, “I’m proud of you.” 

That isn’t what he was expecting. Jason turns around and raises one eyebrow. “Why?” 

“For handling Tim,” Bruce answers simply.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Contrary to popular belief, it’s actually very easy for me to not beat the shit out of that kid. I didn’t handle anything.” 

“That’s not what I meant,” Bruce says. “He came to you quite upset, and you helped him out. You stayed calm. You brought the two of you to a solution. I’m proud of you. Thank you.” 

Jason considers his words for a moment. “You’re welcome, I guess. It really is the bare minimum.” 

“I can still be proud of you for that. You’re all grown up.” 

Perhaps if Jason weren’t stuffed to the brim with garlic bread and Alfred’s legendary carbonara, he’d bite back something about how he’s been all grown up since the moment his life came to a sudden, bloody halt in a warehouse in Ethiopia. But the lights in the cave are dim, and Jason’s eyes feel heavy, and he realizes that he isn’t looking as forward to arriving back to his empty apartment as he thought he was. “Are you drunk?” He says. 

Bruce shrugs. “I had a good day. It’s nice to have all three of you home — back at the manor, I mean.” 

“I only come for Alfred’s cooking.” 

“That’s alright. It’s not like that’s getting any worse any time soon.” 

“This hasn’t fixed anything.” Jason rises and swings a leg over his motorcycle. His full stomach aches. “All of this — I do it for Tim, and for Alfred, and for Dick sometimes. I don’t do it for you. Tim may want us all to be one big happy family again, but he has to accept that that may never fucking happen. I might never want to come back here. I might never stop putting bullets into people who deserve to be riddled with bullets. Okay? That fine with you, big guy?” 

Bruce blinks, then looks away. His heavy features are soft with resignation. “You don’t owe me anything. I can’t control what you boys do. I’ll take what I can get.” 

God, has he always sounded so fucking sad? Where’s the big, unbeatable Batman? “Jesus, Bruce. I never took you to be someone who begged for scraps.” 

“I’m not begging.” Bruce walks to his desk and leans his hip on it. “I just won’t force any of you stick around. It’d only drive you more away.” 

“Hm.” Jason grabs his helmet from where it’s hanging off the front of his motorcycle. He can’t quite find it in himself to actually put it on. “I’m not a good man, Bruce. I haven’t grown up into a good little vigilante like your golden wonder boy. I know you don’t like what you see.” 

“I had to come to terms with the fact that I’d never get to watch you grow up, Jason. Watching you grow up into anything is a miracle I refuse to take for granted.” 

The helmet’s clang echoes against the cave’s stone walls as Jason tosses it to the floor. In one smooth motion, he slides off his motorcycle, crosses the ten or so paces between them, and engulfs Bruce in a hug. Bruce is still bigger than him, though only slightly, and he’s as warm as a furnace under Jason’s hands. He smells like aftershave and that fancy deodorant Alfred’s been buying for years. It’s a smell Jason didn't realize he knew so intimately until it floods his nose and drags him back to the blurry, blissful years of his early teenagehood. “There, you big fucking sap,” he mutters into Bruce’s shoulder. He feels Bruce’s arms wrap in close around his lower back, slow and unsure until they find purchase in his sweater and squeeze. It’s hard to tell which of them is clinging more to the other. “Now get a little self-respect before it stops being cute. It’s no fun to bully you when you don’t even fight it.” 

“Fine by me, Jay,” Bruce murmurs. “I already have more than I probably deserve.” 

“Stop saying that shit. It’s annoying. This whole family’s a goddamned tragedy.” 

Bruce huffs. It might be a laugh. “You’re the one who knows Shakespeare. I’ll trust your opinion.”

Jason pulls back and tries to ignore how blissfully relaxed Bruce looks. “Martyrs, the lot of you. If Alfred starts waxing poetically, I’m out of here for good.” 

“Alfred hates tragedies. He thinks they’re meaningless.” Bruce cocks his head towards the stairs. “Are you sure you want to leave? Your guest room is always ready for you.” 

Jason bites his tongue. “Well—“ 

“And Alfred’s bought some nice strawberries for the crepes tomorrow morning. Dick’s been eyeing them all night.” 

And I’m trapped. “Well, that requires me to do my civic duty and eat them all before he can drag his ass out of bed.” Jason shrugs off his jacket. He’s not as cold as he was a moment ago. “Can’t miss an opportunity to be a good samaritan.” 

Bruce brightens. Without the cowl and the cape and the weight of the Wayne fame and fortune, he looks like any other man Jason couldn’t pick out of a lineup at the grocery store.  The hair around the tops of his ears is growing in grey. His shirt has come untucked at the back. His face hardly wrinkles when he smiles because only his frown lines have gotten the chance to get deep. 

In some other world, he’s someone Jason could have really, really loved. 

In this one, he might be something somewhat close to that one day. 

“Alright, stop staring at me.” Jason gently pushes Bruce aside and makes his way to the cave stairs. “I’ve had enough mushiness for the day.” 

Bruce chuckles to himself. It’s a sound that should bother Jason, but he can’t quite seem to muster up any more bitterness tonight. “Sure thing.” 

The episode they’re watching in the home theater is minutes away from ending when Jason slips in, armed with the glass bottle of root beer he pretended to open with his teeth just to see Bruce freak out. “Oh, fuck off,” Tim declares, pressed to Dick’s side and cocooned in blankets like a furry slug. He wiggles happily when Jason sits down on his other side and shoves his toes under Jason’s thigh to keep them warm. “She won’t die. They’d never get away with killing the main character halfway through the series. She hasn’t even kissed the love interest yet.” 

Jason raises his root beer in vindication. “That’s what I said!”