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Jason is watching Tim train, although he’s not entirely clear on why Tim needs more training.
Well, obviously Tim does need more training. His footwork is sloppy, his grip on his staff is so poor that Jason doesn’t understand why Bruce would let him out on the street, except—
“No one fucks with him,” Jason says loudly, and takes a slurp of an energy drink he knows Bruce loathes. “Why are we bothering to do this?”
“Improvement is always wise,” Bruce says sternly, and Jason rolls his eyes.
When Jason tries to meet Tim’s eyes, to say get a load of this chump, Tim looks away. He’s been very difficult for Jason to befriend, and Jason’s been trying, for weeks, because there are a couple of assholes he’d love to throw Tim at.
Literally.
In shifted form.
“We can’t rely on our shifted form,” Dick calls out, and Jason rolls his eyes again.
It was the same when he was Robin.
“Being a lion won’t always save you,” Bruce would say, looking stern, and whenever Dick showed up—which wasn’t often—he’d agree.
But even as Red Hood, Jason finds being a lion very useful.
“And it’s better to do some things in human form,” Dick adds, ducking a swing from Tim that any thug woulda seen coming. “We have thumbs, for one thing.”
“Still,” Jason says, crushing his empty can in one hand and throwing it off into a corner, just to see Bruce’s eye twitch, “It seems a tad unnecessary.”
Tim glances at him as Jason vaults onto the training mat, and then quickly away. Jason arches a brow.
“Something to say?” he asks, barely swallowing back little brother.
Dick’s rubbing off on him, okay? And the kid isn’t that bad, despite—everything.
Tim hesitates, then steps back, dropping his staff down. Bruce and Dick fall slightly back. The kid shrugs.
“Your shifted form,” he says quietly. “It didn’t save you.”
There’s an awful silence in the Cave. Bruce looks stricken, and Dick makes an aborted movement.
“Excuse me?” Jason says softly.
Tim meets his eyes—now is when the little fucker decides to look him in the face, when he’s saying—
“We can’t always shift,” Tim says more firmly. “There were—traces of a suppressant in your system, and your injuries weren’t consistent with you being in shifted form.”
“Been reading my autopsy report?” Jason asks sharply, vision narrowing in on Tim. “Doing a little light reading?”
“No, I mean—”
“Because you weren’t there,” Jason hisses at him. “So shut your fucking mouth and—”
“Jason,” Dick breaks in, admonishingly.
“Don’t,” Jason says, turning to him. “None of you were there, none of you know—” He breaks off, his chest tight, looking around the room.
“None of you know anything,” he says, and spins on his heel, starting to walk away.
“Jaylad,” Bruce says, and Jason stops, but doesn’t turn around. “Please don’t leave.”
“Why would I stay?” Jason snaps, hands curling into fists.
“To talk with us,” Bruce tells him.
Jason scoffs. “That always works out.”
“Can’t you just—” Dick says, and then breaks off. “We can talk about it,” he says. “You haven’t—but we can. Jason, you died.”
This time, Jason does turn.
“I was murdered,” he tells them. “I didn’t just ‘die’, someone made a deliberate, calculated decision to kill me, and hundreds of others, and you didn’t do anything.”
He knew it was a mistake, trying to come home and play happy family. Too much water under the bridge, too much left undone and unsaid, and just—too much.
Weeks of being with them and this is where he ends up?
“This—” He gestures at them, at the Cave, at this life they’re offering like it’s an option. “This won’t work. You have to kill people sometimes. That’s the reality of the world we live in, even if you don’t want to see it.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Dick says softly.
Jason’s jaw clenches. They don’t get it.
“My dad beat me,” he says precisely, and sees Bruce’s face tighten. “I don’t remember when it started, because my first memory of it was when I was three or four, and I already knew the best places to hide and how to try to avoid him.”
The Cave is silent.
“He was in and out of jail, but he always hit me. And my mom? My mom chose drugs over me. Moms are supposed to love you, right? Sacrifice themselves for their kids? But mine didn’t.”
His voice doesn’t waver, it doesn’t. Dick looks unbearably sad, and in this exact moment Jason hates him for having parents who loved him, even if they died too soon.
“And on the streets—people target homeless kids, for trafficking, or for a bit of fun—” His throat closes off, even a decade later. “Some people need to be off the streets, off this fucking planet.” He swallows.
“Okay,” Bruce says softly.
“Okay?” Jason says incredulously. “Okay? That’s—not killing is your biggest rule and Bruce—you doubted me, and grounded me, and—” Jason bites his lip. “I don’t know if I dropped him on purpose,” he says softly. “Today, I would. Back then—I wanted to, but I wanted to be Robin more, I think. But the memories are blurry, and I don’t know. But I do know, being doubted?”
He’s not even sure where these words are coming from, somewhere deep inside, pushed away for a fantasy where Bruce loving him, then and now, could erase the reality of his past.
But it’s not enough.
“It hurt me. No one has ever believed me, or cared. No one noticed I was missing, until it was too late. No one came for me. No one avenged me.”
Jason’s vision starts to blur, and he looks down at the ground for a moment, blinking furiously.
“And then Talia—” Dick makes a low noise, almost like a growl, and Jason looks up at him.
“What did she do?” Dick demands.
“She helped me,” Jason says, and Dick actually takes a step back. “She listened to me, gave me the skills to make a real difference.” Jason shrugs. “I’ve always liked making a difference.”
There’s silence in the Cave for a moment. Jason braces for excuses, censure, more bullshit, there’s a reason they haven’t really talked—
And then Tim says, “Yeah, but did she train you in human form, or shifter form?”
Jason stares at Tim blankly for a second. Did he just—
Dick covers his mouth to try to hide his smile, and Bruce glances to the side.
“I bare my soul and that’s your takeaway?” he demands, even as a part of him is grateful for the distraction.
Tim spins his staff in his hand, shrugging. “I was just curious.”
“I’ll show you curious, you little—”
“Jason,” Bruce says, rubbing his temple.
“What?” Jason says, stopping his advance on Tim. “We’re here to train him, right? In case—he needs to be able to fight without relying on being a fucking demon.”
“Little Wing,” Dick says. “We can talk—” Jason waves him off.
“No, sharing time is over and no, we don’t need to talk about it. It happened in the past, and it’s—behind us.”
It’s not really a lie if no one believes him. And what—was he going to walk out? Yell at them?
He said how he felt and—it’s done.
And he really doesn’t want to talk about how Bruce feels about killing, okay? The mature thing is to agree to disagree, right?
“What are the rules for the match?” Tim asks, nearly dropping his bo as he twirls
it again, and Jason shakes his head.
“Oh, Timmy, you can’t take me, not like this. Let’s run through a few exercises, and then I’ll put you on your ass a few times.”
---
When it happens, Jason’s not even expecting it. He’s not sure what happened until he wakes up, and sees a blurry Ra’s.
Jason blinks, clearing his vision.
“We didn’t bring you back from the dead to be in the family, Jason,” Ra’s says chidingly. “We brought you back to be a weapon.”
And then—pain.
---
Jason doesn’t want to break, but Ra’s has been doing this to people for longer than Jason wants to imagine. And Jason’s only human; everyone has a breaking point.
He wants to hold on for something, to think someone will come for him. His breaking point will surely be far beyond a rescue.
But Bruce has let Ra’s operate for decades.
Bruce lets Joker live.
And Jason knows there are so very many ninja between him and any rescue.
Despite all these good reasons, despite the resignation that sits in his stomach like a rock that won’t leave, despite Ra’s grinning face, the door is kicked down, and of all people, it’s Tim who walks through it.
“No backup?” Ra’s sneers, and Jason sees Tim’s grip tighten on his bo. “Is this all Jason Todd is worth to the Bats? Sending you, and only you?”
God, how much time have they put in with the kid and he still holds his weapon like that? What the fuck?
“Wider,” Jason says hoarsely, and Tim moves his hands a bit further apart even as he says, “Now, really?”
“Can’t rely on your shifted form,” Jason slurs. “And you shoulda brought a gun.” Ra’s backhands him without looking at him.
“I can handle this, Jason,” Ra’s says calmly, moving forward. “You shouldn’t have come alone, Timothy.”
“I think I can handle myself,” Tim replies, never taking his eyes off Ra’s.
Ra’s raises an eyebrow. “With a stance and a grip like that? I doubt it.”
“Told you,” Jason mutters, everything a little bit fuzzy, a bit unreal.
“Batman and Nightwing are with me,” Tim tells them.
“But not here,” Ra’s says, gliding to the side, Tim turning to face him. “You came here, to this room, alone. And now I think you’re both in need of rescue.”
“I’ve come to bring Hood home,” Tim says, taking a small step forward. “Move out of my way.”
Ra’s doesn’t step aside. Instead he shifts, an enormous snake unfurling into the room. Large, smooth, graceful.
Deadly.
Jason blames the feeling of everything a bit dream-like for why he starts to laugh.
“Jason,” Tim says, long-suffering, but Jason’s seen a lot of videos.
“Show ‘im,” Jason says, trying to swallow the giggles.
Ra’s flares his hood and hisses, blocking Tim’s path, and Tim sighs. A moment later there’s a black and white blur through the air, a flash of pink mouth and white teeth, and the snake jerks back. Tim advances on Ra’s, and Ra’s strikes, biting him.
Jason laughs again. He can’t help it.
Tim doesn’t even seem to notice the bite, lunging at Ra’s.
Dick appears in the doorway, and freezes at the sight of the battle.
“Heya,” Jason says, giddily. “We’re busy in here.”
“Jason,” Dick breathes, and Jason is sure he must look a sight, but really, he’s fine.
Ra’s isn’t. He shifts back to his human form, and Jason remembers what it feels like to think that will help. It doesn’t.
Bruce appears in the doorway as Tim backs Ra’s into a corner. The semi-immortal tries to do something faster than Jason can follow, but Tim has no such problem and sinks his teeth into Ra’s arm.
“Give it up,” Bruce says, and Ra’s looks at them wide-eyed.
“Can’t rely on your shifted form,” Jason says, and can’t stop a giggle.
Dick lays a hand on Jason’s cheek and says, “Hush, Little Wing,” and Jason tries to turn his head and lick his hand.
“What the fuck?” Dick asks, snatching his hand away. Jason belatedly notices there’s blood on Dick’s glove. “That’s so unsanitary!” Jason giggles again.
Bruce sighs, and says, “Concussion.”
Tim lets go of Ra’s arm, and sits on the floor in front of him.
“...it appears you have won this round,” Ra’s says reluctantly.
“Fuck yeah,” Jason says, wincing as Dick starts to pick his chains. “Don’t you forget it,” he adds. “We’ll come back, and I’ll throw him at you.”
Tim shifts back, to duck under Jason’s other arm, leaving Bruce to watch Ra’s.
“Is that…something you want to do?” Tim asks. “Throw me at people?”
“You have no idea,” Jason says fervently, grinning at the idea.
---
Back in the Batplane, everyone makes concerned noises over Jason, and there’s a definite bustle going on around him. As the pain meds kick in, reality steadies for him.
“You came for me,” he hears himself say, and the commotion freezes for a moment. Jason looks up, and Bruce’s mask is off, his eyes watching Jason with layered, old pain. “You came for me.”
“Did you think we would abandon you?” Dick says, horrified, like Jason doesn’t have abandonment issue down to his core.
You did last time, but he swallows the words. Bruce was late last time, but he didn’t give up. He knows that. He knows that.
“There were a lot of ninja,” is what he settles on saying, wincing away from the needle in Dick’s hand.
“You have four broken bones,” Tim says flatly, “and you’re upset about the needle? I’ve seen you stitch yourself with no medication.”
Jason sticks his tongue out at him.
“We shoulda killed Ra’s,” Jason tells them.
“It wouldn’t stick,” Bruce says calmly, settling a careful hand on Jason’s matted hair.
Tim makes a choked off sound and Jason tips his head to look up at Bruce.
“Was that a joke?” he demands. “Did you just make a joke about killing someone?”
“About not killing him, technically,” Tim says.
Jason scowls, and flinches away from Dick’s needle.
“Careful, asshole,” Jason says, and Bruce’s hand strokes gently over his head.
“It’s going to be okay,” Bruce tells him. “We’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.”