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He's out at a bar, just relaxing - mostly, and listening in to what everyone else is saying. It's a good bar for it - Jack, the bartender, doesn't take any shit, so no one starts any, cos he's almost the same size as Waylon. And everyone is welcome, unless they start shit. And that means that it's a good bar to listen out for anything - Bat related or otherwise - that might go down.
And that means that the people next to him are perfectly free and happy to talk about Robin. And it's fine! It is. Except-. They mention the little bat, and they're debating if he's Robin three or Robin four. Because they don't know if they should count the blonde Robin or not.
He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, and it's so goddamn slow.
He can't-. He-.
And his teacher's voice murmurs gently who can you be, that will get you what you want? what can you know? what can you not know? what can you do, that will achieve your objective?
He can be an Alley kid. That bit's easy, 'cause it's true. He wants to know who they think is who. He can know who the Bats are generally, but he can't know too much about them, or he wouldn't need to ask. He can do- this.
He leans over, just an Alley kid who managed to get out for a few years, before coming back. A little rough around the edges, because he needs to be, but not enough to be a threat.
And they tell him-. They tell him that-. Robin One, he lasted for ages. A cousin said his friend's uncle said that the first Robin had been around for about nine years, all told. And then they reckon he moved to Bludhaven, and became Nightwing - 'cause the uncle had followed the work, ended up in Bludhaven, and recognised him.
Robin Two. He was very small, for a very long time. He had a couple of rough patches - one where he was gone for months and months, though he'd come out for a little bit in the middle, and he'd needed to fight with a weapon afterwards, and they reckoned he'd been hurt real bad, 'cause he'd been gone so long, and came back kinda different, less snarky and more quippy, less likely to get up close and personal in a fight, and with a lot more armour, on his chest and arms and legs - and then another rough patch when there'd been a blonde Robin who covered for him for a while. They reckoned he'd gone on to become Red Robin, but only after another break. But he'd been Robin for about, oh, seven years, they reckon.
Robin Three or Four - the current one, was kinda small again. And he'd probably be Robin for about the same length of time as the other two.
Jason thinks absently, yeah, he had been a tiny kid. He'd been fifteen, and barely cracked five foot. And Drake had been twelve, and probably a normal size. That is- about the same size that he'd been, when he-.
Yeah, an absence of over half a year would be reasonable for changing a fighting style, and a semi-personality change. If you'd been hurt enough to be gone for that long, you'd probably have been pretty close to death, and yeah, it's reasonable to think that you'd be different than you were before.
But no one had-. They hadn't-.
He can still hear his heartbeat. It's barely over one every two seconds.
Everything he'd been as Robin, everything he'd done, everyone he'd helped-. People think that it was Red Robin who helped them. Not him.
They don't-.
They don't even know he existed. That he was alive. That he'd died.
That he'd- come back? He doesn't feel like he's come back. No one thinks he's a bat. He wants it that way. No one thinks he's a Wayne either - not him, and not B. And no one else who knew him before, they don't think he's alive, not really.
If a tree falls and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?
If a Robin comes back from the dead and no one cares, did he come back at all?
One of the men looks at him and says "You alright? You've gone pale as Dave's ass. I'll get you a drink."
And it's so incongruous for the Alley - that someone would offer to buy someone else a drink just because they've gone pale (and the part of his head that never turns off says: Dave is the one with the cousin, and the cousin's friend's uncle, Dave's the one from Gotham, with the accent to match. And the other man might have lived here for a while, but wasn't born here. His accent's not quite right for that, and his attitude definitely isn't.)
But it's incongruous enough that he forgets himself and says "I'm not old enough to drink yet." He isn't. He's got another month or so to go. Kind of. Depends how you count. But shit, he shouldn't have said that, so he mumbles "I've got to go." And leaves.
He needs to-.
He's-.
T said to go to her if he needed to.
And god, this is fucking nothing. Two men talking in a bar, and they thought he and Tim were the same Robin? That's not anything.
Yes, it sucks they think that. That everything Jason did gets attributed to a fucking rich white boy who loves following orders. But it's-.
God, his hands are shaking.
Why the hell does this matter? It doesn't, is the answer. It doesn't.
But he should-. He should go to T.
He doesn't want to talk to anyone right now, and she won't-.
By the time he gets to her, he'll probably be able to turn around and drive away again, so it's fine.
But by the time he does get to her, it's not fine. It's worse.
He barely feels real anymore.
He didn't track driving here, and he doesn't track getting up to T's apartment. It's like he blinked, and was outside, blinked again, and he was inside.
He blinks again, and she's cupping his cheek in her hand. He closes his eyes, leans into it. He just wants to-. rest? not exist?
She guides him to the floor, and oh. It's soft.
He chokes out "I'm real, right?"
She stills. "Jason?"
"I just-. There were these two men. They were talking about-. About Robin.
"An' they thought that Robin two was the same person as Robin three.
"An'. No one knows I was Robin. Barely anyone knows I'm Jason Todd - that I was Jason Todd-Wayne.
"An' when I was a kid, when I had nothing, I had my name. An' now I don't even have that, not really.
"An'. I don't know. If no one knows who I am, do I even exist?"
"I know who you are." She rubs a thumb over his cheekbone.
"Yeah. But I'm not a Wayne anymore. B made that damn clear. An' I'm definitely not Robin anymore."
She flicks a hand in dismissal. "So you are not Robin anymore. Neither is Richard. He moved on, as you have."
She tips her head slightly, acknowledging that they didn't happen in the same manner - that Dick moved on, but he passed it on. Robin had been taken from him. But no, she's right, he has grown past it.
And then she says, "You might not be a Wayne, but you are al Ghul. Do you understand?"
She says it so fiercely.
He can't-.
He says weakly "What, even Ra's?"
She flicks her hand in dismissal again. "He does not accept you as a member of the al Ghul family, as his grandson, despite what you are to me, but he accepts you as an al Ghul nonetheless. You even have a title."
"...A title?"
"Yes. Al karda l-ghuliina."
"...Huh."
That's uh-. Hang on, let him parse that. Al karda. Arabic definite article, Persian word, accusative. The knife. Like his knife, the one Talia gave him. And then l-ghuliina. Arabic again, but genitive, and masculine plural. Of the al Ghuls. So - the knife of the al Ghuls.
And maybe parsing grammar is not the thing to be focusing on, but it's currently the only thing he can focus on. The rest is too much, right now. And then T is talking again, and he listens.
"It is something, at any rate. He no longer wishes you dead, and you are part of the al Ghul household. Likely because you killed and stopped those he requested of you. We can work on the rest, there is time enough."
"...We?"
"You are mine, Jason. Bruce may have been the first to adopt you, but I have cared for you. I have had you educated. I have fed you, and clothed you, and bled for you. You are my son. And even if that fool was stupid enough to reject you, I am not."
"Your son?"
She brushes a hand through his hair. "Yes. I had never considered adoption before, but I suppose that Bruce may be right in at least some things. And I want you as my son."
He can't-.
But she's here, and he's here, and she's never asked more of him than he can give.
He tips his head forward, letting it fall against her collarbone, and mumbles into her skin "Yeah, okay."