Chapter Text
Jason wasn’t a masochist. At least, he was pretty sure that you had to actually enjoy pain to be a masochist, not just think you deserved it. Even if the results could look the same. Sometimes, he thought about trying to die again, if maybe that would make the pain go away. Dying hadn’t worked out very well for Jason the first time around. Really, he’d been much worse off after the revival than he had been before his death, so he figured it wasn’t worth thinking about. These days, he mostly kept it to passive ideation and a few self-destructive behaviors. Vigilantism was by far the most prominent and definitely the most risky, but somehow that was never what his family commented on. Funny that.
“You’re going to give yourself cancer,” Dick scolded, snatching Jason’s post-patrol cigarette from between his fingers and smashing it out on the floor.
“Pennyworth does not approve of smoking in the Bat Cave,” Damian added.
Dick nodded, “You know it lingers--and B gets that pinched look on his face every time he opens the clock.”
“God forbid B makes a facial expression,” Jason deadpanned. Steph laughed from her spot by the weapons rack, where she had just finished stowing her special purple batarangs back in their box. Dick didn’t stop his mouth from quirking up in amusement. Even Damian…Jason checked. No, Damian’s face was flat, as usual. Like father, like son, he supposed. Tim, still in the bottom half of his Red Robin uniform, front half stripped down to reveal a sweaty grey T-shirt, sat in front of the Bat Computer. He didn’t glance up from what was undoubtably going to be another flawless after-action report.
There was another of Jason’s self-destructive tendencies, rearing its head. Who even wore grey when they knew they were going to be sweat soaked? Tim looked dirty, tired, and borderline gross, his hair kept from falling in front of his eyes only by dint of its being so sweaty that it stood in peaks in the same position it had taken when he had run his fingers through it when he ditched his cowl. Jason wanted to run his fingers through it again anyways, see how else he could manipulate the usually loose strands. Fuck, he was hopeless. Anybody else would have been better. Would have been less painful, than someone that he’d already thoughtlessly hurt. No, worse. Jason had intentionally hurt Tim, targeted him and blamed him for pain that wasn’t his fault. It only made sense that in Jason’s fucked up life, he had to be infatuated with someone he'd nearly killed. Maybe he was a masochist, after all.
“Whatever, Dick. I’ll go have my cigarette somewhere with a few less busy body birds,” Dick rolled his eyes at that, but Jason thought the alliteration really made his point stick. “Can’t say it was nice working with you, and I’m not looking forward to seeing you again.” Jason flashed a smile that held a little less edge than it would have a year ago, and he headed toward his motorcycle and the Cave exit ramp.
“Hey, Jay,” Dick called after him.
Jason paused and turned back toward the man who had once been his older brother. “Yeah, dickhead?”
“Let me wrap your shoulder before you go?”
It was a request. Maybe that was why Jason let him do it. Maybe, Jason was some little bit less self-destructive than he used to be.
………………
Healing isn’t linear, Jason told himself as he forced all his weight onto his almost certainly broken ankle. It had only been sprained at the start of the night, but a few less-than-perfect rooftop landings would do that to an ankle. It would be fine, probably. Eventually.
“Hood,” Oracle’s voice—not Babs’ voice, too processed and insensitive to be Babs, shit when was the last time he had heard Babs’ voice— “Hood, check in.”
Hauling himself up the ladder using mostly his arms—he’d lost both grapples tonight—fucking ninjas—and now that some of the adrenaline was fading, he thought maybe his other ankle was sprained too. He had probably been unconsciously compensating too much for his bad one.
“Hood,” Oracle’s voice still didn’t sound like Babs’, but Jason thought maybe there was some panic creeping in. Shit.
“Here,” he managed to say, as he pulled himself to the next landing. Three more levels and he’d be safely ensconced in this week’s piece of shit safehouse, ready to pass out for a few hours and deal with this shit in the morning.
“Status report,” B’s voice this time. Batman and B had stopped being different in Jason’s head around the first time B had almost killed Jason rather than take out the Joker. Jason got it now, mostly, had heard more about what it had been like when he was gone, but he didn’t think he would ever really forgive his dad for that one. He didn’t think his dad would ever forgive him either, despite what Dick liked to insist when he forced his way into Jason’s space with a couple of six packs.
“Just peachy,” Jason made sure his voice was strong this time. “Little busy trying to get off the streets.”
“Hood, you should come to the Cave.” Not a request. Thanks for that, B. “Robin reports that you took three shots to the chest.”
Oh, right, he’d almost forgotten about that bit. He disarmed the window and dragged himself inside. This was not his most subtle entrance. He’d have to burn this place a few days earlier than expected. “Baby bat exaggerates, it was more like two and a half.”
“You were hit by shrapnel?” B’s voice was pitch controlled, and Jason didn’t know whether, if he’d been able to hear him behind the mask, any concern would have made it past B’s left eyebrow, anyways.
“Don’t be so literal. I’m fine. I’ve got better armor now than I ever had as Robin.” Jason triggered the clasps to release his helmet from the rest of his uniform and then stripped out of his Kevlar. He’d need new stuff. Vigilante rule of thumb, never wore gear you’d gone down in. “Is the baby bird back in the nest?”
A pause. Then Oracle’s voice said, “Nightwing and Red Robin are back at the Cave. B, you and Robin are clear to go in whenever you’re ready.”
Jason paused unlacing his boots, “There’re more of those bastards out there?”
“Red Robin suggests that these three are not hostile,” B said. But, obviously he was not going to take Tim’s word for it. He never took anyone at their word.
“Batman and I have it handled,” Damian cut into the channel. Tim had taught him how to do that. Jason didn’t know which one he was prouder of for that development. The demon brat, probably, for getting over himself and realizing that Tim made a far better ally than enemy. He had been quicker on the uptake of that one than Jason had.
Jason bent down to pick up his vest—it was only shredded in a couple spots, he could handle three more ninja—and his chest, now free from the compression of said shredded vest, let him know that that was a terrible idea and absolutely not allowed.
“Fine,” Jason spat.
He ripped his helmet off, considered throwing it across the room, and then very carefully set it down out of sight of the window. Goddammit. Maybe he should stop putting bombs in his helmets. It was just…Jason knew that there were things worse than death. He had a different set of enemies than the bats and birds, and sure, he wasn’t technically recognizable as anything connected to them since he was still legally dead, and yet…
A few months ago, Tim had approached Jason about the idea of coming back to life. Not into the family, Tim had stressed, but resuming the public identity of Jason Todd. No, Jason Todd-Wayne. Sometimes the thought struck Jason in the gut so hard he thought he might throw up.
It wasn’t that it wasn’t an attractive idea, it was just that it was impossible. Jason wasn’t the same as he had been. Sometimes, when he didn’t see any of the bats for a few weeks, and when Roy and Kori hadn’t called in a while, he would forget that people knew him as anything other than Red Hood. He forgot that he was something other than a shadow of Batman wearing a cast-off mask of Joker’s. Batman was already supposed to be a shadow, a figment, a nightmare. What did that make Jason, then? The shadow of a nightmare, a cautionary tale, something several shades darker than the bad guy’s bogeyman?
Jason wrapped his ribs and ankles as tight as he could without exacerbating the damage. The pain didn’t feel good, per se, but it felt a bit like relief. Unsettled by the thought, Jason popped a sleeping pill—just one—even though they never seemed to work that well for him anyway. It took the edge off the pain and let him ignore the rest. Tim was okay. Damian and Dick and Steph and Babs and Cass—he was pretty sure, anyways, though she was harder for him to read—were all okay.
Sometimes, Jason liked to tell himself that it had been easier before he admitted that he cared about all these birds and bats again. It wasn’t true. Having something to live for was always better than having something to die for. He thought less about dying most days, and more about whether he would ever work up enough nerve to swing by the manor for tea with Alfred without the excuse of a recently resolved family disaster.
Against long odds and most logic, Jason had a family again, even if sometimes that wasn’t quite enough to stop him from hating himself. Even if, sometimes, it made it harder to forgive himself for past mistakes. There were still people alive that he might one day make it up to.