Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason had been chasing the same woman around Crime Alley for the past half an hour, and he was getting sick of it.

Most of the time, these chases were over before they even began. Jason was stronger and more agile than most of his opponents, and even if they did get away, he knew the neigbourhood like the back of his hand and could use rooftops to take shortcuts. Catching her should have been near effortless.

…The problem was that this person was magical. Because of course she was. So every time Jason got too close, the magician would fire off some spell or something, disappear in mid-air, and then Jason would have to spend the next few minutes trying to figure out which alleyway she was in now. He didn’t know why she only teleported a few alleys over, but he also didn’t know why she had decided to attack Jason in the first place, so maybe she was just stupid.

At this point, he was almost ready to give up. As Jason’s frustration grew, so did the green tinge over his vision, and if he didn’t have a way to vent it soon he was going to do something stupid like punch a wall or some random civilian.

But just as that thought crossed Jason’s mind, he turned a corner to find the magician at the end of an alleyway, wheezing. Evidently using whatever teleportation spell she had been using, even if it had been short range, had exhausted her.

Jason’s lips turned up into a manic grin under the mask. Finally.

As he stalked towards her, relishing in the way she was clearly shaking with fear, the magician fumbled for a notebook. Jason was too deep in his satisfaction and glee to realize that letting someone who clearly knew magic to look through a book of what was obviously spells was a bad idea.

“You messed with the wrong person,” Jason’s voice echoed throughout the alleyway. The helmet made his voice sound flat and unaffected rather than excited at the chance to finally vent his frustration, but the magician still stumbled back and fell against the wall. The book fell from her hands and landed open on a random page next to her.

Jason laughed and took another step forward. The magician’s eyes flitted towards the open book by her side, and she shot her hand out towards Jason as she shouted something unintelligible.

For one single second it seemed like nothing was going to happen. Jason was still at least a little bit lucid, because he finally noticed the notebook and took a step backwards instead of continuing his intimidation, but it was too late. Something was already happening.

On the next step back, he somehow tripped over his own feet and barely managed to catch himself on the pavement.

Vaguely, Jason registered the magician heaving a sigh of relief and standing up on wobbly legs, the notebook back in her hands. But then his vision was swimming in and out of focus and every part of his body started tingling painfully, and just as he registered the feeling of his body shrinking, he passed out cold.

Jason woke up to someone nudging him in the ribs with something cold and hard.

“D’ya think it’s dead?” a fairly young voice asked.

“Dunno,” a closer and older voice responded, and then the nudging turned into a full-out kick.

Somehow, this kick was enough to briefly lift Jason’s body off of the pavement, and his eyes flew open as an instinctive yowl flew out of his mouth. A yowl?

“What the hell!” the younger voice, coming from what looked to be a young girl, exclaimed.

Jason meanwhile scrambled to get his footing. Everything was wrong. He wasn’t an idiot, he could feel the fact that he had four paws and no clothes and a tail, and also that he wasn’t even a foot tall, so it didn’t take much thought to realize that he was somehow now a cat. Goddamn magicians.

“Jesus,” the older person said, voice tinged with disgust. “I really thought it was dead. Let’s go, Katie, black cats are bad luck.”

With two wary looks backwards, the two people hurried out of the alley, leaving Jason alone to take stock of his surroundings. 

Right. He was a cat. A quick glance back proved that the magician was long gone, but the sky didn’t seem any darker or lighter, so he couldn’t have been unconscious for that long.

Using the cat’s limbs seemed instinctive, because it didn’t take long for Jason to figure out how to jump up onto a rooftop (via a dumpster and a window ledge). From his new viewpoint he took a quick scan of the neighbouring alleyways for the magician, but he couldn’t see anything. 

Great. She could be anywhere now.

That was a problem for another day, Jason decided, because he felt exhausted . But he was also extremely cold, so he had to find a place to nap. Why had he made all of his safehouses impossible to enter without half a dozen steps that were impossible to do in his current form, exactly?

But whatever. Jason knew what it was like to live on the streets, so he found somewhere warm enough for the rest of the night eventually, and curled up into a ball.

When he woke up again, the sky was bright, and Jason was now hungry instead of tired. By a stroke of luck though, he actually knew someone who left out food for stray animals (a rare exception in Gotham), and he wasn’t too far from her place.

Navigating Gotham in the daytime was substantially harder than during the night. As the person from last night had said, he was a black cat (which a look at his own paws confirmed), so melting into the shadows was kind of his main defense against being kicked by random people or kidnapped by cult members or something. But whatever, he was Robin the Red Hood, he could handle it.

So he did, and the old lady was there crocheting on her back porch (honestly he wasn’t sure what else she ever did). When she saw him, she brightened and immediately went in to bring him some cat food. It was disgusting, but Jason had eaten far worse.

…And now what to do with himself.

Find the magician, obviously, that was his main goal. These spells usually wore off with time, he remembered that much from working with magic users in the Justice League, but he couldn’t really afford that what with his goals of becoming a crime lord in the near future. Not to mention his other, more distant, plans of finding the new Robin and permanently grounding him.

…Actually, on the topic of Robin… now that was a good use of his time. The Red Hood couldn’t be seen picking fights with Robin until the big showdown, because then the Bat would come in and ruin his plans. But some random alley cat attacking the kid? Nobody would bat an eye at that.

His cat lips couldn’t properly curl into a grin, but Jason felt a rush of glee at the thought. Maybe he would be fine being in this form for a little while.

Chapter Text

Tim was just going along with a normal patrol when he got attacked out of nowhere.

His first instinct when a screeching, fast-moving black blur came at him was to pull out his bo staff and swing. But just before he was able to do that, he recognized that blur. It was… a cat? Fortunately, his reflexes were fast enough by now that instead of making contact, he managed to drop the staff just in time.

Unfortunately, that meant the flying cat was able to get quite a few scratches in before Tim got control of him, but after several seconds he finally managed to grasp the cat underneath his front legs.

The cat did not like this at all , hissing and spitting and writhing in Tim’s hands. After a few seconds of him not stopping, Tim felt bad and put the cat down. The cat then promptly attacked him again, although Tim was a bit more ready for it this time and managed to get a hold of the cat again after only a scratch or two.

This time, although it pained him to see the animal in distress, Tim held him at arm’s length until he calmed down. Which took a good minute, but then finally the cat seemed to give up and just sat there limply in Tim’s arms, glaring at him.

It was a cute cat, black with green eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dark. And it had a little tuft of dirty white hair in the middle of its forehead (for a Gotham alley cat, it was surprising the white was visible at all).

“Hey,” Tim said in his most soothing voice. “I’m sorry, I’m not going to hurt you.”

The cat glared. Tim had never seen an animal have such scathing an expression. But considering he had attacked Tim, he probably had a traumatic past, so Tim couldn’t really blame the poor thing.

“Do you want me to take you to a shelter?” Tim asked it, not really sure why he expected the cat to understand him at all. However, the cat immediately froze even more than before and then hissed ferociously.

Tim’s eyes widened behind the mask. “Okay, okay, no shelter,” he said softly. Maybe the word shelter had freaked the cat out. Gotham shelters were often terrible, so that wasn’t surprising. Perhaps he should get Bruce to make that W.E.’s next project.  “Do you have anyone to take care of you?”

But he’d let down his guard too much. With a quick twist, the cat escaped from Tim’s hands and disappeared into the night.

The first attack had been somewhat of a failure, but Jason perfected his technique in the following nights.

Every night (after a long day of fruitlessly looking for the magician), he would figure out what patrol route the vigilantes were taking, wait until the moment that Tim had a stretch of the route by himself, and then attack. It was difficult because Tim had actually put pants onto the costume, so there wasn’t much exposed skin, but Jason wasn’t above darting behind dumpsters and jumping off of roofs in his quest to harass the replacement who had stolen his life.

Each time it happened, the kid would try to catch Jason, either by grabbing him or by calling out “wait!” as Jason slipped back into the shadows, but Jason had learned his lesson. Tim never caught him again.

…Until the day before Halloween.

Jason had, to be honest, lost track of the days a little bit, and treated the night like any other. This turned out to be a mistake. He was sure he had just seen Tim in his very alleyway, his stolen costume gleaming bright in the rare moonlight, but when he jumped down into it the kid was gone.

He paused. A scuffling sound came from behind him, and Jason tried to bolt, but it was too late. Something fell over top of him. He was trapped.

Much like his first waking moments as a cat, Jason’s instinctual reaction was to yowl and scramble backwards. Then a pair of hands and then a body were holding onto him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” a voice repeated over and over above his head, and once his brain rebooted to human instincts, Jason recognized the voice as Tim’s. He also recognized the trap he was in. It was a weighted throw net.

Shit, he thought, and then he stopped wriggling, because there wasn’t any point. Tim fell silent. Jason hissed.

“Are you going to stay calm?” Tim asked, as if expecting a response again. After a second of silence he let go of Jason, who turned and gave his most ferocious glare at the kid.

Tim looked apologetic and sheepish. “Sorry, I know how much you don’t like to be constrained. It’s just that… tomorrow is Halloween, and you know how much people hate black cats. Not to mention the amount of cult activity that is going to pop up. And the fact that you’re out again tonight… you’re pretty clean and well-fed for an alley cat, but there’s no way you have an owner. Or a good one at least, because they would have to be insane to let their black cat out on the night before Halloween.”

Tim’s spiel ended with a hopeful gaze towards Jason. Was the kid stupid? Did he think he could win over animals with logic?

Jason narrowed his eyes and hissed again. Get on with it, he tried to convey.

Somehow, it worked. The kid sat up a bit straighter. “Right, anyways, I was thinking… I could take you home with me?”

What-

Tim took the pause as a signal to continue (Jesus this kid was chatty), because of course he did. “It’s just that I figured from that one time that you really hate shel- I mean, S H E L T E R S, and I wouldn’t trust them with you on Halloween anyways, and also I’ve really wanted a cat my whole life anyways,” he ended sheepishly.

So, Jason had a lot of questions. Mainly, what the fuck? Jason had attacked Tim every night for the past week, and now he wanted to take Jason home? Was he stupid? (Considering he’d asked himself that exact same question twice in the past five minutes, the answer was clearly yes).

But then he thought… this was kind of the perfect opportunity. Clearly the kid was capable of trapping him, so attacking Robin on patrol probably wouldn’t work so well from now on. But if Jason was in Tim’s house… oh, his attacks could be constant. He could make his replacement’s life a living hell.

(And it’s not like his search for the magician was working out in the slightest. He hadn’t seen a hint of the woman since that night).

So Jason let the kid pick him up and take him home (trying to tune out his conversation with Bruce over the comms about going home early for the night) and played at a docile, obedient pet, until the moment he was taken into Tim’s house.

Wait, Tim’s house? That made Jason pause. He had wondered why they’d gone around back instead of through the Batcave, but apparently Tim lived… next door? Jason had thought he lived in the manor.

Whatever, it didn’t change much. Okay, this changed a bit, but Bruce had still replaced Robin while Jason’s body was still warm in the grave. And with someone as rich and privileged as Bruce was, too! His hatred for his old father guardian mentor grew just a little bit more.

Tim entered through the back door into the kitchen and quietly shut it behind him. “This is my house,” he said to the cat quietly, probably not to wake up his parents who didn’t know he was Robin (seriously, how stupid must they be? Now Jason knew where Tim got that from). “I’ll let you out of the net soon, I promise, you just need a bath first.”

Jason didn’t actually fight through the bath at all, only because he really did need one. And then he stayed docile for a little bit longer while Tim fed him salmon from an old can. But the second his meal was over, Jason didn’t hesitate to swat at the brat’s newly-exposed ankles, leaving several red streaks there. And then he bolted.

“Hey!” Tim exclaimed, jumping to his feet. And then a resigned, “I probably should have expected that,” just loud enough for Jason to hear from the next room.

The next morning, a delivery arrived of a variety of brands of cat food. Jason rejected all of them and swiped a piece of Tim’s own meal from the dining table. Yeah, Jason would take cat food from the old lady in the alley, but she was a poor Crime Alley citizen who was deciding to spend her limited money feeding alley cats. Tim , meanwhile, was unbelievably rich and could absolutely afford to feed Jason proper food. Plus, he deserved every inconvenience that Jason could throw his way. (Tim just shrugged and donated all of the extras to a food bank, because the kid couldn’t even be annoyed normally).

Of course since it was Halloween, Jason didn’t see Tim much that day, or the next. Jason assumed that he was spending most of his free time in the Batcave or on the streets dealing with whatever rogues had escaped. But he came over to feed Jason every day and apologized for not being around, even as Jason scratched up his hands and got a good swipe at his cheekbone.

(More weird was that Jason didn’t see the kid’s parents even once. But he was too busy indulging in his cat instincts to nap the day away and get hair all over the kid’s pillowcases to think too hard about that).

The one moment Jason had to properly attack Tim was the night between, where Tim crashed on his own bed mere hours before his schoolday started. Jason, relishing the idea of making his morning even worse than it already was, jumped onto Tim’s bed and managed to get a deep swipe at the kid’s throat.

Tim startled awake pretty quickly, so the scratch didn’t go as far as Jason’s malice would have liked, but Tim’s exhausted face the next day made it totally worth it.

“Sorry, cat,” Tim had said with a sheepish smile even as drops of blood dripped from his neck. He was holding Jason out in front of him much like the first night they’d met. “I think I have to shut you out of my room tonight.” 

When Tim came back to his normal schedule, Jason started his own schedule too. Mainly, in the hours before and after school, Jason redoubled his efforts to attack Tim at every given moment.

Tim was clearly insane though, because he never reacted with anger or annoyance. Instead, his reaction was usually pretty neutral, if not downright amusement.

Jason swatted at his ankles from open doorways. He climbed onto the fridge to attack from above. When the physical attacks got boring, he moved Tim’s stuff around, sat on important casefiles and homework, and startled him with sudden growls and hissing from random places in the house.

The whole time, Jason was just waiting for Tim to kick Jason back out onto the streets, but he… didn’t. Apparently he had been serious about wanting Jason to become his pet, because he decided to turn the attacks into a game, using his Robin training of evasive manoeuvres to get away from the attacks and seeming to find it enjoyable . When Jason got into his room a second night, Tim started putting a dresser in front of his door, and got Jason a new blanket for his favourite chair in the living room so he could stay the night there (“Sorry, I wish you could stay in my room at night too, but I can’t train you out of attacking me when I’m asleep.”)

One day as Tim was serving Jason a portion of his own meal (he had given up trying to feed Jason anything even remotely normal), the kid paused. “Hey, cat,” he said, “I just realized I never named you. I just keep calling you cat. Hmm…”

Jason glared at Tim. Was this just crossing his mind now ?

“How about… Fluffy?”

Jason snarled as loudly as he possibly could.

Tim’s hands went up in a gesture of surrender. “Whoa! Okay, not Fluffy. What about… Spot? Because of the little white spot on your head?”

Jason hissed. That wasn’t as bad as Fluffy, but it was still horrifically unoriginal. He wished he could roll his eyes properly.

“Alright.” Tim was quiet for the next few seconds while he finished serving Jason his food. “Maybe you need a name as violent as you are,” Tim joked. “Like…” he glanced down at the utensil he’d used to open the takeout box (had Jason mentioned Tim was an idiot?) “...Knife, or something.”

Jason didn’t respond. Knife was also a terrible name, but knowing the kid if Jason didn’t accept this then he’d probably circle back around to another name like Kitty or Sugar or. Something even worse. He wouldn’t put it past him. 

“Huh.” Tim sounded surprised he’d actually landed on something acceptable. “So… Knife is an okay name? No hissing?”

Resigned, Jason stayed quiet, although he did look Tim in the eyes with the blankest expression he could muster.

“Knife…” Tim repeated to himself quietly.

Jason sighed to himself and went back to eating his food.

Chapter Text

Jason was a bit ashamed to admit it even to himself, but he started giving up at that point. Well, really, it was the point that Tim started wearing his Robin suit in the house for the express purpose of deflecting Jason’s attacks. And when Jason tried to get at his face again, Tim caught him in a blanket and then snuggled him on the couch for the next hour.

Really, Jason should have been given an award for keeping up his attacks as long as he had. Scratch what he said earlier, he wasn’t ashamed of giving up at all . How had he been supposed to know that his replacement was batshit insane and didn’t have any self preservation skills?

The ceasefire only lasted for a single afternoon though, because after only a few hours of not attacking Tim, the kid got so worried that he seemed to be debating contacting a vet. And no thank you, Jason did not need to be examined by some rando that Tim found in Crime Alley, so he resumed his normal behaviour, just with his claws retracted this time. Tim was elated when Jason ambushed him from behind the couch, and then even more elated when he realized that Jason hadn’t had his claws out this time.

“The exposure therapy is working!” he exclaimed out loud, and then snuggled Jason to his chest all the way until his sleep deprivation caught up with him and he fell unconscious right there on the couch. That’s what he gets, Jason thought to himself as he wormed himself out of Tim’s grasp, but the thought was now more fond exasperation than actual irritation.

When the kid went out for the night, Jason went up to his room, squirreled himself under the bed, and thought. The truth was, Tim was nothing like he had expected, and nothing like Talia had described either. Jason… kind of needed to rethink all of his plans.

Well, okay, he still wanted to get back at Bruce, because fuck Bruce . But Tim was actually… nice. Maybe he wasn’t the worst person in the world to have taken Jason’s old role, even if Bruce was still an awful horrible asshole for taking on a new Robin at all.

Thinking about Bruce made the pit flare up inside him, which made Jason realize how little he had felt it in the past few days. He’d felt it sometimes, certainly, especially that night when he’d gotten at the kid’s throat, but ever since their new routine…

Well, there was no point overthinking it. Not like he could control it anyways; clearly, it did what it wanted.

Jason spent the next hour snooping around Tim’s room, just because. He was silently extremely impressed when he read over some of the kid’s casework… he had usually been too busy trying to attack Tim to pay attention to what he was actually working on. But as much as he called Tim an idiot, he was clearly somehow also a genius, making connections that even Bruce wouldn’t have thought of. Another reason that Tim wasn’t actually the worst Robin in the world, Jason admitted to himself, albeit still a bit begrudgingly.

He still had to keep up appearances, so after looking over the files he swiped them all off of the desk onto the floor. And then Jason paused. Along with the files, a few smaller and glossier squares of paper had fallen too, from their place where they had been underneath the files. Photographs.

Jason jumped effortlessly onto the floor, and then with a bit more effort turned over the first photograph with his paw. Then he froze. That was him .

But not him now, or even him as Red Hood. It was him as Robin . Robin and Batman, sitting together beside a gargoyle with milkshakes in each of their hands. Jason was gesturing animatedly and laughing, and Bruce, even though he was in costume, had a fond smile on his face.

A door slammed downstairs, and Jason unfroze. Tim was home. Tim would also probably hide all of the photographs away as soon as he realized he had left them out. So as fast as he could, Jason flipped all of the other photos over.

There was a slightly shaky one of Dick, Dick as Robin , and where had Tim gotten that ? But most of them were of Jason. Two more of Jason and Batman together, and then three of Jason by himself. One was an action shot, and the other two were Jason comforting a mugging victim and Jason escorting a sex worker home for the night.

“Knife?” Tim’s voice called, much closer now. Only a few moments later, his head poked around the corner of the doorway. “Oh, there you are,” he said, sounding relieved. And then his eyebrows shot up. “Are you looking at my photos?”

Jason looked up and then back down. There was really no other explanation.

“Alright,” Tim said, not sounding all that surprised. “Hold on a minute, let me get changed.”

Jason stared at the photos as Tim took his clothes into the bathroom, had a quick shower, and then emerged again barely ten minutes later. Tim sat down beside him and stared at the photos in silence for a few minutes before he spoke.

“So, you’re some sort of mutated cat, right?”

…Jason wasn’t sure what he had been expecting Tim to say, but it wasn’t that.

“You must be,” Tim continued after a second of silence. “Like, I’ve noticed you do a lot of weird things, but flipping over photos and arranging them like this definitely isn’t a normal cat thing. I’ve kind of figured for a while, because it’s not like mutated animals are all that rare in Gotham with all of the radioactivity and stuff, right?”

Jason looked up blankly to stare at Tim’s face again. Tim brightened at this, of course, because he didn’t have normal human reactions to anything .

“See, I knew it! You can understand me, right?”

Jason gave in and nodded.

“Okay.” Tim grinned, but his smile faded as he glanced down at the photos. “I guess I should explain these then.”

Jason would have nodded again, but the kid now looked completely lost in thought.

“Right.” There was silence for a few more moments. “Well… I know you hate Robin, right?” Tim didn’t wait for Jason to continue. “I mean, obviously. I don’t know why, but I can’t think of any other way why you kept attacking me out on the streets. That was the first clue that you weren’t a normal cat, by the way, there’s no way a normal cat could have come across my solo patrol route every night.”

Jason batted at Tim’s hand to knock him off of the tangent.

Tim flushed a bit. “Right. Sorry. But… well… to me, Robin was my hero.” He gently picked up one of the photos, the one where Jason was comforting the victim, and ran this thumb over the surface of it. “I just keep these to remind me… why I do it, you know? I know I’ll never live up to them.” His lips quirked up into a sad smile. “But I like to hope that Jason would have thought I’m a good successor. Good enough, I mean. I really looked up to him.” Tim blinked. “Not that I don’t look up to Dick too! Dick was a really good Robin. But I barely got to photograph him for a few months before he left to become Nightwing, so Jason was my Robin.”

Jason was pretty sure he was missing some context here. He focused on that instead of any of the feelings he may or may not have been feeling at the moment, and instead swatted at Tim’s wrist again.

Tim looked over, frowning. “What?” And then his eyes cleared. “Oh, right. I guess I assumed you figured it out, but I guess I should make it clear anyways. Nightwing is Dick Grayson, and Robin was Jason Todd. Who lived next door? With Bruce Wayne? And I used to follow them around with a camera and take pictures of them,” he added, like that was an afternote.

Jason closed his eyes for a second and just breathed. Okay. So Tim was that camera kid Jason had caught once. That… actually explained a lot.

But Tim wasn’t done. “And then… well, I don’t know exactly how much you know, so I guess I’ll just explain it all, just in case. Well, obviously Jason… died. And Bruce started going crazy, beating up muggers and picking fights with gangs almost too big for him to handle. And that’s why I stepped in. I think Batman needs a Robin, and Bruce wasn’t going to find one himself, so I made myself Robin before he got hurt or went too far. So, yeah.” He put the photo back down and looked down at it, his gaze distant. “That’s why I keep these with me. They’re copies, of course, but they remind me why I keep fighting.”

Tim seemed to shake himself out of the mood and then smiled down at Jason, before collecting all of the papers and photos from the floor and depositing them back onto his desk. He then went to brush his teeth and get ready for bed; after all, it was in the early hours of the morning, and he had school tomorrow.

Jason stayed sitting there in the middle of the floor long past the time that Tim finally fell asleep. Considering just a few hours ago he’d decided that Talia had lied about Tim, it wasn’t as surprising as it should have been that she had lied about Bruce too.

Jason was just… tired, now. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do once he became a human again, but clearly it wasn’t any of the things he had planned.

But there was still nothing to it. Searching for the magician had been fruitless, so Jason would just have to keep waiting.

The next morning he continued his attacks on Tim, but at this point it was only really because he had nothing better to do. And he could admit to himself that it was just a bit fun, too.

Before Tim left the house, he paused in the living room. “Hey Knife, do you want me to turn on the TV while I’m gone?” he asked. “I just realized, since you’re not a normal cat I bet you get pretty bored all day.”

Every day after that the TV was put on every morning before Tim went to school. Jason was still in a cat body so still slept through most of it, but it still definitely helped now that Jason was running out of ways to annoy the kid without being too annoying, which gave him significantly more free time.

A few nights later, Tim was taking the night off Robin, although that was rather useless since he was apparently spending the time working on cases instead.

Jason was napping on Tim’s bed, but he stirred when he heard Tim mutter “ Red Hood ” to himself.

He wasn’t sure if he was just hearing things, but there it was again. Tim wasn’t paying any attention to him, so Jason jumped onto Tim’s desk, right in front of the kid’s face. Tim blinked, eyes adjusting to something other than staring at his laptop for the past five to ten hours straight. “Oh, hey Knife,” he said. “Did you want something?”

Jason pointedly turned his head towards the laptop screen, where security footage from Crime Alley was open.

“Oh, curious what I’m working on?” Tim blinked a few times. “It’s the Red Hood,” he confessed after a second’s pause. “He’s been missing for a worrying amount of time now. To be honest, B doesn’t want me looking into him because he killed a bunch of people, but I think he was kind of doing good to the neighbourhood.” Tim paused. “Minus the murder part. But I’m still trying to find where he went, because any progress he made in Crime Alley is slipping now that he’s been gone for so long.”

Jason blinked a few times, trying to comprehend the fact that Tim was… kind of supportive of his crime lord plans? Minus the killings (Jason still wasn’t quite sure if he regretted those or not), but whatever, that was basically approval. Trying to figure out how to reconcile things with Bruce while still being the Red Hood was one of the things Jason was still trying to avoid thinking about, so it was really nice to hear that at least one of the Bats endorsed his future plans.

Tim, unaware of Jason’s thoughts, yawned. He immediately reached for his coffee mug, only to blink in surprise when it was empty.

Grabbing that mug and the two beside it, Tim went downstairs. Jason was a bit pleasantly surprised, honestly, because the kid usually let the mugs pile up to at least half a dozen before he finally brought them down. He followed Tim downstairs since he was awake now anyways, expecting to see him put the mugs in the dishwasher.

What he wasn’t expecting was Tim to put them on the counter. And then he opened a drawer and started pouring coffee grounds into the maker.

Jason hissed as loudly as he possibly could at this. Tim barely glanced backwards, pouring the grounds into the filter at the top.

Oh no he wasn’t making a new pot of coffee past midnight, Jason thought to himself, and leaped up onto the counter to intercept this motion. He was too late, and Tim closed the contraption just in time to parry a swipe from Jason.

“Knife,” Tim said reproachfully. Jason hissed and attempted to knock the pot off of the counter. Tim parried that too, frowning.

Jason snarled quietly but decided to bide his time. He pretended to give up, and sat there patiently as the coffee brewed (Tim had long since decided to pick his battles and didn’t protest Jason sitting on the counter). And then, just as Tim went to retrieve his mugs, Jason pushed the entire coffee pot over the edge. The container made a satisfying smashing sound as it hit the floor.

“My coffee!” Tim cried, sounding absolutely anguished. He looked at Jason with soulful eyes. “Knife, how could you?”

Jason pointedly looked up at the clock. Tim followed his gaze, and then his expression soured. “It’s not that late, though.”

Jason hissed. Yes, it absolutely was.

Tim pouted at the pile of coffee and broken glass, and then looked back at Jason with a sullen expression. “Fine,” he said dramatically, and then stomped back upstairs without even cleaning up the mess. He made a big show of slamming the door in Jason’s face, which was frankly so rude, considering Jason was just being considerate for Tim’s health. Some thanks he got.

He camped himself just outside the door, and was rewarded when not half an hour later all sounds from behind the door stopped other than some quiet breathing. Tim hadn’t bothered to put the dresser in front of the door, so with a few tries Jason got the door open to reveal the little brat fast asleep across his desk.

Heaving a heavy sigh, Jason jumped onto it and turned off Tim’s laptop and light. No use in trying to wake him up or get him to sleep somewhere reasonable, because he would probably try to keep himself up again out of spite, so Jason hopped onto Tim’s bed and made himself comfortable.

Chapter Text

Time passed quickly when most of Jason’s time was spent napping, so he wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been, but one day the routine changed.

Tim came back from school with a bounce in his step and a wide grin on his face. When he saw Jason, his expression got even happier. “Knife!” he said, brandishing a phone open to some text messages. “My parents are coming home this weekend!”

Tim didn’t wait for a response, happily bounding into the kitchen and making himself a snack without even needing prompting (forcing) from Jason.

Jason was a bit conflicted, but this reaction soothed his nerves a bit. Tim rarely mentioned his parents other than the newest place they’d moved for an archaeology dig, so it was obvious that his parents were severely neglectful at best; but Jason had had parents just as neglectful at this age, and he’d turned out just fine, right? It was very weird that they didn’t hire Tim a nanny or something, but considering Tim was Tim it was likely that he had asked to live alone so that he could safely sneak out as Robin.

The conflicted part came because he had been worried Tim’s parents were awful in other ways too. But considering how ecstatic he was that they were visiting, Jason figured that probably wasn’t actually the case, and he was just being a bit paranoid.

The next few days passed quickly, and in no time it was the night of Tim’s parents’ arrival. 

“Okay, they’re going to be here in an hour,” Tim said to Jason, vibrating with excitement. “Remember what I said, okay? I know it sucks, but you can’t leave the servants’ quarters while they’re here. My mom hates cats, they would be so mad if they learned I adopted one without their permission, okay?”

Jason nodded. Back when he started living here, he definitely would have purposefully revealed himself in front of both of them in order to get Tim into trouble, but he was well past believing that his goal was to actually hurt the kid anymore. He didn’t need any reason for his parents to scold him when they visited so infrequently anyways.

…But, also, there was no way Jason was going to sit in the servant’s quarters for however long Tim’s parents visited, even if Tim had promised to come and see Jason as much as he possibly could. So he feigned agreement with Tim’s plans, and then as soon as Tim left he snuck back out into the kitchen.

Jason was a trained vigilante, and a vigilante currently in the form of a black cat. It was laughably easy to find his way onto the tops of the tops of the kitchen cabinets, back in one of his old ambush spots which was now a perfect view into the kitchen, dining room, and main living room, and lie there in wait to see these people for himself. (Given that he now knew Tim wasn’t actually stupid, he was sure the kid would have noticed him normally, but Tim was both in the safety of his own home and practically skipping around the place in his excitement at seeing his parents. He was in no mood to be paying attention to his surroundings, Robin or not.)

When the doorbell rang, Tim jumped up and bolted to the front door. Jason didn’t hear any of the exchange that happened there, because it was too far away, but the kid came back into view with arms loaded with suitcases and a huge grin on his face. Jason felt himself relax a little bit more.

Tim’s parents came into the living room then, looking… normal, basically. Maybe a bit tired, but that was to be expected considering Tim had mentioned them being on a flight for at least several hours. They moved into the kitchen and then the dining room, visibly looking around the place, probably re-remembering what it looked like.

“I’m glad to see Timothy hasn’t made a mess of the place,” Janet was the first to speak, placing some takeout bags on the dining room table. 

Jason would have frowned to himself if it was physically possible with a cat's face. That was... not a promising start.

“He’d better,” Jack responded, sitting down with a sigh. “Where is he, anyways?”

“I sent him out to get the rest of the luggage, remember dear?” Janet sounded a bit annoyed now.

“Right, right, sorry,” Jack muttered, and pulled out his phone.

Tim came back into view a few minutes later, still looking happy but in a much less obvious way than when he had been carrying the luggage. Jack didn’t look up, but Janet glanced over at him from where she was bringing plates down from the cupboard. “Timothy, would you serve dinner?”

“Of course, mother,” Tim said obediently, and started to unwrap the takeout bags on the table.

Jason was looking on in agitation now, but things went… pretty okay for the rest of dinner. Tim’s parents asked him about his schooling and were pleased with Tim’s straight A’s, and when Tim asked them about their travels they were happy to share. Jack and Janet certainly weren’t good parents, but they also didn’t seem abusive; it just seemed like Tim was incredibly eager to please, and that’s why he was acting a bit robotic. Bruce used to act kind of like that sometimes too, so this was probably just what rich kids were like around adults.

Once the meal was over, Jack and Janet announced that they were tired from their flight and going to sleep. They left Tim alone with the trash and dishes, but Tim had literally offered to clean up, so that was fine, right?

As soon as Tim disappeared around the corner to throw the takeout stuff into the bins in the garage, Jason leapt from his hiding spot and snuck back into the servant’s quarters. Just in time, too, because Tim came to check on him not a minute later.

“Hi, Knife,” Tim whispered. He still looked really happy. “Are you doing okay? I brought you some leftovers.” He set down a box of extra meat from the takeout and ruffled the fur on Jason’s head. “Things are going pretty good with my parents. They were tired from their flight, but they said tomorrow we’re going to a gala, and then we can go to a restaurant together for dinner!”

Jason didn’t want to make any cat noises, so he just blinked twice at the kid, who took it as the acknowledgement it was and smiled widely back. “Alright, good night,” he whispered, and with one last ruffle of Jason’s head went back to his own room.

The next day was boring, because Tim and his parents left in the morning for the aforementioned gala, and Tim couldn’t leave the TV on like he usually did. Jason curled up above the kitchen cabinets again and napped the day away.

It wasn’t evening yet when the front door slammed. Jason stirred and was awake almost immediately. That was… odd. Hadn’t Tim mentioned that they were going out to dinner?

Then they came into view. Janet looked furious. Jack was taking off his suit jacket and throwing it onto the couch, and then he whirled around to face his son.

“ What were you thinking?!” he exclaimed. Tim tried to suppress a wince, but Jason caught it easily.

“I- I just-” he started to explain. Jason realized that the kid’s hands were shaking, even though he was trying to hold them steadily by his sides.

“That was rhetorical,” Jack snapped. “I don’t want to hear it, Timothy.”

“Oh, but I do,” Janet cut in, her hands on her hips in a menacing stance that made Tim shrink down slightly. “Why exactly did a common street rat recognize you? Why did you seem to be friends with them?”

She paused, and Tim seemed to realize he was actually supposed to speak. “We’re not friends,” he explained really quickly like he didn’t expect to be allowed to finish. “I just sometimes help out at the soup kitchen, because I thought it would help the family image to be doing something charitable.” He was clearly just making this reasoning up as he went, and winced when the explanation was over.

Jack’s voice was cold. “Well, you thought wrong.”

“Your father is correct.” Janet’s arms moved up to cross over her chest. “You are a Drake . If you want to improve the family image, you go to a charity gala. You will not lower yourself to the level where you are on first-name basis with some Crime Alley trash.”

“She’s not trash,” Tim blurted out, and then immediately flinched, knowing he’d messed up.

“We didn’t ask!” Jack shouted. His fists were now balled up at his sides.

“You will not be volunteering anywhere ever again,” Janet said. She wasn’t yelling like Jack, but her voice was full of icy fury. “You will not go anywhere other than school. You will only be allowed to do anything else when your father and I are here.” She paused. “And if I hear of anything like this happening ever again, you are going to be going to a full-time boarding school, do I make myself clear?”

Tim’s mouth opened, but this was too slow for Jack. “Your mother asked you a question,” he barked. “Do we make ourselves clear?!”

“Yes s-sir,” Tim responded meekly. He hadn’t been meek since the day Jason met him in that alley.

“And?” Jack asked. He crossed his arms now too. 

“Yes ma’am,” he echoed, directed to his mother, his eyesight briefly slipping towards the floor. 

“Look up , Timothy,” Janet snapped. “Do we have to send you to etiquette lessons again?”

“As if you’re not using enough of our money already,” Jack added bitingly. “We’re giving you all of the comforts you could possibly want, and this is how you thank us?”

“I want an apology,” Janet demanded.

There was clearly some sort of script Tim was supposed to be following, because the following apology sounded absolutely robotic coming out of his mouth. “...Mother and father, I apologize for… forgetting my manners and not keeping eye contact when I was speaking to you. It won’t happen again.”

“Hmph,” Jack said, loosening a bit.

“Barely adequate,” Janet pronounced. “And you wonder why we don’t visit more often.”

Jack grunted. “Come on Janet, I’m hungry.”

Janet stood there and pursed her lips, and then nodded sharply. “Right. Timothy, your father and I will be going out to dinner by ourselves. In fact, we’re going out by ourselves tomorrow too. And I want you to stay here and think about what you did, and before we leave for Egypt I want you to have a full apology ready explaining everything you did wrong. Understood?”

“Yes ma’am,” Tim said robotically again.

He stood there stock-still in the middle of the living room as Jack collected his jacket and the two adults left the room. Only when the front door clicked shut did the kid dazedly turn and start walking upstairs to his room. Jason, unnoticed, jumped down from his perch above the cabinets and followed Tim.

He arrived in the doorway of Tim’s bedroom just in time to see the kid collapse backwards onto his bed and then promptly curl up against his headboard and start crying.

Jason hesitated for a second, unsure if his presence would help, and then he remembered that he was a cat. Of course it would.

Even though Tim was so out of it, he couldn’t miss the meow that Jason made, and he blearily looked up from the ball he had curled himself up into. His eyes widened and his expression looked like it was turning a bit panicked, which Jason was not going for, so he jumped up onto the kid’s bed and headbutted him in the arm to knock him out of whatever he was thinking. Tim snorted a little bit at the interaction, his miserable expression clearing a little bit now that he had some sort of distraction.

It didn’t last long though, and his face turned downcast again only a few seconds later. Jason headbutted him again to little effect, so he swatted at the kid’s arm instead.

Tim’s eyes peeked out from his arms again. He sighed almost inaudibly and then slowly sat up, grabbing a tissue from the bedside table and blowing his nose. Jason still only saw his face for a split second during this process, and his eyes were still teary, but the small distraction seemed to be working at least a bit. Instead of falling over again, he stayed curled up in the sitting position and didn’t seem to be sobbing anymore, at the least.

There was space beside him at the headboard (of course there was, he had an enormous rich kid bed), and Jason only needed a split second of deliberation to decide to nestle himself at the kid’s side.

And then something crazy happened. He started purring.

In all his time as a cat, Jason had never purred. He hadn’t known that he could purr. But, well, apparently he could. A fellow street kid with a pet cat had once told him that a cat’s purrs could soothe anxiety, so maybe he subconsciously started at the sight of the kid in distress.

But the purring wasn’t even the weirdest part of this situation. The weirdest part was that Jason wasn’t being overtaken by the pit at all . It was still there, simmering at the edges, but he should have been furious at the sight of Tim’s parents being so awful. When he’d first come back to Gotham, seeing parents treat their kid like this would have driven him into a rage and he probably would have done something like… beat them unconscious, if not literally start shooting at their limbs or something equally violent and poorly thought out.

It was something about being a cat. Or maybe having weeks of recovery time to simply nap and explore and vent out his aggression by play-fighting with the kid, but he felt… better. That was the exact opposite of what Talia had told him (“Jason, you have to fight through the pit if you want to come out on the other side”), but after so many of her lies had been exposed, did he really have a reason to trust anything she’d told him?

Now, of course, Jason was mad about Jack and Janet. And he was going to do something about it, soon, so that Tim would never have to suffer through them for one more day. But that something did not include attacking them immediately. He was smarter than that.

Eventually Tim’s breaths evened out as he fell asleep. Jason tried to stay up to mull over his plans, but unfortunately the sound of his own purring eventually lulled him to sleep.

Chapter Text

Later in the evening, Tim and Jason woke up together to the sound of Jack and Janet climbing the stairs and going to their bedroom for the night. They were both tense, but neither parent knocked on Tim’s door or even acknowledged that he was there. Eventually, the hallway light went out and all of the noises in the house ceased.

Jason expected Tim to start working on casework or something like he usually did, but instead the kid fell back asleep almost instantly. On a normal day Jason would force him to eat something (seeing as he hadn’t had dinner) and brush his teeth, but given what had happened during the day he just let Tim rest.

Also, Jason had to plan, and he wasn’t falling asleep again. Jack and Janet would be out all day tomorrow, but then they would probably be expecting their stupid apology that evening, because they were leaving for Egypt early the next morning. That meant Jason had less than a day now to figure out how to get Tim out of here.

A few minutes of pacing in Tim’s room wasn’t helping though, and he decided a change of location would probably help. His brain was still addled from sleep and he felt like he was going to drop off any second if he stayed in Tim’s warm and cozy bedroom.

Opening Tim’s door was practically instinct at this point, and only took a single try. Jason closed it lightly after him when he left, just in case either parent woke up and noticed that it was abnormally open. Then he purposefully strode down the staircase towards the kitchen’s sliding doors. By the time he was down the staircase he could already think clearer; in fact, he realized as he paced around the ground level, a walk outside would be even better. Even outside of Tim's bedroom, the house was still extremely warm, and the chill of the outdoors would make it even easier to think.

He changed directions and made his way to the kitchen, which had sliding doors that he could use to get into the yard.

But just as he started pushing at one of the doors to get it open, a voice came from the opposite end of the kitchen. “Knife?”

Jason looked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard someone enter the room. But there was Tim, clad in the same clothes he had fallen asleep in, looking rumpled but alert and… close to tears?

Nope, not close to tears, actually crying. He took a few faltering steps towards Jason, reaching up to rub the tears out of his eyes. “Don’t leave,” Tim croaked out, sounding absolutely miserable. “Please don’t leave, Knife. What did I do wrong?” His voice was turning desperate even as it was choked with sobs. “I'm sorry, p lease -”

Jason met Tim in the middle of the kitchen, expressing affection in one of the only ways he could as a cat; headbutting his legs. He found himself purring again, but internally he was seething. And it was all him, and none of the pit. This was ridiculous! He was sick of being a cat. If only he could just be a human again-

Something started to happen. It was the exact same sensation as when he had met the magician at the beginning of this mess. Jason’s whole body tingled, and just like last time he collapsed into a heap on the floor. He half-registered Tim’s panicked shout as his now-limp form, but it was hard to focus because he was going through the awful, terrible sensation of all of his limbs stretching and expanding.

Unlike last time though, Jason didn’t full-out faint. It got close, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it, and it actually wasn’t much time at all until he was stretched out back on the floor, once again fully human.

He let out a quiet groan of pain. There was quiet for a few blissful seconds, and then Tim’s voice came (from substantially further away now). “Um. Red… Hood…?”

Jason groaned again and flopped over onto his side so he could actually see something other than the floor. Tim had distanced himself from Jason, his back to the kitchen cabinets, but he didn’t look nearly as alarmed as he should have been to find his cat had turned into an up-and-coming crime lord. Then again, knowing Tim, that wasn't as surprising as it should have been.

His head was already not swimming as much, so Jason slowly pushed himself off of the floor into a sitting position. He wasn’t used to having human hands, so it took a bit of fumbling, but then he was pulling the helmet off of his head. Even that small movement sapped his strength and he dropped it onto the floor, just sitting and breathing for another second.

Tim didn’t get the memo, creeping forward with an incredulous look on his face. “ Jason ?” And then his face was right in front of Jason’s, looking him right in the eyes. “Holy shit, Jason? You- You’re supposed to be dead!”

He launched himself forwards into Jason’s arms, pulling him into a crushing hug. The weight was almost too much for Jason’s poor exhausted body to bear, so he just slumped forward slightly as the kid excitedly chattered into his ear.

“It is you, right? I know you’re wearing a mask but I saw your face behind a mask so many times there’s no way I wouldn’t recognize you. Oh my god. Oh my god. Were you not dead? Did you not die? Wait, no, your body was found. So you’re undead? How? Wait, Lazarus pit, of course, your eyes glowed so many times when you used to attack me. I didn’t think those could bring people back to life, and how did you even get into one when you were buried in a coffin? Actually, I don’t care. Actually, I do care, but more importantly you’re alive!”

With this pronouncement Tim finally released Jason, who at least was starting to get his energy back, and held him at arm’s length to beam at him. Then the smile slipped from his face. “Jason? Are you okay? …wait, you are Jason, right?” Suddenly horror was dawning on his face, probably assuming he’d just hugged a crime lord who just happened to have the same face as Tim’s dead predecessor.

“Yeah,” Jason muttered, his voice crackly from disuse. “Yeah. It’s me.”

Tim abruptly scrambled to his feet. “I’ll get you some water. I guess you have been a cat for a really long time. You’re probably not used to speaking.” And then he muttered to himself again, “oh my god.”

One drink of water later, Jason dragged himself over to lean up against the cabinets, and then dragged his hand over his face as he tried to get his thoughts together. Tim was sitting on his knees in front of him vibrating with excitement, and probably also with anxiety now that he’d remembered that his parents were still in the house. Jason could tell because his eyes kept flicking in the direction of the staircase.

“Okay, here’s the plan.” Jason announced. Tim’s eyes went back to him. “We’re leaving. Right now.”

Tim’s eyebrows furrowed. “We?”

“We,” Jason confirmed.

“Um. But my parents…”

“They’re the reason it’s a we,” Jason interrupted. “There is absolutely no way I am letting you end up spending another night crying in your room again because of those assholes.”

“Ah.” Tim’s eyes flitted to the side. “You do remember that.”

“I do,” Jason confirmed. “I also remember the entire argument you had with them, because I wasn’t in the servant’s quarters, I was on top of the kitchen cabinets.”

Tim’s eyes opened wide in panic. “You-”

“-and that’s why there’s no arguing with me,” Jason said with finality. “I’m going to Wayne Manor, and you’re coming with me, and Bruce is adopting you.”

“Uhh…” Tim’s face contorted in disbelief. “Isn’t that… a bit much?” he tried weakly. “Bruce doesn’t want to adopt me, and besides, my parents are fine, they’re just a bit strict-”

“Don’t even try that.” His strength was returning rapidly now, so he pushed himself off of the floor. The kid followed, and Jason nudged him in the direction of the sliding doors. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait!” Tim exclaimed, and then slipped under Jason’s arm back in the direction of the stairs. Jason frowned, but let him go. Just when he was about to go check on Tim, he came back down the stairs, wearing a hoodie over his formal outfit and holding a black backpack in his hands. “Okay, we can go,” he said.

The walk to Wayne Manor went by without incident, Jason carrying his helmet and Tim his backpack. Tim started off peppering Jason with more questions, and then apologized and said he’d stop. But he was clearly near bursting with more, so Jason said it was fine, as long as he didn’t expect Jason to actually answer any of them. And he got some information out of the rambling too, like learning that that stupid magician he’d spent all that time searching for had actually been apprehended by Bruce soon after Jason had been turned into a cat. Possibly the very same night, even. No wonder Jason hadn’t been able to find her.

Tim clearly knew the current security override code of the front gate, because they got through without any permission from someone on the grounds. They could have gone to any manner of entrance, but Tim headed straight for the front door, and Jason followed.

It was almost midnight by now, but that didn’t bother Alfred, who always stayed up until Bruce got home each night (just in case of emergency). It took him a few minutes to get to the door from the Batcave, but when he did, he was distinctly frowning. “Master Tim? I thought you were taking time off while your parents visited. And you know you are always welcome to come straight in without ringing the doorbell.”

Jason shuffled a bit out of the shadows. Alfred immediately stiffened. “Master Tim, is that the Red Hood?”

“Kind of,” Tim offered unhelpfully, and grabbed Jason’s hand holding the helmet to pull him into the light.

Alfred’s usual formal expression fell from his face in an instant. His face went deathly pale and his voice came out in only a whisper. “Master Jason?”

Jason didn’t really know what to do with himself, and he stood there similarly frozen. Tim tugged at his arm again and he stumbled forwards, towards the man who was functionally his grandfather.

With trembling hands, Alfred reached up to lightly cup Jason’s face. His face crumpled a little bit. “Master Jason, what…”

“Lazarus pit,” Tim piped up from the side. “I think he can mostly control it now, but someone messed him up a lot and it took him a while. I’m guessing it was one of the al Ghuls.”

Alfred’s hands dropped slowly and he gently grasped Jason’s other wrist. “Thank you, Master Tim,” he said quietly, and turned into the house. “Come along, Master Jason. I will tell Master Bruce to come home from patrol.” Jason didn’t bother to resist as both of them dragged him into the house, each one periodically looking back at him with an awed and bright-eyed expression on their face.

Alfred left them in Jason’s old favourite library, and then disappeared into Bruce’s study. He emerged a few minutes later and announced that Bruce was on his way home this instant.

Jason, to be honest, was still rather nervous about how Bruce would react when he saw him, which is why he dragged Tim onto the same couch as him for emotional support. It was actually slightly creepy having Tim and Alfred both still staring at him (Tim from beside him on the couch, Alfred from next to Bruce’s armchair), but he was already resigned to it. Good god, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like when Dick heard about this…

Far too short of a time later, there was a crashing sound from the direction of the study, and then mere seconds later Bruce practically skidded into the library. He clearly hadn’t showered or really done anything other than stripping off his armour, cape, and cowl, because he was wearing his black bodysuit and his hair was a complete mess.

His eyes widened almost comically, and he stepped the rest of the way into the room almost cautiously. “Jason…? Is that really you…?”

His eyes flicked to Tim’s (Jason hadn’t expected anything different really, once a detective always a detective) and Tim nodded in confirmation. “It’s really him. I mean, I haven’t done any genetic tests, but I’d say I’m 98% sure of it.”

Barely seconds later, Jason was being enveloped in a crushing hug. Except it wasn’t actually crushing, it felt safe. This was a hug from his dad. That fact hit him all at once, and suddenly he found himself sobbing in relief and returning the hug in full force. Bruce was crying too, he realized dimly.

A few seconds later Jason realized Tim was trying to leave the room, so he pulled him into the hug too. Alfred didn’t outright join, but Jason wasn’t imagining the light kiss to the top of his head that couldn’t have been from anyone else.

It was crazy. When Jason had first come back to Gotham, he had been so sure that there was nothing left to his life other than reclaiming the Alley and getting revenge on his old family. Instead, here he was, with his old family back and a new brother to go with it. And most bizarre was that it was all thanks to that stupid magician.

Chapter Text

Some time later the hug pulled apart, and Bruce took a few seconds to just soak in the sight of his son. And then his gaze snagged on the red helmet and he seemed to actually take in Jason’s current outfit. His eyebrows furrowed, he opened his mouth to speak, but Jason cut him off before he could start.

“You need to adopt Tim.”

“Wh- Jason!” Tim yelped.

“His parents are awful, B,” Jason said, ignoring Tim’s protestations. “Tim said you don’t want to adopt him, but you’ll do it, right?”

“Well-” Bruce stammered, “yes, of course. Tim?” His eyes turned to Tim, his eyebrows furrowed in worry. “Why didn’t you tell me something was wrong?”

“Yes, of course,” Tim mouthed to himself, clearly not hearing the rest of what Bruce had said.

“He’s in denial,” Jason stated. “He probably thinks he’s fine just because they give him the bare minimum like food and education, but they’re awful-”

“They’re not awful!” Tim said, suddenly paying attention again. “They just care about their image, and they give me a housekeeper and everything-”

Jason snorted. “You mean the housekeeper that barely came over twice a week for the whole time I was there?”

Bruce and Alfred both looked confused at the allusion that Tim and Jason had been living together, but luckily Bruce focused on the more important thing. “But Tim, you told me she came in every day of the week?”

Tim ducked his head and turned red, mumbling something to himself.

“Neglect,” Jason pronounced. “Not to mention, yesterday they told him he’s not allowed to do anything except going to school when his parents aren’t around. And they only come and visit for a few days each month at most ! They got mad at him when they learned he’d been volunteering at a soup kitchen.”

“Is that true?” Alfred’s quiet but firm voice cut through. 

Tim’s eyes flicked upwards for a split second and his hand came up to half cover his mouth, but his mumbling was still easy to hear in the silence. “I- yeah…”

“Then it’s done,” Bruce said firmly. Then after a pause: “Now… can I ask about the Red Hood thing…?”

Later that night, after all had been explained (and Dick had been called to come over from Blüdhaven), everyone briefly separated to change into better clothing than the undersuit of a vigilante costume, slept-in formal clothes with a hoodie over top of them, and a crime lord outfit, respectively (and Alfred went to go get snacks for everyone, because it had been a long night). Jason ended up going through Dick’s clothes (even though he wasn’t here yet) because his own were a bit too small for him now, and yet he somehow ended up back in the library before anyone else did.

He had just gotten settled back on the couch when Tim appeared in the doorway. Except instead of looking excited like earlier, he now looked apprehensive. His eyes were darting around the room, only landing on Jason for a split second before he was looking somewhere else again.

Jason wordlessly patted the same spot on the couch next to him as before, and Tim timidly sat down again, although he still wasn’t looking at Jason.

“Tim?” Jason asked. “What’s up?”

Tim glanced at Jason for a second, and then shrugged. 

Jason nudged him. He bit his lip.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I feel like I’ve just… pushed myself into your lives. You’re being so nice to me, but…”

“You feel like you don’t deserve it?” Jason guessed. “Yeah, that’s because of your asshole parents. I’m the one who decided to live in your house.”

Tim frowned. “But I basically kidnapped you-”

“You kidnapped a random mutant cat,” Jason corrected. “I’m the one who decided to stay. Do you think I couldn’t have easily escaped any of the times you left the house for school or patrol?”

Tim was still gnawing on his lip, but he shook his head slightly.

“Exactly,” Jason said with finality. 

“But I did force myself onto Robin…” Tim said.

“And you already explained why you had to do that. And again, not that easy. If Bruce or Alfred or Dick had decided you would never be Robin, then you never would have become Robin, period.” He knocked his elbow into Tim’s, oddly reminiscent of when he used to headbutt his arms to stop him from overthinking. “Stop trying to think of reasons why you don’t deserve this. You just need to admit your parents suck, and Bruce is adopting you, and you’re my little brother now.”

“...Yeah,” Tim finally agreed, slowly looking up into Jason’s eyes with understanding awe. “I guess I am.”