Chapter Text
There was someone else in the tower.
Even though Tim was supposed to be the only one there. Bart, Cassie, and Kon were visiting their families for the weekend. His family was in Egypt; and the rest of the Bats were in Gotham trying to figure out the identity of the newest maniac hell-bent on murdering Tim.
Which was why Tim was alone in the tower. Yet, the alarm currently blaring through the floor was telling him otherwise. So either the alarm was false, which was highly unlikely (Tim had designed the security system himself), or…he was going to have to pry himself off the very comfortable couch he was sitting on and go see what kind of person managed to weasel past his defenses.
Tim groaned, heaving himself up and snatching his bo-staff from where he had thrown it haphazardly on the floor. He checked his phone, muttering under his breath. Who the hell was bothering him at 6:14 in the morning? If Dick had forgotten his codes again and accidentally set it off, Tim swore he was going to permanently switch his phone’s language settings to Polish or something.
He twirled his staff mindlessly as he entered one of the tower’s security camera rooms, where the fluorescent lights emitted by the screens assaulted his bleary eyes. He’d have to make the alarm system more friendly to Morning Tim after he fixed the intruder problem. Plopping down in a spinny chair, Tim clicked through the feeds throughout the tower. He looked for the tell-tale signs of a break in: footprints, misplaced furniture, a person.
He found… nothing. No Dick wandering around the kitchen, no rogue that had managed to escape Arkham and track him down here, not even your average burglar. Just empty rooms.
Tim frowned, glaring at the screens in an attempt to manifest the cause of the alarm as he clicked through a few more. Still nothing. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. If he couldn’t see the intruder, and they hadn’t left any trace of being there but had still managed to trigger the alarm…
“Stupid ghosts.” Tim grumbled. He scrolled through the contacts on his phone in search of that aggravating exorcist John Constantine. Hopefully, he wasn’t too busy being morally gray to advise Tim on how to get rid of ghosts.
“An exorcist ain’t gonna help you with this ghost, Replacement.”
The Lazarus Pit purred at the terror in his replacement’s eyes, and Jason couldn’t help but smile at his luck. The Bats had brought his poor, helpless substitute thousands of miles away from Gotham before abandoning him in Titan’s Tower- practically defenseless. Leaving him, the only powerless whelp, with not a single obnoxious super-powered child in sight. It was truly tragic. For Drake, that is. It couldn’t be better for Jason.
He didn’t even have to break in. His old access codes remained untouched, which made infiltrating a walk in the park. Sure, the alarm went off when he crawled up into the tower vents, but watching his replacement dither around like the moron he was while Jason hid in the control room had been utterly priceless.
Regrettably, he couldn’t spend longer basking in his shock; the kid recovered quickly. He came flying at Jason with his pitiful excuse for a weapon, surprise forgotten as he attempted to unbalance him. If he was smart, he would be trying to escape. A bo-staff in the hands of a child was no contest against a heavily armed assailant with more weapons concealed in his knee pads than years he had lived. It wouldn’t even be a match. It was a good thing Jason wasn’t looking for a match. He was here to teach the kid a lesson.
Green rage surged through his veins as he lunged, grasping his replacement’s bo-staff and shoving him to the floor before he could react. With one kick Jason broke the staff in half, and with another he felt the kid’s wrist bones snap under the pressure of his foot. It truly was a wonder what steel-toed boots could do- he would have to remember to thank his local supplier. The resounding scream that cut through the air as Robin clutched his shattered wrist was music to Jason’s ears.
He made the mistake of lifting his foot to go for another bone-shattering blow, because the moment he did the little shit pulled his knee back and kicked him square in the balls, using the momentum to squirm out of his grip.
“You little asshole-“ Jason spat, standing up straighter as he watched his replacement struggle to do the same. He scrambled along the ground before breaking into a run while the Pit drowned out every sound except for pain, pain, pain. It wasn’t enough. He saw the kid skid around a corner and he was green, green, green.
He was getting away.
Jason drew his pistol and fired.
The Lazarus Pit roared.
Tim was running. His breaths came in short gasps between the smack of his feet against the linoleum floor. His lungs were aching, but he barely noticed. He was being chased by someone- someone he didn’t know. Tim knew he was better than this, and yet he couldn’t figure out who the damned Red Hood was.
He had tried and tried but he couldn’t figure out why he was being targeted. Tim searched his mind frantically as he raced across the tower, looking for something, anything, any tactic at all he could use against his attacker. He couldn’t reason with them, seeing as they clearly didn’t care about whether Tim lived or not, going off the fact that the only reason they hadn’t killed Tim yet was that he had managed to escape their grasp. Oh, and the fact that they had shot him.
Blood, tacky and thick seeped into his t-shirt. It gushed across his torso from somewhere on his body- he didn’t have time to find out where. Every part of him hurt, but he had to keep running. He had to get away. His wrist throbbed and his feet ached and his lungs burned but his phone was dead and his emergency beacon was in his costume and he had lost his bo-staff and he couldn’t win a hand-to-hand fight against whoever was trying to kill him. So, he kept running.
He just had to call Bruce. If he could get to the tower phone then everything would be fine. It would be fine. He had survived worse beatings from common criminals, he could survive this. Easy peasy. He would not disappoint Bruce. He would not be another dead Robin. He could ignore the way his legs threatened to give out with every step if he only got to the damn phone-
A bullet flew past his face.
As he careened around a corner, blood rushing in his ears, Tim thought that he was reasonable. He was a reasonable person. He knew what he had to do next.
The phone was two floors away. The intruder was getting closer. He couldn’t take the elevator. The stairs were rapidly moving in front of him. He only had one decision: it was not a decision he wanted to make. Please, he thought, let the madman after me slip before they reach the stairwell.
The sound of steel-toed boots against the tiled floor grew louder.
He took a deep breath and prayed all those gymnastics lessons with Dick had been worth it.
Tim took a running leap over the railing, and then he was falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Crack.
Jason skidded to a halt as he reached the railing his unbelievably stupid replacement had launched himself off of in some futile escape attempt, peering over the edge to see his crumpled form at the bottom.
He scoffed to himself- the kid only fell a few stories and managed to knock himself out. Jason had been beaten by a crowbar for four fucking hours and managed to survive, only dying when a bomb went off.
Pathetic. The pit hissed, and Jason had to agree.
He walked quickly down the white marble steps, taking two at a time. No point in trying to be menacing by going slow, his opponent was fucking unconscious.
By the time Jason got to the bottom of the winding staircase, the puddle of blood beneath his replacement’s head had spread, creating a disturbing Robin-red halo. The theatrical side of him appreciated the symbolism, while the left-to-die-and-be-resurrected-by-a-glowing-green-pit side was just annoyed.
Jason nudged him with his foot. Replacement’s head lolled to the side.
“Don’t play with me, you little shit.” Jason growled, the green pulsing through his veins subsiding to a quieter yet ever-present hum when Drake didn’t respond.
As the haze gradually retreated from the forefront of Jason’s mind, he realized it was dead silent. The only sound echoing in the foyer was Jason's distorted breathing and the almost imperceptible drip of blood from his replacement’s ear. Feeling something other than blood-lust for once churn in his stomach, Jason took in the state of the teenager below him.
His head was still turned to the side from when Jason had kicked him, away from him where he couldn’t see his face. A steady yet slowing stream of blood seeped from underneath his head, matting down his black hair. His shirt had practically become a different color, the Gotham Academy logo that had sent Jason spiraling further into green completely soaked through with red. His arms and legs splayed out in an uncomfortable-looking position, but seemed relatively untouched. He must have landed poorly- taking the brunt of the fall to his head. From what he could see, his mouth was just slightly agape. He wasn’t breathing.
He wasn’t breathing.
Jason ducked down so fast his knees gave out on him and he thudded onto the floor. He wrenched the kid’s head forward, gripping his cheeks in one hand as he held his other over the kid’s open mouth. No breath.
He pressed his fingers into his replacement’s neck, practically burrowing into the skin. He waited. And waited. And waited. And there was nothing. No heartbeat.
In a last-ditch effort Jason reached to peel his eyes open, fingers he wouldn’t admit were trembling barely managing to grasp anything.
“C’mon kid,” He whispered, “please be fucking with me…”
Nothing stared back at him, blank eyes out of focus and locked in place behind Jason’s head.
Shit.