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Despite what the others might claim, Jason has never wanted to see Tim hurt. Perhaps in those first few months, when anger guided his every fleeting thought and action. See him bleed, bruise, a fine line between just give up before bruce lets you get killed and how dare you think you’re able to replace me.
But those urges had passed quickly, and in their wake, left a rather neutral ambivalence to the new Robin. He never passed up the chance to scare him on patrol: dropping behind him a few feet, engaging in a playful-to-Jason sparring, spitting out harsh words that he hardly meant anymore. It was fun to see Tim’s face redden in anger, to watch him try to go toe-to-toe against Jason’s brute strength, trying to look like an adult when he was nothing more than some little kid.
Now, years later, he is not even sure that boy even remembers his name. Jason tries to stay away from the circus that is the Wayne Manor, and he has blocked Bruce and Dick’s number on every phone and burner he has. It is easier this way, less fights, less Bruce looking at him with guilty-wide eyes, less Dick trying to act like the brother he never was when Jason was still Robin. No more dropping in on the little Robin, and last he has heard, there’s another one around too. Bruce’s actual son, the son of Talia, and Jason had laughed his throat raw when he heard about that. He had almost wanted to find a way to contact Talia at the news. Since fucking when? He decided against it.
And he doesn’t mind it this way. Truly. It’s easy to switch through burners, to move around unrecognized, the name Jason Todd dead on everyone’s tongues. Jason thinks sometimes he could change his name and move somewhere else entirely and cease to exist in everyone’s mind. Let Jason Todd lay in that grave, headstone still intact in the manor’s garden, and become someone new entirely. Perhaps he could make friends, meet someone, find a new family who don’t view him as some mistake, some regret.
And then he receives a message from Alfred – the only one he never blocks even if he never replies either – saying he has cooked Jason’s favorite meal for the night if he wants to visit. And Jason’s not sure who he would be if he did not have these small glimpses into who he used to be.
—
Tim comes to him in the middle of the night. A harsh knock on his front door, and Jason points a gun at his forehead as he opens the door for him. Tim does not flinch even as rain falls down on him, even when Jason lets out a harsh laugh, a harsher, “What the fuck?”
Tim pushes past him, tracking mud and rain onto his clean floors. It makes him want to bark out something rude and condescending. Makes him want to keep the gun aimed at the back of his head. He cannot even recall the last time he saw Tim Drake let alone looking this disheveled, this pathetic, standing in Jason’s living room like it’s no big deal.
Tim inhales deeply before saying, “I need to stay here.”
Not a question. Not even a polite please?
“What, trying to rebel against daddy by staying with the big, bad Red Hood?” He grins as he says it despite the fact he knows it’s true. “Want to see if my methods are better suited for you than his?”
Tim gives him an odd look. Something Jason cannot place. “No one told you?”
Jason’s grin falters slightly. “Told me what, kid?”
“Bruce is dead.”
—
Hearing the news is one thing. An inevitably that Jason has accepted a thousand times over. He himself has died, after all, and maybe this one is permanent. Maybe not. Who can predict anything in their world?
When he was Robin, Bruce – Batman – felt invincible. Night after night, he could take anything. Nothing could take him down. If Robin gave Jason magic, Bruce was born with it. The grit, the strength, the speed to excel at what he does. Something instinctual. Jason never worried about death or being orphaned again. Bruce was Batman, and that was the simple fact. And Batman couldn’t die.
Hearing the news from Tim Drake, weeks later, is what hurts. Did no one think it appropriate to reach out to him? During the funeral, no one stopped to think, hey, isn’t someone important missing?
Jason has to tell Tim to sit down at the dining table, has to throw a pair of dry clothes at him, and delves into preparing them a small dinner. If he doesn’t, he thinks maybe he will take his guns and go kill every criminal Bruce has ever interacted with. Something to do, something to keep his hands busy. Why didn’t anyone just call him? It is moments like these he wants to break into that house and ask them all exactly what is their problem. What is so wrong with Jason that he deserves this?
He presents Tim with a pathetic platter of eggs, toast, a few raw carrots on the side. “Wasn’t expecting company,” Jason mutters though with the thousand-yard stare coming from him, he is not sure Tim is even really paying attention.
Jason sits across from Tim and shovels a forkful of food into his own mouth. Not a bad meal, nothing like Alfred would make. Tim stares at the plate, fork moving the food around with no intention to eat any.
“Listen, if you’re going to stay with me, you can’t eat like –” The words stutter before he can help it. Tim’s grip on his fork visibly tightens. “Like Bruce,” he forced himself to finish. The glare from Tim is half worth it, half makes him regret the words entirely. He’s never been good at this. Joking back-and-forth, trying to comfort someone, anything. What do you even say when your estranged-brother-replacement-not-friend comes to stay with you because your father died?
“Just eat it.” He tries to say it kindly, like the way Alfred would have when Jason was young and sick and stubborn. Or the way his mother would try to soothe him over his near constant stomach aches as a child. Softly, brushing back his sweaty curls from his forehead. But the words come out harsh, make Tim flinch, and Jason – not for the first time – feels like a monster. Too big for his body, and he wonders how many times Tim sat and listened as Bruce and Dick listed every one of Jason’s mistakes.
How much he believed them. If he still believes them.
“Please,” he adds in a whisper, quiet enough he is not sure the man can even hear him, but Tim picks up his fork. It is a small relief, a break from the awkwardness and tragedy of the entire evening. They sit in silence for a while until finally Jason asks, “So, why here? I mean, how did you even find this place? Why not one of your other little friends?”
Tim stiffens again. When Jason was younger, he had this problem too. Too brash, too rough, too loud. Why is it so hard to make friends, he’d whine into Bruce’s arms, hardly lulled into peace by Bruce’s hand on the small of his back. Small moments of affection that were rare to come by. He never knew the right things to say. The other boys whispered behind his back. Called him rude things, bumped into him roughly in the hallways as they passed by. It wasn’t like making friends in Crime Alley where you felt a kinship with any other kid you saw. Here, among the elite, there were things you should say. Things you should never say. And Jason never fully learned how to play that game.
And then he died and came back without having ever learned either.
“My friends are dead too,” Tim says simply. “And Dick would rather play nice with Bruce’s son than keep me around.”
Jason has to hold back a snicker, a sly joke of, doesn’t feel so good to be replaced, huh? He just nods, and Tim does not eat anymore of his food for the night.
—
They exist in relative silence for a few weeks until Jason snaps. It’s weird enough trying to get used to someone’s presence in his life again. Hearing their footsteps down the hall, having to buy enough groceries for two people, waking up and seeing someone on his couch. It’s not made easier by the fact Tim sits and sulks, stares at the wall, stays up all hours of the night doing God knows what on his laptop. He barely eats. He barely sleeps. He mutters to himself, quiet enough that Jason can never be entirely sure what he is saying. It’s strange and off putting, and Jason cannot blame him entirely. He has lost everything, and if anyone should be able to sympathize, it should be him.
“Come out with me,” Jason says – demands, really – one night over dinner. Tim levies him with a glare before the look softens the tiniest. Another thing Jason has learned about Tim over just a mere week: he can be quite rude, even if he doesn’t mean to be.
Jason still isn’t sure if he means to be or not with him yet.
“All we will do is fight over the best way to handle criminals.”
“Maybe,” Jason says with a shrug. “What if just tonight, we do things your way? You’re going to get even paler if you just stay inside.”
For the first time since Tim has been with him, the smallest quirk of a smile graces his lips. “It’ll be night time. Not a good time to get a tan.”
Jason blinks before breaking into a grin himself. Perhaps the boy does have some sense of humor. Then, “I don’t like that you kill people,” Tim says as if the words have not been drilled into Jason since the first moment Bruce realized who was behind the Red Hood. As if anyone likes what he does, as if Jason really loves it half the time. It’s not about enjoying it, or wanting to have the blood on your hands. It’s about what’s right. What works.
Jason’s eyes meet Tim. Whatever Tim has heard about him in these past few years, he is sure very little of it has been positive. And he wears a scar on his throat to prove to them all just how true those words could be.
“You can trust me,” Jason says and without being able to stop himself, his eyes fall down to look at the scar.
As if reading his mind, Tim’s finger drifts to his throat. Barely pressing against it, just a sole finger tracing the slight bump of it. Jason wants to ask if he’s teasing him. If he even notices the movement. If he does it often. Tim says, “Do you promise to behave?”
An uneasy smile now. Sometimes he wants to shake this kid and ask Where the fuck did Bruce even find you?
“Pinky promise.”
—
Jason comes to promptly regret his decision. The times he had fought toe-to-toe with Tim, he was a real fight. Agile, quick, able to keep Jason second guessing his next move. He didn’t move entirely like Bruce or even like Dick. He had his own style, and he would wear a wicked grin whenever he was able to outsmart Jason in a way that made him all-but give up on the fight. He was impressive for a short and small child at the time.
This Tim, pathetic and sick with grief, is a safety hazard for them both. He stumbles in between jumps from rooftop to rooftop. His skills with the bo staff are subpar. His movements are sloppy, slow, the way Bruce would get after days of self-enforced sleep deprivation whenever a case was really bothering him.
“Maybe you should go home,” Jason says to him, and even behind the domino mask, he can sense the fierce glare thrown his way. It reminds him so much of Bruce that he almost feels sick, swallows down the feeling of it entirely, continues, “I can go with you. Come on, it’s a dead night anyways. I’ll make that pasta you liked the other day.”
Tim shakes his head and looks down at the street below them. “It wasn’t even that good of a pasta,” and before Jason can even remind him that he ate two helpings – more than he has seen Tim eat during his entire stay – Tim jumps into the alley.
Jason follows. They start a fight with a group of men trying to rob a woman, and Tim manages to get stabbed by some blade within a mere minute.
“Fuck,” Jason grits out, and before he even really thinks about it, his gun is out from its halter, and the man is in pain howling on the floor.
When he picks up Tim to carry him back to the safehouse, he can already see his lips form a prissy pout. “We can talk about it at home,” Jason says with a sigh, “Don’t start a fight with me now, or I’ll leave you here on the streets.”
Tim at least listens this one time.
—
Tim tries to resist when Jason asks him to undo his costume to see if he needs stitches. He swats away Jason’s hand, tries to resist his concern, says he’s fine, really, it isn’t that bad.
When he does relent, Jason bites on his tongue when he sees the cut and tries to hold back the insults on the tip of it. It’s not a pretty cut, must have been a dull blade that the man had no real intention of using, and Tim refuses to look down at it either. But he lets Jason clean it up, lets him try to stitch the skin. Tim’s body is cold underneath his fingertips. Soft too, the cut just under his ribs, and Jason tries to politely ignore how much the bones protrude. When his mother was at his worst, when Jason had just begun learning to look because Catherine couldn’t, he checked out recipes from the library. Recipes for the sick, those needing to gain weights, learned more about thyroid issues and anorexia and diabetes than any child should really know. None of the descriptions matched his mother, but he wasn’t going to go up to the librarian and ask if they had a recipe book for drug addicts. He is sure the poor woman was concerned enough for him already.
He learned to put some extra cream, extra butter, oil, trying to fill their meals with as many calorie-dense ingredients as he could. Anything to stop from seeing his mother slowly wilt away. He thinks now of how he’ll need to do the same with Tim if the boy keeps refusing to eat the proper amount. He wonders if Alfred ever had to do the same with Bruce when he was being particularly picky with his food.
Tim interrupts his thoughts with, “I don’t like that you shot that man.”
Jason laughs despite himself. “Said while I have a needle in your skin,” and there again, the faintest hint of a smile on Tim’s lips. He wonders what makes Tim laugh. If he smiled more before Bruce, before everyone he knew died. Jason knows he was a lot happier before he died. “I don’t like that you’re not taking care of yourself.”
Tim curls in on himself, head dipping. Jason fixes his posture to keep stitching up the wound. Tim’s voice is quiet when he says, “It’s… hard.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes. “After my mom died,” Jason begins, continuing his movements, “I didn’t want to eat anything besides her favorite meals. I didn’t go to school. I just slept in her bed all day.” He doesn’t mention how he never went back to school after that. What was the point when it was just him, having to survive in the world? “I honestly don’t even remember what I did all day to fill in the time. A lot of my memories are kind of shit until Bruce found me.”
Tim nods as Jason finishes, listening intently. “I always wanted to ask… how did you feel when you came back?”
Jason helps pull on a fresh shirt over Tim’s head, makes sure he doesn’t stretch his arm out too much to hurt himself. When Tim’s head pops out, his hair is a mess. Jason resists the urge to smooth it down. “I was mostly angry. At Bruce, at the Joker. At you .”
“It wasn’t about you,” Tim says quietly, and Jason smiles at him when Tim’s own lips frown. “I just wanted to help Batman.”
And this time, Jason allows his hand to fall onto Tim’s hair. Instead of smoothing the stray pieces, he ruffles the hair more. When he was Robin, Dick would sometimes do that to him. His curls would look outrageous afterwards, and even Bruce would stifle a chuckle. “I don’t care about that anymore, kid.” Jason stretches as he stands, his eyes never leaving Tim. “Maybe one day you won’t care about being replaced either.”
The expression on Tim’s face is clear that he doesn’t believe in that one bit. Jason offers Tim his bed for the night, the couch isn’t good for injured little Red Robins, and surprisingly, Tim accepts without argument.
—
Tim doesn’t join him on nights out for weeks. But he does talk more. Little things like asking Jason how patrol was over breakfast, making small comments on whatever stupid movie Jason decides to watch during the day, little requests of snacks for Jason to buy on his next grocery trip. Tim offers to help him make dinner, to be his in-ear intel during patrol. He comes home sometimes to Tim pouring over one of the books Jason has on his bookshelf, listens as Tim tells him his every thought, doesn’t even criticize him for annotating on the sidelines of books that are not his own. Sometimes they find themselves engaging in long and intense debates about philosophy, murder, things Jason sometimes cares about, sometimes pretends to care about because he likes the way Tim’s face finally animates and comes to life when he is truly passionate about something. The furrow of his eyebrows, the downturned curves of his lips when he is irritated by Jason’s stubborn refusal to accept his side of the debate.
He’ll watch as Tim does his workouts on the living room floor, muttering about how he needs to stay fit, watches the soft muscles of his body work through each position. Notices the small way Tim almost preens whenever Jason gives him a compliment, you are very agile, you probably could beat me in a fight if you really focused on your speed, you’re really damn smart even if you annoy the fuck out of me half the time. Likes when Tim bites back at him when he quips at him. To see Tim blossom out of the shell he was when he first came to him into something that must be Tim Drake, the boy he never really got to know. The boy he hated at first.
He finds himself acclimating to the easy routine of having someone in his life. Someone to look forward to when he is out on patrol. He finds himself thinking of Tim often. If Tim ate lunch, how Tim is feeling, if Tim feels cold, if Tim is thinking about him . Most of his thoughts during the day now end up revolving around Tim Drake.
He’s not sure how he is supposed to feel about that.
So it is odd when he comes home one day and finds the apartment empty. For all the progress he has made over the months, Tim rarely leaves. The sun has barely set, and when Jason checks for his suit, it is not there. Instead he finds a little note, done in that pretty cursive, Needed air. Going on patrol by myself.
Jason crumbles up the note and searches for his hood.
—
Finding Tim is not all that difficult. He doesn’t know Jason’s neighborhood, not like Jason does. Able to track him down to one of the buildings, some office space of some big-wigs of one of the drug rings that Jason has been trying to track down. Tim knows about this case, knows how hard Jason has been working on it. Jason would almost be thankful he wants to take on the leaders of it if it felt like a fair match at all.
It’s a fight that Tim seems to be outmatched for. In the time it takes for Jason to reach for his grappling hook, the sound of glass shattering echoes through the air. Tim’s body is falling quickly towards the ground.
He catches Tim as gently as possible, the light weight of him easy to hold as they fly through the air. It’s harder to land on an empty rooftop with the extra baggage, but it’s worth it for the look of relief that crosses Tim’s face when he realizes he’s on solid ground once more.
Almost worth it.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jason asks with as much force as he can. The look of gratitude crumbles on Tim’s face. “Back to feeling suicidal?”
Tim makes an odd sound, something akin to a growl, and forces himself from the ground. “I just wanted to get out.”
Jason scoffs. For once, genuine irritation pricks at him, mixed in with the adrenaline from having seen Tim’s body so close to making impact. Before Jason can respond, Tim continues, “I miss Bruce.”
The words almost snap Jason out of the anger building low in his stomach. The vulnerability, Tim’s sad and wet eyes looking up at him. He misses Bruce too. But that doesn’t mean –
“We all do. That doesn’t mean we should just kill ourselves.” There’s words left unsaid, itching to be let out. I want to come home to you. I don’t want you to fucking die. Clearly you need some more time before getting back on the field. Instead, cruel words escape his lips instead, “If you’re so intent on killing yourself, then just go back home to the manor. I’m not dealing with it.”
Tim stares at him. A blank gaze, almost statue-still, but Jason can see thoughts racing through his head. The type of look Bruce would get when his first instinct was to push back, to yell, to fight. And he’d swallow it down and spit out coldness instead. Tim does not do that. Instead, his shoulders deflate. As if he curls in on himself. The same wet-cat posture and doe-eyes he had on that first night. “I wanted you to find me.”
Jason looks at him for a long time, unsure of what that even means, if he even really wants to know. Sometimes he just wishes Tim had found someone else’s house to crawl into that night months ago.
“Go back home, Tim,” Jason says quietly, not caring about breaking the rules of no-names in the field. “I think it’s time.”
Tim doesn’t ask, but the meaning is clear. Not to their home. Not to Jason’s apartment. Tim doesn’t try to stop him when he grapples away before he says something stupid like, I’m sorry. I don’t mean it.
I’m glad I found you.
—
He doesn’t hear from Tim for another month. He doesn’t call him. He doesn’t call Dick and ask if Tim really did go back to the manor. He tries not to stay up late pacing his living room, wondering if he made a stupid decision, doesn’t allow himself to feel guilt when he comes home looking forward to seeing someone on his couch and being greeted by nothing but silence.
And he doesn’t eat only the pasta that Tim did love for weeks straight.
—
The next time he sees Tim is on patrol. Red Robin crashing into his territory, making his presence loud and known. Reports around the neighborhood for days discussing the new appearance, Does Red Hood have competition? An enemy?
It is the first time someone from the family has tried to really cause a scene in his neighborhood. It should cause irritation. Truthfully, Jason is mostly just happy to realize Tim is still alive and well.
And clearly wanting his attention.
He finds Tim on that same rooftop from their goodbye. He looks the same way he did that night too. The rain pours down on them. As Robin, he loved rainy nights like this. His boots would get a bit soggy, but he would not let that stop him from stomping on every puddle they crossed. Even when Bruce would frown at him in disappointment and really, wasn’t that part of the fun? And near the end of the night, when the air became too chill and the rain became a nuisance, Bruce would let him rest under the cape, taking it off in the batmobile and wrapping Jason up in it. And Jason would fall asleep just like that, only waking up long enough to have memories of Bruce carrying him to his bed.
Red Hood doesn’t have a cape. He’s not even wearing his hood, donning only his red domino, but Tim shivers and shakes, and he feels a sudden urge to redesign his whole attire to stop this from ever happening again. A burning urge to wrap Tim up at home, to keep him warm and safe and fed , and –
“Come home with me.” The words leave Jason’s lips before he can stop them. Before he can strip away the vulnerability of them, the truth laced in between each syllable, the way his fingers twitch, wanting to reach out and hold Tim. Before he can even mention how Tim shouldn’t be here, how he’s fucking up his territory, how he could have just called if he wanted to talk. “I didn’t mean what I said.”
It is hard to read Tim’s facial expressions with his eyes covered. Harder too with the rain clouding Jason’s vision. He wants to drag Tim home, to dry him off. Tim finally responds, “What would you have said instead?”
As a child, Jason and his mother said i love you to each other frequently. In the morning, at night, before she went to work for a double-shift. The words flowed freely in the Todd household. With Bruce, prying the words out of him were like pulling teeth. Jason would go months without hearing Bruce say the words. And he knew Bruce loved him: in the way he would say i’m proud of you, Robin, in the way he would envelop Jason in a hug, in the constant gifts, in the ways he knew how to love a boy. But sometimes Jason had just wanted Bruce to say those words to him. To hear them come from his mother again. Until long enough, the sentiment died in his throat too, and by the time Jason’s body was six feet under, it had probably been half a year’s time since the last time he and Bruce shared those words.
“I love you,” Jason says, and Tim’s entire body stills. He thinks back on Tim in that first week. Tiny, weak, impossibly sad. Like a stray cat meowing to be let in. The mild irritation he had felt at his odd quirks and off putting behaviors. How as the time passed, those very same things were what made Jason look forward to coming home every day to him.
Tim says nothing in response for a long moment, and fear pricks at Jason. Eventually, he shifts on his feet, says, “Bruce is back.” The last words he would have ever expected in reply. A million thoughts race through Jason’s mind, starting with of fucking course he is and all the way to who fucking cares right now? “And he doesn’t want me to be Robin again either.”
Jason blinks at him and laughs slightly. “Come work with me. Fuck the other three.”
A small smile on Tim’s lips at that. A small tilt of his head as he looks at Jason, the same way he would when he felt he was about to win a debate. “Do you really love me?”
“Well, I’m not asking anyone else to join me, am I?” Another feeling of worry. Tim hasn’t exactly rejected him, but he hasn’t really said much either. His hand feels itchy, almost reaching down to his guns when he starts feeling antsy and like he needs to just have anything in his hands. “I miss having you around.”
“I’m still going to work with Bruce,” and though the words feel like a rejection, Tim moves closer to him, “But I miss you too.”
And kissing Tim feels like coming home too.