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Revenge feels every bit as good as Jason is expecting.
He’s been eagerly awaiting this moment for months, biting at the bit to get ahold of the fragile little bird who thought he could steal all of the things that made Jason happy. He fantasized about this day so many times, imagining all of the ways he could make the pretender suffer. It makes it even more satisfying to break Batman’s latest trophy child.
The kid is feisty, Jason will admit. He puts up a good fight. As much as Tim tries to hide it, Jason knows he’s terrified, so he mocks him about it. Robin isn’t supposed to be scared, he sneers, Robin is supposed to be brave even in the face of death. It certainly took Jason much longer than this to show his fear when he was being beaten to death.
Usually Jason tries to suppress memories and feelings of his death, but this is different. He lets the fear and pain and longing for his family- for somebody, anybody to save his life- wash over him. He feeds it to the Pit, which gulps it down greedily and uses it to focus on Tim and all the ways Jason can make him suffer. The fight itself blurs together into a fuzzy haze of attacking and blocking, and it’s boring. The only moments that stand out to Jason are the ones in which he inflicts severe pain onto his replacement.
He laughs as he breaks Tim’s arm. It snaps with a satisfying crack and an even more satisfying scream. Tim scrambles to his feet as soon as Jason releases him, cradling his broken arm in the crook of his unbroken one and holding his bo staff in front of him.
Jason throws Tim across the room and watches him smack into the wall and crumple to the ground in a heap of limbs. Tim stands up, and Jason doesn’t miss the way he sways on his feet and tries to blink away what’s likely spotty vision. He grins with a predatory glee and stalks towards Tim.
It’s far too easy to snatch the bo staff out of Tim’s hands and knock him to the floor. The pit sings in pleasure as Tim cries out in pain. It’s particularly satisfied when Jason smacks the broken bone, and the cries turn into a guttural scream. It’s music to Jason’s ears.
It’s not enough for him though. Not until Tim begs him to stop. Not until he begs Jason to spare him. Not until he pleads for his family to save him.
Only then, once he realizes that nobody is coming to save him, will Tim know true fear. And only then will Jason be satisfied.
His favorite part is the moment when he decides to finally remove his helmet. For a split second Tim looks hopeful, before his expression twists into one of anguish.
“What? You didn’t figure it out yet?” Jason mocks him viciously. “And you call yourselves the World’s Greatest Detectives.” He scoffs and lands a particularly rough kick to the kid’s ribs. Tim curls in on himself as if that will somehow protect him from Jason and wheezes for breath.
“J- Jason…?” Tim gasps pitifully, and sputters, “but you died.” If he looks closely enough, Jason can swear he sees tears in his eyes. How pathetic.
“No shit, Sherlock,” He responds with a blow to Tim’s leg. “Do I look dead to you now?”
“H- How?” Tim asks instead of responding. He drags himself across the floor as if he thinks he can escape.
Jason doesn’t dignify it with an answer. Instead, he takes slow steps towards Tim and tosses the staff from hand to hand thoughtfully. “I wonder, should we continue with this little song and dance, or is it time for some real fun?” He smirks down at the kid with a look that he hopes conveys, I can hurt you however I want and there’s nothing you can do about it. He wants Tim to feel as powerless and defeated as he did in his final moments.
Tim, to his credit, doesn’t flinch like he expects. Instead he meets Jason’s gaze with a strength he shouldn’t have this far into an ass whooping. “Jason, I don’t know how this is possible, but if the others knew-” He cuts himself off with a harsh rattling cough. Jason glares down at him, still debating if it’s time to break out the knives or guns yet. “W- Why didn’t you go home?” Tim asks finally.
“Home? What home?” Jason scoffs. “What you mean is, why didn’t I go crawling back to the bats, right?” He barks out a genuine laugh when he imagines the look on Brucie and Dickface’s faces if they had seen him fresh out of the grave, covered in dirt and blood like a real-life zombie. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they never cared about me to begin with, hmm?” He lifts the staff above his head and brings it down onto Tim, hard. “Perhaps it’s because Dickface didn’t even care enough to attend my damn funeral! ” He lifts the staff and brings it down again. “Or maybe it’s because they fucking replaced me with some sorry excuse of a kid like you so quick my body hadn’t cooled in my fucking grave yet! ” He hits Tim again and again, until he’s panting from the excursion and Tim has stopped struggling under him.
Jason decides to take a moment to calm down. The Pit is happy, but Jason can feel his control over himself slipping, and it won’t be any fun if he accidentally kills the kid too quickly just because he’s getting upset. He paces in circles like a caged animal a few feet away from where Tim is collapsed on the ground. Breathe, he tells himself as he buries his hands in his hair. You need to breathe.
“They would’ve been so happy to see you,” comes a small voice from behind him. Jason whips around to see Tim struggling to his feet. He almost falls over, barely managing to regain his balance by stumbling a couple of feet to the left. He looks like shit. “T- They would’ve welcomed you home with open arms,” the kid grits out, and the blatant lie sends rage shooting down Jason’s spine. He’s starting to get really fucking annoyed by the kid’s insistence on refusing to submit to him, and the deception coming out of his mouth is making it even worse. Tim has several broken bones now, is likely concussed, and has scrapes and bruises sprinkled over his skin like seasoning, and yet he has the fucking nerve to stay standing.
Well, Jason can fix that.
A quick knife to the gut is the perfect solution, Jason decides. He purposely avoids any important organs; he’s angry beyond reason, but he’s not ready for the fun to be over quite yet. Tim falls to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut, clutching the wound with the hand of his non-broken arm like he’s going to somehow keep the blood inside. He gapes at the wound like a fish out of water, and then pushes against the ground.
He’s trying to get back up.
Again.
Apparently he doesn’t realize how much that’s pissing Jason off. He kicks the kid hard enough to send him rolling a few feet across the floor, leaving a short trail of smeared blood in his path. Jason decides to use this time to talk about his own death, how he predicts Batman will react to losing another Robin, and how Tim is a disappointment to the Robin name. He’s mostly talking out of his ass, but it feels so right. He always made fun of rogues for their villainous monologues in the past, but he gets it now. It’s fucking satisfying.
What’s not satisfying is that Tim has apparently given up. He lays crumpled on the ground with his back to Jason, no longer moving or trying to get back up.
Despite wanting this outcome a moment ago, Jason finds that it just makes his mood even more foul. Oh no. You don’t get to cop out yet, you little shit, he thinks bitterly. We’re not nearly done here. He stalks over to Tim, grabs a fistful of hair, and roughly yanks him up until the broken little bird is on his knees. He crouches down in front of Tim, holding him firmly in place with his grasp of Tim’s hair, and grabs his chin to force him to look Jason in the eyes.
This is the moment he’s been waiting for: to tell Tim up close and personal just how pathetic and useless he is. To tell him that this is how he dies, all alone except for the company of the boy whose entire life he stole. Jason opens his mouth to tell Tim exactly this, but Tim meets his eyes and his broken, distant expression shifts into one of relief. He slouches in Jason’s grip, and Jason has to tighten his grip on the kid’s hair so he doesn’t fall over. He’s surprised a chunk of the kid’s hair hasn’t ripped out at this point.
“What the fuck do you think you’re smiling about, Pretender?” Jason hisses, because for some reason the kid is fucking smiling all dopey like Jason is suddenly his best friend in the entire damn world and not someone who is about to kill him. Tim doesn’t respond, and it pisses Jason off even more. He gives the kid a little shake. “Didn’t your parents teach you any fucking manners? You’re supposed to answer when someone asks you a question, Replacement,” he growls. “What the fuck is wrong with you, huh?”
“J’son,” The kid whispers, so soft Jason almost misses it entirely. He’s still looking at Jason like he’s suddenly his savior, and it infuriates him immensely. “‘s okay, ‘m ready,” Tim slurs. The pit flares and Jason’s vision flashes green.
“What the fuck do you mean, you’re ready?” He spits out. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Ready for what? Ready for his supposed family to swoop in and rescue him? Ready for Jason to take him home and tuck him into bed? Jason must not have made his point as well as he thought, because clearly Tim missed the whole point of this if he thinks Jason is going to let him go just because he fucking asked him nicely-
Something presses into Jason’s hand and his thoughts cut off. He blinks down at it, unsure if he’s suddenly lost his mind, because why the fuck is Tim handing him a knife? And the same knife that Jason had stabbed Tim with and then discarded onto the floor and forgot about, at that. What the fuck?
“‘m ready t’ go,” Tim mumbles. Jason is still staring at the knife in shock and accidentally releases his grip on Tim’s hair. The kid slumps forward against his chest. Jason’s skin crawls with the wrongness of this situation. This is not how this was supposed to happen. He replays his actions of the past few minutes, trying to figure out where he slipped up. There has to be a piece of info he’s missing somewhere, because he doesn’t know what the fuck is happening right now. Is Tim mocking him? Is he trying to act pitiful so Jason will spare him? Because that is not fucking happening.
“Go where, Tim?” He sneers. He’ll play along just to see what the kid is trying to pull off. Tim sniffles pathetically, and Jason notices that he’s crying now. He didn’t cry the entire time Jason was beating the shit out of him, why bother now? Does he really think acting all pathetic is going to work? Does he think he can just pull on the heartstrings of the big bad crime lord and get to walk away free because of some fucking waterworks?
Jason is debating tossing Tim to the ground and kicking him a few times to show him just what he thinks of this conniving little plan of his, when Tim finally responds. “With you.”
Jason hesitates. The kid wants to go with him? With him where? He grabs Tim’s shoulders and pulls him back to stare at him in confusion. Tim winces when Jason jostles his broken arm, and it doesn’t satisfy him the way it should, the way it did mere minutes ago.
There is also a surprising lack of green in his vision. The pit has settled for the moment, it would seem.
Fuck. The waterworks are working. The little shit is actually pulling on Jason’s heartstrings. He didn’t even think he had fucking heartstrings!
“You’re dead,” Tim states, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Except no, Jason isn’t dead, at least not anymore. They literally just had this conversation. It shouldn’t bother him so much that Tim is seemingly going in circles- because, y’know, concussion- but Tim says it with a finality that disturbs Jason.
He says it as if Jason being dead is the solution to all of his problems.
Tim is shuddering in his hands and Jason loosens his grip on his shoulders just enough to make sure he’s not squeezing too hard, (why does this suddenly feel like it matters?) and Tim takes advantage of it to push himself close to Jason and cling to him like Jason alone has the power to make everything better.
“P- please. It hurts,” Tim pleads. Jason feels something in him shift, and he can’t name the emotion that’s suddenly flooding through him. No, no, this is wrong, this isn’t how any of this was supposed to go. “M- make it stop, please,” Tim begs. Jason wanted to hear him beg, but this is nothing like he expected. Tim grabs Jason’s hand and guides it up to rest the knife against his neck. He leans into it, not seeming to realize or care that the silver blade cuts into his skin and a line of blood trickles down his neck. “‘m ready,” he whispers over and over, “‘m ready.” He closes his eyes and waits for Jason to slit his throat.
What the fuck.
What the fuck?
Jason pulls away from Tim in horror, but the kid clings to him like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. He wanted to hurt the kid, break the kid, make him suffer and beg, but not for this. Never for this.
But that’s not entirely true, is it? He didn’t foresee this situation specifically, but he was ready to kill the kid a moment ago. This time the thought doesn’t bring him satisfaction or make the Pit happy. Jason feels disgusted with himself. How could he become so twisted in his anger towards Bruce that he would torture and kill a kid?
Because that’s who is clinging to him, begging Jason to kill him. A kid. And not in the pathetic way Jason had thought of Robin as a kid for months now. Not in the naive, stupid, fragile way. This is a kid who goes to school, and has friends and homework and parents who worry about him. This is a kid who has an entire life outside of being Robin, and still chooses to put his life at risk in order to protect Gotham anyway. This is a kid who has a whole life ahead of him left to live, the way Jason should’ve had a whole life ahead of him left to live.
Which makes Jason no better than the madman who killed him.
That thought alone is enough to crush Jason. Tim is still clutching him desperately, sobbing and begging- begging Jason to slit his throat, what the fuck- and Jason doesn’t know how he could possibly have wanted to hurt this kid in the first place. He chucks the knife across the room and carefully pulls the kid into his arms.
“I am so, so sorry Tim.” Jason knows that the words aren’t enough to fix this. This whole situation is so fucked up, he is so fucked up in the head and he has fucked up significantly this time. Perhaps it’s too late and nothing will be enough to fix this, but he can at least try.
He owes Tim that much.
The kid melts into his arms despite his injuries like it’s the best hug of his life. Jason is gentle and tries to avoid hurting the kid any more than he already has. He rubs soft, soothing circles into Tim’s back and murmurs apologies in his ear. It takes a moment, but soon enough Tim relaxes like all of the life has been drained out of him. Jason carefully slips one of his arms under his legs and picks Tim up. He glances down at him to make sure he hasn’t disturbed any of Tim’s injuries too severely, and sees the kid smiling deliriously before he promptly passes out.
He’s so small in Jason’s arms. Small, fragile, and broken.
Because of Jason.
Jason heads towards the Tower’s med-bay. He doesn’t know what will happen when Tim wakes up. He might not even be around to see Tim’s reaction, or talk to him and properly apologize about all of this. His plan is to patch the kid up as best as he can and then turn off the Tower-wide lockdown that was preventing outside contact. He knows Batman will show up immediately after, likely with Nightwing on his heels, and there’s a pretty high chance they won’t accept his sudden change of heart. He’s okay with that, he thinks. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.
Jason looks down at Tim, unconscious in his arms and beaten within inches of his life. He deserves whatever punishment they deem he deserves. But if there’s even the slightest chance they’d be willing to listen to him and give him another chance, Jason will do better.
He doesn’t expect them to. He certainly wouldn’t trust himself after everything he’s done, if he was in their shoes. But if there’s even the slightest chance that they’re willing to let him fix this, he’ll take it.
Because his mission is over; he didn’t kill Robin. So if he somehow gets out of all of this without being locked up forever, he’s going to change his mission. He’s going to protect Tim at all costs.
There won’t be anymore dead Robins on Jason’s watch, he decides. He’s going to make sure nobody hurts Robin like this ever again.