Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason doesn’t know much about the man who'd rescued him. Not his name, not his age, not how he knew Talia… Hell, he's barely even seen the guy's face, too scared to look fully look at him when green eyes haunted his nightmares already. 

Something Jason is almost certain of, though, is that the guy had like… actually gotten him out of there. The guy had gotten him out, gotten him somewhere safe, and gotten him medical treatment. It's been days, and none of the Joker's previously hallucinogenic hellscape episodes ever lasted this long.

The guy was crazy enough to try (and fucking succeed) at taking something that the Joker had decided he liked, but he also doesn't seem very Joker-y. No dismemberment of kindergarteners or replacing baptism water with acid or anything. No torturing of Jason. (Yet.)

“That boy wishes for your safety above almost all else,” Talia had told him. 

The guy had left Jason with Talia after helping treat his wounds, and now, nearly two days later, he seemed… more settled. Less anxious, less on the verge of hitting something, which did, admittedly, count as evidence towards what Talia had said. The two of them had been sort of in and out ever since Talia showed up, but they never left him by himself. One of them or Talia’s doctor guy was always somewhere in the apartment, and when whoever's turn it swapped in, they'd sit somewhere vaguely near Jason., but, weirdly, if Jason decided to get up and move to another room, they'd let him with nothing more than a glance. After so goddamn long being left in the dark for who knows how long or kept awake for days of ‘fun,’ the ability to just… go if he felt like it was weird. 

Jason's tentative belief that none of them are going to hurt him is the only reason he was willing to sit anywhere near that fucking moutain of a human being. 

Like right now, in the late evening of his second day outside of the asylum. The man is scooping food from a rice cooker that hadn't been in the decrepit safety-hazard kitchen yesterday, his back unwisely turned to Jason (who had made a shiv out of the pen Talia gave him). Jason himself had squished his bandaged, bundled, heavily blanketed self into one of the kitchen armchairs at the table, approximately fifteen feet from where the stranger was standing. The lights are off again, like this guy doesn't want Jason to see his face either, but there's enough lighting from the dim, cold glow of the windows that Jason can still watch him cook to make sure he won't add any vials of poison or whatever. 

“Plain rice, soft chicken, boiled carrots, and a bit'a cheese,” lists off the stranger, setting down a small bowl filled with the aforementioned foods on the table beside Jason. “Plus some salt and a dash'a soy sauce.” 

Are you fucking serious? Jason thinks, but all he does is blink emptily at the stranger's face, trying to keep his own as blank as possible. 

The man is not put off. “I'm gonna serve some for myself too, t’prove it's safe,” he says, like he’s a fucking mind reader, “an’ then I want you to eat as much of this bowl as you're comfortably able. Leftovers can go to T and her doc if you want somethin’ else tomorrow.” 

Jason stares at the bowl of food for a minute, before watching the man stuff a forkful of food from his own freshly filled bowl into his mouth. “Safe for eatin’,” the guy promises, before returning to his food. 

Jason picks up his fork and sizes at a piece of chicken the size of his pinky, ignoring the taunting jeer in his head of look who's so pathetic he has to eat soft pathetic baby bites before glancing up again to watch the only vaguely illuminated form of the guy continue eating. 

“What do I call you?” Jason asks. He thinks it might be the first lucid sentence he'd said to this man that wasn't a plea of some kind. 

“Toby,” replies the stranger, unfazed and immediate. It's obviously a fake name, but at least it's something for Jason to go off of besides ‘large scary stranger.’ 

Jason still squints at him suspiciously. “What do you want from me, ‘Toby?’” 

“Nothing,” comes the flat reply as ‘Toby’ puts his bowl in the sink and sits at the table. “I found you on my way to other things. You're more've’a side quest than a main objective, kid.” 

What the hell kinds of trips did ‘Toby’ have to run in Arkham? Was he there as one of Joker's professional torturers? How else was he able to get past Joker, and the guards, and- and fucking Slade? Had he been employed to- 

“Hey!” ‘Toby’ snaps his fingers in Jason's face, startling him into a harsh lean away from those huge hands. “Before y’start spiraling down a conspiracy theory-ass train'a thought, kid, I wanna make some shit clear.” 

Jason, still leaning back, eyes him warily. “...Kay.” 

“I am not a Joker goon,” ‘Toby’ says, like a fucking mind reader again. “I do not work for him or with him. You will not be going back to him, or Bruce, or anyone worse. I'm not planning on harming you in any way, physically or otherwise, nor'll I let anyone else try that shit either, because you are a child, and hurting children is unforgivable in my book. I’ll be keeping you safe while I work on my other goals, and if anyone tries to hurt you while you are under my protection, they'll be dead before they know I'm comin’.” 

“...Those other goals being?” Jason asks before he can stop himself. Shit, why was he slipping out of his sit-still-be-quiet-maybe-if-you're-obedient-they'll-go-away mode? 

“Gettin’ home, mostly,” ‘Toby’ says with a shrug. “Magic portals are a pain, and my little brother is gonna start bitchin’ if I ain't home within the week.” 

Weird. He'd answered. 

Y'know what? Fuck it. If this guy is trying to win Jason over, Jason might as well see how much he's willing to hold onto the (maybe not an) act. “Portal?” he asks, testing his luck. 

‘Toby’ nods indistinctly in the dark. “Fuckin’ wormhole swallowed me outta nowhere an’ spat me out here. Considering the rarity of most'a the ingredients I need to make the call back home, I might be here for longer than I want, and my mom is gonna damn near lose her mind too, if this all takes too long.” 

Jason frowns. Considering ‘Toby's’ connections to Talia al Ghūl, it's… not unlikely that he could just get on a plane to go back to wherever he might have been from, but pairing the implication that he needed a spell to even contact home with his very Uptown Gotham accent, he might not actually be from this particular plane of existence. If he was telling the truth, anyway. 

“I didn't take you for someone who has contact with relatives,” Jason probes cautiously. “Most folks with that many weapons ain't exactly known for goin’ to Thanksgiving dinner.” 

‘Toby’ shrugs again, apparently (thankfully) not offended. “Meh. Slade has a daughter.” 

Fucking what? How? And if that was true, wasn't it kind of a dick move to leave her behind for his keep-Jason-trapped-in-the-basement job? Although, then again, Bruce had abandoned Jason in favor of that older kid, Tim. Willis had tried to hand him off to the Mob, too, and ‘Toby’ didn't mention a worried dad, so maybe fathers were just universally awful. 

“Why would he let that be known?” Jason lets himself ask, starting to relax a little now that ‘Toby’ hasn't snapped at him for asking questions. “Even if he didn't care about her, that's still a connection.” 

“I dated her,” ‘Toby’ says. 

“Uh.” Deathstroke's kid? Oh god, she was probably some sort of assassin like her dad, then, if she'd dated this guy. Shit. 

‘Toby’ snickers at his expression, and fuck, why is Jason showing his thoughts on his face again? He thought he'd killed that instinct! “Yep,” ‘Toby’ says, maybe oblivious to his crisis. “It's sorta been on an’ off with her, but she's not all bad.” 

Huh. 

They're interrupted by the door to the apartment opening, and Jason only barely resists the urge to flinch. Everything had been so calm, too. Jason watches as ‘Toby’ unholsters a gun and peeks out of the doorway before relaxing again. Strangely, Jason's first instinct at seeing ‘Toby’ untense was to untense slightly himself, which… unnerved him. First his face and now this; he didn't even know the guy! 

“Heya T,” greets ‘Toby’ as Talia al Ghul rounds the corner. 

Talia breezes past him to set an armful of disgustingly large books down on the rickety table, standing too close to Jason for comfort. “Hello, little ones.” 

Talia is barely a third of ‘Toby's’ size, how the fuck- 

‘Toby,’ now facing Jason and the table again, leans over past Talia's shoulder to look at the dusty tomes, and, through the dim, pale white glow from the window as a pair of headlights sweeps over the window and into the room, Jason catches the lower half of the man's face as he cheers, “Hey, you got ‘em! Sick. Ducra comin’ in clutch even all the way out here.” 

In that split second of visibility before the car is gone, Jason notes that ‘Toby’ has a scar slanting upward in the corner of his upper lip that slightly tugs back on his delighted grin. His smile is sort of gummy, honest and real and full of slightly crooked teeth with no jarring red in sight. Joker's grin always stretched too far in both directions, cut and carved up to his ears in an upsetting crescent like someone took a seam ripper to his face. ‘Toby's’ grin is… human. 

In all the dreams Jason has these days, in sleep or drug-induced unconsciousness, every smile he sees, no matter the face, is a twisted mockery of Joker's. All of them. That means Jason is awake. Holy shit.

 “You never told me you knew Ducra and her people personally,” Talia says, raising an eyebrow at ‘Toby.’ 

The two of them seem unaware of Jason’s world-tipping revelation. He needs to sit down. He is sitting down. Fuck.

“My mom handed me off to ‘em all for a few months,” ‘Toby’ tells her absently, picking up one of the books and plopping down next to Jason. “Helped me learn t’manage my Green.” 

Green? 

Actually… Hm. 

When Talia had first come in with her doctor, Jason had been fresh out of a nightmare and convinced he was stuck in another of Joker's fucked up drug-induced hallucination episodes. It was the first time he'd peroperly woken up after being stolen from the asylum, and the unfamiliar location had triggered an embarrassing breakdown. Admittedly, he had been barely lucid at the time, but looking back, he was pretty sure he'd heard the doctor who had come with Talia tell the woman in question that the gargantuan stranger had Lazarus in his blood. If Jason recalls Bruce(fucking Bruce)'s files correctly, Lazarus is some sort of magical healing juice that comes with a momentary dash of mild insanity. 

Well, at least that means that ‘Toby's’ unnatural green eyes probably have nothing to do with Joker toxin.

Looming danger of monstrous Bane-esque wrath aside, though, at least Jason will have some time to heal first if it ended up going there, which was a hell of a better deal than he'd had when he was still tied to that goddamn wheelchair.

Talia considers ‘Toby’ for a moment, but nods. “Reasonable, I suppose.” 

“Mm,” ‘Toby’ assents, turning the page. 

Talia sits down on the other side of the table so Jason is in the corner of the group's L-shaped seating setup, and opens a book of her own. 

The silence in the room seems comfortable for the two of them, but Jason, the outlier (as per usual), is hyperaware of every movement they make. He finally manages to stuff a forkful of rice and carrots into his mouth, thankful for how easy it all is to chew, and hopes neither of these two very competent killers notice how his shoulders twitch up to his ears every time they move. 

When neither ‘Toby’ or Talia do anything except flip pages, though, the silence and the food and the objective weirdness of it all (on top of feeling actually awake for the first time in weeks, let alone the last two days) helps the reality of the situation sink in for the first time. 

A stranger had saved him, and maybe killed the Joker. A random man he didn't know had called in a doctor. He had asked Jason whether or not he wanted him to help Talia tend to his injuries, and then done what was asked without question. He'd- He'd made him a warm, home-cooked meal, from scratch, and not asked for anything in return, and fuck, when was the last time Jason had eaten anything warm? When was the last time he'd had something that wasn't half rotted or otherwise inedible? Honestly, probably the last time anyone had cooked for him, it had been Alfred, back at the manor. Fuck. 

Jason feels his eyes prickle, and watches as salty droplets fall to plink against his slightly shaky fork. Why had this ‘Toby’ gone so far out of his way for him? Why are these two both being so kind?

And God, wasn't that sad, too, that an (allegedly) unplanned rescue and a simple, barely-seasoned meal is considered kind in comparison to his last few months? He feels pathetic as he stuffs down more food, trying to keep his sniffles to a minimum, and harshly blinks his way through the hurt in his chest spilling past his eyes. Neither ‘Toby’ nor Talia look at him while he cries, but he holds no illusions over whether or not they notice. It seems, though, like they're trying to give him privacy. 

Unfortunately, because they're blessing him with feigned ignorance of his pathetic, silent tears, Jason can’t stop himself from crying. He tries, he really does, but… with no one watching him, with no cameras and no lights in his face and no being left alone in isolation for days and no one reopening his wounds and no one hanging him up by the arms to hit him and no Croc punching his face and no Penguin cane-whipping him and no Zsaz slashing up his jaw and no Harley coming in to waterboard him and no Harley electrocuting him once he's sufficiently drenched and no haunting, raspy mockery of a laugh- 

Fuck. Fuck! 

With- With none of that, and having had none of that for days now (he counted, the tally marks he's scribbled into the wall behind the foot of the bed that he checked every hour are proof), he feels more... safe than he has in as long as he can remember. 

Back in that hellish asylum, he'd cried, sure, but it had usually been with a hopeless acceptance instead of a pain response. When Joker had taunted him with the photo of that new kid on the six-month ‘anniversary’ of his time in hell, he had shed a couple of tears, because… how else was he supposed to take it? Batman had gotten another kid, just like he'd gotten Jason after Dick left. Then, when Jason had been branded like cattle, he'd shed another few. When he'd gotten shot in the chest, he remembers a singular drop sliding down his face before he blacked out from the pain of his broken ribs. 

Jason has no idea how long the space between the photo taunt and the branding was, or how long the branding from that gunshot incident was, or how long the gunshot incident was from his rescue, but he knows that it's been long. Too long. Too long for Bruce to have taken if he was really looking. Too long for anyone who tried to find him not to have made it by now. Bruce hadn't come for him. Worse, Bruce had swapped him out for another kid, like Robins are just car parts that need replacing every once in a while. 

He shudders silently through a particularly violent wrack of his shoulders, thinking, I miss- and then stopped.

Miss who? Who does he have to miss?

I miss my dad? I miss my mum? 

His parents hadn't wanted him, not a day in their lives. The literal point of his conception was so they could give him away, and they acted accordingly as he grew up. After years of beatings, he sold them out with no regrets, and even now, he doesn't want them to have tried. They didn't matter. They never had. The problem wasn't that Willis and Cathy couldn't hold him, or that he wanted them to, it was that they hadn't been people for him to want in the first place, when they should have been. 

He has no parents to miss. He never has. He has no Bruce to miss. He’d barely had six months (it's been six months now, Jason) of Dick being a part of his life at all before he'd been taken. Same with Barbara. Hell, Alfred was the one who raised Bruce and kept letting the fucker bring people into his bullshit anyway, so he could barely even summon warmth there. 

There is no one to miss. There's no one he can actually picture holding him. 

I miss who I thought Bruce was? Yeah, that sounded about right. 

That thought alone brings on another wave of tears, because as much as Jason had grown to be self sufficient, right now he still has that stupid, childlike urge to think ‘I want my parents,’ and like an idiot, he'd tried to let Bruce fill that spot. Clearly, though, Bruce had never cared in the first place. Jason wants Bruce to have tried, but he hadn't. So Jason's got no one.

No one until now, anyway. No one besides these two dangerous killers. 

They don't look at him. He wants them to, but at the same time, he's equally sure that if he catches a single movement implying either of them have noticed his pathetic, voiceless sobbing, even though he knows they're already aware, he'll fucking die on the spot, and he did not get this far, live this long, or get out of that hell just to die now. 

So here, in this shitty, cramped chair, at this shitty, creaky table, bundled in shitty, rubbed-raw blankets, with a shitty fork and a tiny meal he knew he wouldn't be able to finish, he hiccups and sniffs and weeps for what he's lost, because God, it hurts. His wrist hurts, his leg hurts, his cheek hurts- Shit, Jason’s heart hurts. Everything hurts.

Fuck.

Eventually, after calming down a little and making it halfway through the bowl, Jason reaches for his crutches and hobbles awkwardly to the fridge so he could put his bowl away. 

Breaking the silence, ‘Toby’ makes a noise of excitement. “Ooh!” he says, and then taps the page he's on. “T, take a look at this.” 

Talia narrows her eyes, apparently disapproving of the nickname, but she nonetheless leans over to see what ‘Toby's’ looking at. Jason watches warily as she blinks, processing, and then stares at ‘Toby,’ bewildered. “You cannot seriously be considering this.” 

‘Toby’ shrugs. “I think I've got enough left over in me for this to work, and if I don't, you do.” 

“You think you'll get away with that?” Talia asks, wide-eyed. “How tolerant is he with you?” 

Whatever ‘Toby’ was suggesting was apparently something that's got the Daughter of the Demon showing the first real display of emotion Jason's seen this whole time (besides that moment the other day when Jason had succumbed to the weak, childish, embarrassing urge to accept affection from a stranger), and he has to wonder if their vagueness on the subject is deliberate. 

“It'll only last until I get back,” ‘Toby’ dismisses, “and Gramps's honestly let me off for worse offenses. If he really wants t’kill me for it when I get back home, that's an issue for future me.” 

What. Who the hell is this guy's grandfather? And why does Talia care? 

Talia blinks again, collecting herself. “Your funeral, I suppose.” Then, she picks up another book, skims through its index, and types out a text on her phone. 

‘Toby’ reaches backward behind himself to the desk to grab a notebook and a pen. “If y’wanna kill time by reading or somethin’, you're welcome to,” he tells Jason, not looking up. “This’s all a bunch'a boring research crap on shit y'ain't learned yet, and it'll take a while.” 

So they are trying to keep him out of the loop. Great. 

(Besides, it's not like that shit is anything new.)

-

Jason knows that they're keeping things from him, and he's not fucking having it. 

They've shooed him out of the room every time he tried to inch close enough to hear them talk about whatever's in those books, and Jason's nerves are through the roof. At least with Joker, he knew what was happening.

All the fuckin’ sneaky bullshit with these two is putting him on edge, and he knows he's good at sneaking, even with his wounds, because few times he'd managed to get out of that goddamn room, he only ever got caught and dragged back because of the double guards at each doorway to the next chunk of asylum. 

So late at night, when the cars outside only sweep their lights across and through the windows every hour or so, he slips carefully out of his room, avoiding the damaged, fucked up floorboards, and slowly, silently creeps down the dark hallway to the area that leads to the living room/kitchen area. 

From what he can hear, the two of them are sitting at the same table as earlier, but when he dares a miniscule peep around the corner, there's more than just those books on the table in the right side of the room, various jars and a laptop and a pair of - fucking teacups? Talk about a heartbreaking goddamn nostalgia trip, Jesus - as well a single lamp that emanates a warm glow, which is the only thing that allows Jason to see all of it in the first place. ‘Toby’ has his back to the doorway Jason's in, Talia across from him facing sideways, and finally, Jason gets a halfway decent look at the guy. 

The shadows hadn't been lying to him before; the man is ridiculously gargantuan. He's something like three times Talia's body mass, wide and muscled and apparently relaxed enough now to not be wearing any of his body armor, which leaves him in just a plain gray T-shirt. His black hair is curly but frizzy, like he's been running his hands through it, and he has one arm resting on the back of his chair. Jason can see on that arm alone a collection of now-illuminated scars of both the atrophic and hypertrophic kind, knife wounds and bullet grazes and a singular angry atrophic scar on his neck. This guy has been through a lot. Jason doesn't think he even has that many.

They're speaking quietly, though, and Jason knows that no matter what these two want, they're both incredibly trained past anything he's got going for himself, so he pulls slowly back around the corner, hoping the air currents don't alert them to his eavesdropping. 

He's good at eavesdropping, too. He learned to strain his ears so he could hear chatter and orders and plans and whatnot from outside his prison, and additionally taught himself the weirdly difficult skill of filling in the blanks when a word dipped too low into the quiet. 

“Eight months, Talia,” ‘Toby’ is hissing. “Eight’n a half, for fuck's sake.” 

Talia shushes him, less in a be-quiet way and more of a calm-down way. “I miscalculated; I thought it was less than six. My question is, why does this matter?” 

“Because best I can figure, Bruce's bitchass decided that the kid was already dead an’ that lookin’ for a body wasn’ worth it. Y’know how fucked that is? Y’know what that’ll do to a kid’s psyche?” 

Little fuckin’ late for that, bud, Jason thinks, trying to quiet the swell of his rage at the mention of Bruce.

“I told you what happened to me, Talia. I was furious. I was gonna put down those shitwipes if it cost me my life, and I came damn close with both. The fucker that killed me was on the ground, covered in gasoline – I had the lighter in my hand, and I- I couldn't do it. The fucker who failed me, like your Bruce failed that kid, was gettin’ into his fancy-ass bullshit supercar, and I had the detonator in my hand but I couldn't do it. I was so close to putting them both down, and I couldn't. Fuckin’. Do it.” 

Woah, back up. This guy had died?? Fuckin’- What is he, Jesus of goddamn Nazareth? 

Talia shifts in her seat, chair creaking, and it sounds like she's running a hand through her own hair. “I am aware of the parallels. I know you see yourself in that boy, but you must remember you are separate people.” 

“Are we?” 

Man, fuck this guy! He didn't know shit! 

“I did my diggin,’ T. He might not’ve had no fuckin’ Sheila, but his parents tried to hand ‘im to the fuckin’ mob. They beat him, constantly, and he sold ‘em out in turn. I can't blame him, but that's the kind of self love that Dickhead and Timshit and Bruce, the goddamn bastard, all believe is called selfishness. Kids like him protect themselves because no one the fuck else will, and if you don't love yourself when the world tries to tell you y’ain't worth shit, it's real easy to die. I looked out for myself for most'a my life cuz for a long while, I was the only one willin’ to, and that… That's hard, T.” 

Well, fuck. He's right, it... sucks, being the only one in your own corner. That aside, though, researching the niche history of Jason’s home life was… honestly probably impossible to get collected in two days, not to mention the knowledge of everybody else's secret identities, so fucking how? Also, why is he psychoanalyzing Jason like a professional shrink instead of the lethal brick wall he is? Aren't meatheads supposed to be stupid? Although, then again, this nutcase kidnapped Joker's favorite toy, which probably required a very high level of tactical awareness. 

‘Toby’ continues. “Talia, he's a borderline clone. Fuckin'- Shit dad, shit mom, shit adoption dad, shit child-soldier suit, all left to rot with no one comin’ to save us from the shit we got tossed in. D'you know what would'a happened if I didn't save his ass? He'd either have died or needed to get himself out, and as someone who singlehandedly dug himself the fuck out of immurement, with broken bones and bloody hands to go with it, that shit does irreperable harm to your future ability to believe anybody’ll come for you when you need 'em. It took years for me t’believe my mom would save my ass if I fucked up, an’ even longer to start callin’ her ‘mom’ at all.” 

…Jason was getting a little sick of ‘Toby’ making valid points. Jason held onto hope of rescue for a long, long time. If eight months really is how long it's been, he's missed a whole fuckin’ birthday. He was seventeen, now. He missed his high school graduation. He knows, now, that Bruce won't come for him, but… Talia and ‘Toby’ had. Putting aside his urge to oppose anybody who think they know him, Jason has to admit that at the very least, he's grown to trust that if (when) Deathstroke kicks in the window and tries to steal him back, these two will at least try to stop him. 

“What is your point, here, young one?” 

“My point is that I'unno if I can let myself hand ‘im off to somebody without knowin’ for a fact that he'll be safe. If I have'ta leave that kid with you and go my way, I need to know that you'll keep ‘im safe from your father, from Bruce, an’ most importantly, that you'll keep ‘im from fallin’ too far into rage and despair. You'll need to put effort into keepin' him from drownin' in soul-deep agony for the rest of his life, an' I know he's gonna drown without you ‘cause I almost did. I tried to make someone choose and it got me bleedin’ from the neck, alone in a burning building an’ left behind by somebody I wanted to have loved me. If I let you take him, Talia, I gotta know you'll take care'a him.” 

Jason refuses to sniffle. They'll hear. So he blinks, hard, and lets his eyelashes fling his tears away from his face in tiny droplets before they can fall and land audibly on the floor. Why does ‘Toby’ care? Why does he care so much when Bruce didn't? 

Fucking goddammit. He did his pathetic weeping earlier; why is he crying again?

Talia sounds tired, less composed than Jason has heard her at all during these last few days. “What exactly do you suggest?” 

“I don't know if I can take him with me, T, but I know you. I know you'll wanna give ‘im back to Bruce-” NO! “-and he won't want that. Neither do I.”

Fuckin’- Wait, what? 

“You cannot give him back, Talia. The kid ain't ready for that, and your Beloved, even if he does care, will fail him again.” 

Well, yeah, no shit. 

“Your presumed ability to give me orders is an unwise habit that you would do well to curb,” Talia hisses. 

‘Toby’ sounds unfazed in the face of a goddamn al Ghūl threatening him. “My presumption is of your ability to understand that your Beloved's faults will repeat, but if I'm wrong about your level of intellect, I can send the kid somewhere you won't find him instead. Then what, though? He'll be alone again, isolated from the first two people who treated him kindly after that Arkham hellscape. Do you want that?” 

Holy shit this guy has a pair on him, insulting a woman at least three times as old as he'd ever get to be, and twice as dangerous to boot. 

“...No,” Talia gritted out.

‘Toby’ sighs heavily, like he's exhaling all of the fight in him into one single huff of air. “I know you've taken a liking to him, T. Introduce him to Dami. Invite over your sisters or something to give him a pair of loving, evil, overprotective aunties. Shit, bring in your nieces to help him if you gotta, but promise me you won't hand him back to that enormous emotionally-stunted furry fuck. Please.” 

The two of them are silent for a long time, before eventually, Talia assents. “On my father's dagger.” 

“Thank you, Talia. I mean it.” Then, ‘Toby's’ voice lightens with some humor. “And Sandra’s gonna love his drive, I know that much. Cass’s gonna teach him how to sword fight, Dami's gonna wordvomit all his cute little animal facts, and who knows? Maybe your dad'll like him more’n he hates me.” 

Talia snorts in a very un-princesslike manner. “Nyssa will try to corrupt him.” 

“Nyssa’s gonna try, but valid rage aside, Mini-Me back there ain't easy to manipulate. Most people with half a year of that freakshow's sadism would be downright nonverbal for the rest of their lives, but it's been two days and the kid's already back to snarkin’ at me. Give him some credit.” 

“I suppose,” Talia agrees. “He certainly keeps his guard up.” 

“He's always had to.” 

Another beat of silence, before Talia thunks something on the table. “Drink your maté, child,” she says. “We have a spell to create.” 

As the two of them start flipping through the books and scribbling more notes and whatnot, Jason sneaks backwards again, just as slowly as before, down the hallway and to his own door. He slips back inside, buries himself under the covers, and feels the concave in his chest curl deeper inwards as his pathetic emotions twist a few more tears out of his face. He muffles his voiceless, lung-deep shuddering gasps in the pillow he'd been given, and wonders why. 

They aren't going to give him back to Bruce. They're gonna try to keep him safe. They're gonna try and help him get better, and he hasn't done shit for these people in order to earn it. Why? 

Chapter Text

When Jason wakes up, his brain is sluggish, and that… isn’t good. The more alert he's able to be, the better he can prepare for the ordeals of his next hellish day in the asylum, but right now, his head feels full of fog and his eyes are all raw. 

Wait. He moves his arms and realizes he has free range of motion. And bandages. He- He's fucking clean. He'd been sleeping on his back, on something soft, and- Right. He's out. He opens his eyes to see the dark blue of an early-morning sky. Fuck, he missed the sky. 

Jason hefts himself upright, touching at his puffy red eyes. Ow. It's the only new thing that hurts, though. He doesn't even have a headache. His body feels lighter and heavier at the same time, and he can’t help but wonder why only three days of freedom has caused his body to lessen its permanent state of hypervigilance so much. Was it the bouts of crying from yesterday that leeched his energy, or was his body just taking the first break it had gotten as permission to finally shut down? Christ.

Before he can grab the crutches propped by the wall and stand up, though, he notices a big pile of something black on his nightstand, and when he touches it, he recognizes the incredible softness of a new (and therefore not itchy) wool sweater. It's just a little bit too big for him, large enough that he could hide in it a little if he wanted to but not so oversized as to feel infantilizing. He doesn't know where it came from, because he'd done his eavesdropping at around eleven PM and based off of the glow from his(?) bedroom window, it's something like four in the morning right now. Honestly, five hours of sleep isn't bad, but who went out and bought him a sweater? Who managed to sneak in here and leave it next to him without waking him up? 

Fucking- Whatever. September in Gotham might usually be warm, but it's early right now and malnourishment is a bitch and he's fucking cold. He might be named Jason but he doesn't know anyone named Medea, so he slips on the sweater and immediately feels more comfortable. Safer. Ridiculous, he tells himself as he goes for his crutches again. 

As he leaves his(?) room, the first thing he notices is that the hallway is quiet. That’s not exactly unusual so far for this apartment in particular, but he quickly realizes that it’s not just the apartment, it’s the whole area outside, too. While the city never truly quiets down, this is about when people would be getting up. The city doesn’t do quiet, not at any hour of the day or in any neighborhood, so whatever shitty part of town they’ve hunkered down in shouldn’t be a factor. There's no horns honking, no cars skidding, no drunkards yelling… Something’s wrong. 

When he reaches his former eavesdropping doorway, he peeks inside, where Talia is drinking something out of the same teacup she’d had last night while she flips through a newspaper. The lamp is off despite the near-nonexistent daylight starting to come through the window, and there are sticky notes and hastily sketched magic-looking things stuck to the wall. It doesn’t look like Talia or ‘Toby’ have moved to get up; the only significant difference Jason can see is that ‘Toby’ is slouched over the table, apparently asleep. 

Last night had given him the highlighted outlines of his silhouette, but now, with ‘Toby’ asleep and the dark, dim light of the sky coming in through the open blinds, Jason takes the chance to swing closer on his crutches and get a better look at his appearance.  

He looks dead to the world. His arms are folded forwards around his head – he's using one as a cushion for his face and draping the other one over his hair, which isn't very distinguishable, seeing as brunettes are the most common across the world. Due to the T-shirt ‘Toby’ was wearing last night, though, the wide variety of scars is still on full display, and up close, yeah, Jason had been right. Bullet wounds, stabs, gashes… The works. God, and pairing a light source with his closeness, Jason is actually able to see how fucking huge the guy is, too, and the chair he's in looks ridiculously too small in comparison. His curly hair is mussed up and slightly frizzy, and he looks… relaxed. Sure, he's guarding his head in his sleep, but his posture is entirely lax and his back is turned to the rest of the apartment. 

“Did you drug him?” Jason whispers. 

Talia blinks up from her drink. “No.” 

…Weird. With all the man's scars and shit, plus being in current possession of Joker's favorite toy and sitting next to what might be one of the most dangerous people in the world, Jason would have figured that somebody like ‘Toby’ would be more vigilant. Although, Jason hadn't seen him rest at any other point during these last three days, so maybe he's been vigilant this whole time and only just ran out of steam once Talia promised to look out for Jason. 

Wait. Actually... “Why does he trust you so much?” Jason asks, just as quietly. 

For a split second, he catches something like approval flicker at him from Talia al Ghūl's eyes, and Jason doesn't know how he feels about it. “Clever child,” she murmurs at him, before taking another sip and looking at the slumbering mountain across from her. “I believe I remind him of his mother.”

Jason makes a face. His own mother never provided that sense of safety for him. “And who resembles you enough for him to give this level of trust?” 

Talia hesitates as she sets down her teacup. “That is… a question I'm unsure how to answer. What I do know is that because I resemble his mother, he trusts me with you. I doubt it hurts that I have a son of my own.” 

Jason blinks. Talia al Ghūl has a kid? Who even- 

“He's Bruce's, isn't he?” he blurts before he can stop himself. "The kid." 

Talia closes her eyes just a second too long, breathes too normally for Jason to not know the answer before she admits, “Yes.” 

Jason feels his chest constricting, air a touch too thin. It's probably the ‘Dami’ that had been mentioned last night. “Are you going to give him to his father?” 

“I was planning to, when he was old enough,” Talia confirms, “once he was skilled enough to draw first blood in a fight with me.” 

Wow, what a sentence. Still better parenting than Jason's seen from anyone else, but still. 

“Now, though…” She traces her gaze over ‘Toby’s’ brutalized arms and lingers at the star attraction on his neck before she looks back at Jason, and like with ‘Toby’s’ neck, she pauses at the white square of dressing over the scar on Jason’s cheek. Her jaw clenches and her eyes drift to the window with an expression that looks just short of a glare. “Now I'm not sure.” 

…Does Batman have something to do with why ‘Toby’ looks so fucked up? 

Jason's brain circles back to he trusts me with you and he frowns. Shit, that…

That boy wishes for your safety above almost all else, Talia had said the other day. 

Fuck, okay. Okay. Maybe the guy is genuinely trying to help. Maybe. In that scenario, ‘Toby’ called in Talia to help him with Jason because she reminded him of his own mom, and therefore was trustworthy enough to be… allowed to go near Jason? Trusted with his safety? What an idea. Yeah, it lines up with their conversation last night, but Jason's never actually met ‘Toby’ before. They don't know each other. 

Talia seems to catch his confusion as he idles there, and her mouth doesn't move, but he gets the sense that she's looking at him with the energy that comes from a smile. “Go get something to eat from the fridge. Today will be busy.” 

“For you, me, or him?” Jason asks. 

Talia glances out the window. “All of us.” 

Uh oh. With the unexpected view of his mysterious rescuer passed out at the table, he'd forgotten the unsettling quiet of outside. Were they gonna make Jason leave the apartment? He feels antsy having so little space to walk around (despite it being leagues better than his previous arrangements), but leaving this tiny bubble of relative safety sounds significantly worse. Slade is outside. So is Harley. Fucking Joker is outside. 

Baby Bird, it’s going to be alright. You’re out. You’re out and he’s dead. I killed him. 

He's dead. I killed him. 

He's dead. 

Until Jason sees the fucking corpse, he refuses to get his hopes up by entertaining the idea. 

Still, he swings over to the fridge. Inside, there's his leftovers from yesterday as well as some new groceries from the little food mart that the old Russian guy in the Narrows runs. Maybe the doctor/assassin went shopping? Its contents include but are not limited to: apples, tomatoes, lettuce, two loaves of bread, that weird flat bread you get at Indian restaurants, some condiments, and some more cheese. His mouth still hurts from all the bruising on his gums after getting his face kicked in so often, so he takes a tomato and nothing else. He'll hold off on testing his new keepers’ goodwill by using that loud-ass microwave on his leftovers until after ‘Toby’ wakes up. 

With the tomato in his mouth, Jason hesitantly makes his way back to the table and sits Talia-adjacent in the empty chair, slightly farther away from ‘Toby’ than her. 

Don't get him wrong, he knows ‘Toby’ is the one who got him out, and he is (cautiously) grateful, but the guy is also gigantic, and Jason knows from experience that in general, women tend to be safer than men. He warmed up to Barbara more than he did to Dick, and, Harley aside, none of the female Arkham inmates or Rogues took part in his regular beatings. Not Selina (although she wasn't exactly a frequent visitor of the asylum), not Copperhead, not Babydoll, not Anchoress or Blackbird. He'd heard more names of female Arkham inmates that he'd never met – people with callsigns like Green Fairy, Madame Crow, Mime, and Nocturna, as well as others with real names like Cordelia, Vera, and a Lisley Bonnor. Hell, even Ivy, who was arguably more fucking insane than half the male Rogues, had apparently declined the offer to kick his shit in like everyone else. She hadn't helped him, but she hadn't joined in. 

Talia looks at him in his periphery, and tilts her head when he meets her gaze. She asks quietly, “Is there a reason you're less tense with me than him?” 

Great. They both read minds. “You might be more dangerous, but he's scarier,” Jason mutters. “Fucking skyscraper, here.”

“Hm.” Talia tilts her head. “You know, you trusted him more than me when I first arrived.” 

She's right. He'd asked ‘Toby’ to come with him to the bathroom for… what, moral support? Then, in the bathroom, he'd clung to ‘Toby’ like a lifeline in the bathroom while Talia cleaned him up. 

“I blame the panic attack,” Jason mutters, biting into his tomato. “You were newer than him.” 

Talia hums and takes a sip from her teacup, eyeing him over the brim. “He's the one who held you afterwards,” she says, setting her cup down to look at him carefully. “Clutched you to his chest and murmured comfort into your hair.” 

…He does remember having flashes of a nightmare before it was ushered away, less by a voice and more by the accompanying deep rumbling in someone's chest. He remembers being warm, and feeling safe, and being placed on a mattress. Now that he's thinking about it, he also recalls his hand moving forward of its own volition when the heat source started to leave. 

‘M scared, he'd whispered, holding tightly to a large wrist. Someone had kissed his forehead, cradled his head and petted his temple with their thumb like he was something precious, and replied, That's okay. You're safe now, Baby Bird, but it's okay to be scared. 

Fuck. 

“He's the one who took me to the bed you woke me up in the other day,” Jason says. 

Talia nods. “He is,” she confirms, before turning to consider ‘Toby’ instead of Jason. “Yes, he is physically larger than you and I combined, with skin decorated in evidence of violence, and he is harsh around the edges, but while he is vulgar and a touch rabid when distressed, he held you that day as if you were made of thin, hollow glass.” 

He's fragile, right now, ‘Toby’ had said at the end of that first day. 

You see yourself in that boy, Talia had murmured quietly last night. 

Jason swallows his bite of tomato and sinks a little into the stupidly soft sweater he'd found on his(?) nightstand. 

“I see you found my gift,” Talia hums smugly, changing the subject. 

“It was you?” 

She sips from her teacup again, finally putting down the newspaper. “He mentioned something along the lines of layers, and I had one of my shadows procure a variety of clothes for you both. You may look through them once you have finished your fruit and had some water.” 

Jason decides to risk some smartassery. “Mm, you're a mom, alright.” 

Talia’s eyebrows raise at his audacity, but she shows no sign of offense. In fact, she gives him a small smile. “I'll take that as a compliment, little one. I like your spirit.” 

Jason ducks his head with relief, trying to stuff down the fluttery part of his chest that lights up at any and all forms of approval from people he lets his walls down around. It wasn't usually a strong part of him, but fuck you, he'd lived in hell for half a year and how could you not take compliments from a woman like this without a bit of a blush? He doesn't really get compliments much anyway, besides a passing comment or two from Maroni when he used to make deliveries for him, but this was a literal princess who was probably over a century old. 

The distant shwk-khrrrrr of a grapple gun has his head snapping up though, and he catches the shadow of somebody the next block over gliding by. Fuck, why is it quiet enough today for him to hear that? He notices a cape and not much else, so all he can confirm is that it's not Dick. 

Please don't be Bruce, Jason thinks desperately, before he blinks and notices that ‘Toby’ is upright too. Shit. He's sitting ramrod straight, one hand crushing his other wrist in a death grip as his breathing comes in quick little huffs. He's incredibly still, but his eyes are frantically darting around outside the window as he tries to find the source of the noise. It looks like a panic attack, but... Something’s wrong with his eyes. 

“Aistayqaz alan!” Talia snaps at him. ‘Toby’ jolts a little and Jason tries to avoid doing the same. He's never heard Talia be anything but calm. “Ana huna min ajilika,” she adds, a little less intensely, and Jason can't tell if it's for ‘Toby’s’ sake or his own. “Anzur ‘ilya.” 

‘Toby’ shivers slightly and turns to look at her. “Amma?” he asks. 

Talia looks slowly and deliberately at Jason, and ‘Toby’s’ eyes follow. Jason leans back instinctively, because human eyes don't do that- but ‘Toby’ just blinks, twitches, and swallows harshly. “Fuck,” he mutters, deflating. “Sorry, kid.” 

Talia gets up and slips over to the kitchen behind Jason, leaving him with ‘Toby’ at the table. Jason doesn't even have the wherewithal to be stressed about her distance though, because right now he's focused on ‘Toby’s’ eyes. They glow like a freshly cracked glowstick, and what the fuck. Jason will come back to ‘Toby’s’ intense panic response at the sound of a grapple line in a minute, but what the hell? 

His brain kicks into overdrive. Last night had helped Jason cobble together a vague schematic of this guy's appearance, and face to face with him in the morning light of right now, he’s able to properly confirm several things. 

One: ‘Toby’s’ skin tone looks… just shy of brown. The coloration is too rich to just be a tan but not dark enough to exactly qualify as anything other than Caucasian at the moment. Maybe this dude didn't get enough sun for his melanin levels to be where they should be? Jason can't quite gather more details about his ethnicity beyond that, not without actual daylight. 

Two: He has scars. A lot of scars. Seriously, holy Christ he had some of everything. Last night he’d caught highlighted outlines of ‘Toby’s’ body and hair in the glow of the table lamp, but now he could see all sorts of scars across his arms. Slashes, stabs, a bullet puncture or two, and again, that big one on his neck that had Jason involuntarily swallowing sympathetically around something uncomfortable. 

Now, Jason knows a third thing for certain: His goddamn eyes glow.

What the hell does that mean?

Chapter Text

His eyes glow. 

Why do his eyes glow? Hasn't Jason dealt with enough freakish nonsense? 

Eight months of hospital-shaped hell dictated by a fucking jester, for example. Being sent to juvie by a furry in kevlar was one thing, and getting his shit regularly rocked by a walking acid burn with two personalities, a fat bird with a monocle, and a guy who's more lizard than human was one thing. Being patched up by assassins was one thing.

Being rescued from half a dozen serial killers who came in just as many varieties by a man who glowed in the dark, though, was ridiculous, even for him. Even for Gotham, and this place had a plant whisperer with green skin living in the park and a giant zombie who rose from the dead on the regular. What the fuck.

Jason realizes ‘Toby’ is waiting for a reaction, eyeing him from the side like he's forgotten his own eyes are lit up like the embers of a fire, and he suddenly remembers something from the Batcomputer's file on Killer Croc: something called regressive atavism. 

If he remembers correctly, atavism is a condition that has something to do with a genetic feature of an animal's ancestor species reappearing millions and millions of years down the line, long past when it should make any amount of genetic sense for the DNA to be doing that with the current animal's biology. It happens to animals as well as humans, varying from dinosaur teeth showing up on birds to five-inch tails appearing on humans. Waylon Jones, technically a human man, happened to get bulletproof lizard skin. 

Jason briefly entertains this idea, that somewhere up the taxonomy cladistics chart, maybe ‘Toby’ inherited the weird see-in-the-dark feature that most predators have, which comes with a famously upsetting eyeshine. Most mammals that live in forests (as well as various sea creatures) have this eyeshine (including crocodiles, amusingly), but he winds up dismissing the theory pretty quickly; ‘Toby’s’ eyes glow green in too unnatural a way to be a mere mutated genetic variant of the thing that lets street cats’ scare the shit out of people. Animal eyes reflect, like flashlights in a mirror, but ‘Toby's’ eyes actually generate their own glow, and Jason doesn't think any lifeform on earth can just… do that, except maybe mushrooms or something. Even Joker, with how inhumanly monstrous as he was is... His bright green eyes only looked like they glowed. Two-Face was proof that Ace Chemicals didn't make you bioluminescent. 

“And I was sleeping so peacefully, too,” ‘Toby’ grumbles, scrubbing his face with his hands. “T, are we clear?” 

Talia hums from behind Jason, opening a cabinet to grab something that sounds heavy and metal. “Yes. I'd have been alerted by now if anyone were searching for us.” 

“Dude,” Jason breathes out unintentionally, still staring, “what is that?” 

‘Toby’ lowers his head to try and hide the glow with his bangs, but since he's still actually looking at Jason, all it does is make his gaze look more ominous. The green luminescence lets Jason catch something else new, too, and he blinks a little to double check. Does- Does ‘Toby’ bleach streaks of his hair white like a fucking Scene kid or something? Eyes aside, it's the most noticeable part of his face, which can’t be good for anonymity if he needed to blend into a crowd, but- No. No, that single lock of curly white hair on ‘Toby’s’ head has gotta be blinding under a black light, and the fact that the roots there are white too makes Jason think it can't be entirely natural. ‘Toby’ wasn't the kind of guy to do cosmetic alterations like that for no reason, and Jason couldn't think of a single justification for such a skilled killer to willingly walk around with such an identifying mark. 

‘Toby’ groans with a mixture of exhaustion and… annoyed resignation? At least he's not angry. “Nothing you gotta worry about, kiddo,” he says, trying (badly) to cover his eyes with one hand. “Not try'na spook you.” 

Jason forces his shoulders to relax again, mourning the calm of literally five minutes ago. “‘S fine,” he rasps under his breath, trying to focus on anything but the proximity of a Bat swinging around outside. He'd rather take ‘Toby’ and his weird magic eyeballs (and hair?) than be found by one of those aerial nocturnal fucks. He takes another bite of his tomato, swallows it, and then quietly asks, “Is the glowing, like, a bad thing?” 

“Not really,” Talia answers. “It's triggered by stress.”

‘Toby’ nods. “I’ve had a couple’a… magical mishaps throughout my life, and now my eyes do this when my cortisol spikes. It'll go away once I've calmed down, I promise; I just- I just need a minute.” He curls his forehead down against the inside of his elbows which are still on the table. 

Jason stares at him with wide eyes, brain running a mile a minute. Okay. Okay. Glowing eyes comes with stress. Cortisol. Stress, not anger? Talia’s backing up the claim, too, so ‘Toby’ isn't just bullshitting him. That means that any violence would be what causes the green glow, not the other way around, and he resists the urge to chuckle bitterly. Bruce is a genius but he's also a fucking idiot, so it's not impossible that he misunderstood the mechanics of whatever the hell ‘Lazarus’ was (as if Jason needed any more goddamn proof of his incompetence). This actually… isn't bad news, then. Now Jason has something to read the otherwise mostly-inscrutable ‘Toby’ with. 

Jason frowns at his mostly-eaten tomato. As for Talia, she apparently knows the ins and outs of this anime-ass eyeshine condition. Lazarus is an al Ghūl thing, right? Somewhere in Asia. So how did ‘Toby,’ clearly a Gothamite, come into contact with it? 

…Actually, whatever. If the guy isn't freaking out like a roided-up Bane, Jason's not any more scared of him than he was yesterday. He doesn't have the energy to care, right now, because ‘Toby’ has already been an indecipherable tangle of mysteries for days, and that's not about to change now. 

“The fuck is with the silence?” ‘Toby’ suddenly asks, startling Jason out of his skin. 

“I don't think little Jason here has properly seen your eyes do that before,” Talia says, sitting down again.  

‘Toby’ shakes his head and gets up to peer out the window. “Not that. I know you're used to the quiet of the snowy mountains, T, but… Gotham doesn't do quiet. There should be yelling, or traffic or something.” 

Another point of evidence towards the interdimensional traveler theory Jason's brain was keeping on the backburner. On accent alone it's obvious that ‘Toby’ is a Gothamite, but he also said he needs to get ‘home,’ which he apparently needs magic or a portal to do, not a jet or a Justice League teleport beam or something. 

Talia frowns. “It's been like this for something like three or four hours now,” she says. “I just assumed this particular city's wind-down period was later in the night than most.” 

Jason fidgets. “It is, but it's never dead silent like this.” 

“...Shit,” says ‘Toby’ as he steps away from the window to get out his phone. “They probably found the bodies.” 

Talia looks unfazed at that very not-normal statement. “Already? Where did you leave them?” 

‘Toby’ tuts unhappily at whatever he sees on the screen. “I'm not an amateur; it's not exactly like I left ‘em in the street. I just thought it'd take the pigs and those flying rats a bit more time than this t'find the corpses, s'all.” 

Jason tentatively raises his hand a little. ‘Toby’ looks up at the movement and blinks at him, eyes dimmer than before. “Yeah?” 

“Who's corpses are we talking about?” 

‘Toby’ gives him a funny look. “Joker and Deathstroke, Baby Bird. I told you I wasn't gonna let anyone get close enough to cause you any harm, ‘n I meant it.” 

You are a child, and hurting children is unforgivable in my book. I’ll be keeping you safe. If anyone tries to hurt you while you are under my protection, they'll be dead before they know I'm coming. 

Jason wants to scream. He wants to throw things and shatter dishware and hit the wall until the little healing his hands have managed is completely undone. He thinks ‘Toby’ is the first person to promise to ensure his safety. He's certainly the first to even remotely back up those sorts of words with any actions. Jason wants to scream, but he tamps down the urge and swallows around the lump in his throat. 

“Don't call me that,” he manages to mutter bitterly instead. “I'm not little, I'm not a baby, and I'm for sure not a fuckin’ bird anymore.” 

Almost unsurprisingly at this point, ‘Toby’ doesn't get mad. “Hmm,” he hums playfully. “Tater Tot, because of the sweater with potato sack measurements? Peter Pan? Larceny, shortened to Larry like my great grandpa?” 

He notes, distantly, that he's a little less scared of ‘Toby’ now that Talia’s reminded him of the quiet gentleness. He's still scared out of his wits, mind you, but he's seen the man unconscious now. He's seen the man argue for him, angrily glow on his behalf, and twitch through a paralytic fear response. Toby is still huge and dangerous, but he seems more like a real person than a dangerous beast swathed in shadow, and Jason’s brain seems to have switched gears away from That's a fucking tiger and it's going to eat me and a little closer to This bigass ambush predator wants to sit on me so it can lick my head like I'm its kitten. He feels almost… relaxed, even. 

Jason doesn't let it show on his face, but he internally snorts at the cheesiness. “Why do I need a nickname, exactly?” 

“Both because I like giving people shit and because you're coming with T and I on an errand, and I'm not risking Bruce or his batlings hearing me call you ‘Jason.’”  

Aaaand nevermind. 

“No,” Jason says, dizzy with how suddenly nauseated he feels. “Please don' make me leave. I don't wanna go out there again.” 

‘Toby’ grimaces. “I'm not gonna drag you out by the elbow or anything, but this is something that needs doing.” There’s no room in his tone for argument.

“I- Talia,” Jason tries, switching his gaze to the woman in question. “You've got assassins with you, right?” 

Talia reaches over to pat his head and Jason almost doesn't flinch out of his skin this time. “I do, but this is not an errand for them.” 

Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit. “‘Toby,’” Jason presses a little, “it's not safe for me out there.” His anxiousness is pathetically noticeable, but he can’t help it, so he leans into it in the hopes that pretending that it's worse will get him somewhere. “You said you'd keep me safe.” 

‘Toby’ exhales uncomfortably. “I will. I am, but this’s something you've gotta be part of.” 

Fuck. Jason squeezes his eyes shut against the rise of discomfort. They're gonna take him outside and Joker or Bruce will manage to steal him away from these two, because of course any freedom he'd have been allowed would be short-lived. Or worse, they actually are gonna give him back to Bruce, on purpose. Why wouldn't they?

Your Beloved, even if he does care, will fail him again. 

He can't. He can't go back. He doesn't have any idea what could be important enough that they need to bring him along, especially because he won't exactly have his hands free. Does it have anything to do with the silence outside? 

“Please, Sir,” Jason whispers. Maybe all this was a test, and he failed. Maybe- “I can be useful to you,” he insists. “I promise.” 

“Jesus Christ, kid,” ‘Toby’ exhales. “No. No, nothing like that. We aren't-” 

Talia interrupts and gently shifts to rest her hand on Jason’s shoulder, bending down to look him in the eyes, pale lime meeting cold blue. “We will both be with you,” she says firmly, “and my people will be patrolling our route to inform us of any unwanted visitors. You will not be going back.” 

Jason can't tell if she means back to Joker or back to Bruce, but either way it's not a stance he expected her to care too much about. It's like she's mothering him, and- Wow, yet another epiphanic metaphor for today: If ‘Toby’ is a tiger then Talia al Ghūl is some sort of snow leopard, and these two have decided to co-protect (co-parent?) Jason, who's some sort of ratty stray kitten they've decided to keep. 

“I don't want to go,” he tries again. He lets some more not-quite-fake vulnerability seep into his voice and posture. “I'm scared.” 

And he is. Yes, Jason's playing it up a bit by taking skin-crawling anxiety and twisting it to look more like fearful, childish complaining, but he is genuinely afraid, and the strategic play here is to fall into the skittish kitty role and pull at the instincts of the protective, truck-sized wildcat. 

He knows it doesn't work when he looks up to see ‘Toby’ move closer to his other side, and there's such a viscerally aching hurt that shows itself in the green eyes above him that Jason would have noticed it even without the slight accompanying flare of Lazarus in ‘Toby’s’ eyes. It's the face you make when you're doing something that's going to hurt you both. 

Slowly, one large, scar-covered hand comes to sit on Jason’s other shoulder, mirroring Talia’s, and ‘Toby’ says, “I know,” he says. "Believe me." 

The hand is heavy and warm. They both are warm, actually, maybe almost unnaturally so. If his sense of body heat isn't completely fucked beyond repair after he'd gotten electrically fried numerous times, Jason’s pretty sure Talia emanates more body heat than someone with such little proportional body mass should, not to mention that ‘Toby’ is a walking heat pack if Jason's ever seen one. It's comforting. 

“I'm scared,” he repeats quietly, begging. 

‘Toby’ gently rubs his thumb over where it sits on Jason's sweater, sending electric jolts of touchtouchtouchtouch up his skin. “I know,” he says again, “but I'm not letting anything else happen to you. I promise.” 

A single, heavy, unexpected sob shakes its way down Jason's chest out of nowhere, and he closes his eyes against the sudden appearance of tears. He thought he was only playing the teary-eyed wuss thirty seconds ago, but that sentence felt like a kick to his sternum, and fuck. Fuck. Fuck these people. Fuck their softness and their warmth and their kind words and their promises of safety. 

“Okay,” he whispers shakily, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve. He swallows in an attempt to get his normal voice back, but it only half works. “Can I at least know where we're going?” he asks, because if they haven't by now then they obviously aren't going to tell him what the point of the trip is until they're there. 

“Downtown,” ‘Toby’ says. “We got our hands on a car, though, so it won't take long.” 

Jason nods miserably. “Okay.” 

After a moment, Talia slips back, warm and gentle hand pulling away as she goes. “Take him to the new clothes,” she tells ‘Toby’ while she starts tidying the table. “I will gather everything we need for departure.”  

“Yes ma'am,” ‘Toby’ salutes with mock seriousness. Then, softer, “Over here, kiddo.” 

Jason follows. 

Chapter Text

Freshly showered and dressed in normal (and, holy shit, clean!) clothes for the first time in months, Jason sits in the living room on the ratty little couch he'd spent his first day here burrowed in, and thinks. 

What's up with the silence? Why are they going downtown specifically? Does this have anything to do with the bodies they mentioned? Talia had mentioned their day would be busy before she'd learned that the corpses had been found. Who found those hypothetical bodies? ‘Toby’ had mentioned cops and Bats, but that didn't mean much, seeing as there were fucking four Bats these days instead of one. 

Was it Bruce? Or the new guy? 'Toby' had mentioned a Tim? Maybe not, considering Jason hadn't been allowed to do anything even resembling real contribution. Although, on the other hand, maybe it was just that Bruce didn't trust Jason specifically. He had no clue what the deal with the new Robin was, but he wouldn't be super surprised if he was someone more 'respectable' than an angry teenage criminal. 

His brainstorming is interrupted by the bathroom door opening and the sound of ‘Toby’ lumbering down the hall. Considering the man's skillset, there's no way he isn't being deliberate with his noisemaking. Jason stands up (with his weight on his good leg), refusing to stay seated for whatever comes next. 

“Hey, kid,” the man greets. He's in his own set of clean clothes, a tight, dark grey long-sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of loose black cargo pants. He's also holding a bundle that consists of his kevlar armor and brown leather jacket tucked under one arm, and he has a heavy backpack in his other hand. 

Jason says nothing and instead eyes him cautiously, but ‘Toby’ just shrugs before walking over to the couch to sit on the armrest with his back to Jason, placing his bag and layers on the floor by his feet. Either he doesn't think Jason is a threat or he's trying to show that he himself is not, which means, respectively, that he's stupid or that he thinks Jason is. Either way, Jason isn't stupid enough to believe ‘Toby’ isn't as aware of Jason as Jason is of him, but he can't help but be grateful for the facade anyway. The less attention that's on him the safer he feels. He wonders if ‘Toby’ knows. 

He wonders what else ‘Toby’ knows. With all the darkness, Jason hasn't gotten a stellar view at his face, even after getting past the obstacle of not wanting to, but something about what he has seen prickles uncomfortably in the back of his mind. Jason can't put a finger on what it is that bugs Him about ‘Toby's’ face, and it isn't the glowing eyes or the white hair. Have they met somewhere before? 

Speaking of the eyes… Magical mishap could mean fucking anything, from ‘I got hit with a Lantern Ring blast’ to ‘Etrigan rhymed a curse onto me’ to ‘Zatanna accidentally turned me into a pumpkin,’ and Jason has nothing to narrow any of it down with beyond necromancy-adjacence, because he's pretty sure the Lazarus thing can't resurrect the dead. 

Maybe Jason's access to the Bat files was a decoy, and the real information was locked up for his real partners. 

“You're thinking too much, kid,” ‘Toby’ says, startling him. One green eye flicks to Jason from the side, assessing, before ‘Toby’ sticks an arm out like he's holding onto a flagpole or something, and Jason blinks for a moment before realizing it's an offer for a hug. 

What. 

“You're kidding,” he says flatly. The words fall from his mouth almost unintentionally, empty and edged with dubious suspicion. 

‘Toby’ turns his head a bit and gives him a crooked, kind little smile, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards and his eyes crinkling in what looks like genuine amusement. Jason’s irritation vanishes, replaced by something else he can't quite put a name to, and he blinks, disbelieving. 

“You... aren't kidding,” he says, a little bewildered.

“C'mon, kid,” ‘Toby’ cajoles. “You could use it.” 

Jason smothers his confusion with a glare. “I don't need babying.” 

“You don’t,” ‘Toby’ agrees easily, “but a little strength for the road never hurt anybody.” 

“...Is this an order or a request?” Jason can't help but ask, crossing his good arm up over his chest protectively, covering his in-a-sling arm. He's pretty sure ‘Toby’ will say something along the lines of I won't make you do anything you don't want to or something similarly stupid, as if he isn't making Jason go out into the city today, but he needs to check. He still half expects to be backhanded into a wall or get hit in the legs with a baseball bat or something every time he opens his mouth or moves too fast. 

“Neither,” ‘Toby’ says, predictably. “It's an offer I'm hoping you'll take me up on, is all.” 

“Why?” he asks, reasonably. Why the hell does he want a hug? Is this a fucking power play or something? 

“I could use the reassurance.” 

“Fuck you mean, you could use it?” Jason practically spits the question. “You weren't the one kept in a dungeon.” 

‘Toby’ doesn't deflate, but he does exhale a little with something like exasperation, tilting his head. His arm is still extended. Staying posed like that for very long will get very uncomfortable very quickly, but he looks like he'll stand there, steady and solid as a statue, until Jason decides. 

“Reassurance that you're alive,” he says kindly.

Jason glares. He doesn't understand why ‘Toby’ insists on this idea that he cares about him. He's almost certain they'd literally never met until he'd been found, and this sort of protector/guard behavior doesn’t come from nothing. Either ‘Toby’ wants something from him, or Jason is missing something. 

His infuriated vexation is interrupted by movement in his periphery. ‘Toby’ has looked away from him, gaze now on the floor, and sounds tired- resigned as he says, “You ain't the only one with nightmares, Jason. I wasn't stuck in a dungeon, no, but I’ve had my shit rocked plenty, and you remind me of a couple'a things.” 

Jason fidgets uncomfortably for a second. This might be a shot at getting a clue to ‘Toby’s’ motives, but asking questions makes him antsy. On the other hand, so does being out of the loop. “Like?” 

“Me, first and foremost,” comes the wry response. “But you're also awful prickly in a way that reminds me of my little brother.” 

A moment passes where Jason wonders how old ‘Toby’ is. He can't be any older than thirty, but he's acting too protective to be anywhere close to Jason's age, either. Mid twenties? 

‘Toby’ pulls out his phone with his other hand, but he tucks his elbow into the dip of his waist as a sort of armrest and leaves his first forearm curled outwards in silent invitation. 

Jason should turn away. He should decline the ‘offer,’ swing back to Talia on his crutches, and cut out the part of him that wants to be held. 

But... despite his best efforts, he does want to be held. Talia running her fingers through his hair after that nightmare had calmed him down an absurd amount, and 'Toby' holding his hand while Talia dealt with his wounds had given him something to focus on. Talia was right – this guy had been the first one to do anything resembling kindness, from the rescue to the food to the murmured reassurances to the gentle understanding. 

Jason squeezes into himself as much as he can, and takes a step forward. 

‘Toby’ doesn't look up, or give any other sign that he's paying attention. It reminds Jason of Talia at the end of that first day, sitting beside him on the bed and running her fingers through his hair without looking at him. Again, Jason is struck with the parallel, the similarities between the two of them, and how they both treat him like an anxious street cat. 

He hates that their 'deal with Jason' routine works on him. 

He doesn't hate it enough to go out of his way to prove that he's capable of simply not going along with it. 

Jason grits his teeth. He is not a weakling, and if nothing else, he can think of this as exposure therapy. He can't exactly go through life locking up whenever someone nudges him in the shoulder, so he shuffles a second step forward. Then, when ‘Toby’ doesn't move, he risks another, and another, until he's mere inches from being tucked into ‘Toby's’ elbow, and then he stops. He stands there, facing him, just shy of actually touching, and waits. He doesn't know what exactly he's waiting for, but there's an anticipation in the air and he thinks it's coming from both of them. 

‘Toby’ still doesn't move, but after several long, silent seconds, he does murmur, “Is this a final hurdle thing or a meet-you-halfway thing?” 

Jason honestly doesn't know, but he steels himself, hikes his shoulders slightly up towards his ears, and moves in closer to let his right shoulder make contact with ‘Toby's’ left. He waits, and when no sneer or attack or laugh happens, he lets himself sag forwards into the man's side. He's hyperaware of every tiny point of contact, where his forehead touches the side of ‘Toby's’ chest, and his forearms, pulled up against his chest, touch his torso. It's incredibly nervewracking, but it's also… warm. 

“Why?” he hears himself ask. “Why do you care so much?” 

‘Toby's’ arm gently curls inwards around his upper back, hand settling on his shoulder. “Because someone has to.” 

It's not a good enough answer. It's an evasion, like you're a side quest and hurting children is unforgivable. Jason glares down at his feet, trying not to think about the arm draped over his back. 

“You're lying to me,” he whispers, turning his face into the warm fabric of the shirt he's being gently hugged against. “Half-truths don't count for shit.” 

“You're right,” ‘Toby’ admits softly, “but I'm not sure what I should tell you.” 

With Jason’s ear now pressed against that wide chest, he can now hear ‘Toby's’ blood rushing beneath his skin as he speaks, and the quiet words vibrate through him like thunder. It's a sensory explosion, but Jason doesn't want to pull away, and he unsure if it's because pulling back might set ‘Toby’ off or if it's because as hellish as the intensity is, it's also so fucking tender that his throat clogs with emotion. 

“I deserve to know everything that matters,” he rasps. His resentment shows in his voice, but he can't bring himself to care. The continual omissions from everyone who claims to want what's best for him always wind up biting him in the ass, and he's tired of being sidelined and left out of the loop. It's one of the things he'd hated, back with Bruce – always being stationed in the back with no fucking information. 

‘Toby’ exhales, sounding tired. “I don't know how much of it actually does matter,” he says, and his voice rumbles through Jason's head. “A lot of it might just… hurt, rather than help anything. Salt, wounds. That sort of thing.” 

Jason feels his anger swell higher. That just sounds like more fucking excuses, and God, he's fucking sick of it. He feels so angry. It bubbles up his throat, slithering under his skin like snakes he can almost feel, and he wants to hit something. “I want to know anyway,” he spits. “I'm not weak.” 

“I know,” ‘Toby’ murmurs above him, rubbing circles into his shoulder with his thumb, and Jason feels more than hears his words rumble through his body like the shake of a shitty car. “I know.” 

His anger slips away at how soft 'Toby' sounds, and Jason suddenly feels small again, and he exhales a small, weak little noise. The arm around his shoulders doesn't squeeze, exactly, in response, but it does tug him a little further into the hug, and he can't stifle the shaky exhale he lets out, nor can he stop himself from finally actually relaxing into the hug. Pairing it with the soft shirt and the weirdly high (but not unpleasant) body heat, he feels strangely like he's been draped in a heavy blanket while the pleasant sound of a rainstorm wails down against a rooftop from outside. 

“I want real answers when we get back,” Jason says, very aware of his physical vulnerability. Making demands like this, even a fucking week ago, would mean getting his face kicked in. ‘Toby’ could very easily snap his neck here quicker than a blink for his audacity, but he doesn't. And Jason… when he stands there and ends up no more damaged than before, has the epiphany that ‘Toby’ won't. Never will. No one puts this much effort into Stockholming someone. 

Jason trusts Toby, now, he realizes. It hasn't even been three fucking days. 

“Alright,” Toby relents quietly, and he leans forward to tuck Jason’s head under his chin. His voice is gentle, as is his other hand when it comes up to weave carefully into the still-drying hair on the back of his head, fully encircling Jason in the hug. “Yeah, okay. I can give you that much.” 

Jason believes him. 

In the slowly lightening living room, in the dark early morning, wrapped in clean, warm clothes and the softest hug he's ever gotten, with the sensation of a kiss being pressed to the top of his head, Jason thinks of a cat curled around an injured kitten, purring to provide comfort.

Chapter Text

Toby opens the back door of the car for Jason while Talia, sitting in the driver's seat, gives orders to two people clad in black cliché ninja garb. 

Jason eases his way in and scoots in and away from the door by default without realizing, but only processes what the implication of that action is when Toby bends down to look at him with one raised eyebrow. 

“Uh,” Jason manages. Shit. Shit, that's embarrassing. 

Toby grins. “A yes or a no is all I need.” 

Jason bites down his instinct to claw violently at anyone who can read him so easily, reminding himself that Toby isn't going to hurt him. “...Yes,” he mutters quietly, looking away. 

“Cool.” Then, with zero fanfare or dramatics, Toby is climbing into the backseat with Jason, leaving the middle seat open as a buffer between them. “Y'think of a nickname yet, kid?”   

 “No,” Jason says quietly. “...Help me brainstorm?” 

Toby blinks at him, surprised, but smiles. “Sure. What's off limits?” 

“Birds and bats of any variety,” Jason says immediately, relieved that Toby isn't making a big deal about it. “Nothing revealing, so nothing like ‘Todd.’ And nothing like ‘punching bag’ or ‘knife block.’” 

Toby snorts. “Well duh. Any particular trend?” 

“...Felines, maybe?” Jason hedges. There seems to be a cat trend going in his brain. 

“Ah,” Toby says understandingly, “something with bite. Got it.” 

Jason shrugs a little, both unsettled that Toby can read him as well as pleased that he doesn't have to verbally go too in-depth into his thought process. “Yeah.” He feels his mouth twitch a little, thinking of the Toyger cat breed. “Tabby?” 

“Too close to mine. Fun, though,” Toby says. “Tiger?” 

“Nah,” Jason dismisses. He's already labeled Toby as a tiger in his own head, but saying that aloud is absolutely not an option. “Too beefy.” 

“Fair.”

“Mm… Tarantula?”

Toby’s eyes darken immediately. “No.” 

Fuck fuck fucking fuck- “There an issue with spiders?” 

“No, it's…” Toby looks down and flexes his hand. “Tarantula specifically is out. It's a name that was used by someone I decided to kill very slowly, and the fun I had with it isn’t an association I want to link to you.” 

Note to self: Toby isn't above egregiously sadistic violence.

(Did he take his time like that with Joker and Deathstroke? If he did, did he take his time with it because he was a psycho, or… did he do it on Jason's behalf?) 

“Alrighty.” 

Toby waves the tension away. “If you want spiders, we've got Newcastle and Sydney.” 

Jason blinks. “What do they do?” 

“The Newcastle Big Boy – it is really called that – is the deadliest spider on the globe,” Toby explains. “Sydney Funnelweb is the smaller version.” 

“Newcastle sounds like a last name,” Jason murmurs. “Sydney in front of it feels redundant.” 

“What about Tate? It's part of an alias Talia uses, and you seem t’be suggesting a lotta T words.”

“...Huh.”

“What?”

Jason purses his lips. “I'm not against it, just… That's a person name; I thought you were trying to give me a nickname, not an alias.” 

Toby grins, looking pleased with the not-offer. “I'd honestly like to do both. May I?”

Jason eyes him suspiciously. “Fine. But seriously, nothing demeaning or belittling.”

“How about snakes? The Inland Taipan is the most venomous snake in the world. Small fangs, but very, very deadly.” 

 “Sure?” 

“Great,” Toby says, smiling. “Nice to meet you, Taipan. Tai, like Thai food? Tae? I like Tae. Tae for Taipan, rhymes with Jay.” 

“Tae works,” Jason says, feeling a little warm around the ears. 

Toby's smile goes soft and small and private. “Hi, Tae.” 

Jason doesn't smile back, but he tilts his head a little and feels his face relax slightly. “Hi, Toby.” 

Talia glances at them as she adjusts the rearview mirror. Her eyes crinkle a little at the edges as she does so, but she turns the ignition and looks away before Jason can catch more than that, and then they're cruising down the quiet street away from the tiny decrepit box of safety Jason had come to feel something like comfortable in. 

It's like five, maybe six in the morning, and it's still so fucking quiet as they head to wherever it is that they're going. Fuck, where are they going? Are they leaving the city entirely? No, right? Because they'd left Talia’s books and the bags of clothes and shit behind. 

Before he can dwell on the fact that she could always just have her assassins pick her shit up, Toby interrupts his thoughts by draping the arm closest to Jason up casually across the top of the seats in another silent offer for physical closeness. Jason isn't up for another tornado of touch like before, but he... kind of likes the gentleness that these two comb through his hair with, so he decides to risk letting his head tilt back to brush against the big hand behind it. 

Toby, as expected, winds his fingers into Jason's hair to gently scritch against his scalp with his fingernails. Jason feels his brain fucking melt against it, and it's almost nauseating how quickly his head goes gray and empty like static at something so simple. He manages to hold on to enough coherence to be worried about the fact that he can't think properly like this, but he winds up shifting that anxiety to the backburner instead of actually pulling away to turn it off entirely. His weakness is stronger here, because for some reason, throughout all of the hell he lived through for those eight months, nobody bothered to get around to doing anything painful to his scalp, and Toby’s fingers are gentle and soothing. His hair and forehead (and teeth) were the only parts of him that nobody had ever gone after while he was imprisoned, which means there's no fear associated with this beyond the human touch itself, and he spares a sad, weak thought to thank the universe for letting him have this – a handful of spots where he can accept comfort, and Toby’s existence in itself. 

Fuck, that's sad. 

While Toby (having found a way to press past every crack in Jason's defenses like water seeping through fabric) scares Jason half to death, it'd be more worrying if he'd done literally anything with it other than help and comfort and dote. As it is, though, this is just… kind of nice. It's nice to shut his eyes and drift a little, mind mostly silent for once. The rest of the car ride is calm and fuzzy, silent but for the sound of fingers in his hair and the rumble of the car. 

Jason can't purr, but he's sure that if he could, he'd be louder than the engine. 

-

When the key clicks again and the car shuts off, Jason pulls his head up with more effort than he'd like to admit. According to the dashboard clock, it's almost five-thirty in the morning, which means they'd only been on the road for about half an hour. He feels better rested than a thirty minute half-doze should warrant, but he decides to think about that later. For now, he picks up his crutches from the floor in his good arm and waits while Toby gets out of the car and goes around the back to open the door for him. 

They're here. 

Here being… the GCPD’s main building. It's surrounded by quiet, murmuring citizens all milling about anxiously, likely in waiting for the opening time of six in the morning. What has this many people here, though? Gothamites don't trust the cops for shit, and they definitely don't go gathering around their buildings en masse for anything good. Why are the three of them here? Why did they bring him to whatever this was? 

The terrifying idea that they'd brought him here just to drop him off flares briefly, before Jason's better sense squashes it. Something’s happening, and Toby wants him to witness it in person. It's still only around five thirty, though, so if Jason is guessing right, they have another half hour of milling around before anything important happens. Wonderful. He loves waiting. 

“Children,” Talia says, and both Jason and Toby look up. She's leaning on the hood of the car and holding a bag of what looks and smells like Mexican takeout out to them. Where the fuck did it come from? 

Toby's mouth twitches upwards while he takes the plastic bag from her and flips open the cardboard box that sits inside. “I told you to call me Toby in public.” 

Talia gives him a warning look, but her eyes crinkle with amusement as she speaks. “I take orders from exactly one person, and that is not you.” 

“She's seriously gonna stab you,” Jason mutters, leaning over to look into the bag. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Toby snickers, before holding a palm-sized soft taco out to Jason, who takes it in his free hand and crams the whole tiny thing into his mouth before it can be taken from him. 

It's a little lukewarm by now, but it's still well-seasoned and- 

Wait, shit, this is from Melissa's food truck in the Narrows! There's beef, rice, black beans, onion, and her classic overabundance of cilantro. The last one is a dead fucking giveaway, pulling at comforting memories of sitting in the woman's truckbed with a cigarette and a box of food while she sits beside him, ruffling his hair while she tells him to stop picking out the greens. She was always nice to him despite his habit of filching sauce cups and plastic utensils from her counter, and she threw in extra cilantro because she found it funny when his face twisted around the taste. 

How did Talia- 

Right. Toby. He probably told her about some good food places in Uptown, and she probably sent some of her people to grab takeout for them before they left. Did Toby know Tia Lissa personally? Had he mentioned Jason to her? Why else would there be so much fuckin’ cilantro? 

Whatever. Jason almost feels used to the emotional heaviness in his throat at this point, and he snatches another taco. 

Toby stuffs one into his own mouth, sighing contentedly as he chews and swallows it down. “Thanks, T,” he says. 

Talia hums quietly, looking him up and down assessingly. Jason isn't sure Toby notices, but if he does, he doesn't seem to care. “I will return,” she says. “Don't draw attention to yourselves.” 

Jason glances at the slightly larger crowd of people as she leaves. “Can I know what's happening yet?” 

Toby huffs a singular, quiet little laugh. “It's a surprise.” 

Great. 

Jason must show his annoyance on his face because Toby snorts. 

Jason must show a flicker of fear terror regret irritation at his own reveal, too, because a sad little smile paints itself across Toby’s face. “Hey, the expressive face is a good thing, you know.” 

“The fuck it is,” Jason snarls a little, glaring down at his casts. 

“Isn't it? The fact that you're still emoting at all after everything is nothin’ short'a miraculous.” 

Jason glares harder and reaches for another taco, slightly less aggressively this time. “Showing anything just means he knows where to hurt me next,” he mutters. It's not exactly helping his resolve or backing up his argument to volunteer more information, but while he feels uncomfortable saying it, the thought of not saying it – the thought of Toby not understanding this – it feels worse, somehow. 

Toby eyes him from the side. “Would you rather be like the old man?” he asks, raising his eyebrow in a silent dare. “Bottle it all up until you die?” 

Damn him, making reasonable arguments and shit. “Shut. Shut your fucking face hole.” 

“I'm just saying-”

“Well don't,” Jason snaps. 

Toby does, thankfully, stop talking, and instead pulls out his phone. He opens his messaging app and Jason catches his contact list from the corner of his eye, which contains less than ten names: Miranda, Lissa, JohnCon, Doc, Salty Macaroni, Rome Will Fall, Demanda Wallet, and Jade. He has a notification from the conversation labeled Miranda. 

It isn't even ten contacts, and only the first five have actual message history. Jason doesn't know most of those names, and he's confused why ‘Talia’ isn't a name on the list. T's Doc is obviously Talia’s quiet assassin/medic guy, the one that had gotten Jason the casts and crutches and arm sling, but who the hell is John? Rome Will Fall and Demanda Wallet both sound like shitty inside jokes, and- Oh. Oh shit, wait, ‘Salty Macaroni’ is a pun on Sal fucking Maroni, the man Jason used to work for. Fucking Christ. Did Toby work for him? Was that how he knew so much about Jason's history? Jade, JohnCon, and Miranda are the only names that seem even remotely normal, but Jason knows better than to assume they aren't aliases of some sort. 

Toby huffs at whatever he sees and pockets his phone again, before snapping his gaze up and to the left. Jason resists the urge to spin in that direction, instead watching carefully as Toby scans the area. He doesn't seem to see anything, but he narrows his eyes in that vague direction. When Jason risks a glance to the side, he can't see anything off either. 

“What is it?” Jason asks. 

Toby squints harder. “My bullshit radar is going off,” he murmurs quietly. “Something’s happening and it's not what we're here for.” 

Shit. Shitshitshitshit. Jason is now hyperaware of everybody here, every foot scuffing on the concrete and every too-loud whisper from the slight crowd of what was now about fifteen people making him twitch. He can't narrow it down, though, which means he's got no fucking idea what's happening, or how much of his hyperawareness is panic and how much is actual danger. Shit. 

“Ah, hell,” Toby grumbles irritatedly under his breath, before he slings an arm around Jason's shoulder. “Stay calm.” 

Jason can't see. He's not blindfolded and he's not locked up somewhere dark, but his vision seems to cut out at the unexpected contact and the now noticeable footsteps making their way over. 

“Excuse me,” the new voice says. It's an old lady of some kind. “What's your name?” 

Toby stays calm and still over Jason's back with his hand relaxed on his shoulder, but Jason can still sense the tension in him somehow. He knows this woman, and doesn't want her near him or Jason. “I'm Toby. This is Tae. Can we help you?” 

The woman ducks a little to try and make eye contact with Jason, who still can't seem to see anything even with his eyes wide open. He should probably fix that. 

“Are you okay?” the stranger asks. 

Toby snorts quietly enough that only Jason can hear, and says sarcastically, “Me or the kid?

The woman shifts slightly, and responds just as dryly, “I don't know, do you think I'd be asking the linebacker or the boy with two casts and an arm sling?” 

“Doesn't matter; he's none'a yer business,” Toby hisses at her, pulling Jason slightly further into his side. It's a slight parody of their hug from back in the apartment, this time with Jason facing out at the world instead of into Toby. “We're fine.” 

That's objectively false, but Jason is too busy blinking his ability to see back into his eyes to scoff at him. He realizes he's looked down, bowing his head and staring down at the pavement. 

The old lady sounds unconvinced. “I'd like to hear that from him, please” Then, “Are you alright, young man?” she asks Jason. 

Jason swallows to get his voice to work. “...M'fine, Ma'am,” he manages to rasp. 

The woman doesn't move. “Are you sure? Do you know him?” 

Toby's hand twitches, tightening and loosening on Jason's shoulder in less than a second. Jason can't tell if it's he's trying to stay calm or trying to be soothing, but either way, he appreciates the effort. Having a man the size of a motorcycle draped over him makes him incredibly uncomfortable, but it's Toby, and if it's Toby or a stranger who's prying, Jason much prefers being tucked against him over standing by himself under the eyes of someone he doesn't know. 

“I said I'm fine,” Jason snaps, his good hand trembling on the one crutch he'd taken with him when he got out of the car. “I got into a car accident, s'all. He's takin’ care’a me.” 

The lady folds her arms in Jason's periphery. “Then you won't mind if I stay here while we wait.” 

Goddammit, wait for fucking what? 

“Stay if you want,” Jason mutters, “but butt out.” 

Toby emanates tense smugness. “You heard him.” 

“...You know how this looks, right?” the woman asks. “You stand like a criminal and you're holding this boy like you think you own him.” 

“Oh, so we're profiling now, great.” Toby’s voice has a mean sneer to it that Jason hasn't heard from him before. “I'm holding him like he needs a fuckin’ hug, Doc. Besides, half'a this godforsaken town is criminals.” 

She's a doctor. Great. Like Jason hasn't had enough of those.

“...I only want to make sure he's safe, stranger,” the woman says, slightly less accusatory. “He looks awfully banged up for one accident.” 

Jesus Christ, can this lady shove off? Jason does, in fact, know how this looks – Toby's holding him like he's property and hissing at a concerned passerby to mind their business, but for fuck's sake, for a mandatory reporter, this lady has no sense of subtlety. 

“Yeah, well,” Toby grumbles. “Nobody the fuck else was gonna look out for him.” 

“Someone's trying here and now, aren't they?” the doctor-lady asks rhetorically. “You could be a kidnapper, or an abusive relative. You look like you're ready for violence at any second.” 

“You're right, Doc, I could be, and yeah, I might have a skill for violence, but listen here and listen good,” Toby hisses, leaning forward. 

Jason swallows harshly as Toby's voice goes gravelly and quiet and threatening, and he sounds like a- goddammit, like a tiger again, growling meanly at a wolf that's gotten too close to his cub. 

“I do not hurt children,” Toby continues lowly. “This boy is a teenager – not even old enough to vote. For all that I do illegal and maybe unforgiveable shit in this city, I do not. Hurt. Kids, and I for damn sure will not be hurting this one.” 

Jason's anxiety over having so much coiled, muscular rage be so close to him is quickly overtaken by the dizzying realization that it's there on his behalf. It's probably narcissistic or something, to be so elated by the thought that someone could be so willing to hurt people for you, but that last sentence fucking floods him with endorphins, and yeah, it's a trained killer trying to scare an old lady, but- but Toby isn't even trying to reassure him of his own loyalties; he's telling this woman to fuck off simply because she's making Jason uncomfortable. Christ. 

“I appreciate your concern,” Jason lies, “but I'm alright.” 

The woman idles for another moment, but then sighs. “I run a clinic for people that need it, if you ever need somewhere to go. It's in the northern part of the city.” 

Then, fucking finally, she walks off. Jason sinks against Toby a little, suddenly feeling wobbly. He shudders a little, tiny shivers twitching up his collarbone to the back of his scalp, and it has nothing to do with the cold. 

Thanks, he wants to say. I'm grateful. 

Instead, he exhales and presses the side of his face into Toby's chest a little more, swallowing back the urge to stay there, before slipping out of the hug entirely. Toby lets him go with a gentle squeeze to the shoulder. 

“You did good,” Toby murmurs. “You stayed calm, you kept your sense, and you didn't reveal anything. She's gone.” 

Jason feels colder without the hug. He can breathe easier, but the sweater doesn't begin to compare. “I'm sorry.” 

“For?” 

“All of it. This. Her. My brain. The hassle, the expenses… Everything. My being here like this almost got us caught.” 

Toby snorts. His arm twitches like he wants to pull Jason in for another hug, but considering Jason had just left one of his own accord, he doesn't move farther than that. “That woman woul'da checked on anybody lookin’ as rough as you do. T's the one paying for everything, and this whole trip is mere pocket change for her, medical bills and food and travel costs alike.” 

“And the rest of it?” Jason asks, feeling small. “The effort? The danger?” 

“I'm in no more danger from the Bats over keeping you than I am any other day of the week, and for all that's wrong with you, my brain makes my face look like a pair'a headlights.” 

Jason swallows. 

“You are not a burden to me.” 

Liar. 

“And even if you were, Tae, you're a kid. Kids're supposed to have somebody lookin’ out for ‘em, and I'm an adult who is choosing, of my own accord, to appoint myself as that somebody.” In the corner of his eye, Jason catches Toby look down at the backpack that has his weapons and high-tech helmet. “At least for now.” 

I’m never leaving if you don’t want me to. 

Jason squeezes his eyes shut. But I don't, he doesn't say. I don't want you to go, and you've been planning on leaving me from the beginning. 

“Besides,” Toby continues, and there's a weird, bittersweet layer to his voice. “You're the closest thing I have to family right now.” 

“What about your mom?” Jason blurts, looking up again. “Your little brother?” 

“They aren't here, are they? And they don't need help from me right now. You do.” Toby shrugs nonchalantly. 

Jason feels his eye twitch and he exhales a sharp breath of irritation. “We aren't family.” 

Toby closes his eyes, and Jason almost feels bad, but Toby doesn't actually know fucking anything. He did research, which is not the same thing, and Jason is bitter and cold and tired and it's early in the morning and he's scared. He's scared of being caught and dragged back (to Joker? To Bruce? He isn't sure anymore), and he's tired of being fucking abandoned. Willis and Catherine weren't family. Bruce wasn't family. Neither was Barbara. Family wasn't supposed to leave you the fuck behind. 

After a beat of tense quiet, Toby asks, “How sure are you, of that?” 

…What? 

He continues. “For all you know, I might be a long-lost uncle. We might be cousins. Half brothers, maybe.” 

Oh shit. Suddenly, Jason knows what that niggling discomfort in the back of his brain over Toby's face had been about. They are related, somehow. It's been a while since Jason's seen anyone he shares blood with, but now, in the dim grey light of the morning, he looks at Toby and sees traces of his own goddamn face. 

That's even worse. 

“...Did you fucking know?” Jason whispers slowly under his breath. He's back to being almost-blind, now with rage instead of terror. “Did you know everything that was happening? Everything they fucking did to me, everything I had to do?” 

He thinks of Maroni’s contact in Toby's phone. 

He thinks of last night, Toby mentioning Willis and Catherine's abuse and calling them by their names. 

He thinks of “I do not know if he wants you to know his name” and “I could use the reassurance that you're alive.” 

He thinks of ‘Toby,’ back in the apartment, whispering “I know.” 

‘Toby’ shifts, turning to face Jason. “Tae.” 

Jason can't see. 

“Taipan,” ‘Toby’ says, and his voice is fir. “Look at me. Look at me or I will make you.” 

Jason trembles with anger, but he doesn't want to be touched, so he follows orders and looks up. 

‘Toby’ has bent down a little to meet his gaze, and his face is a perfect picture of apathetic honesty. “No,” he tells Jason. 

Liar. 

‘Toby’ glares down at him and continues. “Listen to me. No. I did not spend my years keeping tabs on your life from afar. I didn't know you existed until the moment I found you, and I did my digging from there after I saw your face.” 

Jason thinks of the burn on his face and squeezes his eyes shut. Yeah. His face. 

Suddenly there's a large hand on his chin, holding his face and forcing him to look up and fuckfuckfuck- Jason struggles, trying to turn and wiggle away, but ‘Toby's’ other hand comes up to grab his good shoulder, and maybe this was it, maybe he's gonna snap and hurt him or give him back- 

“Taipan!” ‘Toby’ hisses. He sounds angry, but it does admittedly sound more like a chastisement than a lead-in to a backhand. “Look me in the eyes and I will let go.” 

Jason does. He opens his eyes and looks up to see controlled fury on ‘Toby’s’ face. His face is too close and his eyes are vivid green, and yeah, it's Lazarus juice and not Joker toxin, but the colors are similar and Jason smacks ‘Toby’s’ hand off his shoulder, ripping his chin out of the calloused grasp that's holding it. The defiance is elating even while it floods him with the sense of fuckfuckshitfuckhe’sgoingtohurtmeforthat, and Jason struggles a little to breathe properly while he looks ‘Toby’ in the eyes. He waits to be grabbed again. 

He isn't. ‘Toby’ just stares down into his soul. “Think. Have I lied to you yet? About anything?” 

Jason, they're here to help. She won't hurt you. 

So far, true. 

What do I call you? 

Toby. 

Not technically a lie. 

This’s all a bunch'a boring research crap on shit y'ain't learned yet. 

Technically also true. 

However:

“You're still hidin’ shit from me,” Jason spits, glaring up at him. “You know more’n you're lettin’ on and I'm sick of the secrecy.” 

“Wrong conversation. We had this talk already, and you can wait another hour for your answers. Don't strawman me because I made a point.” ‘Toby’ looks less angry now and more curious. “You aren't stupid. You should know we haven't met before; it's not like you're faceblind. Where's this comin’ from?” 

“You have my old boss in your phone,” Jason retorts. “You knew my parents’ names and that they hit me, and that I offered them up. That isn't the sort of shit you can find out in less than a week.” 

“...Fuckin’ knew your ass was listening,” ‘Toby’ sighs. “Whatever. Fine. I'm not mad that you eavesdropped. That means you heard me say child soldier, though, yeah?” 

“...Yeah,” Jason admits, distantly relieved that his slip-up didn't mean he'd be punished. 

“I was one’a those too,” ‘Toby’ says, “before my Mama found me and gave me other shit to focus on. I got killed wearing my uniform, and I've gone outta my way to avoid making any mistakes since. That's led to me being very, very good at what I do, good enough to solo Nightwing on his best day. With the right kind of taunting, I can throw off the Bat himself enough to draw blood and get away without a scratch. I have trained with several al Ghūls and numerous magicians. I am good. With the right starting information, I can get almost any information I want, so yes, I was able to dig up your history over the course of forty-eight hours.” 

Jason glares up at him bitterly, icy blue locked onto dimming green. He doesn't say anything. 

'Toby' deflates a little. “What else’s got you pissed?” 

Shit, and Jason realizes that there is more. There's another thing he's mad about, something that had been disguising itself, hiding behind the horrible idea that 'Toby' was watching from afar for his whole shitty life.

“You're-” Jason's voice cracks and he looks away, but ‘Toby’ thankfully doesn't touch him again. “You're going to- to leave me, to pawn me off on Talia like a stray animal so you can go back to wherever your home is. I know I'm broken, and I know you already have a life and a family that you w- you need to get back to, but- but I'm goddamn sick of being left behind.” 

“Tae,” ‘Toby’ whispers, sounding pained. He shifts forwards just enough that Jason flicks his eyes back to his face, but ‘Toby’ hasn't lifted his hands or actually stepped forwards, just angled his head slightly differently like he wants to press his forehead to Jason's. He doesn't, though, and Jason blinks harshly against the prickling heat swelling in his eyes. Damn him, being so fucking considerate and shit – Jason's still not used to it and it sends him reeling every time. 

“You called me a sidequest,” he whispers, and ‘Toby’ winces. “Sidequest, sidekick, sidelined. Once you're done dealing with me you're never gonna think about me again, just like- like him.” 

‘Toby’ straightens and takes a step back, giving Jason room to breathe. He stays silent, thinking, and while Jason knows he's just collecting his words, he has the hysterical, bitter thought that ‘Toby’s‘ not saying anything because he can't outright refute it. 

“...It's not… a matter of wanting,” ‘Toby’ eventually begins, tentative. He's speaking like he's traversing a rickety rope bridge, slow and cautious and incredibly careful. “My latest magical mishap was gettin’ swallowed by the wormhole that chucked me at you. If I physically can bring you with me when it's time for me to go back, I will, but I didn't exactly get a heads-up before reality glitched out, and I doubt I will next time. All I'm trying to do with T is make sure that if I get tossed somewhere new without warning, your chances of dying or gettin’ abducted again are as low as possible.” 

If I let you take him, T, I gotta know you'll take care'a him.

Jason shakes. He knows his safety is- is Toby's story prerogative, but fuck if it didn't sound fake as all hell. He's consistent with his promises, he hasn't lied (yet,) and he's allegedly killed on Jason's behalf, but Jason can't help but question him. Does it make him shitty and paranoid? Maybe. Does he deserve to be skeptical? Fuck you, yes. 

Suddenly, all his anger is gone, leaving him hollow and cold. He wants that hug again. 

He doesn't ask. 

Toby doesn't offer. 

Jason shakes. 

Chapter Text

The tension between Jason and Toby lifts only a little when Talia rejoins them by the car, carrying a paper shopping bag and a briefcase. Her analytical gaze rests too long on Jason and Toby both, but she seems to decide it's not her problem and merely moves to open the trunk of the car. 

She sets the briefcase down with a heavy, unbothered thump. The same cannot be said for the bag, which she's weirdly careful with as she places the paper bag inside the trunk as well, using both hands to set it down and delicately pushing it to the corner so it won't be jostled by the car. 

Toby's eyes flick back at her and then rest on the bag for just a split second too long, before he re-settles his gaze on the front steps of the GCPD headquarters. “Everything go okay?” he asks her, turning slightly in her direction while keeping his eyes locked on the crowd. 

Their responses are out of character. Jason forces his face to empty and thinks. 

Talia's status means she doesn't have to deal with a ton of inconvenience. Her hair’s texture is flawless (even if her roots are showing), she uses real China teacups instead of the bland-looking ceramic ones Jason remembers one of his old neighbors having, and has actual, real assassin servants. She also dresses… provocatively, but nobody can dare to verbally judge her for it. She's polite grammatically, but not socially, always speaking with an undercurrent of disdainful haughtiness, and while her demeanor is generally quiet, Jason kinda always feels like she's thinking harsher things than she says. 

Similarly, Toby doesn't really display care for basically anything unless it relates to reassuring Jason. When he isn't curled around Jason with the tired warmness of a sleepy dragon atop its hoard or otherwise growling at things near his cave, he's lighthearted, forgiving, and easygoing, borderline cheeky and generally something almost like upbeat. So far, the only outlier from his being unflappable was the brief, miniscule panic attack this morning, and it was very quickly boxed up and put away. 

Whatever is in that bag has them both noticeably tense, and considering their strong control over their own emotions, the inconsistency in their behaviors over whatever is in there paired with the blandness of the bag itself makes Jason antsy.

“Yes,” Talia answers Toby's question. Then, ominously, “Ten minutes left, tops,” she says, and she doesn't elaborate further. 

She shuts the trunk of the car with the mysterious bag inside it, and Jason's jaw twitches. This is getting fucking ridiculous. They're both being so goddamn vague about what they're doing and what they've taken him to, and the not-crowd is quickly turning into a crowd, currently upwards of fifty people all clustered together in little groups of four or less. Jason wants answers, goddammit. 

Talia moves to stand between Jason and Toby, and his blood cools slightly. “Patience is a virtue, Little Snake,” she tells him, reading his mind. “This will be worth the wait.” 

“It’d better,” Jason grumbles petulantly. “‘S too cold’n early for anything less important than a French execution.”

Toby snorts on Talia's other side, mouth twisting like he has a joke he's trying to bite back. Jason's still pissed, so he doesn't ask, but he gets the sense that Toby's got the urge to say something dumb about guillotines or monarchies. …Isn't Talia royalty? 

Suddenly, heads start to turn and the crowd starts to make noise. Parents lift their kids, people get up from their benches, and one particular old man turns around in his wheelchair. The fact that there's senior citizens and kids in the area doesn't settle Jason's nerves any, though, seeing as the reason he'd chased the Joker into that building in the first place was because he'd played Mr. Potato Head with a group of kindergarteners. Nobody was safe, and he knew that from personal experience. The man that they're all looking at who's just come out onto the front steps of the GCPD's main building doesn't make him feel any less concerned, either, because several hundred feet away, Commissioner Jim Gordon is standing in front of the door to the station, looking out at everyone, flanked by six SWAT officers. He's holding a paper coffee cup and pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. 

Nothing good happens when Gordon is in that big overcoat. It means he's on the job, being Commissioner Gordon instead of Jim, Barbara's dad. 

“Twenty bucks he spent the night at his desk again,” murmurs Toby, a knowing little grin on his face as he bends down to shoot a look at Jason from Talia’s other side. 

Jason, still feeling irritated and petty, glares at him. “I ain't got money.” 

“Ehh.” Toby makes a face and dismissively waves one hand. His tone is playful, though, not condescending. “It's the principle of the thing.” 

“Boys,” Talia interrupts, her eyes on Gordon. “Watch.” 

People have started shouting. 

“Hey!” 

“Commissioner!” 

“Yo, Commish, is it true?” 

Even from this far away, Jason sees Gordon's mouth twitch downwards. “Quiet!” the man snaps. 

The crowd goes quiet. 

“Better,” he huffs. “Alright, you all know there'll be a town hall meeting for this tomorrow evening, right?” 

An olive-skinned man in the crowd adjusts the slightly darker little girl in a pink dress he’s hefted up onto his hip. “That's too long of a wait, Sir,” he says politely. “Respectfully.” 

“Yeah!” an old woman with a thick Russian accent hollers, angrily waving her cane in the air. “Mayor's a bespoleznaya, untrustworthy suka! Supplies the street criminals with weapons!” 

“Creep used to work in the asylum!” a woman with an Uptown accent adds. “We ain't listenin’ to a guy who's'at fuckin’ nuts!” 

“Alright, I get it!” Gordon shouts, cutting off the growing noise. He inhales deeply, exhales slowly, and looks very much like he's trying not to run back inside to his coffee machine. “Look, there are details I cannot share, but yes.” 

A beat of silence, before he concludes, 

“...The Joker is dead.” 

Jason feels the moment the air leaves his lungs, and he bends to lean past Talia, nearly tripping in his haste to look at Toby for confirmation that he's heard correctly, and only doesn't land facefirst on the concrete because she catches him by the back of his shirt and pulls him back up against the car. He regains his footing and tries again to catch Toby's gaze, but Toby's ignoring him, eyes firmly locked on Gordon like he's watching a movie and wants Jason to pay attention to the scene. Talia is doing the same, so Jason blinks harshly to get his bearings , and turns his gaze back to the crowd. 

“We do not have any suspects at this time,” Gordon continues tiredly, “nor clues to any specific motive, and thus cannot divulge details at this time. I ask for your patience and understanding while we sort this out.” 

There's sobbing in the crowd. Jason distantly takes note of the fact that everything now sounds like it's coming through a cardboard tube. Gordon's voice, sobbing and relieved laughter, and even the voice of a nearby rando who yells, “What's gonna happen to the killer?” 

“The killer or killers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law in front of an unbiased jury, sentenced by a judge and put in prison where they belong.” 

“You're kidding!” Another voice, this one slightly wild and incredulous. “You wanna put away the person that did us such a favor?” 

Gordon raises a hand to try and stay the commotion, but more and more people pipe up, yelling at him and each other. 

“Good luck filling a jury with folks who'll sentence’em to anything but a banquet!” 

“Fuckin’ crazy if he thinks there's twelve whole people in this city who won't shower the killer with confetti’n roses.”

“Wayne ought’a throw ‘em a party!” 

“Fuck knows the Bat wasn't gonna do it, that's for sure. Pigs'n them flyin’ bootlickers wouldn't even try!” 

“You got that right — surprised it took so long for somebody capable to step the fuck up!” 

Jason blinks rapidly to get the spots out of his vision, pressing his sling-arm further into his chest to make sure his ribs aren't (more) broken, because his fucking chest physically hurts, the existing tangible pain spiking higher beyond what it had been and separately from his inner turmoil. He feels like he's fallen three stories and had the wind knocked out of him. (Like the Joker's shot him point-blank, kevlar denting and breaking and crushing his lungs.) His face feels fuzzy like static. Sound becomes distant and cottony, like he’s hearing everything through one of those cardboard tubes. The hubbub of the crowd, the cold of the air, the weight of Talia and Toby very decidedly not looking at him… It all starts mixing together into this thick, syrupy thing that's invading his senses, sliding up his nose and down his throat and into his eyes, filling his airways and choking him. It's overstimulating and he hates it. 

Batman was capable. He just wouldn't. Not even for Jason, who he'd gone out of his way to bring into his family. 

Toby could, though. He did. For Jason, who's never been enough for other people unless he had something that they wanted, and with how damaged his body is now, with how debilitating his fear and with how suffocating his rage… he's got nothing worth giving, and Toby doesn't even seem to want anything in return anyway. He sees Jason as something worth fighting for, and he's the first person in Jason's life who wants to keep him safe for no tangible reason. He's the first person to care… just because. 

Jason is struck with the strange thought that Toby might not have killed Joker at all, if not for finding him. Then, he shuts his eyes and crumples to the ground, breathless, barely even registering the pain of landing on his bruises and jostling his broken bones. 

“Militarized Halloween costumes ain't exactly mean shit if the rogues pop back up every few weeks,” someone nearby the crowd adds, and Jason blinks back up at the scene in front of him. 

“Joker won't be, though, right?” 

“Are we sure he's down for good this time?” 

“I wouldn't bet on it.” 

“Please, we ain't that lucky.” 

“But Gordon's credibility is why we're here, isn't it? If he says the clown's dead—” 

“He's still a bluebelly bacon stick, ain't he? The last nine commissioners were all rotten; why should he be different? Who's to say Paperface ain't payin’ him to lie?” 

“Nah, man, I know Gordy’s kid. They're both bootlicking Batfuckers, sure, but the Commish ain't a sellout.” 

“If Joker's down, does that mean our mystery killer's goin’ after Quinn next?” 

“They'd better, considering how goddamn psycho she is for the pasty-faced freak. Soon as she hears, she's gonna go nuclear.”

“Shit, y'think they'll go after the other Rogues, too?” 

“I think it depends on if they's aimin’ to take over Batman's job altogether or if they just had an issue with the Clown Prince specifically.” 

Gordon seems to take the crowd talking to each other instead of him as a sign that he's in the clear, but when he takes a single step backwards, the yelling turns aggressive again. 

“Oi, Commish! Where you goin’?!” 

“Get back here!”

“How're we supposed to know you ain't lyin’ to us?” 

“Show us some proof!”

Gordon mutters something to the SWAT guy next to him before he turns back to the hollering civilians. 

“I cannot show you the body or the autopsy files,” he says, “but I'm not lying.” He adjusts his glasses and looks at the crowd, eyes flicking to look every single person in the eyes. His face is solemn. Understanding. His eyes land on Jason, too, and if they weren't so far apart, he'd be scared Gordon recognized him. “He's dead. I've seen the- the pieces myself.” 

Jason feels tears prickle uncomfortably at his eyes, but he blinks them back when Talia pulls up her phone's gallery and discreetly turns it towards Jason. She's tilting it down to him, but not out at the crowd, and he buffers for a second before realizing that it's a photo of incredibly bruised white skin spanning from the subject's nose to their hairline. A green hairline, and a very smashed-in nose, sandwiching the center of the shot: a pair of empty, bloody eyesockets. 

It's a disgusting, graphic photo, and it's obviously cropped for a reason; Gordon said pieces and just seeing even as little as this has Jason sure that the man meant it literally. The picture only captures the upper half of the face, but the angle of the camera and the gory wounds show that someone dug upwards into the eyes with a long weapon of some sort like a big knife or a screwdriver, went to fucking town at the eyeballs, where the grape-like consistency of the organs in question was twisted and mashed until two red tunnels carved as deep into the skull as it was possible to go. The numerous slices through the eyelids around the eysockets imply either torture or repetative stabbing, and Jason can tell that when this all was done, it wasn't done cleanly. 

Cropped and up-close as the photo is, there's no possible way to walk off two holes in your skull that start where your eyes should be and then tunnel upwards to dig into your grey matter. 

He's dead. I killed him. He's dead. I'll be keeping you safe. He's dead. They'll be dead before they know I'm coming. He's dead. He's dead. 

Holy fuck, he's dead. He's gone. 

The tears return, and Jason can't stop them this time from beginning to roll down his face. “Not bad for an involuntary road trip,” he cracks out weakly. 

Toby laughs under his breath, soft and quiet and tired, and laced with something pained. He offers Jason a hand. “Bet you're glad we brought'cha along now, hm?”

Jason blinks up at him, still quietly crying, and realizes that Joker did something to Toby too, something that had taken the warm man who silenced the fear in Jason’s bones and devolved him into a rabid beast. Joker got to Toby, somehow. He hurt someone Toby knows, or knew, maybe killed Toby himself. This isn't the first time Joker's done something to Toby or someone he cared about, like Jason. There's no other reason for there to be that many stab wounds, no other reason to literally take a man apart. Toby's covered in scars. 

Underneath the agonized, livid anger Jason feels at not getting to do this himself, there's an ache that he sees reflected back to him on Toby's face, and Jason understands. Had he been physically able, Jason would have done everything Joker had done to him right the fuck back and then done even worse. He would have sobbed, and screamed, and he would have felt fucking hollow, but he would have been filled with vicious, violent satisfaction in getting to hurt him back, so while yes, Jason does now have to live with the knowledge that he won't ever get to do that, not ever, he's also so disgustingly grateful that he feels physically dizzy, even just sitting there on the pavement. 

He sniffs, takes Toby's hand, and lets himself be pulled to his feet, where he rubs at his face with the sleeve of his sweater. The soft newness of it doesn't even irritate his still-slightly-swollen face. “Asshole,” he chokes out. 

Toby ruffles his hair and Jason lets himself give in to the weak, greedy urge to press into it like an animal being petted, and fuck you, he can do whatever he wants to if he feels like it. He's fucking free and if he wants to accept the fuzzy feeling in his chest he gets with Toby's hand in his hair, the feeling that muffles all the rest of his turmoil that comes from being doted on, he'll do as he goddamn pleases. He's still staring at the photo on Talia's phonescreen. 

“Name a food, Tae,” Toby instructs. His hand stops moving, but it stays there on Jason’s head like he knows Jason wants it to stay there. He very likely does, actually, seeing as Jason hasn't exactly been subtle about how much he likes his and Talia’s hands on his head. “We can eat back at the apartment if y’want, but it's celebration time.”

Jason sniffles, wiping his face again. He's still crying, tears steadily streaming down his face and trailing down his chin. He tastes salt, and he suddenly realizes due to Toby's words that he's very, very tired. He's so tired. He'd hardly slept five hours, he's full of tacos, and he feels safer with these two than he's felt with anyone else in his life. He's free. “Hotdogs. Pickup now, eat at the apartment?” He pauses, and then, because he can want things, tacks on, “After I sleep for the rest of… fucking ever.” 

Toby gently scrubs his hair again. “Sure,” he says indulgently. “Hotdogs.” He's smiling, and his smile is normal. It's kind. Jason's awake. 

Talia's face twists into a slightly disgusted grimace in the corner of Jason's eye and he laughs. It's rusty with months of disuse, creaky and quiet and raspy, but it's his, and it's real, and this is so stupid, but he doesn't care. His breath hitches. “...Thanks.” 

He's not talking about hotdogs, and Toby knows it, but he doesn't make it into a whole, big, celebratory thing. His smile does soften around the edges, though, and he nods. “How's Dirty Pascal's cart sound? The one on the same block as old Smitty's rundown bar?” 

“Yeah.” Jason's still crying a steady stream of watery relief, but it's not affecting his voice as much. 

“Plus, that way Talia can get something that won't make her want t’jump off a cliff,” Toby adds wryly. 

Another laugh, now slightly hysterical, escapes Jason again as the woman's disgusted face reappears in his brain. This doesn't feel real. “Of course,” he agrees, grinning widely. It's unfamiliar. “Can't have teacup royalty eating something as cheap and processed as a dirty water dog in this day and age.” 

“Exactly!” Toby cackles gleefully. He knows better than to actually elbow someone like Talia, but he makes the little nudge-nudge chicken flap motion in her direction anyway. “She'd die on the spot.”

“Boys,” Talia interrupts them plainly, pretending she isn't being razzed by two idiots who're practically high on sleep deprivation. “We should go, before I or our Little Snake are recognized. My people report movement on nearby rooftops.”

Jason groans, sagging sideways against Toby's front like a child. “Goddammit. Why do Bats have to ruin everything?” 

Toby snorts and pats his shoulder. “They're terrible, I know.” He jerks a thumb at the car. “C'mon. At this hour, Pasc's probably helpin’ the last of the tamale ladies get going for the day.” 

Jason yawns, nods, and shuffles into the back of the car into the spot behind the driver's seat. He sets his crutch down and waits for Toby or Talia to get in on the other side. 

…Neither of them does. Talia gets into the driver's seat again, and Toby plops down in the shotgun seat. 

Jason smothers his disappointment and considers asking one of them to come back there with him, but then the car turns on, and Toby tosses him a soft look over his shoulder, and the rumble of the vehicle and the kindness in those green eyes reminds Jason that he's still crying. As much as he's hungry for touch, his eyes are still going like water from a tap, and he's never been somebody who's comfortable crying where people can see him. 

He sniffles. Toby turns back around and Jason closes his eyes, and then does the incredibly irresponsible and unsafe thing of lying down on the spread of the back seats of the car, where he curls up on his good side and just… cries. 

-

He wakes to the sensation of a hand in his hair and the sound of a woman's voice above him humming an unfamiliar song, and the instinct to panic upon waking flares as usual, but Jason recognizes that voice as something safe, and the hands are strangely gentle. Something in his chest aches. He distantly recognizes it as the desire to cry, and he doesn't understand why at the moment, but there's probably a good reason for that particular urge somewhere further into the hellish concept of proper coherence. Thinking about it means waking up, though, and no, thank you. Up near his temple, one side of his head is cupped in a second hand, and the rest of his head is cradled in a warm lap that he knows he didn't fall asleep on. 

He nuzzles into it anyway — the physical comfort, the light, soft drag of nails in his scalp and the physical warmth of a lap — as well as the emotional warmth, the gentle feeling of being something like loved kneading painfully and perfectly into the sore aching in his chest. 

-

The next time he wakes is to the crash of something metal cracking against a thick layer of glass, and Jason shoots upward out of Talia’s lap, barely wincing at the pressure of hoisting himself up on his arm. He smells hotdogs and ozone. 

Toby, now in the driver's seat, presses down hard on the brakes as the car skids to a halt, stopping a mere foot from the wall of a brick building. “Fuck!”

A quick look in the direction of the noise shows one of Nightwing's escrima sticks sticking partially into the car through a hole in the center of a spiderweb of glass, crackling with electricity. Had the fucker chucked it through the goddamn windshield? He fucking had! What an asshole! 

“If God wanted me to follow his sixth commandment,” Toby hisses, practically ripping off his leather jacket and tying it around one boot, “his greatest error was waking me.” Then he fucking kicks where the escrima is sticking through the window hard enough that the thing flies back the way it came and clatters into the street. 

Oh. Oh wow. Toby's getting Biblical. Which one is number six? Thou shalt not kill? Wrath? Or was that a deadly sin?

Toby grabs his mysterious backpack from the seat beside him and begins clipping armor on, metal clicks and shink noises that suggest weapons sliding into hidden compartments. “I'm going to staple those bastards to a wall with a nail gun one by one,” he growls, “split their every nerve by hand, and feed their fucking meat to my little brother's animals.”

Jason blinks as he is suddenly reminded of his tiger comparison with the way the man's eyes have gone bright green and his expression has settled into an eerie calm. Jason glances at Talia, but she seems to be buffering. 

“When I'm done with that,” Toby continues lowly as he clips some grenades to his leather belt, “I'm going to make their bones into kitchen knives, and then I'm going to burn their manor to the ground with their living bodies still inside.” 

…Maybe it's wrath. 

"Specific," Jason snarks, trying to stay calm. 

Toby's stops mid jacket-from-boot removal, bright green eyes flicking to Jason's. “...Sorry.” 

Talia places one hand on Jason's shoulder and reaches down with the other to grab one of his crutches, squeezing firmly as she hands it to him. “If we are to avoid them, we need to go now,” she tells them both. 

Toby nods once and turns the leather jacket inside out, for some reason. “I'll split from you and lure as many as I can away while you two go back to the apartment.” 

Jason does not like that idea. He can feel a wave of fear starting to swell in the back of his mind, and he grabs Toby’s forearm. “Why can't you come with us? Couldn't Talia go? She has more training than you.” …And for better or worse, is less obsessed with my safety. 

“No.” Toby shakes his head and grabs the red helmet from the bag. “She's too recognizable, and we gotta minimize our perceived threat level. I'unno what they want yet or how much they know, but the less they find out, the better.” 

I’m never leaving if you don’t want me to. 

Jason trembles. The fear is still rising. “It's four to one. You're outnumbered.” 

Toby gives Jason a confident, wicked little grin in the rearview mirror before he slips his helmet on, sliding a hidden layer of metal plating up from the collar of his armor up to his jaw, covering his neck entirely. “I don't need t'beat all four of ‘em; just gotta draw away enough’a the heat that Talia can absquatulate wit’cha.” 

He gets out of the car, and in the background of Jason's brain, he recognizes the Latin root of the word abscond. Using fancy-pants words nobody's heard since the 1800s means Toby's a nerd, but Jason shakes away the urge to tease in favor of reacting to the main Bat-shaped issue: with panic. 

He grabs his crutches and gets out of the car too, and so does Talia, who immediately pops the trunk and grabs her strange paper bag that now smells like hotdogs, which weirdly has unfortunately not lessened its ominous vibes. 

A batarang slices through the air and shinks into the hollow metal of the car door next to Toby. Toby violently flinches away from what's barely a warning shot, one hand flying partially upwards, and while his hand doesn't make it past his ribcage, Jason's pretty sure it was gonna shoot up to cover his already armored neck, right where the big scar on the side sits. 

Interesting. 

Toby's posture shifts, center of balance lowering as his shoulders draw back and his head ducks low. He looks like an apex predator. “Once you're in the clear,” he tells Talia, stuffing the big leather jacket into the backpack, “swap layers. He gets the jacket, you get the sweater. Put'cher hair up or somethin’, too.”

He tosses the backpack to her, but while it's in the air, another batarang misses it by a mere handful of inches. Jason catches a shadow leap down the fire escape of the second-closest building. 

Toby does too. “Go!” he yells, drawing one of his guns. 

Jason feels the swelling tsunami of terror finally crash over him, and he gasps against the way it hits him in the chest like a gunshot. Toby pisses him the hell off and kind of scares him to fucking death, but he was still the first person to help. He was the person who pulled the barbed metal from his neck and carried him out of that disgusting room and gave him blankets and warmth and softness. He was the one who cooked him food and gave him access to a clean bathroom, who held him gently in the dark and called in Talia because he knew Jason's wounds were beyond his pay grade, and— and killed Jason's captors. Killed Joker. Jason can't lose that.

He can't lose Toby. 

“But-” 

He's cut off. “Miranda, get him outta here! No Bats!” 

Ah. She's Miranda. Noted. 

Talia hasn't moved since the first batarang embedded itself in the door. She stares at it, expression flickering between something that looks like rage and… fear? She's fucking trembling, and Jason’s previous idea that she'd be less emotionally invested in the outcome of this whole shitshow goes solidly in the trash. 

Toby points towards the car with the broken windshield. “Clearly they're not afraid to hurt us, and you promised me.” Then, quieter, “You promised you'd protect him if we had t'split.” He sounds like he's begging. 

Jason had overheard that conversation yesterday, and he's pretty sure this wasn't a circumstance either of them had been thinking of at the time. Talia's face goes from what looks almost like panic to firm, hardened resolve, though, and she nods sharply. “Come,” she orders Jason, grabbing him by the elbow. “He will rejoin us later.”

Jason doesn't believe her, but he's been seen, or he's about to be, and Toby isn't sporting five broken bones. Toby has full use of both arms and both legs. Toby's armed with guns, smoke pellets and grenades, and has armor and a helmet, the latter of which can hide his face. Jason has none of this, and even if he did, he's on the verge of hyperventilating until he passes out. 

Like a coward, he squeezes his eyes shut, pivots on his good leg, and runs.