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Jason isn’t scared of anything. At, least, that’s what he’ll tell anyone who dares to ask him. Because the alternative is terrifying—if he admits that he’s scared, then he admits there’s things he can’t control, like his temper, and things he’s terrified of, like the possibility that he’ll be like his father, because his father wasn’t in control either.
He can remember being little, maybe five? His Mom and Dad are fighting, and he’s scared. He’s scared of the way that his father’s face twists into a hardly recognizable mask of hatred and rage and how he screams, words and fists raining down like hail onto his wife’s head and shoulders. He’s scared of how his Dad doesn’t seem to even realize what he’s doing, how he’s so out of control and just. Doesn’t. Stop.
Jason doesn’t stop now. He’s been follow a lead on this particular asshole for the past month—a dealer who’s been selling to kids in the Narrows. The guy’s been pretty slippery up ‘til now, but Jason’s finally got the drop on him. And he’s not letting him get away. You don’t fuck with the kids in Jason’s neighborhood, not if you want to survive. Which is why he’s decided to make an example out of the lowlife, by beating the crap out of him instead of just shooting him. At least, that was the plan.
But, then the man started making excuses—“I didn’t know this was part of your territory,” “I have to make a living, man!”—that sort of thing. And it had Jason seeing red—well, green. He’d been seeing green ever since the Pit. There’s a roaring in his ears, and his mind is full of green rage, and somewhere, deep, deep in the back of his mind, there’s a part of him that is screaming “stop! Stop!”
When he’s about six, he tries to help. He grabs his Dad’s arm, trying to stop him from hitting her, hurting her. He cries and begs his Dad to stop, please! And he does. He stops beating Jason’s Mom, and starts beating him instead. He tries to get away and he pleads for mercy, but nothing helps. The blows keep falling, even when Jason’s stopped screaming and begging, when he’s lying on the floor, curled up into a ball, trying to protect his head and neck and stomach. He’s not sure when the blows do stop, because he’s so numb, and everything has faded to black. He opens an eye—not an easy feat considering how swollen it is—and he sees his mother from across the room. She won’t meet his eyes, and the last thing he sees is her sobbing, silently, against the kitchen wall.
Now the green mist is fading, and he becomes aware that there’s someone screaming, and someone else is pleading for him to stop. Someone is hanging onto his arm, trying to pull him off the dealer—who Jason suddenly sees, lying there, limp and bloody, possibly dead. Whoever has his arm is still shouting at him, an echoing, faint thing that he hears distantly.
“Jason! Enough! Stop it!” It sounds like Tim, he thinks vaguely. But it’s three in the morning and he’s pretty sure that the rest of the Batfamily is helping with an off-world crisis, which means that there’s no way Red Robin can be here, interfering with his investigation.
He realizes that he’s still trying to hit the man, like his body has disconnected from everything and is moving automatically. His body is still trying to kill this man, he realizes with a disconnected feeling. But then everything snaps into focus. He whirls around, because someone is behind him and close enough to touch him, and his mind is screaming “threat!” Which is why he punches before realizing that he’s punching Tim—not Red Robin, TIM. And now the kid’s down on the ground, staring up at him with wide, scared blue eyes. Jason is torn between shouting at the kid for getting in the way and apologizing because he just freaking punched an unarmed kid, well, a mostly unarmed kid in the face.
Jason gets into his first real fight when he’s eleven. His Mom’s been on a trip since last week, coming down just long enough to shoot back up. They were out of food before she got high, and by now, he’s run out of ideas for ways to get food with some dignity intact. Which is why he’s currently hiding out by a dumpster behind this bakery. Unfortunately, there’s at least one other kid back here, and he’s bigger than Jason, which means that he might have to fight for the food. It turns out to be a correct assumption, when, about ten minutes later, an employee comes out to dump the garbage out—leftovers included. As soon as the door is shut, all hell breaks loose.
Apparently, Jason miscalculated how many other people there were, and he ends up on the ground trying not to be trampled, and then all the food is gone, and the others are leaving quickly. He locks onto the one kid he saw earlier—the guy has a full loaf of bread! So he decides that he has to at least try to get it away from the kid, because he and his Mom haven’t eaten in days and he’s desperate. He runs and tackles the other kid, and the two end up rolling around, trying to get in a good hit. Jason takes a blow to the head, and lets go. The other kid jumps on him, and starts delivering blows.
But Jason is determined, and he bucks the guy off, tackles, and then pins him, smashing the other boy’s head into the ground. His mind is blank and he’s numb all over, detached, as he tries to crack the boy’s skull on the cement. Except then, as he looks at the kid he’s trying to murder, and he sees his Mom’s face instead—the expression she’d get when she just gave up—and he stops. Because he’s the one making someone else wear that expression. He stops. And then he grabs the bread and runs off, leaving the kid lying there, just like his Dad did so many times.
He’s still trying to rid his head of the green fog when Tim jumps back up and moves about a foot back. He’s looking warily at Jason, automatically falling into a fighting stance, because he is Red Robin, after all. When Jason doesn’t move, Tim skirts around him, crouching down next to the dealer while still keeping Jason in sight. He starts checking the man’s vitals, shooting Jason an occasional glance. Then he pulls out his phone and starts dialing.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jason blurts out, finally feeling like his brain is clear.
“Calling an ambulance. He’s breathing,” Tim punches the “call” button a little harder than necessary. “Barely.” Jason scowls at the comment. But he doesn’t interrupts while Tim talks to the operator, giving them an address and the details. The kid gives him a flat look when he hangs up.
“They’ll be here in about ten minutes. I’d leave, if I were you.”
Jason snorts. “Yeah, thanks for that.”
The kid shrugs and turns like he’s going to leave. Which is when Jason remembers that he’s supposed to be the only vigilante in town at the Moment. He also remembers that the kid’s like, sixteen, maybe, and definitely not in uniform, and it’s not a nice part of Gotham, comparatively speaking.
“Hey! What the fuck are you doing out here anyway?”
The kid keeps walking, tossing a “What’s it to you?” over his shoulder. Jason jogs to catch up with the kid, and grabs him by the shoulder, stopping them both. “Because this is my space.” Tim rolls his eyes, and Jason has to wonder if the kid’s always been this full of attitude, or if it’s an exclusively middle-of-the-night-when-I’m-supposed-to-be-somewhere-else thing.
“I really don’t need your help, Red Hood. Thanks.” He gives Jason a critical look. “Besides, you seem to be busy going crazy and trying to beat people to death.”
“That’s—“
“You gonna beat me to death too, if I don’t answer your questions?” he says it like it’s a challenge, but the look in his eyes says otherwise.
Jason gapes and releases the kid. Tim moves back, away from Jason, like he realizes that he may have made a critical error.
“I don’t—it’s—I don’t hurt kids.” Jason gets out with effort.
“Sure. But I’m not a kid.” Tim says, this emotionless expression on his face. “I’m ‘The Replacement’. Remember? You don’t like me. You tried to kill me, like, twice. So…either you’re lying or I’m not a kid. Which is it?”
And Jason just stands there, stunned. Because the words hurt, because Tim’s right, and Jason doesn’t have answer. So he stares and stutters a little, while Tim stares back, his expression unreadable, but Jason can see the pain and apprehension in the kid’s eyes, because Jason has no response.
When Jason gets back to his Mom with the bread, she’s either asleep or unconscious. Jason’s shaking and he might be crying, but he sits down by his Mom and waits, because he doesn’t want to wake her up. After a while, he starts talking, because maybe she can hear him and she’ll wake up and talk to him. “
So, I got us some food, Mom. It’s bread, fresh from an oven. Well, sorta.”
He waits, but Mom doesn’t move.
"I did something bad today, Mom. I…I beat up this guy to get the food. I, um, beat him real good. I…I hit until he stopped moving. And then I left. I…I just left, Mom! I didn’t check to see if he was okay. I…I don’t know if he’s alive. I might have killed him.”
He pauses, trying to catch his breath, sobbing.
“And I, I just didn’t stop. Just like Him, Mom. I didn’t stop and then I left him there, and, Mom, I don’t know if I killed the guy. And I’d do it again.”
He sobs again, his stomach clenched and his throat hurting.
“I’m scared, Mom. I…I don’t wanna be like Him. I don’t wanna be a bad person. But…but…I think I might be. I might be like him. I don’t know what to do, Mom.”
He cries harder, pleading for his Mom to wake up, to move, to do anything. But she didn’t. And Jason just sits there and cries, feeling sick, scared because he doesn’t have any idea of what to do, because he can’t control it.
He doesn’t have an answer, and Tim knows it. Which is why he scoffs after a minute, mutters “I thought so” and walks off, away from Jason. He doesn’t look back. Jason just stands there, because what can he say? “I didn’t wanna kill you the first time.” “It’s not like that!”
But Tim’s right, and Jason knows it. He’s out of control, and he’s not sure what to do. His Mom never told him what to do. Nobody told him how to be in control. But he’s in control now, and he’s not going to lose it. He’s not going to get upset, he’s not going to tell Tim that maybe he was just so scared that Bruce had forgotten him, had found out that Jason was a mess and had found someone better to replace Jason with. He was so scared that he wanted to hurt someone, and Tim was there. He’d lost control, let the green haze consume him. And when he’d come out of it, that first time, he’d still been hitting Tim. He’d been beating up a little kid who had stopped fighting back a while ago, who had never really been trying to fight him. And, just like his Dad had done, just as Jason had done with the boy in the alley, he’d left, not caring if the kid died or not, just like he was doing know.