Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason might have a stalker.

Okay, technically, Robin might have a stalker. That, or Jason is having a stress-induced psychotic break or being routinely dosed with fear toxin every few patrols. Not that he’s scared, because, well, he’s not. It’s just. He’s supposed to be watching the streets, not vice versa.

It takes him a full week to find (circumstantial, at best) evidence.

Robin’s fist has just crashed into the mugger’s jaw when a small, indiscernible flash of white flickers tauntingly from the rooftop above them. It’s only subtly malapropos, but come on, he’s Robin, of course, he notices.

It looks like the twinkle of a too-bright star, like a single, soundless firecracker spark.

Like a camera.

By the time Robin manages to knock the mugger out, alert the authorities, update Batman, and grapple to the top of the three-story building, the roof is empty. No, not just empty— deserted. Nothing but dust, asphalt, and an uncomfortable amount of grimy, black puddles. 

“Wonderful,” he mumbles, kicking at a pebble and watching it roll directly into a puddle and suction like wet cement to the grime. Jason grimaces before shouting, loud and reproving, “Hey! I know you’re out there!”

He’s a solid eighty percent sure, at least.

(Okay, fine, fifty percent. They’d probably fled the moment Jason had noticed them)

To be clear, Jason doesn’t care if someone with bad self-preservation skills and a camera wants to spend their night taking photos. It’s just. It’s just people shouldn’t get that close to active crime scenes for a stupid picture. It’s completely ridiculous! What if it had been Scarecrow or Mad Hatter a mere forty feet away instead of some second-rate mugger? What then, huh?

What would Robin have done if they’d been used as leverage against him?

Try thinking positive, Dick had said when he’d last visited. What ifs don’t help anybody. 

(Which is rich advice coming from a Bat and definitely not the advice Dick would be giving had Jason told him about the stalker… but Jason digresses)

For his brother’s sake and his own peace of mind, Jason tries thinking positive. He tells himself that even if it had been a person, they must not have realized how dangerous following vigilantes around was, and now that they do understand, they’ll never do it again. 

It happens again four days later.

Positive thinking positively sucks.

This time, instead of a flicker of light, it’s the soft, mechanical shutter of a photograph that snags Jason’s attention like twine in a zipper. Honestly, it’d been nothing short of a miracle that he’d even heard it, because had there been one siren, one bird squawking, one anything…  

Jason whirls around with such suddenness that Batman startles minutely beside him, and with eyes so sharp they could cut Kevlar, Robin sees— nothing.

He sees absolutely nothing. 

Again. 

You’re going fucking crazy, he tells himself as he pointedly avoids Bruce’s stare. He will tell his dad about the stalker, but not yet. Not until Jason can find hard proof of a threat, because he refuses to risk the freedom of solo patrols based on nothing but a paranoid whim.

Prompting, “Robin?”

“Sorry. Thought I heard something,” Mental emphasis on thought, because, come on, if somebody had been following them for… well, for even an hour, let alone four days, Batman would’ve noticed. Would‘ve warned Robin, would’ve descended on them all Dark Knight intimidation, would’ve done something. 

But Bruce only murmurs, “Hm,” softly because he’d seen nothing, heard nothing, and, really, who could possibly stalk the World’s Greatest Detective without being noticed? Nobody. Abso-freaking-lutely nobody. Jason is just fretting over nothing. He probably just needs more sleep.

And yet.

And yet, Jason keeps an eye out.

The problem with that, though, is that over the next three days, his stalker’s presence seems to become fucking omnipresent.

Jason sees his stalker in window reflections, hears them in the quiet footsteps of empty alleyways, feels them with the unshakable foreboding of being watched. They’re everywhere but also nowhere and Jason is really starting to contemplate running a slide of his blood through a tox screen because how the ever-loving fuck can someone be this good at vanishing into thin air? Be this good at avoiding Robin?

(His blood tests come back clean)

Six days into Operation Who-The-Hell-Is-My-Stalker (he’s still working on the title), Jason sees another camera flash. Two flashes, actually, and the twin bursts serve as a beacon, drawing Robin close like a swarm of moths to a lamp. Tempting him. Daring him to try and catch them in a manner that feels reminiscent of the Riddler.

If Jason had stopped to think for even a second before launching himself toward the roof, he might have realized that this uncharacteristically amateur mistake was too good to be true. That the strumming in his ears was not exhilaration but a barrage of red-alert warning bells. 

But Jason doesn't stop to think. He’s too confident in the speed of his grappling hook, too hyper-focused on making sure he remembers the correct building, too desperate to be right.

Jason has a stalker. He has a stalker, and he’s going to prove it.

Of course, it’s only after Jason skyrockets onto the roof, chest heaving and shoulders tensed for a chase, that he realizes he’s played directly into his stalker’s hands. Cold, embarrassed shame shatters his resolute haze with enough force that it pulls the oxygen from his lungs and makes him want to scream.

Somehow, for the third time in less than two weeks, his stalker has managed to melt indistinguishably into the shadows and leave Jason a gaping idiot in their vacant wake.

But that’s new. 

Something silver and metallic on the parapet wall catches Jason’s eye, and he eases toward it with a tense frown. A knife? Bomb? Massive USB drive full of blackmail that his stalker has spent weeks methodically collecting? Jason isn’t even sure what blackmail someone could try threatening him with — everything he’s done, he’s proud of — but there is still a hard-to-shake uneasiness that buzzes inside his veins at the thought of secrets being exposed.

A siren rings out below them so loudly that Jason almost flinches, and his fingers hover involuntarily over his comm, ready to report his hold-up if Batman tries calling for backup.

Batman.

Shit.

It hits him then, not quite as hard as the realization that he’d just walked into a trap, but enough that his head spins and he feels faintly ill.

Everything Robin has done, he’s proud of, but a lifetime ago, before Batman had saved him, Jason had been a starving, desperate street kid with enough skeletons in his closet to fill Gotham City cemetery. And the things he’d done to survive? The terrible, awful things that still gnaw at his brain when the world gets too quiet? Yeah, those things would be damn efficient blackmail.

How much would Bruce pay to make sure the cobwebs of Jason’s past stay away?  

Does Jason even have the stomach to tell Bruce?

In the end, Batman doesn’t request Robin’s assistance, and it doesn’t matter what terrible, awful things Jason did in his past because the silver rectangle is not a USB drive. Or a bomb, or a knife, or… or anything even remotely threatening. It’s. 

A protein bar?

It’s S'mores flavored (which is, admittedly, a bit eerie because Jason had joked about liking this flavor a couple of months ago), safely sealed, and presented so neatly on a crumpled white napkin that if Jason didn’t know any better, he’d say it looked like a gift. 

Cautiously, Jason’s eyes flicker down, checking for wires or some kind of trap mechanism or—

Oh.

Rarely, evidently, does Jason know any better. He picks the granola bar up and turns it over in his gloved hands, instinctively studying the creases and seals for evidence of tampering, before slowly, uncertainly, tucking it into his utility belt. 

“...Um, thank you?” he calls out, and the confused warble sounds much more like Jason than Robin.

Nobody responds.

When Jason gets home from patrol, he tests the wrapper for fingerprints (nothing) and runs a tox screen on the protein bar (also nothing). Regardless of the clean bill, Jason uses his hard-earned self-preservation skills of a former street kid and his even harder-earned common sense of Batman’s partner to make the logical choice and dispose of it. Well.

Well, he thinks about throwing it away, and that has to count for something. 

(In his defense, it is his favorite flavor)

And, listen, Jason knows about stranger danger, he knows about not getting into the white van when promised candy or puppies, he knows even terrible people can seem nice. He also knows that stalkers are dangerous and often obsessive, and that stalkers with cameras can put his and Bruce’s secret identities at risk. He can see the myriad of red flags in this situation and is distinctly aware that he should alert someone, but the thing is… 

The thing is, Jason’s gut, historically cynical and deeply paranoid — the same gut that told him to sleep with a knife under his pillow for the first two months at Wayne Manor, just in case — is telling him that it’s fine.

And he. He really isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about that. 

(He also isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about how, according to the smudged, muddy tread Jason had seen on the rooftop floor, his stalker wears youth size six shoes)

On day seven, there is another camera flash, and Robin gets yet another protein bar. 

This time, after he grabs his shadow’s gift, Jason slips a small, plastic water bottle out of his utility belt and sets it carefully on the ledge. “A trade,” he calls out casually. Jason may not know anything concrete about his stalker, but he has come to two major conclusions. 

First — as painfully evident by their predisposition to dangerous hobbies and distinct lack of parental supervision — Jason’s stalker does not have anyone looking out for them. 

The second just amends the glaring problem with the first; Jason’s stalker may not have had anyone looking out for them, but as of yesterday, they now have Jason.

(If Dick can adopt a random street kid as his younger sibling, so can Jason)

He unwraps the granola bar and takes a bite as a gesture of good faith. “Thanks!”

There’s no reply, not even the faint shuffling of clothes or a single exhale, but Jason knows his shadow is watching. Listening. Close by, too, he can feel it; they are so close that Jason’s sure he could find their hiding spot in four seconds flat. Not that he will, obviously. He can’t see that going over very well.

No. Jason has decided to wait. He’s going to create a plan and he’s going to wait as long as he has to until they trust him enough to reveal themself willingly.

Bruce has been saying he needs to work on his impulse control, so this is like— like on-the-job training.

As he steps up onto the parapet wall, a tick of concern presses into his chest, and he blows out an unsteady breath to force it down. While Robin may have chosen to be the bigger person, Jason Todd-Wayne is not entirely on board. Jason hates impulse control, he hates that he’s leaving this ( youth size six ) dumbass on some random, dangerous roof and he hates that he can’t do anything but leave them a water bottle. 

What if they get hurt? What if it’s a mistake to leave? What if he regrets this?

“Be safe—” Jason says as he forces his uncooperating limbs back into the night, grateful for the shrill police siren that cuts through his words and silences his unintentional, “—kid.”

Day nine is a small packet of fruit snacks from his shadow and an individually wrapped chocolate chip muffin from Jason. 

By day eleven, Jason thinks that their trading system is starting to hit a stride. The shadow gets a bag of Traditional Chex Mix. Jason gets three Jolly Ranchers and increasingly alarmed over how often his shadow is around. 

Isn’t anyone else keeping an eye on the kid? Even just a little bit?

(He doesn’t think he wants to know the answer)

After a poorly dodged bullet skims a few layers of flesh off Jason’s shoulder on day twelve, his shadow leaves him a half-empty, dollar store box of miniature superhero band-aids. His stomach wrenches sharply at the sight, but it’s not a tense — stranger danger, white van, sleep with a knife — twisting, it’s an overwhelmingly concerned — just how young is this damn kid? — twisting.

Impulse control. Positive thinking. He can do this. It’s fine.

“Oh, awesome!” He showily puts a band-aid with Superman’s magnified face on his shoulder and tries not to wince when the adhesive sticks like super(hah!)glue to his aching flesh. “This is great; Superman rules! Here, um, I’m gonna leave the rest of these for you. One is plenty for me,” Jason sets the band-aid box back down. “Thanks a bunch, kid.”

The nickname had been a slip, but Jason doesn’t backtrack, partially hoping that his stalker will jump from the shadows, affronted at being referred to as a child because they’re basically the same age as him.

They don’t.

That tick of worry is back and unable to herd it back this time, Jason shifts on his weight. “You know, you probably shouldn’t be so close to shootouts.” Keeping his voice light is hard. ”Just. Maybe try keeping some distance from the fighting, yeah? For me?”

What if his shadow had been struck by a stray bullet? What if they had bled out on some rooftop? What if they had died and Jason hadn’t even known? What if, what if, what if.

Jason leaves behind a twenty-dollar bill, a sleeve of crackers, and a fractured, worried piece of his heart.

Bruce benches Jason for four days to let his shoulder heal (even though it was just a graze and he was fine), and when Jason returns on day seventeen, he actually shudders in relief when the camera flash goes off twenty minutes into his patrol. 

It’s become like… like Jason’s very own bat signal. A way for the shadow to alert Jason of his hide-out, an I'm up here that Robin tries his best to promptly respond to. He’d learned early on that his stalker won’t stay in one place for too long and that if Jason takes too much time, there will be a trade offer, but an otherwise vacated roof.

He can’t risk missing the signal today. He needs to know that his shadow— that the kid, is okay. That they’re alive.

It takes Robin eleven suffocating minutes to weasel away from Batman’s watchful, you’re-freshly-back-on-duty-and-I’m-totally-not-worried stare, but once he does, he heads straight to tonight’s selected rooftop with a pace that would probably impress Wally. 

What if he’s already missed the kid?

Jason climbs the fixed ladder on the side of the building instead of using his grappling hook to spare his shoulder the strain, but in doing so, accidentally shoves his anxiety directly back into the line of fire. The ladder is so ridiculously against code, rusty and gnarled and missing rungs, that Jason wishes he could condemn the whole street and then permanently sew bubblewrap into his shadow’s clothes for good measure. 

It’s not. Okay, listen, Jason knows that his benevolent little stalker is just some young (probably homeless or homeless equivalent) teenager with a hero fixation and shit sleep schedule. And he knows that anyone who can maneuver through Gotham as expertly as Robin’s shadow can is capable of taking care of themself. He knows that he doesn’t need to worry.

He knows these things, but…

But does he?

Teenagers don’t typically wear youth size six shoes. Teenagers don’t typically buy and use the miniature, superhero brand of Band-Aids. Teenagers don’t typically make Jason’s gut convulse in fear. And when Jason keeps dreaming about definitely-not-teenager-sized shadow figures careening off high rises, he knows it’s not a sign (he doesn’t even believe in signs) but. 

But his body still hadn’t been able to breathe properly until their signal had gone off, because what if.

What if. What fucking if.

(Besides, even teenagers shouldn’t be wandering around Gotham at night)

As per usual, there is nobody in sight when Robin reaches the roof, but unlike usual, there’s a rock on the ledge in lieu of the usual pantry variety snack. Only after closer inspection does Jason notice that there is a colorful square placed underneath the rock. He slides the rock to the side and when he takes the thin photograph print in his hands, his gaze flickers toward the shiny black ink in the corner.

Instead of a name or anything identifiable, Robin’s shadow has written, I hope you feel better soon, in small, neat manuscript handwriting. So meticulously neat that Jason can actually see subtle evidence of a tremor from how tightly the kid had been holding the pen. How hard they’d been trying to make it perfect. Handwriting should probably be a dead giveaway of his shadow’s age, but actually it. It just confuses Jason more.

Everything this kid does just ends up confusing Jason more.

Before he can drive himself crazy thinking about it, his eyes catch onto the vibrant, sunshine yellow of someone’s cape in the photo. Of… of his cape. It’s him. It’s a photo of him. It’s. It's the night he’d heard the camera lens. 

(He fucking knew it! He knew he hadn’t been imagining things! Take that, Bruce!)

The photo has captured Robin and Batman (Jason and Bruce — they look like Jason and Bruce, here) sitting comfortably next to each other on the edge of a rooftop, their bodies slanted marginally toward each other as they face away from the camera. It’s so peaceful. A fond, familial moment that had bled into their patrol, now immortalized in the small square of film that belongs to Jason. 

And Jason, well, he might be starting to understand why his shadow is so obsessed with photography.

“Wow, this is… this is awesome. I can’t believe you managed to get this close. Without — damn — without B noticing. Maybe I’ve been over-estimating him,” Jason laughs, a little breathless with surprise as he refuses to look away from the photograph. It’s him. A photo of him. “This is… wow.”

For a hopeful second, Jason thinks that when he finally tears his eyes from the picture, his shadow will be standing in front of him. Will have unfurled themself from their hiding spot and finally let Jason see them, let him get to know them. But when he does manage to look away, he sees nobody and has to swallow back the acidic disappointment as quickly as he can. 

It’s fine; he has a plan.

No impulse control? Yeah, right, Batman, watch this.

He inhales, measured and calm, and speaks a little louder, so that he knows his shadow — wherever and whoever and however old they are — will hear him, “Thank you.”

On day twenty-one, Jason attempts to implement the next major step in Operation Where-Does-This-Kid-Sleep (title still a work in progress).

“You know,” Robin says with faux flippancy into the darkness. “If we could choose one good rooftop to do this, I’d feel a whole lot better. ‘Cause your signal is really smart, but… but what if—” what if, what if, “—someone else sees it? Decides to check it out, like I did?” He stops himself here because his voice is starting to take on a nervous edge that sounds an octave too much like Jason.

And Jason, who wants to throw the plan out of the window and drag the kid into the open where he can keep them safe, is not allowed to talk right now.

Robin, who is calm and collected and not in the habit of invading street kids’ personal space, is handling things.

Jason replaces the offered protein bar with his old Swiss Army knife and another packaged chocolate-chip muffin. “Anyways. Up to you. You can pick the roof, obviously, but it’s just that the apartment complex by Fifth and Bruine has been my favorite so far.”

Jason pointedly leaves out why it’s his favorite. Leaves out that it’s one of the furthest buildings from the Falcone Family dealings, or that the support beams aren’t as badly warped as most, or that there are thick bushes below the building that can catch a falling teenager, or that he’d spent a significant portion of yesterday’s patrol coming up with a list of their safest meet up spots and the apartment complex on Bruine Avenue had been the winner. 

“Okay,” a small, deceptively steady laugh. “Let me know.”

On day twenty-four, Robin gets a purple Laffy Taffy on the roof of the apartment complex on Bruine Avenue, and he actually might like this gift more than he had the photograph.

(And the photograph is kept in a box under his bed, beside Jason’s only photos of his mom)

Jason is placing Outsiders by Susan Eloise Hinton, musing, “This is one of my favorites. I don’t know if you read a whole lot but—” on the ledge when he hears something, and his stomach does this weird, looping flip that turns all of his organs inside out. 

A soft thud. Deliberate footsteps.

They’re too heavy to belong to a child and that lifts a weight off Jason’s chest for a breathless second, because maybe his shadow really is a teenager, maybe he’d been coming to all the wrong conclusions.

As he turns, he tries to move slowly, like Batman does when he’s talking to innocent civilians. Jason thinks he comes off more deer-in-headlights-esque than comforting-vigilante, but so what? It’s been thirty-one days of this back and forth and he still knows nothing substantial about this kid that he’d almost certainly die for. He has the right to be a little shell-shocked and eager and—

—And that’s. 

That is definitely not his shadow. 

“Hey, R,” Nightwing says with an easy, bemused smile. After his gaze combs the roof and, obviously, comes up empty, it slides back to Jason. “Who are you talking to?”

“Nobody,” Jason defends indignantly as he tries to block the book from Dick’s line of vision. It’s a stupid, futile attempt at concealment because Jason knows that Dick is a damn bloodhound when he wants to be, but it, at least, makes him feel better to try. 

His brother is silent for a few seconds, processing, before he tilts his head minutely to the side, “Right. Is that a book?”

Now, don’t get him wrong, Jason loves his brother. Really. He does. And in any other— or, actually, eh… in most other cases, he would be thrilled to see Dick. They haven’t seen each other nearly as much as Jason would like ever since Dick debuted as his very own big shot Blüdhaven vigilante, but a reunion tonight? Right now? Here?

It’s just bad timing, “What are you doing here?”

Dick takes the surprised, sharp edge to Jason’s question in stride. “It’s the fourteenth,” he responds blithely, like that somehow explains everything. Dick still hasn’t looked away from the book, and as he walks over to Jason, his eyes widen slightly behind the domino mask. “Hah, that totally is a book. Are you… reading? On patrol?”

And. Shit.

Like an insect snagged in a web, Jason scrambles for an escape. For something, anything, that he can say to get Dick to just lose interest and back off. 

“I have a lot of homework,” Jason eventually says, which is… not technically a lie. He does. It’s math homework, but Dick doesn’t need to know that. “Did they ever make you do an essay on Outsiders?”

That seems to do the trick.

“Eugh, essays,” Dick shudders. “I’ve made a point not to remember the boring parts of high school, sorry.” He throws Jason a look so genuinely sympathetic that Jason feels prickling guilt erupt like goosebumps down his spine. He may not be lying, but he’s not being honest, either, and he really doesn’t like it.

It’s not. 

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Dick. 

Honestly, a big part of Jason wants to tell his older brother about what’s been going on. About how he has his very own stalker, about the trading system he’s created with said stalker, about his plan, about his increasingly recurrent dreams of shadow children dying, about all of it. 

Dick would listen, of course, he would. And then he’d ruffle Jason’s hair affectionately, bust out his patented original Boy Wonder charisma, and fix everything.

Except, that’s the problem. Jason can tell himself that he’s keeping his shadow a secret out of respect for the kid’s privacy until he’s blue in the face, but it would be a lie. 

The truth is that Jason doesn’t want to tell Dick because he’s selfish and immature and because he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to tell Dick because he’s spent over a month trying to build some semblance of a friendship, worked so hard to get to this point, that if Dick manages to prance into town and befriend the kid in minutes… Jason just. He just.

It wouldn’t be fair. 

He’s so sick of living in the original Robin’s ever-growing shadow. Of knowing that everything he tries to do, Dick could do better, sooner, more efficiently. It’s childish, he knows it’s childish, but if Dick doesn’t know about the kid, then Jason can go on pretending that he’s just as good a Robin.

So, fine, sue him for wanting the kid to be a secret a little while longer, sue him for shifting uneasily and saying, “Don’t tell B?”

Dick pauses, and his expression melts into something more serious than it had been before. A gentleness and a faint concern that Jason is dreadfully aware means this conversation isn’t over. While the chances of an outright confrontation are low, Jason knows that he’s in for a week of seemingly innocent cross-examination and side-eyed squints. 

“I won’t,” Dick promises firmly, abandoning all his former attempts at levity. An agitated silence hangs in the air for a few seconds before Dick continues, voice cashmere soft, “Are you patrolling too much, Little Wing? If you want, I can talk to B about you needing more time off?”

It’s a nice offer, it is, so Jason tries not to sound too defensive and horrified when he rebukes it. “God, no. I’ll actually murder you with my bare hands if you do that. Multiple times. I will murder you multiple times. ” Okay, maybe he fails at the not-defensive and not-horrified part, but whatever, it should get the point across.

His brother snorts out a laugh and holds his hands up placatingly, seeming relieved at the cracked tension. “You’re the boss, Robin.”

“That’s an oxymoron,” Jason murmurs reflexively. 

“A what?”

“Oxymoron.”

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

“What?”

“No, you—” Jason whirls around to face Dick. His brother has his arms crossed across his chest and a stern frown that he must have stolen directly from Bruce‘s arsenal of disdain locked onto his face. Which. Makes no sense. What had Jason done? “Are you concussed or just deaf?”

Dick makes an offended sound in the back of his throat and pinches the bridge of his nose. As if the crazy person in this situation is Jason. “I— what? No! You’re the one who called me a moron!”

It takes Jason a few seconds to process that. Partially because it’s so stupid that he almost can’t believe it, and partially— no, mainly because the shadows laugh. His shadow laughs. It’s a quiet noise, muffled by impressive self-control and probably a hand, but it snaps a pleased smile onto Jason’s face. 

Finally, he wants to say, finally, someone understands what I have to deal with!

Instead, Jason shifts his focus back to Dick, “No. Ox-y-mor-on,” he emphasizes each syllable. “Means you’re contradicting yourself. Like… pretty ugly or living dead.” Maybe the thing he’s spending too much time on is school, because, damn, does he feel like an English teacher. “Whatever. Do you have a case? That why you’re here?”

Dick, who ohhh'd and laughed at Jason’s explanation, gives a weird half-shrug at the question. “Yes and no?” a brief pause. “Is that an oxymoron?” He doesn’t give Jason time to answer before grinning cheekily and continuing, “It’s the fourteenth, Little Wing. I told you I was coming to visit for the week like two months ago.”

And, well, now that Jason thinks about it, that had been on the calendar, hadn’t it?

Oops. 

“Whatever,” Jason repeats, his laugh coming out strangled as anxiety begins to loop around his throat. They need to stop attracting attention to this roof. What if a villain hears them and decides to attack and his shadow is literally less than five feet away? “Come on, I need to move. Walk and tell me about your case.”

A flicker of stubborn solicitude in Dick’s expression has Jason positive that Dick knows something is off, but instead of calling him out, his brother just frowns softly and. And… moves on? Is that suspicious? Jason can’t tell.

“I’m not even sure if it is a case…”

“Oh?” Jason prompts with a relieved exhale as he pulls out his grappling hook. “Start from the top.”

“So, a few days ago I was looking into…” Dick is too wrapped up in his debriefing to realize that when they swing to another roof, they leave the book behind.

(Jason is too wrapped up in trying to keep Dick distracted that he doesn’t notice the small boy with a camera stumble out of the shadows)

Tim had been trying to apologize.

With the granola bar, that is. 

Acutely aware that walking right up to Robin and saying sorry in person was a no-go (he doesn’t want to get sent home), he’d decided to leave an apology gift. It was a stratagem that he’d learned from his parents; no matter how badly you’ve wronged someone, if you give them a good enough gift, they aren’t allowed to be mad anymore.

Janet and Jack are very skilled gift-givers and Tim thinks it’s because of all the time they spend negotiating at work. Maybe? Whatever the reason, every time Tim is upset at them, it’s quickly rendered null by the arrival of something amazing like a two-thousand-dollar camera or a new video game for the gaming computer he’d gotten when they missed his ninth birthday.

Tim prides himself on the fact that he, too, is a good gift-giver. 

After all, Janet Drake (who once refused to talk to Tim’s father for two weeks because he gave her an emerald necklace for their anniversary despite knowing she hates wearing green jewelry in the summer) had forgiven Tim for getting a B- on his Math test after he’d emptied his savings account to buy her an authentic Greek amphora vase. 

Despite his parental practice, it’d taken Tim literal days to think of an acceptable apology gift for Robin. His parents were easy, if you paid attention, but Robin? 

Jason Todd-Wayne? 

What would a vigilante-by-night, rich-kid-by-day even want? Not just regular rich, either, multi-billion-dollar megacorporation Wayne Enterprises rich. Tim is fairly sure that Jason’s allowance is at least four times Tim’s— anything he wanted, he could just… buy himself. Or get Batman to buy it for him.

It wasn’t until Tim was standing inside the Drake family walk-in pantry, trying to figure out what to make himself for dinner, that he saw the box of Smore’s granola bars and felt relief swarm like bees in his chest. Robin’s favorite flavor.

“It’s past your bedtime, Robin. Shouldn’t you be in bed drinking warm milk by now?” The Riddler sneers, distance making his voice sound muffled to Tim.

Robin’s response was conversational, “Actually, I like to have a Smore’s granola bar before bed. And hot cider. But thanks for your concern.”

The next day, Tim had walked to the store and bought six value-pack boxes of granola bars with the debit card Jack had left for Mrs. Mac. Tim ate the granola bars everyday for almost a month — enraptured by the knowledge that Robin could be doing the same exact thing — before having to stop once they started making his stomach hurt.

There was still a box and a half left.

Tim decided that, since the granola bars were Robin’s favorite, and since they were only wasting away in his pantry, they would make an acceptable apology. He knew it wasn’t a perfect gift, but the longer he went without apologizing for startling Robin with his stupid camera flash (that he swears he turned off!), the angrier Robin would get.

Once Tim had chosen a gift, everything else should have been simple. 

It had looked simple when Tim drew out the plan on a blue sticky note.

He would set up the apology gift as nicely as he could, alert Robin, and then disappear through the skylight he purposely cracked open earlier that night. Once he apologized, everything would go back to normal, and Tim could go back to taking photos of Robin without the older boy trying to track him down like a bomb sniffing hound.

It was not simple.

First, the bus that Tim typically took out of Bristol’s outskirts had been delayed an hour and twenty minutes after a villain attack. Then, the bus driver had almost refused to let Tim on the bus for “safety reasons”, and Tim had to bribe him with thirty dollars. And then, by the time Tim made it into the center of the city where Robin was scheduled to patrol, it was too late because Robin and Batman had met back up early and were planning on finishing their patrol together!

Great for Gotham, bad for Tim.

He’d settled for snapping a few pictures of the two vigilantes, but, because the universe hated Tim, Robin somehow, miraculously, heard his camera. The Boy Wonder reeled around as though Tim had jammed a hot poker into his back, tensed so tightly that Tim couldn’t even pretend it was anything but alarm. 

Tim wilted.

That officially made it two nights Tim had scared Robin— two apology gifts Tim now owed.

He allowed himself a total of six minutes for a mental breakdown when he got home before taking a deep Janet Drake breath and getting back to work. Two apology gifts were… unfortunate, but reparable. He would just need to leave two granola bars on two different nights, and then everything could go back to normal.

It would be fine.

At least, it would have been, had Robin known proper gift etiquette. It would have been, had Robin not decided to set a water bottle on the ledge the next day and say, “A trade.”

Tim hadn’t been trading. He’d been apologizing.

He keeps trying. 

Robin doesn’t get the memo. 

And maybe, just maybe, their newfound trading system is not as upsetting of development that Tim tells himself it is. Maybe it’s just a game of cat and mouse to Robin, but for a few minutes every night (sometimes longer, when Robin decides to linger on the roof and talk), Tim can pretend he has a friend.

Maybe that feels better than Tim is willing to admit. He’s been lonely for so long that even the modicum of friendship he has with Robin feels more vital to his health and well-being than oxygen.

Sometimes, it’s hard to resist the temptation to step out of the shadows and introduce himself properly, but reminding himself that giving up his secret identity leverage would likely lead to Robin dragging him back to an empty Drake Manor and ending their late-night meetings, culls the urge instantaneously. 

Well, it does. 

Until it doesn’t.

“Um,” Tim’s voice cracks down the middle and he doesn’t know whether it’s from pain or nerves. This was not how their first meeting was supposed to go. “Hi, Robin.”

Robin, still bound with rope and bleeding from the knife plunged into his gut, seems… rather unimpressed with Tim’s poor attempt at a rescue, “No fucking way.”

Chapter Text

Jason can’t stop dreaming about his shadow.

Most nights, he dreams they die because he can’t reach them. They fall off a building or they get shot or they are running and he is chasing and chasing but they are always out of reach. He wakes up with his heart jackhammering against his ribs and the inability to breathe.

Sometimes he does reach them. He catches them before they hit the ground or he pushes them out of the way of the bullet or they are running but he is running faster. In these dreams, Jason pulls his shadow’s small — they’re always so small — body into his arms and.

And then they disappear— every single time. His arms wrap around nothing, and his shadow has vanished before he can promise to keep them safe. He wakes up hollowed out and cold and scared.

He feels that way now. 

Cold. 

(Scared)

Jason’s hand twitches, still feeling coarse vestiges of a shirt from when he’d yanked his shadow behind him and took a shuriken to the abdomen so they wouldn’t have to. It hurt (it still hurts), but dream-Jason hadn’t cared because he was too busy spinning around on his heels and hastily pulling his shadow into an embrace.

He doesn’t know whether they disappeared or he woke up first, but it doesn’t matter because right now, they are gone and he is cold and alone. And. And the pain is still there. Actually, the pain is worse. It’s worse.

Why… why is it worse?

His answer comes in the form of a door opening, heralding rays of yellow light that illuminate deep red stains on Jason’s Robin suit and the undeniable hilt of a knife jammed five inches into his abdomen. 

Well, that at least explains the corporeality of the dream.

Jason’s body moves on its own accord at the unmistakable echo of footsteps, instinctively trying to twist into a defensive position. Except he can’t move, can’t fight, can’t do anything, because there is thick rope wrapped around his wrists and ankles and his utility belt is gone and he has a knife in his stomach.

Fucking great.

The man — wiry, blonde, clean-shaven — who strides inside the room curls his lip into a grin when he sees Jason awake. “Looks like we’ve caught ourselves a little birdie.” The taunt is nauseatingly saccharine. “How’d you sleep?"

“Like a baby,” Jason’s response is forcibly casual as he tries to channel Nightwing’s signature placidity and get a read on the situation. Drug dealers aren’t typically stupid enough to risk Batman’s wrath by dragging an unconscious Robin to a second location, so what’s the big deal this time? 

“What do you want?”

The man’s tone is light and relaxed, but Jason doesn’t miss how his fingers angle absently toward the pistol on his hip holster. “What do I want? I don’t know, you were the one spying. Why don’t you take a guess?”

I’m guessing you want to grind me into a pulp because you’re an asshole with a complex who’s mad that I messed with your pathetic attempt to become a drug lord, is what Jason would say if his body wasn’t missing (at least) a liter of blood. “To not be dealing with me right now? ‘Cause if you untie me, you won’t have to.”

You miss every shot you don’t take, yeah?

“Try again, champ.” The teasing lilt in the man’s voice is curling a tight coil of hatred around Jason’s temper. He’s already sick of this.

“Money?”

“Mm, wrong again.” The coil snaps when the man actually laughs. 

“Fine. I’m guessing you’re a half-cocked drug dealer throwing a tantrum because I blew your deal. I’m guessing you had no idea I would show up and kidnapping me was an accident and now you're in way over your head with no idea what to do with me.” 

Jason fixes the man, Liam Turner — Jason finally recognizes him as the blurry-faced boss who's all over Dick’s case folders — a deep glare and smiles sharply. He never did learn how to quit. “So? How’d I do?”

He’s pushed too far. 

Jason knows he’s pushed too hard.

That had been really, really stupid and Jason is prepared for it when Liam rips his gun from its holster and slams it across Jason’s face. 

The pistol-whip cracks against his jaw hard enough to make his ears ring and he can taste blood from where his lip was busted open, but it’s fine, he can take it. He pressed his panic button the moment he realized his reconnaissance mission had gone off the rails.

Help is coming. 

He just needs to hold on until Batman and Nightwing save him.

What Jason is not expecting is for the blows to stop and the door to fling open. What Jason is not expecting is for a man — broad, college-age, ashamed — to step in and shove something in the room. What Jason is not expecting is for that something to be a fucking eight-year-old.

“Tsk,” Liam meets Jason’s confused stare and looks admonishing. “Bad bird.”

A gunshot explodes inside the warehouse room and Jason’s heart wrenches as a guttural scream rips through the warehouse. Not Jason’s scream. Confusion flares inside him before the realization turns his vision white with rage. Jason’s eyes snap to the pistol in Liam’s hands, the pistol that is still leveled at the writhing, small body of a child on the ground.

That piece of shit.

“You piece of shit!”

Batman's number one rule is that he doesn’t kill. Jason understands this. He respects this. This knowledge doesn’t stop him from the onslaught of vicious, murderous thoughts that spill into his mind when he sees Liam still smiling. “You bastard, that’s a kid! I’m going to—”

Liam racks the slide of his gun and Jason’s voice dies in his throat. “What I want,” the man starts, any former humor scrubbed clean and replaced with icy malice, “Is for you to keep your Bat-friends away from my business. What I want,” he still hasn’t lowered his gun, “Is for you to understand that I don’t appreciate being spied on.”

The kid on the floor — black hair, oversized hoodie, tiny — curls into themself with a muffled sob and Jason’s body seizes involuntarily against his binds.

This isn’t right. 

It’s not fucking right.

Why is there a kid? Why is there a fucking kid? Then Jason feels like he might get sick because how long has Liam had a kid here?

“Okay! Okay, I get it. I understand!” Jason’s voice pitches into a desperate, earnest plea. “I’ll get you immunity. Please, just— just don’t hurt the kid anymore. Batman will never find out about you, I promise.” Over the sound of his own blood pounding, Jason doesn’t even know if he’s lying. 

There is a soft, approving hum, and the gun is finally — finally — lowered. Jason shudders with relief. “And Nightwing?”

Jason doesn’t think anyone could get Nightwing to stop investigating something that’s caught his interest. Not Bruce and definitely not Jason.

“Yes, Nightwing too. Nobody’ll know your… business exists. I’ll make sure of it,” his gaze fervently flashes between Liam and the hauntingly quiet lump of clothes. “Please— please, let me take them to a hospital. Let me get them out of here. That’s just a little kid, man, please.”

A little laugh. 

“You won’t tell anyone…” Liam hums and Jason is trying to focus on him, but there is blood spilling out from the curled-up body on the ground, stretching out in deltas of crimson, and Jason is finding it hard to even breathe. “But your little sidekick is a risk I’m not so sure I’m willing to take.”

“Sidekick?”

Robin doesn’t have sidekicks. Robin is the sidekick.

Another laugh, less amused this time. “Don’t play games, Boy Wonder.” Liam’s voice is baleful, but Jason isn’t fucking around. He wouldn’t. Not with a kid’s life on the line. “Figure it out. Either I put the kid down, or you figure out a way to guarantee he’ll keep his trap shut.”

It takes less than thirty seconds for the door to slam shut and leave Jason, still tied up, and the kid, still shot, alone together.

Jason can’t waste any more time. “Hey! Kid! Look at me. Will you— you gotta look at me. Where are you hit?”

All the kid manages is a wrenching sob.

“Kid. You gotta work with me. We’re going to be just fine, you and me, you just gotta— gotta look at me. Talk to me. Can you talk?” What if the bullet had hit the kid’s neck? What if it’s too late to do anything and the kid dies? What if Jason is responsible for getting some random street kid murdered?

(Jason wants his dad)

(He wants his brother, too)

After what feels like days, the kid starts to uncurl, “My arm. He got m-my arm.”

He’s shaking like a leaf by the time he drags himself into a sitting position, but when he fixes Jason with an alert, pale gray-blue set of eyes, Jason’s stomach flips with relief. The feeling lasts approximately three seconds before imploding when the kid outstretches his hand, palm-up, and stares at the thick coating of shiny red blood.

“Oh, God,” Jason’s voice is strangled. That’s too much blood. That’s already more blood than Jason’s lost in at least an hour of bleeding and it’s only been four minutes.

The kid’s eyes flicker up to Jason, looking worried and so, so young. It’s hard to make out any distinguishing features in the shitty lighting of the warehouse, but the kid is shaking and he’s so small, his hoodie swamps him. 

“Are you okay?” The kid’s voice wobbles and it’s enough to snap Jason back into focus.

He’s Robin and Robin fixes things.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. And so will you. Everything’s gonna be fine. I’m not gonna let anything else happen to you, kiddo. Can you put your hand on your arm and hold tight? That’s gonna help stop the bleeding.”

A timid smile wisps onto the small, tired face. “I know. I…” the kid obediently clasps his hand over the wound, “I didn’t… know, that— guns make you bleed so much.” Jason does not like the disconcertion in the kid’s voice. “Guess a— I guess one band-aid was a dumb thing to give you. You probably should’ve— should’ve taken the whole box.”

Jason’s blood runs so cold that it would put Mister Freeze’s ray gun to shame.

There is literally no fucking way. 

Jason is jumping to conclusions or concussed or he’s lost more blood than he thought and now he’s hallucinating. Or dreaming. Yeah, that’s it. It has to be a dream because this can’t be happening. Because his shadow can not be hunched over on the ground in front of Jason with a bullet in his brachium.

His shadow can’t be this young.

His shadow can’t be here.

“You—” his voice breaks on the word. “That was you?” More than anything he’s ever wanted before, he wants the kid to deny it, but he just blinks at Jason uncertainly before nodding. And Jason can’t— he doesn’t— he doesn’t know what to do. This isn’t happening. “You’re… the stalker?”

The kid flinches at the word stalker, and Jason’s literal stab wound hurts less than seeing guilt slash a deep frown across the kid’s face. “Um,” a hesitant, heavy silence, “Hi, Robin.”

No denial. No confusion. 

Just large blue eyes and an imploring stare.

Jason knows that he should say something. He knows that he should reassure the kid. He knows that he needs to get the stupid binds — he’s been working on the knots since the moment he woke up but he’s too concussed for knots this ridiculously complex — off his wrists. He knows that he’s Robin and it’s Robin’s job to save the day.

He knows all of this, but now he also knows that the person who has been following him around Gotham rooftops for at least a month looks closer in age to a toddler than a teenager. Jason’s throat is tight when he manages to channel all of his Robin training into saying something comforting and intelligent like— 

“No fucking way.” 

The stalker— his shadow— fuck, Jason’s kid starts to retract into himself like a pill bug and Jason winces when he realizes how hard his voice had sounded. 

The kid hadn’t meant to get fucking kidnapped; Jason needs to get a hold of himself.

“I’m sorry. I was trying to help. I was trying… I just wanted to… I didn’t mean to—” his shadow’s voice pitches into a pained sob and he shudders violently. 

“—get caught?” Jason offers hollowly and when his kid curls in tighter, it’s enough confirmation that Jason feels as though he’s going to be sick. So much for believing that the kid possessed any self-preservation skills. “You messed with these guys on purpose?” 

The kid is here, injured and soaked in his own blood, because he’d been trying to save Robin? 

Jason had been wrong before. This is the moment he wants the kid to disagree. Because if. If his shadow got captured in a failed attempt to save Jason, it makes all of this Jason’s fault. It means Jason failing his reconnaissance mission got his shadow kidnapped and Jason picking a fight with an armed lunatic got his shadow shot.

Jason trusting the ‘teenager’ on the rooftops could take care of himself is the reason there is now a child roughly a pint of blood away from dying.

For once, his stalker doesn’t stay silent. “I didn’t mess with them. I was trying to sneak past them through the upstairs window, but—” the kid winces and carefully unfurls his nails from where they’d been digging frustratedly into his shoulder blade. “—but I don’t know. Guess— I guess they must’ve saw me. I’m sorry, Robin; I was trying to help.”

I’m not mad, kiddo, is what Robin would say. It’s what Robin is supposed to say when dealing with scared victims. But Robin was the reason Jason decided to let a third (?) grader wander the crime-infested streets of Gotham instead of dragging him somewhere safe. 

It’s Jason’s turn to deal with things.

Naturally, he starts with the irrelevant. “How old are you?”

The kid just blinks before an impressive amount of skepticism pulls his lips into a small frown. “Is that… important right now?” He pointedly looks around the dark warehouse and Jason thinks he would be gesturing if his hands weren’t busy trying to keep blood in his body.

It’s not, but… “Yes.” 

“I’m old enough.”

“For what? No more nap-time?”

It’s the wrong thing to say and Jason knows it well before the kid lunges upright. “I’m not a baby! I’m—” but whatever he’d planned on saying is interrupted by him keeling over with a gut-wrenching whine of pain. 

“Kid!” Jason jerks wildly against his binds but can’t do anything except stare helplessly as the kid frantically tries to keep gripping his shoulder while his body rocks with pained sobs. 

God, Jason is so stupid. Why does he always do this? Why does he always push people so far? “Kid, breathe. It’s okay. I’m sorry.”

The kid jerks his face upward to stare at Jason and even through the tears, the question in his eyes is sharp enough to cut stone.

How is any of this okay?

When the kid finally recovers, the strain of the agony and blood loss seems to have stolen his will to be obstinate. “Eleven. And my name isn’t ‘kid,’ it’s… um, Alvin.”

Jason frowns and it takes Herculean effort not to accuse ‘Alvin’ of being a pathological liar. 

“The ropes.” The pivot in conversation catches Alvin by surprise. “I need these ropes off. I tried getting them off myself but they need to be cut. Can you—”

“—Oh! Of course!” Alvin’s expression brightens with a relief that’s completely at odds with his gaunt, pallid form and before Jason can tell him that the rusty nail by the door should be sharp enough to cut through the rope, the kid is eagerly stumbling over. 

Up close, Alvin looks even smaller than he had before— no wonder he’d been able to hide in rooftop shadows.

With how badly the kid’s body is shuddering, Jason can’t believe he’s still standing.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, kid. Be careful,” it sounds more like a plea than the command Jason intended.

“Not a kid,” the kid says and Jason feels sick again. It’s a sensation that only worsens when Alvin fishes a hand into his jean pockets and leaves streaks of crimson across his pants. “I’m always careful.”

Jason laughs mirthlessly before his breath catches when he sees the red object that Alvin retrieves. It’s Jason’s old Swiss Army knife, the one he gave to his shadow three weeks into their rendezvous so the kid would be able to protect himself. Because that’s all Jason has wanted to do since he saw those footprints on the roof— keep the kid safe. 

Fuck, he’s messing this whole thing up so badly.

He should’ve told Dick the moment he suspected his stalker was a child. He should’ve told Dick the moment he suspected he had a stalker. He should’ve let Dick handle everything. 

The knife flicks open and Alvin’s sticky, bloodied hands grip Jason’s bound wrists as he starts determinedly sawing through the nylon. God, the kid is trembling so badly that it feels like he has a hummingbird lodged underneath his skin.

”Alvin,” Without Robin to hide behind, Jason’s voice is unsteady and juvenile. “It’s… nice to meet you, finally.”

Alvin tenses minutely, but before he can respond, Jason’s bonds slacken and Jason is free. Moving with renewed intensity, Jason shakes away the limp rope and carefully plucks the knife from Alvin’s hand. The kid’s eyes widen in alarm and Jason tries for a reassuring smile. “I’ll give it back, promise.”

Jason slices the rope off his ankles in one swipe.

Once he’s unbound, he refuses to waste another minute, using one hand to keep the knife in his stomach steady, he scrambles out of his chair and catches Alvin in a desperate hug.

And.

And his shadow doesn’t disappear. He’s small — fuck, he's so small — but this isn’t a dream because the kid doesn’t disappear.

Alvin is all knobby bones and oversized cotton clothes, but when he collapses helplessly into the embrace, his body fits like a puzzle piece in Jason’s arms and Jason finally understands Dick’s affinity for hugs.

He, too, never wants to let go of his baby brother.

The kid starts crying again and Jason wants to do what Dick does; he wants to draw Alvin closer and smooth circles into his back and reassure him that everything is okay. 

Instead, he pulls away and starts charting the easiest way to get him and Alvin out of the warehouse before Liam comes back. He can (will) comfort Alvin once they aren’t captives anymore.

There’s a window about eight feet off the ground. Maybe Jason can stand on the chair and hoist Alvin through it? Once he gets Alvin in the clear, Jason can… jump? No, that’s pushing his abilities even if he wasn’t sporting a stab wound. Fight, then? If he catches Liam by surprise, he can have Alvin’s knife pressed to the asshole’s throat before he can—

“R-Robin?” The kid’s voice is devastatingly young.

“What, baby bird?” 

“Does… does this mean you forgive me?”

Jason blanches and his attention snaps back to Alvin, “Forgive you? For what?” 

Alvin shifts nervously and Jason shivers with a swarm of cold horror when he sees how rapidly color is leaving the kid’s face. How much blood has he lost already? How much more can he lose? How many pints can eleven (that still feels inaccurate) year olds even lose? 

The kid wavers unsteadily, eyes unfocused as he chews on whatever pain-delirious nonsense he’s about to throw at Jason. And, shit, even if Jason can get him up to the window, there’s no way Alvin can climb out in this state. Guess that means Robin's fighting his way out of this one.

First things first, get Alvin off his feet before he tips over.

“For…” Jason gently guides the kid to the chair and Alvin obligingly sits with a weak slump. “I dunno… But it’s… super ‘portant that you forgive me.”

“Okay, then yeah, I forgive you.” It's the easiest thing he’s ever had to agree to. He ruffles the kid’s hair and tries his best to force a reassuring smile past the twisting anxiety in his gut. “You haven’t even done anything wrong. I’m the one who fu— messed up. But I’ll fix it, I’ll get us outta here and—”

He hears Liam’s casual gait and has fallen silent well before the door swings open and cracks against the cement wall with a dramatic clang.

When Jason was seven, a stray dog settled down in the alley Jason’s living room window looked out on. She was a fat dog, with short brown fur and wide, worried eyes and Jason had immediately taken it upon himself to take care of her. He would fill a paper bowl with water every morning and sneak her scraps from the fridge every night.

The dog (Jason can’t remember what he named her) would let Jason sit with her and pet her long, narrow snout for hours while he read. Despite his mom telling him he could, under no circumstances, keep her as a pet, he loved her and he was sure she loved him.

Well, until she had puppies.

Having never in a million years assumed she’d been fat-pregnant and not fat-fat , the day Jason came home from school and found her with a mound of squirming day-old puppies tucked into her side, his young brain nearly imploded. 

Jason has a hard time remembering why he decided to move closer (Curiosity? Shock?), but he will never forget the wild fury in the dog’s eyes and the pain he’d felt when her jaws clamped onto his outstretched hand. He’d screamed and cried and his mom had rushed outside, still in her night gown, wielding the largest kitchen knife they owned.

Is she possessed? He’d asked later, while his mom wrapped the dog bite in bandages.

Catherine had smiled softly, No, my love, she was protecting her babies.

It’s been almost nine years since the incident and the scar he’d gotten has long since faded but it’s only today that Jason finally forgives the dog.

He gets it, now.

Shit, he really gets it.

With his body positioned protectively between Alvin — his baby — and Liam, violent rage rushes through Jason’s body and he snarls out a vicious, “Change of fucking plans.”

Liam recoils as though burned, his eyes darting to the knife in Jason’s hand and if the alarm carved into his face could speak, it would scream that he hadn’t planned for Batman to have actually trained his Robin. 

“How—” 

Jason isn’t planning on letting him finish. 

With a swarm of preemptive regret, Jason yanks the switchblade out of his stomach (he’d promised to give the pocketknife back to Alvin, so he can’t go throwing that one) and hurls it toward Liam.

Expectedly, the man throws his hands up to shield his face from the hit and the knife plunges into Jason’s real target— straight through Liam’s right wrist. 

And maybe, just maybe, Robin shouldn’t revel in Liam’s scream as much as he does, but like the dog that had lived in his alley, Jason is protecting his baby and, unlike her, this is personal. This isn’t some random idiot kid who pushed boundaries; this is the asshole who purposefully shot a little kid. 

Who shot Jason’s little brother.

Adrenaline swallows the pain radiating from Jason’s stomach and he takes full advantage of Liam’s blind agony by lunging forward. By the time Jason manages to swipe the pistol out of its holster and roll back toward Alvin, the drug dealer is still clutching his forearm and screaming.

It’s all so easy that Jason can’t stop the bark of laughter. “Oof,” he feigns a wince and grins wickedly. “That was your dominant hand, wasn’t it? My bad, champ.” 

What is… significantly harder to fight is the urge to point, aim, shoot. 

It would be well-deserved. Liam has been selling hard drugs to at-risk people for months (Jason tries not to think of his mom). Liam bashed Jason’s head into a wall and kidnapped him. Liam tried to murder a child.  

Jason doesn’t even want to kill Liam; he wants to maim him. To hurt him— hurt him like he hurt Jason’s baby brother. It doesn’t matter that surgery will never fix the damage already done to Liam’s wrist. It’s not enough. It’s not enough when he can still hear Alvin’s abject scream after Liam had fired that bullet.

(Batman has made his hatred of guns explicitly clear, but he understands poetic justice, doesn’t he?)

He levels the gun at Liam’s shoulder and takes a long, unsteady breath. He doesn’t have long. The rest of the goons are going to come barreling in any moment and Alvin has slumped over in his chair (not dead, not dead, please don’t be dead) and if Jason is going to do something, he has to do it now.

A blur of blue above them catches Jason’s eye.

He pulls the trigger.

In chapter ten of ‘The Outsiders,’ Dally Winston dies.

Tim cried when he read about it last night. Or, more accurately, he’d started crying (little sniffles) when Johnny died and he was still crying (full body sobs) by the time Dally went ahead and got his body filled with bullet lead.

(There’s a gunshot and it’s loud, loud, loud, but. This time, it doesn’t hurt? Nobody even screams. The bullet cracks into the overhead light and the warehouse succumbs to complete darkness)

It hadn’t even been them dying that made him cry. Tim is used to death; his grandparents are all dead, and Mrs. Mac likes to tell stories about her late husband, and Tim lives in Gotham where the Joker killed six people during his escape from Arkham a year ago.

No, what ached was them dying before their parents could start loving them right.

Tim doesn’t want to die before his parents can start loving him right.

(Is Tim dying? Do his parents love him right?)

(Do his parents love him at all?)

“Alvin, please. Please talk to me, please be okay, oh my God, please…” There are hands cradling Tim’s face and a thumb pressed to his neck and he feels fuzzy and safe and loved but something is also very wrong. “Dick, please, I can’t… I— I can’t pick him up—” 

It feels like there is cotton in Tim’s brain and pennies in his mouth and then suddenly gravity stops existing altogether and is he moving?

Tim tries to open his eyes, he really does, but his body is not listening to him and all he can do is sway in a haze of dark uncertainty. Where is he going? He tries listening to the voices that have erupted around him, but everything is too fragmented and rushed to make sense. 

That’s okay. 

Tim doesn’t need to know how many people there are. He doesn’t need to know what they want.

The fear and pain that had been making Tim so upset have finally started to slip away and his brain is settling into a serene nothingness that Jack would be very proud of. 

“N? Is he…?” 

Whoever has Tim in their arms (when did that happen?) says no very firmly, and then something along the lines of Tim being in shock. It’s a little funny, though, because Tim doesn’t feel surprised; he feels…

Floaty?

“…needs a hospital…”

“What if… Leslie…”

“No.”

“—not listening to me!” 

Thorned fear slashes through his peaceful quietude, and Tim jerks as far away from the offending noise as he can. He doesn’t even have time to regret it before a wildfire of pain erupts from his arm and spreads and spreads until he forgets how to breathe and the agony devours him whole.

Fingers smoothing through his hair bring Tim back but he’s still defying gravity so he couldn’t have missed too much time. The voices are less fragmented and far softer. “…know him?”

“It’s complicated.”

”Is he an… old friend?”

“Dick, stop. We’ll talk later when…”

Tim is tired. He lets himself drift.

He’s in a car. 

It’s moving very, very fast. 

Nobody is talking, but he’s lying in someone’s lap and their hand is pressed to his arm so tightly that he can feel their heartbeat in all its rattling entirety. 

Whoever is holding him is warm and Tim’s clothes are wet (has he been playing in the mud? mommy says he’s not to do that anymore), but they don’t seem to care, which is good because Tim really doesn’t want them to let go. 

He’s cold.

Tim curls into them and their hold tightens gently around him, “It’s okay. I’ve got you, baby bird…” 

He believes them.

Drifts.

The voice returns sharp and tight with panic, “No, no, hey. Please hold on. I can’t—”

Tim fists the fabric of their shirt because he isn’t sure how else he’s supposed to hold on, but doesn’t want to worry Robin and he doesn’t want to disobey an order and he’s trying his best. 

He pauses. Goes back over that last train of thought. Is he really with… “Robin?” 

A choked exhale, “Yeah, kiddo. It’s…” Whatever Robin says is lost in the blur of tires and sirens and screams (those might be in his head), and then Tim thinks that Robin shouts Batman’s name, but he doesn’t have the energy to keep eavesdropping.

Tim is sorry when his hand lets go of Robin’s shirt. He’d tried to hold on.

He’d really tried.

Tim is floating again.

Carried, his brain explains, belatedly.

Whoever has him is moving fast.

Are they running?

It hurts. 

He hurts.

Tim chokes on his tears and wonders if this is how it feels to die. 

He wonders if this is what Johnny and Dally and his grandparents and Mrs. Mac’s husband and those poor people the Joker killed felt.

Maybe he’ll get to ask them.

In Tim’s dreams, the pain is gone. 

As he floats aimlessly, he thinks that Gotham is brighter than he remembers; the glaring white walls make his eyes hurt. As he floats, he hears slot machines and ATMs, but his body is intangible and untethered, so he doesn’t hang around long enough to realize the robotic beeping is synced to his own heartbeat. 

Here, far away from reality, Tim is free. He doesn’t need to worry about rules or expectations or apologies and he gets to pretend that the impenetrable wall that separates him from everyone else has fallen away.

Someone is reading to him.

Robin is reading to him.

Tim had been so scared. He’d thought Robin was going to die in that warehouse. He’d thought they were both going to die.

He can still taste the blood in his mouth, smell it in the air, feel it between his fingers.

In Tim’s dreams, Robin wipes away his tears and tells him, “We made it out. You’re okay. You’re safe.” And Tim cries harder, clutching Robin so tightly that his nails probably leave bloody crescents, but Robin doesn’t care because he’s still whispering soft things like, “He’s never going to hurt you again.”

(The gunshot had been so loud)

How do you know? Tim wants to ask. How do you know how do you know howdoyouknow?

Maybe dream-Robin can read minds. His voice is firm with certainty, “He’s never even gonna be able to hold a pencil again, baby bird. I promise. I handled it.”

The man with the gun having officially worse dexterity than an infant is more comforting than Tim thought it would be.

The fear comes back, echoing and hollow, and Tim tells Robin he finished Outsiders. He wants to know if he’s going to die like Dally and Johnny and Ponyboy’s parents.

Robin says, “You finished it?” before shaking his head and backtracking. “And no. You’re not going to die. The hospital already did surgery and they said it went good. There’s also literally no way I’m letting you die, ever— I love you too much to let you ditch me for a bunch of dead book characters.”

It’s a funny thing for Tim’s brain to make up. The ‘I love you.’ He’s faintly surprised that his brain remembers it's a phrase people tell each other at all— it's not like anybody ever tells it to Tim.

“Nobody at all?”

It’s a cruel thing for dream-Robin to ask, but if this is the situation that Tim’s subconsciousness has created, he should answer as honestly as possible. “I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.” Tim is good at taking care of himself. He’s been doing it for years. 

He doesn’t need anyone. 

In Tim’s dreams, Robin calls his bluff. “Yes, you do,” and then Tim’s tears are being wiped away again and Robin takes hold of his hand and just… holds it. 

In Tim’s dreams and only in Tim’s dreams, Tim hears the things he’s spent his entire life wanting to hear. “I know what it’s like to be alone. I was alone for a long time, y’know. But I’m not anymore and neither are you. Not with me here and definitely not with N already mother-henning over you.”

This is a good dream.

Tim wants to sleep forever.

“Then go to sleep,” Robin laughs. “Nobody’s forcing you to stay awake, dopey.”

The last time Tim went to the hospital was in late December.

It had been so dumb— a string of small, relatively insignificant dominoes falling over in rapid succession and taking Tim’s entire Christmas down with it.

The first domino was tipped when Tim had been planning which coat he’d wear snowboarding with his parents and his phone lit up with an email from his father. 

An email, not a call or text.

His father’s business email.

The message was as patentedly concise as all of Jack’s emails were (He was sorry that he and Janet could not make it back to Gotham for Christmas but there is a gift card attached to the message and they will celebrate Christmas together once they come home), but Tim had to go over it four separate times before he managed to understand the contents.

And, despite how badly he wanted to, Tim did not get upset. How could he? The gift card was for four hundred dollars— any reaction but gratitude would’ve been immature and spoiled.

So Tim took a deep breath, folded his winter clothes, grabbed the large, clear clothing bin lid and marched to the staircase. 

If his parents would not take him snowboarding, then, well, whatever, that was fine. He would just snowboard here. At home with all the glory of polished hickory floors and long, empty hallways. And it would be better, actually, he realized, because he no longer had to pick between the blue coat and the green coat. 

He doesn’t need a coat when he has nowhere to go.

It was a stupid thing to do, placing the lid at the top of the stairs and stepping onto it. Not that Tim had cared as he careened down the Drake manor’s grand staircase, balancing on his plastic lid and feeling giddy with adrenaline and terror.

Screw his parents’ stupid rules, anyway! They had to be around to discipline him.

And then Tim had realized he was heading straight towards the newly painted alabaster walls his mother loved so much and he knew it had been a mistake. Janet would be so upset if he scratched the paint.

Tim threw himself to the side, off the lid and a half dozen more dominoes went crashing down alongside his curled-up body as he rolled down the remainder of the staircase.

When his body had slammed into the hardwood tiles with a sickening crunch, Tim couldn’t stop the wail of pain that spilled out of his lips. He couldn’t do anything but lie on the ground, his back to Janet’s undamaged white paint, and let the bubbling void in his chest drown his soul. 

When he cried, he blamed his tears on how badly his deepening bruises hurt and not on how badly it hurt that nobody. Even. Cared.

Mrs. Mac came over with a chicken casserole the next day and when she saw Tim’s swollen ankle and multitude of deep bruises, she immediately dragged him to her car while shouting at him for being a foolish, reckless boy in Irish the entire time.

Tim pretended he couldn’t understand her, it made her disappointment in him hurt less.

The hospital trip itself had been completely unnecessary because Tim ankle was only sprained (Google had been very helpful in ruling out a break or fracture) and the hospital couldn’t do anything but give him a brace, tell him to take it easy for a few weeks, and advise Tim to come in for a follow-up in one month.

A nurse gave him orange Jell-O, though, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Since Mrs. Mac wasn’t even Tim’s nanny — just a maid who cared too much about the sad child and his empty mansion — she’d been unable to schedule him a follow-up appointment herself. Tim gently reassured her that he’d get his parents to call the hospital when they got home from… from whichever country they were currently in.

Only… by the time his parents came home in mid-February, he’d ascertained that there was no logical reason to stress his parents out over a dumb, already-healed, sprained ankle.

So he said nothing when Janet asked about the medical bill charge. 

So he said nothing when Jack asked about the brace in his bedroom.

At least, he would’ve said nothing, if they ever asked.

It’s July and Tim is in the hospital again.

He has a feeling it’s more serious than last time. 

“Hey, R, I think he’s waking up,” someone says and Tim must have died and gone to the afterlife because that’s Nightwing talking. Nightwing, as in Dick Grayson. Nightwing, as in the original Robin. Nightwing, as in Tim’s mother-freaking idol.

“Alvin?” And oh, that’s Robin. Robin, as in Tim’s unwitting best friend.

And Robin is calling Tim by his… photographer alias?

It’s difficult to peel open his eyelids, but the universe rewards Tim’s efforts with the image of Nightwing and Robin hovering above him. Both of them are still in their complete vigilante get-ups, but Nightwing’s suit is smeared with dried blood and Jason has a thick layer of bandages wrapped around his stomach and they both look so worried.

“What’s wrong?” Tim asks with far more panic and far less cool-guy-chill than he’d intended. What happened to them? How badly were they injured? Why is his head full of sludge and a glaring lack of memories? 

Robin looks away, face crumpling, so Tim turns his attention to Nightwing’s soft, steady smile. “Nothing’s wrong. What do you remember, honey?”

While Tim thinks that he is decidedly not a honey , something about the nickname coming from Nightwing feels so wonderfully kind that he lets it slide. “Remember?” Tim echoes blankly and can only sit and watch as all of his skipped-two-grades-of-school intelligence bleeds away.

His answer cracks through Nightwing’s amicable mask and Tim doesn’t like how distress looks on Nightwing’s face so he needs to fix this. What should he be remembering? Does he know something important? Maybe he watched someone commit a crime and they’re here because he’s a key witness but what good is a key witness if they have brain damage?

Does Tim have brain damage?

He doesn’t want brain damage; he wants to help solve this case.

He looks away from Nightwing because this is a mystery and Tim can be a good detective and to do that, he just needs to find clues. If he finds clues then he can fix this for everyone and nobody will be mad at him because all Tim has ever wanted was for people not to be mad at him.

He just needs to think.

What happened to him?

His shoulder is bandaged. Why is his shoulder bandaged? His fingers brush against the wraps and it hurts and there is a smooth voice saying, “Bad bird,” and a gunshot and someone screams and now the pain is all-encompassing and there is more screaming and more pain, pain, pain and Tim doesn’t want to remember this anymore.

He can’t breathe.

He can’t get away. He tries to crawl but there’s nowhere to go. 

And Robin is swearing but not at Tim and why is the gun still pointed at him? Tim doesn’t know what he did wrong and who is screaming and why does everything hurt and he is so scared and he can’t breathe and—

—And fingers are slipping underneath his chin and he can’t see the bandages on his arm anymore because now he’s looking at Nightwing but Nightwing isn’t frowning anymore and he looks gentle and nice (not mad, not mad, not mad) and he’s talking so Tim should be listening so Tim tries to listen.

“It’s alright, baby,” a demonstrative deep breath. Tim tries to copy it. “Good. Deep breaths. There you go. It’s okay. You’re okay, Alvin, honey. You’re safe. You are safe.” 

Nightwing’s fingers shift gently from Tim’s chin to his hair, carding gently through the tangles that form whenever Tim sleeps. The touch is so wildly foreign that Tim‘s voice drops into existence with a croaky, “Robin?”

The younger vigilante slowly shifts into Tim’s line of vision, posture stiff in a way that reminds Tim of Janet whenever she goes too far in a fight with Jack and says something really mean that she regrets. What could Robin possibly regret? “I’m here,” Robin’s smile is unconvincing. 

“Are you okay?”

“Am I—” Robin sputters over the words, taking a half-step backward and raking his hand through his hair. “Am I okay? Obviously, I’m okay, you’re the one who got—” 

“—Little Wing…” Nightwing’s warning is barely more than a whisper, but it stops Robin cold in his tracks. “Alvin is okay. Everyone is okay."

There’s a sharp inhale from Robin, but Tim doesn’t want to give Robin’s frustration a chance to reignite, so he abandons his manners and speaks before anyone else can. “That’s not my name.” Two sets of white lensed eyes swivel in his direction. “Um. Sorry. I… I didn’t mean to— to lie, but…”

He prepares himself for anger. For indignation. 

He’s not prepared for Robin to scoff and say, “Yeah, clearly.” 

“What?”

“You think I don’t know when someone is lying to me?” He sounds more amused than offended, which makes absolutely no sense to Tim. 

Nightwing tries to hide his smile by glancing away and Tim’s face burns with shame. Right. What had he been thinking? As if he could lie to Robin. He’s such a loser. The hand in Tim’s hair pauses for a moment before a thumb brushes absently over the red in his face. “Aw, honey, it’s okay… Robin’s practically a human lie detector.”

“Nightwing’s right. Really, don’t sweat it, kid, you tried your best. I’m sure you’re a great liar.” Robin forces a crooked grin, “Will you tell us your actual name now?”

Tim will absolutely not be doing that. 

He hadn’t wanted to be actively lying to the vigilantes anymore, but Robin had called him a stalker back in the warehouse, and stalking is a crime, so if they know his real name, they’ll be able to arrest him. And Tim can’t get arrested because then his parents will find out, and he probably won’t be released in time to attend the first day of school next month and he really can’t have that happen.

“No,” he decides, firmly. “How did we get out?”

Despite his memory coming back in waves (trying to drag his bleeding body away from the man with the gun and crying and bleeding and cutting Robin’s ropes), the last thing Tim can recall is sitting down in a chair and the warehouse being very, very cold.

Robin jerks his chin at Nightwing, “The cavalry showed up. Those assho— punks were no match once I had a little back-up.”

“Oh.” That made sense.

Silence washes over the room and Tim uses the moment to close his eyes and lean further into Nightwing’s touch. He should be embarrassed, but his brain is still fuzzy around the edges and doctors give you pain medicine when you get shot so Tim can blame acting like a baby on that. 

Nightwing himself (the traitor) breaks the silence after a few minutes of peace. “Is there someone we can call for you? A parent? Legal guardian?”

And.

And Tim knows what Nightwing is hinting at. 

The vigilantes were nice enough to stay with Tim until he woke up, but they are busy people and they can’t just stand around coddling him forever. They have to leave. Of course, they do. Tim knew this. He’s surprised they even stayed this long.  

Tim is achingly familiar with the process of being left, so he doesn’t understand why a hole opens up inside his chest and he doesn’t understand why it feels worse than being shot.

Stop acting like a baby, he can hear Janet saying.

“It’s alright,” He’s trying to sound as certain as Nightwing, but he knows he’s failing because the back of his throat stings and his voice has more in common with a frog than a hero and oh, no, no, no, he’s crying. He’s crying in front of Nightwing and Robin. “You guys should go, I’ll just… I’ll just call my…”

His…

His who?

His parents are in New Zealand and Mrs. Mac doesn’t work until Wednesday and Tim doesn’t have anyone else. 

Tim is alone. He’s so completely alone and he’s always been alone and now that Robin’s forgiven him, there’s no reason for Tim to bring him apology gifts anymore so it’s time for Tim to fade into the darkness and it’s time for him to be so terribly lonely again.

“I fucking told you, N,” Robin’s voice is venomous but Tim doesn’t have the energy to figure out what he’s done wrong. “Move.”

A bona fide whine falls from Tim’s lips when Nightwing’s touch disappears and it’s pathetic but he’s already been acting like a complete mess, so what’s the point in attempting damage control now? 

(Tim thinks that he’d rather be remembered as whiny and pitiful than not remembered at all. He’s tired of being forgotten)

The mattress sags to Tim’s right and before he can react, arms are wrapping around him and his bones feel as though they are made of putty as he’s pulled right into someone’s chest. Tim doesn’t hesitate, his fingers curling greedily into the Robin suit, just above the bandages. 

“You’re dumber than rocks if you think we plan on ditching you, baby bird.” 

“It’s not… ditching if you don’t know me,” Tim doesn’t know why he’s arguing.

Maybe it’s because a strange little part of him likes it when Robin’s voice gets all indignant and emotional and he says things like, “You think I don’t know the kid I’ve been coming to see for thirty-three days? The kid who literally saved my fuc— my life?”

If Tim is recalling correctly, he’d managed to do very little saving in his rescue mission attempt, but he’s not stupid enough to remind Robin of that. Instead, Tim says, “I have parents.”

“Yeah?” Robin’s voice is surprisingly soft. 

“Mhm,” Tim buries his face in Robin’s chest, and the older boy’s rapid, steady heartbeat is the most wonderfully real thing he’s ever felt. “They’re just digging old stuff up in New Zealand right now, so they can’t pick me up.”

There’s a long pause and when Robin speaks, it’s glacier slow. “New Zealand?”

“Yeah.”

“Right. Of course, they are,” there’s a small laugh that Tim feels more than hears. “‘Cause where else would they be?”

Tim doesn’t think this is a genuine question, but he can’t be sure, so he errs on the side of caution. He doesn’t want to disappoint Robin when he’s being so nice and when he’s so warm and when he’s cuddling Tim. Tim’s never been cuddled before. “Well, last month they were in Tanzania.”

“Tanzania?”

“Yeah. Do you have echolalia?”

Nightwing (How did Tim forget Nightwing was here?) barks out a laugh and Tim tightens his grip on Robin’s suit, preemptively trying to keep the vigilante still if he tries getting up. But Robin doesn’t try; he just ruffles Tim’s hair and keeps him close. “Okay, Einstein. Don’t hurt yourself with these big words.”

Tim snorts, “That’s not a big word. I’m eleven, not five.”

“You really are eleven?”

“Um, yes?”

Everyone falls silent for a minute and Tim distinctly feels like he’s just said the wrong thing. “But you’re so… tiny?” Robin’s voice wobbles unsteadily and Tim frowns. “Don’t you eat? I swear if all I was giving you while you were literally starving was muffins, then I’m going to—”

At the same time Tim mumbles, “Wasn’t starving,” Nightwing says, “You gave him muffins?”

If Robin throws Nightwing a look (he does), Tim doesn’t see it because his eyes have drifted shut and he’s really tired and Robin is comfortable. And, well, he is in the hospital and he did just get shot and if Robin meant it when he said he wasn’t leaving, then maybe Tim can just… take a small nap?

“Nu-uh,” Robin taps the top of Tim’s head with his index finger, so Tim scowls and shoots him the most annoyed look he can muster. “Answer me first, baby bird.”

Uncertainly, “Answer what?”

Exasperated, “When’s the last time you ate something?”

Tim doesn’t point out that he knows for a fact that Robin never asked that. “Oh. Um, I don’t know. Not sure what time it is, but I had mac’n’cheese for dinner. I told you ‘m not homeless.” He nestles back into the embrace contentedly. 

“No, you said you had parents. Who are in, and I quote, ‘New Zealand.’”

“They are in New Zealand,” Tim sighs. “I have a home.”

Nightwing cuts in, “Wait, what are your parents doing in New Zealand?”

“Digging for things.”

“Where do you live?” Robin’s asking questions again.

It’s getting hard to keep up with the rapid-fire through the thick haze that’s wrapped around Tim’s mind. “What?”

“Where do you live ?”

“Next door.”

“To the hospital?”

His sluggish, exhausted, heavily medicated brain is ready to collapse in on itself, “No. To Batman.”

“Come on, kid. I’m serious.”

Tim is going to scream if they don’t let him go to bed. He’s too tired, too achy, too comfortable for this interrogation. “I am being serious! I’m not homeless— I live on Crest Hill!” 

Robin’s body tenses and the room gets so quiet that Tim actually has to open his eyes and check that nobody has left. They haven’t, but Nightwing is staring at him so intensely that dread fills Tim from head to toes. He’s not tired anymore.

“What?” he asks hesitantly. 

What has he just done? 

Nightwing scoffs in bewilderment, and when he speaks, it’s not a question but a statement. An accusation. A condemnation. “Timothy Drake.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise, considering Nightwing’s dad is literally the Greatest Detective in the World, but Tim hadn’t told them anything! He didn’t tell them his name or his school or his— his parents. He’d told them about his parents. His rich, high-profile parents and their rich, high-profile archeology digs in New Zealand.

And he told them his freaking address!

He is so. So stupid.

(What had Robin said earlier? Dumber than rocks? Yeah, that’s probably accurate)

“No!” He lies, but it’s pointless because Robin is already pulling away to look Tim over, mouth dropped open. Puzzle pieces must be clicking together above Tim’s head like bullets in a chamber for the vigilantes. 

“No, no, that’s not me. Who is Timothy Drake? I don't even know that guy!” Is his voice supposed to go that high? Tim doesn’t think so. He can’t stop it. “You’re wrong!”

Neither vigilante seems to hear him. Nightwing tips his head slightly, “You said you lived next door to Batman. Does that mean…?” Does it mean he knows their identities?

Tim deflates. Nods. “Sorry.”

“For how long?” Robin is still holding Tim but there is a small gap between them and the distance aches . Tim’s arm aches too. He tries not to think about either thing, but it’s harder than he’d ever admit. “Tim—” Tim’s name coming from Robin’s mouth feels like both a dream come true and a night terror. “—How long have you known?”

Since he evidently sucks at lying, he opts for the truth: “Two years.”

“Two yea—” Tim’s lips unintentionally warp into a small smile and Jason abandons his dismayed echo, blowing out a long breath instead and settling back down on the bed. Tim promptly collapses back into the embrace. “B is going to lose his fucking mind.”

“Language,” Dick chides absently. “But yeah. He is.”

Tim isn’t sure if his next question is smart to ask, just in case they’d forgotten, but he doesn’t think he can fall asleep with the uncertainty biting at his thoughts. “Are you going to arrest me for stalking you?” 

Nightwing’s throat makes an odd, stunned sound and Robin barks out a laugh as he playfully ruffles Tim’s hair. It’s so soothing that Tim forgets to be worried. “Depends. Are you going to expose our secret identities?”

“What?” even thinking such a thing feels blasphemous. “No.”

“Cool. Then it’s a trade. A secret for a secret.”