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English
Series:
Part 1 of Frog Emojis, Gargoyles, and Tim - Oh, My
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Published:
2025-08-30
Completed:
2025-08-30
Words:
1,639
Chapters:
2/2
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26
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362
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41
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1,931

A Study in Revenge

Summary:

Screw you, man.

 

The text is accompanied by a devil face emoji, a middle finger emoji, and a frog emoji.

Jason frowns.

- OR -

Tim is, to put it lightly, not happy with Jason after the events of Titan's Tower.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Tim comes swimming back to consciousness through a haze of pain. He feels floaty, which means Bruce gave him the good stuff.

 

Blegh. Tim hates the good stuff. Like, sure, it’s nice not to be in agony, but it’s hard to adequately plot revenge when all your thoughts feel like marshmallows.

 

Marshmallows sound really good right now, actually. Marshmallows on hot chocolate – no, on mocha – no, skip the chocolate, just make it coffee – yes, actually. The first thing Tim is going to do once he gets out of here is drink a quintuple shot of espresso with marshmallows (no cream or sugar, just the marshmallows).

 

The other first thing Tim is going to do once he gets out of here (because, be honest, Tim is nothing if not an expert multitasker) is plot Jason’s untimely demise.

 

Or, well. Jason’s already died once, and came back from it as fit as a flea, built like a fridge, and with fabulous anger issues. So clearly death isn’t going to stick.

 

Fortunately, Tim considers himself an expert on fates worse than death.

 

Like being stuck in the medbay, banged-up and bandaged, with B lurking in the background like an emotionally constipated hobgoblin.

 

“Bruce,” is what Tim doesn’t say.

 

“Batman,” is what Tim doesn’t say.

 

In fact, Tim doesn’t say anything. The second he opens his mouth and tries to talk, searing agony rips through his throat, good stuff and all.

 

“Don’t try to talk,” B says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “How…how much do you remember, Tim?”

 

Tim glares at him. He remembers plenty, thank you very much. Actually, now that he’s thinking about, he does remember Jason slitting his throat.

 

Overdramatic thespian bullshit, that’s what that was. So rude.

 

Tim is going to make Hood’s life hell.

 

But to do that, he first has to convince Bruce to take him off the good stuff, so that he can actually focus his eyes and string more than two consecutive thoughts together, and then he has to escape the medbay.

 

It takes several minutes of irritated gesturing to make B go hunt down a notepad and pen. (Tim would like it put on the record that the bastard understood what he wanted within the first thirty seconds, and the remaining six minutes were all excuses: “Tim, your fingers are broken”, “Tim, you need to rest, we can talk later”, “Tim, your wrist is broken as well as your fingers, how do you plan on writing?”, “Tim, your leg is fractured, writing with your toes will not work – ”.)

 

It takes Tim several more minutes of intense concentration (broken fingers and the good stuff make writing a bitch), but he finally thrusts the notepad in B’s direction. His ordinary handwriting, which is clear if a little bit rough, has devolved into a jagged, spiky mess.

 

B manages to read it anyway, and when he finishes Tim’s impassioned rant, he sighs.

 

“Tim, you’re lucky to be alive. You need to rest.”

 

Nuh-uh, Tim does not need to rest. He got into this business to stop B from doing something monumentally stupid the last time Jason got into Trouble™, there ain’t no way he’s gonna quit now. He snatches the notepad back from B, scribbling madly.

 

Imm gonna make him pey, Tim writes, ignoring the wounded feeling deep within his soul at the sight of so many spelling errors and misshapen letters. The good stuff sucks.

 

“Tim. You are not going after Hood.”

 

Tim glares at B.

 

Ur emoo emotianoallly comprimized, he writes, jabbing his pencil in B’s direction once he’s done.

 

B’s face could be a piece of art in a museum. “Emotional Illiteracy in the Fourth Dimension”, or something like that. He doesn’t give Tim’s notebook back, which is just rude, and he gives Tim a sedative to help him sleep, which is unforgivable.

 

I will get you for this, Tim thinks, fighting to stay awake even as his eyes insist on slipping shut. Alfred’s wrath don’t got nothing on me.

 

He’ll make amends to the English language at a future, unspecified date.

 

 

-

 

 

In the end, it takes two days for Tim to annoy B into letting him out of the medbay. Granted, B refuses to let him go back to Drake Manor (Tim curses the day Dick taught him how to make puppy eyes, they’re useless against B’s brand of obstinacy), but he does let Tim go upstairs to his bedroom.

 

Or, well. It isn’t really Tim’s bedroom, he just sleeps there sometimes. He’d rather he didn’t – he’s B’s coworker, not a member of the family – but sometimes compromises have to be made when your coworker is paranoia personified and has the EQ of a dead slug.

 

(Tim is aware that he also has an EQ so low it’s practically nonexistent, but at least he’s self-aware enough to notice.)

 

But – and this is a big, gloriously important "but" – Tim’s laptop is in his the bedroom.

 

And sure, he has a concussion and Alfred and B have strictly banned screens of all kinds. But Tim out-stubborned and out-smarted Batman into making him Robin. He can totally find a way to get illegal screen time.

 

Typing is a pain, and Tim has never made so many typos in his life, oh my Gotham, but the end of the matter is that Tim’s first stab at revenge is now in motion.

 

Hah, stab. Now that’s an idea. Tim’s not going to break B’s one rule or anything, but B’s never said anything about some light stabbing.

 

Tim falls asleep wondering if it’s possible to order a metric ton of cockroaches anyplace or if that’s just the painkillers screwing with him.

Chapter 2

Notes:

No hate to That Girl Lay Lay, I just find the idea of Tim spamming Jason with her music hilarious.

Chapter Text

Jason’s phone buzzes at the ungodly hour of four-thirty a.m., and he rolls over in bed to find a text from an unknown number.

 

Screw you, man.

 

The text is accompanied by a devil face emoji, a middle finger emoji, and a frog emoji.

 

Jason frowns, decides that he’s too tired to deal with this right now, and goes back to sleep.

 

 

-

 

 

The next time Jason’s phone goes off, it starts playing the Catchy Song from the second Lego Movie as loud as humanly possible. Jason didn’t even know his phone could achieve that level of volume.

 

He answers the phone, noting that it’s the same unknown number as before.

 

“When I find you,” Jason growls, “you will suffer.”

 

The reply is nothing but a judging silence.

 

Jason pulls the phone away from his ear, frowning, just as “Stop Playin” by That Girl Lay Lay begins blasting on the other end.

 

Jason hangs up.

 

 

-

 

 

The next time his phone goes off, the ringtone is “Do What I Want”. Jason had no idea That Girl Lay Lay existed up until this point, but he’s quickly developing a severe distaste for her music.

 

He’s beginning to wonder if he’s being threatened, and decides that it’d be wise to do some digging.

 

 

-

 

 

The unknown number sends him a picture of a frog holding a knife.

 

Jason blocks the number and buys a new phone.

 

The unknown number spams him with frog emojis until he gives up. He names the number GREAT IRRITATIONS and buys a burner phone to do his important work with so that he can leave his other phone on mute.

 

GREAT IRRITATIONS is not deterred.

 

 

-

 

 

It isn’t until Jason is in the middle of a drug bust, about to shoot one of Black Mask’s men in the kneecaps, that he realizes GREAT IRRITATIONS may not have stopped with his phone.

 

“You piece of [redacted],” Jason growls. Then he stops, jaw dropping, because the voice modulator in his helmet actually said “redacted.”

 

What the hell…

 

Jason swears again, and the same thing happens. To make things exponentially worse, whoever did this somehow recoded his voice modulator so that “redacted” is said in the brightest, chirpiest voice imaginable.

 

He sounds like a [redacted] ten-year-old girl.

 

When Jason gets back to his safe house, the flood of frog emojis to his other phone has ceased. Instead, there’s a picture of Kermit the frog smiling in a distinctly passive-aggressive manner, with the caption Time to suffer.

 

Jason throws his phone out the window.

 

 

-

 

 

Jason struggles with his helmet for two weeks. He tries everything he can think of and then some, but no matter what he does the damn voice modulator won’t stop censoring him. It gets to the point where he has to stop wearing the stupid helmet, because his men aren’t taking him seriously when a ten-year-old girl’s voice keeps coming out of his helmet.

 

Calling GREAT IRRITATIONS only results in being blasted with That Girl Lay Lay, so he settles for texting them with a liberal number of death threats.

 

The only reply is a middle finger emoji.

 

 

-

 

 

“Alfred?”

 

“Yes, Master Bruce?”

 

“Do you know why Tim is laughing maniacally over in the den?”

 

The two men turn, looking over to where Tim is hunched over his laptop, a fiendish grin on his face, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. If it weren’t for the still-extensive damage to his vocal cords, he would almost certainly be cackling like the villain in a low-budget movie. 

 

“I do not, Master Bruce.”

 

“Should I be concerned?”

 

“Quite possibly.”

 

 

-

 

 

For a blissful two days, Jason’s voice modulator works like normal.

 

Until it doesn’t.

 

Batman manages to corner him on the roof of the apartment building at the corner of 3rd and Masterson.

 

Batman nearly falls off the roof when Jason’s helmet calls him “you marshmallowing bunny-man,” and Jason rips the helmet off and kicks it off the roof.

 

Jason’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and Jason doesn’t have to check to know that GREAT IRRITATIONS has probably texted him another disturbing Kermit picture.

 

Someday, he will figure this out, and when he does, there will be hell to pay.

Notes:

*years later*

Tim: *sends frog emoji with some random text*

Jason: THAT WAS YOU???

Tim: *Kermit meme*

Jason: *dies*

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