Chapter Text
It was raining the day Jason found out.
Fat drops of rain slid off awnings and stone gargoyles and puddled in the cracked streets. Gotham was busy with blaring car horns and people shouting as they rushed down the streets with newspapers and umbrellas propped over their heads.
Jason had pushed through the crowd slowly, hood pulled low over his eyes. He paid no mind to the rain spattered across his leather jacket’s shoulders, eyes unfocused as he continued towards Crime Alley.
A car rushed by and splashed muddy water up onto the street, prompting several shouts and a small girl shrieking in joy. Jason saw it all blindly, seeing but not processing. The same thoughts kept rotating in his head: crazy, broken, damaged, wrong.
Jason came back wrong.
He doesn’t remember the year he spent with the League after his rebirth. It had been shadowed and crazy, broken, and disconnected, pitted randomly with slight memories or physical sensations. (Damian’s laugh; swords clashing; Talia’s hands against his skin.)
He remembers the time after. The remaining three years before his resurrection hit the Wayne house. There had been a devastating fear of abandonment revolving around Bruce’s desertion when Jason was fifteen; rare moments of happiness, like learning Arabic alongside Damian, that buoyed into euphoria; misery of remembering before that became a suffocation.
You fall within all nine criteria, the psychologist had said. I believe your anger, fear of abandonment, impulsivity, and emotional instability to be the most prominent.
The sharp, often inappropriate rage that allowed him to govern the streets as Red Hood. The shadows of the Joker that creeped closer as Robin called out for a Batman who wasn’t coming in his nightmares. The impulsivity that often ended with him surrounded by forces of criminals. The emotional instability that is determined to end his relationship with Roy.
The walk back to his apartment was full of confusion, shame, and a reluctant, awful understanding.
Jason had left his shoes on the rack beside the apartment door. He’d gotten to the living room and curled into Roy’s front, sinking into the warm pressure surrounding him. Roy’s hair was still damp from a shower, skin flushed pink around the edges. He’d stroked Jason’s back and whispered that it was okay, Jaybird, I’ve got you.
He hadn’t known, but he’d held Jason carefully, without question.
Jason hadn’t cried. Everything had just felt…empty. The familiar old void in his chest had ached and throbbed.
Everything after was soft, short memories: gentle fingers massaging his scalp, Roy’s soft baritone in his ear, their silk bed sheets sliding against his legs.
Three days later, Jason still hasn’t told him. Roy is puttering around the kitchen, making breakfast, while Jason sits at the kitchen island and watches. Weak golden sun shines in, the sun barely having broken the horizon. Sleep last night had been fitful, and Roy had dragged them out of bed at first light.
A hissing voice in his head whispers about the things Roy will say if Jason tells him. How those people are crazy; manipulative and abusive. That Roy will break up with him; run away while he still has the chance.
“I made scrambled eggs and microwaved sausage,” Roy proclaims, setting a plate in front of Jason. It prompts a slight smile, because Jason knows Roy to live off of microwaved noodles and Thai take out.
“Thanks,” Jason says. Roy’s eyes are bright despite the early hour, lips a crooked yet proud grin. His hair is a mess of layers around his face.
Jason begins to eat slowly while Roy grabs a blanket off the couch. He sits on the stool beside Jason and winds it around their shoulders, snuggling them together. Jason rests his head on Roy’s shoulder, exhaling softly into the quiet.
It’s a while of domestic noise, slowly working through their breakfasts as the sun inches across the polished counters.
“You wanna talk about it yet?” Roy asks. Jason pokes at his eggs, which are on the dry end. He swallows, feelings a heavy lump in his throat.
“No,” Jason says eventually. If he tells Roy, he’ll lose Roy. (Which has a possibility of happening anyways, but the chance is too great if Jason speaks.) They’ve been on and off for over a year, only going mostly-steady for the past four months. It feels fragile—temporary.
Everyone before Roy—platonic and familial, for Roy is Jason’s first romantic relationship—have left.
Bruce abandoned a fifteen-year-old to die in Ethiopia. He’d let his Robin experience torture under the hands of a maniac and then put another kid in the suit Jason had died in.
Golden Boy Dick had done nothing after this—not even attended the funeral. He’d been bright and perfect his entire life, spreading his wings even further after leaving Bruce. He’d been the legacy Jason could never live up to.
Tim, Replacement, had stolen Jason’s mantle, the happiest thing of his Before life. He’d redesigned the suit Jason had died in, been tortured in, experienced the nightmare and haunting laughs of Gotham’s clown.
Damian had moved in with Bruce, taking over Robin and no longer being the kid under Jason’s protection. He’d become what he wanted: a Robin that understood death. He wanted to learn under his father, and what right did Jason have to deny him this?
If Roy learns that Jason is one of them, he’ll know that Jason is wrong. Who is the problem. He’ll leave, just like them.
Roy hums, but he says nothing more. He squeezes the back of Jason’s neck before continuing down to rub his back. His hands are wide, calloused many times over from archery. He rubs circles on Jason’s lower back.
They continue eating, and the hours pass.
Jason’s fingers twitch against his bicep. His teeth grind together, violence foaming around them. Pressure is bubbling in his chest, hot and heavy. Weighted, iron images flash through his mind—the hot run of blood, a golden shine, the metal of a staff, the flicker of a yellow-edged cape.
Across the room, Roy stands, cheeks flush with anger, brow furrowed. Every inch of his posture is tense and cocked, angled towards the door rather than Jason. (Jason, who knows Roy wants to leave; can feel it like the anger bubbling in his veins.)
“I don’t even know why you’re still here,” Jason spits, eyes narrowed.
“Jason—”
“No! If you hate me and how I do things so much: leave! Leave, just like everyone else! I can just add your name to the fucking list.” Jason stomps over to the front door and throws it open, gesturing out.
Roy’s lips thin. He levels a blank look at Jason before pulling his coat on.
“If that’s how you feel,” he says flatly.
He pushes past Jason and walks into the hallway, heading for the elevator without a single glance back.
Jason screams into the empty apartment until his throat aches. The sound carries through the thin walls, almost echoing back tauntingly at him.
He storms through the living room, mind screaming for violence. Every inch of him trembles, the pressure in his chest only building further.
His mind warps and shakes, nothing but a dull rush sounding through his ears. He curses Roy’s name until he’s too tired to speak.
It’s late when the haze breaks. Jason collapses onto his bed, chest heaving with labored breaths. His knuckles burn from putting his fist through a plaster wall.
For a while, there is nothing. His breathing slows down eventually, hand slowly flexing as he gauges the damages. His thoughts blow away like tumbleweeds in the desert.
And then there is nothing but overwhelming guilt.
His stomach rolls, eyes squeezing closed as a vicious throb starts up in his head.
Roy is the most beautiful person Jason has ever seen. He’s bright, hair shining like a halo, eyes that light up when he smiles. He drinks coffee cold and tea scalding; he can’t cook for shit but made Jason breakfast-in-bed for his birthday. He kisses Jason’s scars and rubs cream into his overworked joints. When he gets sick, Roy feeds him soup and rubs his back.
Roy has always tried. He’s persistent, always pushing back to his feet with the weight of the world cracking his shoulders on the darkest nights. He’s survived addiction and loss time and time again.
No matter what, Roy has always believed in Jason. Helped him study for his GED, confident and cheering that he could get it. He’s told the bats and birds to back off when Jason needs it, knowing the right steps would be taken after.
Roy is beautiful, shining, brilliant, brave.
And Jason has just lost him.
Jason’s stomach growls again. Late afternoon light filters in through the thin drapes, falling over his back. Sometime overnight he’d switched from bawling his eyes out to numbness. He hasn’t eaten in over a day.
The wall in front of him is blank. His eyes stayed trained on it, the peeling tan plaster. He’s wearing Roy’s favorite hoodie—the one with “I ❤️ RED HOOD” printed on the front. Roy had laughed when Jason had first seen him wearing it. Cupped his face and pulled him into a sweet, hot kiss, lips still curved in a grin.
Jason had thought it was dumb, and a risk of their identities, but he’d always secretly loved it. It felt important, Roy walking around with Jason’s name on him. It felt like a brand.
He curls into himself a little more, arms wrapped securely around his midsection.
It feels like nothing now.
The streets of Crime Alley are painted red by the Hood. He rips through the underground with no remorse, vicious and loud in his methodology. The working girls keep the kids sheltered and fed while he destroys.
He crawls back to his apartment each night covered in his own blood. He gains scar upon scar, skin tight with healing.
It’s on a night that blends into all the rest that he hears soft feet land behind him. The rooftop is dim. He clicks the safety off his gun and grits his teeth.
“Bats aren’t allowed here,” he spits without turning around.
“When have us Robins ever followed the rules?” A voice says casually. Jason’s face contorts and he whirls around to face Dick, only mildly surprised to see Damian in his Robin regalia at Dick’s side.
“You know the agreement.”
“I do,” Dick agrees. “And I also know my little brother is apparently aiming to get himself killed. You have the eyes of every major player on you, Jaybird.”
“Do not call me that!” Jason roars.
Damian steps forward, his little fists clenched, bottom lip jutting out stubbornly.
“Akhi,” he says. “It is not just him that is worried.”
And Damian is—he’s Jason’s baby. Talia had put him into Jason’s arms with the order to protect and train, and he had taken it as seriously as he could in his catatonic state. Damian had slept in his room for years because they ‘fight better together’ (Damian’s words). The soft, small heartbeat had allowed Jason sleep on many occasions. It had been—hard, after Damian moved into the manor.
Damian is Jason’s baby, the one he’d sacrifice the world for.
“I’m fine,” Jason grits out through clenched teeth.
Damian steps forward and wraps his small frame around Jason, tucking himself up onto Jason’s feet like he’d learned when he was small. Jason leans down to accommodate the size difference, holding Damian securely in his arms.
Damian is warm. His hair smells like sunshine and youth when Jason breathes in. He squeezes Jason’s midsection with his arms, just enough for Jason to feel it.
“Make up with Harper,” Damian demands. “You are happy with him.”
Jason closes his eyes and leans further into the hug. He doesn’t question how Damian knows.
“I’m not sure he wants that, habibi.”
“Then he is a fool,” Damian says sharply. He pulls back from the hug and gives Jason a quick once-over. “Go home and rest. Do not return to the streets until you have spoken to him.”
Jason watches as Dick and Damian depart, eyes following them until they melt into the shadows. He drags himself home slowly, each movement pulling at a freshly-healed wound on his hip.