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The question sits like acid on the tip of his tongue.
He wants to spit it out, to rid himself of the burning between his cheeks, but he knows it risks landing on the tether binding him to his brother and he can’t risk that, can’t be the reason for their relationship to collapse.
But the question sits like acid on the tip of his tongue.
-
One leg up on the bed, the other dangling off, Jin-woo is trying, and failing, to knit. The needles are strange in his hands that are so used to holding weapons, the angles of his fingers odd as he tries to wrap the yarn around and dig it through the loops. He does not understand why people find this relaxing but his mom had lamented that her scarf was wearing out and she loved the damn thing because it was hand knit. His mom had done enough, had suffered enough for their family that Jin-woo could cope with his frustrations and make her one simple scarf.
On the floor Tae-im has his laptop balanced in his lap, his fingers tapping away on the keys, though Jin-woo had little idea what he was actually doing. He could be doing work for that company he kind of owns, maybe, or helping his Young Justice friends do the superhero thing. Maybe he was fighting on Reddit.
It could be all three.
Either way they sit in companionable silence littered with Tae-im’s clicking keys and Jin-woo’s clacking needles.
“Did you kill them?” Tae-im looks startled, as though someone was asking the question of him and not the other way around. Regret paints his face as he looks up, his hand pulling his laptop shut, and Jin-woo can see he is torn between truly wanting to know and regretting that he had asked. He opens his mouth, jaw working soundlessly, before his face sets into the same stubborn look Jin-ah got, in the time before, when she tore into Jin-woo for ending up in the hospital again.
Tae-im may regret asking the question but he won’t take it back.
He sets his needles down. Jin-woo doesn’t bother to play games. He knows who Tae-im is talking about. He may have not been in the room but he listened through Igris’s ears when Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson had swept back into Tae-im’s life with enough concern to warn him, but nothing more. If Jin-woo had ever thought that Jin-ah was in danger from something hidden in the dark he would have swept her over his shoulder and bodily hauled her out of Korea, her autonomy be damned. He would rather have an alive sister who hated him than a corpse he could have done more for.
But the Waynes have proven that their love for Tae-im has limits and rules. They warned him. They did their duty.
Then they left him in a city where they feared the Shadow Monarch would kill him. Their worries weren’t even unfounded.
After all, Jin-woo had murdered his little brother.
“Yes,” he says without affectation.
Tae-im’s eyes widen though Jin-woo suspects he is not surprised by the truth but by the baldness with which Jin-woo states it. He doesn’t dance around it or try to soften or excuse it. He isn’t going to play games with the truth. Tae-im knows what Jin-woo is, and what he isn’t, because on some level they are the same. When Jin-woo poured his love into Tae-im’s soul he changed something fundamental, even if neither of them are sure what it is. The existence of Snarf, Tae-im’s pet whatever, is proof that his brother is at least one step away from human. Death means little to Jin-woo.
Tae-im’s face smooths into blank marble, giving nothing away. Many think that when Tae-im does this he’s masking derision and judgement but Jin-woo has learned that he is parsing his own thoughts, examining them like gems from all angles. “Thank you for telling me.”
For being honest. For not gaslighting Tae-im or making him drag the truth out of Jin-woo the way one would try and pry out a molar. Tae-im might not like the answer, might be horrified by the action, but Jin-woo knows that honesty has been rare in his life and means much to him.
So he nods and lets Tae-im sit with the knowledge, willing to patiently wait until his brother decides what to do about the situation.
He goes back to his scarf.
-
He’s got maybe twenty centimetres, which means only one hundred and fifty to go, when there is a knock at his door. He sighs. He loves Tae-im and appreciates that Tae-im loves his groupmates, but he’s just started getting into a good rhythm tonight and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to get it back after they drag him into whatever has caught their fancy. It could be anything from a food run to a board game to making Jin-woo film their latest escapades. Normally he doesn’t mind as that is all part of the job he is paid to do but his mom’s birthday is coming and he would love to have this finished by then.
He sets his project down and finds Tae-im standing outside the door, face blank, and he steps aside to let the boy into his room.
Tae-im circles the space once as Jin-woo closes the door. He balances on one foot and uses the other to tap his toes against the ground. “Do you regret it?”
Jin-woo blinks. “Knitting?” Yes. “A little.” But he’s done harder things for his mom. He’ll get this figured out.
Tae-im stares at him in a way that strongly suggests Jin-woo is an idiot. It is a look that only his siblings have turned his way and it is, unfortunately, highly effective, except that Jin-woo has no idea what he is supposed to be regretting.
“Killing Justice League Dark.”
“Ah. That.”
Tae-im snorts, amused, exasperated, and bitter. “Yes. That.” He plants both his feet, bracing for an answer.
“No.” Jin-woo had killed, he’d slaughtered, the Justice League’s magic users and he feels no guilt for it. Some might think the speed at which he had killed them was a gift but Jin-woo knew it was a ruthless practicality. They had watched their deaths come and had known true helplessness in the short moments between his escape and their ends. And if the situation were to be repeated the only difference is he would do it faster instead of playing around waiting for them to try their paltry tricks and see if one of them was smart enough to bring out a translation guide. The most important people in Jin-woo’s life are his family and he’s learned that though the gates are gone there are still risks he needs to protect them from. He can’t waste time being merciful to the stupid when there are other people’s lives in the balance. It isn’t just about Jin-woo and he cannot forget that.
If anything, Jin-woo takes a frisson of satisfaction in their deaths, though he doesn’t know if he felt that at the time or if those feelings were superimposed after he understood the sins they had committed against him and his. They are easy to hate, Ra’s is easy to hate, and given what Jin-woo had to do that night, he needs people to hate.
Tae-im nods, his face as stoic as Jin-woo’s tends to be, and leaves the room.
Jin-woo does the only thing he can and goes back to his knitting.
-
They’ve been filming a music video all day, leaving Jin-woo little to do but wait. Kim Jimin is a safe director and he keeps a safe set so Jin-woo doesn’t need to be on high alert and is content to let his shadows watch for signs of trouble, which leaves him free to continue with his scarf. He’s at about a hundred centimetres now, a little over halfway, and not feeling terrible about it. There are a few spots where he’s dropped stitches but there have been others where he’s inserted extra, so while the scarf isn’t straight it also isn’t a triangle.
He is also beginning to not hate knitting. He doesn’t love it - he doesn’t think he ever will- but if Jin-ah or Tae-im asked for something knit, something simple, he wouldn’t immediately dismiss doing it himself out of hand.
Jin-woo is too aware of his surroundings to be surprised when a sweating Tae-im drops into the chair next to him, his face flushed and his sweat beginning to be at his brow. If he had been Jin-ah, Jin-woo would have expected her to wipe the sweat away with a hand and then try to wipe that hand against him, or to whine and cajole Jin-woo into fetching her a towel or a bottle of water. Tae-im already has a towel gracing his shoulders though, and a bottle of water dangles precariously at his fingertips.
It’s too loud in the studio to even pretend they are sitting in silence, but neither of them speak, content to be in each other’s proximity.
“I’m not mad,” Tae-im says suddenly.
“Hm?” Jin-woo looks up, his eyes narrowing as he wonders who Tae-im is not mad and readies himself to scare the shit out of some idiot on set.
“At that thing you did to those people,” he hedges around, careful not to say ‘murder’ in a very public setting.
“Okay?” Jin-woo isn’t sure how he’s supposed to respond to that. He’s pleased by this development but he can’t ask for why Tae-im came to that decision, to see if this is still a moment of processing or if Tae-im has come to the end of his emotional journey.
Tae-im nods. “Good talk.” He pushes himself out of the chair and jogs off back onto the set.
-
Ten rows.
Ten rows and Jin-woo is done.
He’s sitting on the roof in one of the recliners Beru had fetched because the ant king had decided that his Lord should live a life of the utmost luxury. Jin-woo wasn’t certain how he had managed to get the chairs onto the roof and he wasn’t going to ask where he sourced the furniture, nor was he going to order Beru to put them back. He had looked so pleased with himself and Jin-woo could admit that the chairs were comfortable and the roof was a nice place to hide from the chaos of the Kpop group.
The roof is also the last place anybody looks for him.
The door creaks and Jin-woo amends that thought. The roof is almost the last place anybody looks for him.
He expects Tae-im to cajole him into coming down stairs or throw himself into the other recliner to take a break from the chaos.
Instead he paces, a pressure Jin-woo can’t see fueling his nervous footsteps. Jin-woo doesn’t prod, not because he isn’t curious or doesn’t want to help but because he knows where he ranks on the scale of emotional intelligence. He is good at listening to secrets but he has no idea how to draw them out, how to lance the emotional wounds of others.
Jin-woo sets his knitting down, doing his best to show that he is paying attention.
Tae-im opens his mouth, shuts it with a snap, and turns on his heels. He practically darts away and the door creaks again as he vanishes back down stairs.
Huh.
-
Jin-woo has finished knitting the scarf and now is doing his best to block it. The wet wool feels strange under his fingers as he gently squeezes it to get the excess water out. The scarf isn’t awful. He can clearly see where he mastered the process but it's still decent enough leading up to that point. Next year he’ll make his mom another scarf, a better scarf, maybe one that is multicolored, but for now this will do.
He’s laying it flat when Tae-im bursts in, not bothering to knock. Jin-woo barely has time to look up before Tae-im is blurting out a confession. “I’ve killed people.”
Jin-woo can tell Tae-im is waiting for some kind of judgement or condemnation as though Jin-woo is a Wayne who thinks his morals are more important than his brother’s welfare or happiness. Tae-im will find no damnation here.
Jin-woo merely nods. “Thank you for telling me.”
Tae-im blinks as though he’s been slapped and Jin-woo keeps his lips from twitching down, knowing Tae-im would take it as censure, not surprise. “Aren’t you going to ask me if they deserved it?”
“No?”
“Why not?!” Tae-im’s hands flutter like wounded birds with nowhere to land.
Jin-woo does allow himself to frown. “If you killed them then they deserved it.”
Tae-im freezes. “What?” He looks as though Jin-woo had stabbed him in the gut.
Jin-woo goes back to smoothing the damp scarf, noting that it is beginning to curl. He needs to weigh it down. “You’re a good person,” He says as he lays down a towel over top of the scarf to weigh it down, “and while you know how to be good at violence, you don’t like it. You wouldn’t have killed them if you didn’t need to, and you wouldn’t need to if they didn’t deserve it.”
Tae-im stares at Jin-woo, blue eyes highlighted by a growing wetness. “I have to-”
Jin-woo isn’t surprised when he darts out of the room.
-
Tae-im is sitting in the park, shivering slightly in the cold. The temperatures in Seoul don’t drop that much lower than they do in Gotham but he hadn’t bothered with a coat, his thoughts too deep to worry about whether or not he needed one.
He had asked his question.
Jin-woo had answered.
He had made his confessions.
Jin-woo hadn’t judged.
Tae-im doesn’t know what to do with that. He has heard families love each other unconditionally but he had thought it was fantasy, just a tv falsehood designed to make people feel good, but Jin-woo hadn’t flinched in the face of Tae-im’s confession. He hadn’t condemned or even questioned. He had just trusted in Tae-im.
Bruce only suspects that Tae-im had killed people and he’d begun to slowly reject Tae-im, isolating and ushering him out of their family as though Jason and Damian don’t also have blood on their hands, as though Tae-im had had any other choice. Ra’s would have killed Tae-im, or worse, kept him. Tae-im had already begun to corrode under Ra’s influence, compromising moral after moral for smaller and smaller gains.
He doesn’t know how much longer he could have held out and still remained himself.
Bruce vilifies Tae-im for those decisions, for straying from the ideals that Robin was supposed to stand for.
Tae-im hadn’t been Robin then. Hasn’t been Robin since.
Something soft and heavy drops on Tae-im’s head and he jerks to the side, wrapping his fingers in the soft material. Pulling it away he is surprised to see the soft yellow scarf Jin-woo has been working on. He glances up, his brother looking as stoic as always.
“Here,” Jin-woo said. “This is for you.”
Tae-im pulls it free, folding it so the edges don’t drag on the ground. “This is for mom.” It’s, as Bart would say, wonky, the thickness varying throughout the length. There is the occasional hole and the stitches varying in tightness. It is obviously hand made.
Tae-im has never been given anything hand made before.
“I’ll make her a nicer one. You need this one.” Jin-woo pulls the scarf from Tae-im’s hands and slowly wraps it around his shoulders.
Tae-im buries his face in the wool, feeling the way it caresses his face. It is almost as gentle as the hand that threads its way into his hair. Jin-woo’s thumb gently strokes Tae-im’s head as he kneels before him, leaning forward until their foreheads touch.
“You think too hard.” Tae-im had heard that criticism before but there was no sting in it, only fondness.
“I should hate you.” Jin-woo doesn’t react, his grip never tightening. “I should hate me.”
“You survived,” he says, as though it was that simple. As though Tim Drake doesn’t have hundreds of hours of training, thousands of lectures, explaining the codes that he has to follow, the sins that can’t be forgiven. As though a man he had considered a father doesn’t stare at him with growing coldness, building a chasm between he and Tim because Tim had placed his own life before the rules he’d sworn to adopt.
As though Bruce’s ideals matter more than Tim.
“I love you,” Jin-woo says simply, as though it cost him nothing to admit it.
Tae-im shifts, falling forward and Jin-woo silently catches him, holding him, loving him, despite knowing his greatest sins. His grip is gentle, not suffocating, but firm enough that Tae-im knows that Jin-woo isn’t going to drop him. Isn’t going to throw him away. It’s a strange feeling.
But not a bad one and Tae-im drinks it in greedily.
“I love you too.” It isn’t a confession or a concession, just a fact. Tae-im’s brother murdered the Justice League Dark. He killed Zatanna, was killing criminals on the street, and Tae-im loves him anyway. Everything he has learned told him he shouldn’t, that he should revile Jin-woo for being the antithesis of Bruce’s justice.
But he is Tae-im’s brother and Tae-im loves him despite everything.
He can live with that.