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Tim had been a deep sleeper, once upon a time. Back when he had lived alone in an empty manor, undisturbed.
Back when the only nightmare he’d had was the one about the Graysons, only about once a month.
The window of his room scraped open and Tim was awake immediately, sitting up straight, a batarang sent at the window before he was even fully conscious.
A hissed curse came from the gust of fresh air.
“What the actual fuck, replacement,” a voice grouched.
Tim blinked, a yawn cracking his jaw. “Jason?” he mumbled. “Why are you breaking into my room?”
Something heavy was thrown at him, landing right on his stomach. “Oof,” Tim made and it was a testament to how sleepy he was that there was no other comeback, neither physical nor verbal. Tim simply laid there, praying for death.
“Stop playing dead and get up,” his brother said.
Tim hated having observant brothers.
“I’m not observant, you’re simply muttering again.”
Oh. That made more sense. Concussion Tim and Severly-Sleep-Deprived Tim tended to do that. A nasty habit, particularly when he was handcuffed in some kidnapper’s den, concussed and unable to shut up about any thought that crossed his mind.
Luckily, it had only happened once.
Twice if one counted the time he’d been concussed in the batcave and had thought he had been kidnapped. Tim didn’t count it.
“Get up or I’ll shoot you,” Jason threatened. He sounded convincingly intimidating despite the lack of voice modulator and mask, moonlight highlighting the white strands of his hair.
Tim debated if getting up or getting shot was worse.
Click.
Jason turned off the safety.
“Sheesh, I’m up, I’m up,” Tim grumbled. “Seriously, why couldn’t I have gotten normal brothers,” he then complained while reluctantly rolling out of bed. He landed silently. The bundle Jason had tossed at him didn’t, landing with a loud, metallic clang.
“Try not to wake the entire manor,” the second Robin hissed.
“Like, one brother slits my throat and breaks into my room for some reason,” Tim continued complaining, ignoring Jason completely as he tugged on a pair of sweats over his sleep shorts. “One has seventy-two assassination attempts on me and adopted a cow.” He pulled on a jacket over the tank top he usually slept in.
Jason tossed some socks at him and Tim pulled them on, before blindly groping for a pair of shoes in the dark.
“And one keeps threatening to give my boyfriend the shovel talk,” Tim ended.
“Do not let Dick give Kon the shovel talk,” Jason said, alarmed. “He drove off three of my girlfriends with it.”
“You probably deserved it,” Tim muttered under his breath, blindly ducking his brother’s attempted punch.
“This is why my sisters are my favourite,” he claimed.
“Steph tried to poison you two weeks ago,” Jason replied, unimpressed.
“For science,” Tim claimed. “And I volunteered.”
His brother scoffed. “Are you ready or not?”
Tim followed him out of the window wordlessly, clutching the bundle. In his room, he could already hear his door open and he saluted Alfred when the man looked out of the window. The butler simply sighed and turned around.
“What are we even doing?” he asked, trying to tame his hair.
“Vandalising a grave,” Jason said simply.
Tim was not awake enough for this. Or drunk enough. Or insane enough. “What?” he asked flatly.
“Happy Death Day to me.”
Ah. Tim checked his wrist watch and indeed, it was two in the morning on Jason’s death day. Presumed-dead-day?
“Why am I coming?” he asked, suppressing another yawn as he followed his brother into a light jog.
“Wow, not even a ‘Happy Death Day’? Cold.”
“Happy Death Day, Jason,” Tim replied, rolling his eyes.
“Thanks.” Even without seeing his brother, he could hear the grin plainly. “Dick has been hounding me about doing some brotherly bonding with you.”
“This again?” Tim groaned. “Was us busting that drug ring not good enough for him?”
That had been a very fun day. Red Hood and Red Robin had moved in through the skylight, getting glass absolutely everywhere. Jason had lent him a gun and Tim had to say, he really saw the appeal. Maybe he would add one to his belt.
“Apparently, Dickwing wants us to bond out of uniform,” Jason replied with a shrug.
Tim was now walking next to him, trusting Jason to know where they were walking. A few moments later, they reached the man’s motorcycle. The younger easily caught the helmet that was tossed at him, now woken up by the cool night air and slid on behind his older brother.
“Can I drive on the way back?” he asked.
“Over my dead body,” Jason replied. Tim thought that could be arranged. Maybe then he wouldn’t be kidnapped at fuck ass times.
They reached the cemetery with little fanfare and Tim followed the other down the familiar path to his grave.
“I used to come here a lot before I became Robin,” Tim said randomly.
“Stalker.” Jason sounded fond.
Tim didn’t elaborate that he had felt close to his hero that way and that even sitting on the ground in a cemetery was sometimes less lonely than being in Drake Manor. Apparently he didn’t need to elaborate because Jason pulled him into a rough half-hug.
“It always gets me that he didn’t even put Todd-Wayne,” Jason said with no little amount of malice, his eyes gleaming green as he stared at his gravestone.
Tim opened the bundle and found a hammer, some nails and a few cans of spray paint.
“Might as well not have adopted me then, if he wasn’t even going to claim me in death.”
Tim didn’t say that Bruce was really bad at coping with his feelings. They both knew it, their father had tried to make it up to Jason for years since he had come back. This wasn’t about that. This was Jason’s valid anger and him trying to find a healthy output.
Arguably, grave vandalism was not on that list, but Tim preferred it to the slitting his throat bit.
Besides, who was he to argue about healthy coping? When Kon had ‘died’, Tim had tried to clone him.
“And then he had the audacity to not adopt you,” Jason continued, bending down to take one of the hammers and a nail.
Tim hummed non-committally. It was still one of the largest points of conflict between Bruce and Jason and Bruce and Dick that the man hadn’t adopted Tim despite the blatant signs of neglect and abuse until the brothers had found out and had strong-armed him into it.
Not that he needed strong-arming, once someone had shown Bruce evidence. He simply hadn’t realised.
Tim thought it was quite forgivable, especially since he had actively tried to hide it.
Dick and Jason, arguing that Batman was a literal detective, did not agree.
Jason was now hammering away at the name until it was unrecognisable.
“Can I spray paint it?” Tim asked, since he figured it wasn’t a very bonding experience if Jason did all the vandalising himself.
“Go for it,” Jason grunted, currently erasing the inscription. The only thing still visible was the death date.
Tim chose the red spray paint, because of course he did, and started spraying a pretty pattern on the back of the grave stone.
“Gimme,” Jason demanded after a few minutes and Tim handed it over without argument, fishing out the black paint and adding little highlights. It was quite beautiful once he was done.
He made his way back around and held in a snort.
‘RED HOOD’ was sprayed where Jason’s name and the inscription had been.
“Subtle,” Tim said dryly.
Jason smirked at him.
They stood in front of the gravestone for a long moment, both of them silent.
“Feel better?” Tim asked carefully. He had contingency plans for most situations, but funnily enough, desecrating his brother’s grave had not gotten one yet. Maybe he should make one. Then again, they had already done it now, so it couldn’t really happen again. Unless Bruce replaced the gravestone.
Or the city.
Which was a possibility. Tim thought that there was about a 95% chance that the city did and a 1% chance Bruce would. Mainly because the city had a much bigger death wish than Bruce. Most days, anyway.
Jason grunted in response which Tim took as ‘Yes, I feel much better, thank you so much for being a part of this experience.’
The boy took a picture of the gravestone. Both sides. He sent it to Kon, not adding any context.
A moment later, a text came back. Kon had probably been asleep, but he had Tim’s notifications on loud and never seemed to mind that he was briefly woken up by Tim’s bullshit at least every other night.
‘Looks great! Have fun, babe.’
Tim snorted, tilting the phone so Jason could see.
“You deserve each other,” his brother said, starting to put away the tools. It didn’t sound like a compliment.
Tim grinned. “Thanks,” he replied sweetly.
Jason flipped him off.
"Hot Dogs before we go back?” Tim asked hopefully.
Jason grunted again, which Tim took as ‘Of course, anything for you, my favourite brother.’
They stopped to get Hot Dogs.
“We should have taken a selfie to send to Dick,” Tim said out of the blue, a mournful quality to his voice.
“Ah fuck, you’re right,” Jason said.
“Then again,” Tim continued thoughtfully. “We could send him a wholesome selfie of us having a Hot Dog at,” he checked his watch, “4am and he can find out about our art project when it inevitably lands in the Gotham newspapers.”
“Does he read that?” Jason asked, eating half of his Hot Dog in one bite.
“I’ll send him the clipping,” Tim promised, pulling out his phone.
It was quite a good picture. Sure, Tim looked like he would rather be asleep for a week and Jason looked dead inside, but Tim was grinning pretty non-creepily and Jason was holding up a peace sign.
Tim sent it to Kon as well.
“Alright, let’s go back, I’m tired,” Jason said, scaling the fire escape of the building they had chosen to eat their food on.
“You’re tired? You kidnapped me from my bed,” Tim complained behind him, newly rejuvenated by the food and thus able to run his mouth.
“Yes, but I have to drive your sorry ass back and then I have to go back to my own place before I can sleep,” Jason replied.
“Skill issue,” Tim muttered and got an elbow in the stomach for his troubles.
“Ow, careful, some lunatic threw a hammer on me earlier.”
Jason only snickered in response.
“Bye, Red,” his older brother said.
“Bye, Red,” Tim replied with a small smile.
Jason drove off, revving his engine like the asshole he was, giving Tim a two finger salute which he took as ‘Thanks for doing this with me, beloved little brother.’
He trudged inside and was almost in his room when Bruce’s door opened. Light flooded into the corridor and Tim blinked, lifting his hand to shield his eyes.
“Tim?” Bruce sounded like he had only just come back from being Batman and had very much looked forward to going to sleep without any further antics from one of his sons. “Why are you dressed?” A pause. “And why are you wearing two different shoes?”
Tim looked down at his feet. Oh, he was. That explained why he felt slightly uneven while walking.
“Jason took me out for Hot Dogs,” Tim explained quietly, careful not to wake Damian. It wasn’t a very good explanation and didn’t touch on the shoe issues, but Bruce softened slightly. “Dick wants us to bond more,” Tim added.
A tentative smile found its way on Bruce’s face, a miniscule expression, small enough that almost anyone else would have missed it. Tim wasn’t anyone else though.
“That’s nice,” Bruce commented.
“Yeah,” Tim replied honestly. “It was. Good night, Bruce.”
“Good night, Tim.”
Tim just hoped he was far away from Bruce when he read the newspaper the next day.