Chapter Text
The first time, it was an accident.
Tim, despite his best efforts, did not seem to be making any progress with Jason. It was a little frustrating, and honestly? It was a little bit of an insult to Tim’s natural way with people. He wasn’t that hard to get along with, and he knew it. He made sure of it. So, he resolved to take a more…active approach to getting to know Jason. He obviously wasn’t going to take the first steps, so Tim was going to have to. No big deal. He was absolutely capable of it. He just had to figure out where to start. He was so distracted with half-formed thoughts of familial reunions that he didn’t notice that he had entered Crime Alley until he ran face first into the Red Hood.
Jason turned around sharply and sighed. “Robin, what the fuck are you doing here?”
“I– um.”
Jason gestured impatiently.
“I– got– lost?” Tim tried, unwilling to admit that he was just that unaware of his surroundings.
Tim couldn’t tell for sure because of the helmet, but Jason’s general vibe screamed incredulous and confused.
“How are you still alive?”
Tim shrugged his shoulders noncommittally.
“No, genuinely. You get kidnapped, you run into crime lords, and apparently you get lost in Gotham in the middle of the night? It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far.”
Tim wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he said nothing and kinda shrugged again.
Jason sighed and shook his head slightly. “Whatever,” Tim heard him mutter. “Not my circus, not my monkeys. Look,” he continued at full volume. “I don’t care where you go or what you do now, but you can’t stay here. It’s called Crime Alley for a reason, and I can handle it, but I don’t want Batman rushing over here because you got stabbed. And I actually have things to do tonight, so you’ve gotta go.”
“So wait. If I promised I wasn’t going to get stabbed and that I wouldn’t call B, you’d have no problem with me being here?” Tim asked before he thought better of it.
Jason snorted. It sounded demonic through the distorter. “Go home, Robin.”
Tim mock saluted with a wry smile and took off back towards Gotham proper. That wasn’t a no, Tim thought to himself gleefully.
He stopped on the outermost edge of the Bowery and turned around.
“Don’t even think about it.” Jason’s voice rang out from the building next to him, the one on the Alley side of the divide between the Alley and the Bowery.
“Are you seriously going to follow me around all night?” Tim asked sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.
Jason crossed his arms. “Are you about to go back into the Alley after I explicitly told you not to?”
“Even if I am, you won’t.”
Jason didn’t move. “I’ve been told I’m extremely stubborn.”
“Come on, you said you had things to do!” Jason winced at that. Jackpot. Tim grinned
“As I said, you can’t follow me around all night.”
Jason did a quick survey of the area and grappled over to Tim’s building, removing his helmet after he landed.
“No, I can’t. That’s why you should stay here,” he said. “So we can both get on with our nights.”
“I can stand here all night,” Tim said stubbornly.
Jason stared at him flatly. Tim held his gaze and widened his eyes just a bit, for effect.
Jason deflated. “Ugh. Fine. What do you want?”
Tim smiled angelically. “I wanna help.”
Jason’s confusion was evident even through his domino. “What?”
“You’ve got plans, I don’t. I’m bored. I wanna help,” Tim repeated.
“Wha– No. I’m doing crime lord stuff. What would Batman think of that?” Jason asked incredulously.
Tim gave him a quizzical look. “Why are you more concerned with what he’d think than I am?” Tim asked. “Y’know, never mind,” he said hurriedly before Jason’s expression had a chance to completely change into annoyance. “Just– what are you doing, specifically? I could help,” he insisted.
Jason sighed again. “I’m breaking into Black Mask’s office for some paperwork and hopefully going to blow it up afterwards. Not exactly a Robin-appropriate field trip.”
“Explosions?” Tim asked, a slightly manic grin taking over his face.
“Maybe. Depends on if I can get what I need and get out in time.” Jason’s face hardened. “Regardless, you aren’t invited.”
“No no no, wait, hear me out. You’re breaking into an office that’s sure to be guarded and monitored. Let me keep watch,” Tim bartered.
“What, do you think I’m stupid? I already hacked the cameras and memorized the guard rotation schedule. I’ll be fine.”
Tim’s eyebrows furrowed. “You know as well as I do that people don’t do stealth missions on their own for a reason. There’s a whole host of things that could go wrong, and if you’re compromised, you risk significant injury because you weren’t prepared for a fight. Hood, please. I’m already here. I’m bored. I offered. Just–”
“No! I neither need nor want your help. It’s my mission! I’m perfectly capable of handling it,” Jason nearly yelled. His eyes looked like they were glowing a little under the domino. Odd.
“Well yeah, of course you are.” Jason tilted his head instinctually, taken aback. Tim continued. “Of course you can do it on your own. You became your own crime lord for Christ’s sake. But I’m here, and I’m bored, and Batman never lets me blow stuff up, so why not let someone take the boring part off your hands?” Tim watched Jason process through that in real time. Bingo.
“Fine!” Jason sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine.”
Tim beamed. If there was one thing he learned from his parents, it was effective negotiation. “Lead the way, Hood.”
“I already regret this,” Jason grumbled.
…
“Time check,” Jason heard in his comms. Tim was on the opposite building, watching the guards through the building's security cameras.
“Like three minutes. I’ve got all the paper files, but some of the electronic ones are being stubborn. They should have finished downloading by then though.” He scanned the room places he could have forgotten to check and then checked the progress bar on the computer again. Three minutes, hopefully.
“Ok, you have five. Just so you know.”
Jason grit his teeth. As (unfortunately) helpful as it was to know he wasn’t going to be ambushed right this second, having someone else anxious about the mission’s success did nothing to help with his own jitters that always seemed to accompany him on time-sensitive missions.
“Heard. I’ll be out by then.”
“Hood,” Tim said tentatively. Jason prepared himself mentally for whatever this was about to be.
“Yes?” Jason responded quietly.
“I could try and get into the computer if you wanted…I might be able to speed it up.”
Jason resisted the urge to sigh out loud or respond with some sort of defensive barb. Tim is here to help; he’s trying to help, he told himself.
“If you can do that in less than three minutes and are positive that it isn’t going to send out an alert of some sort, have at it.”
“Ok. Hold on a second.”
True to his word, a couple seconds after that, the progress bar sped up significantly.
“Time check: you have two minutes,” Tim said, just as the files finished transferring.
“Wonderful. See you in one,” Jason said, grabbing the USB drive and leaving through the window.
Jason grappled back onto the roof in exactly a minute and three seconds, removing his helmet as he did, not that Tim was counting. Ok, he was totally counting. Sue him. “Did you get the files?” he asked, maybe a little too excitedly.
“Yep,” Jason said, popping the p. “That fucker won’t know what hit him,” he said gleefully.
“So… is it explosion time?” Tim asked, careful to not sound too excited this time.
“Damn kid, you really wanna blow shit up,” Jason marvelled. And yes, maybe he did, but in Tim’s defense, Batman never let him blow stuff up. It was ‘unnecessarily dangerous for himself and others’ apparently. Coincidentally, it was also potentially a great way to bond with a maybe-sort-of-hopefully-brother friend/acquaintance. Tim would work on the label.
“I’m literally just trying to complete the mission,” Tim said with faux nonchalance.
“Mhm. Sure, buddy. Whatever you need to tell yourself.” Jason shook his head, laughing a bit. His adrenaline was probably high from barely having made it out of the building in time. Tim wasn’t delusional enough to think that Jason liked him now. There was a long way to go on that still, he was sure.
“Are we gonna use a flamethrower?”
“Jesus Christ.” Jason pinched the bridge of his noise, obviously attempting to repress a smile.
“So that’s a no on the flamethrower.”
“Rep– Robin, you literally watched me set the charges in the building. We’re using a button. That’s attached to hella explosives.”
Tim looked down, theatrically dejected. “But like, not even a liiiiittle bit of flamethrowing?”
Jason blinked at him. Before shaking his head and laughing a bit. “Oh my- ok. Ok! I will take you to flamethrow something at some point before either one of us dies. Alright?”
“Ok!” Tim said brightly. His eyes shifted to the red button in Jason’s hand, and he allowed himself to grin, granted a bit manically. “Can I press the button?”
“Where the fuck did Batman find you?”
“Bristol.”
“You know what, sure. You can press the button, despite all of my hard work in setting the explosives. Why not.”
“Great,” Tim held out his hand expectantly.
Jason stared at him for another second, shook his head, then reached to hand him the button, just barely snatching it back out of his reach in time to say, “On three, and I count. Do NOT press this button the second I hand it to you.”
Tim nodded seriously. Jason handed him the button. Tim did not press the button.
“Ok, ready?”
Tim pressed the button.
The base exploded in fiery glory, reminiscent of what Tim believed Heaven might look like, if Heaven was sick as fuck.
“Tim! What the fuck?! I said on three!” Jason yelled incredulously.
Tim blinked at him. “I thought you were ready,” Tim lied.
“Why the fuck would you think I was ready?”
“...You said ‘ready’.”
“You’re insane. Does Batman know that you’re certifiably insane?”
“I feel like you think Batman has a lot more sway over me than he actually has,” Tim mused.
“And you said he found you in Bristol. What the fuck.”
Tim grinned wryly. “I mean technically he specifically found me on the porch of his house with a folder of physical evidence and a copy of a USB drive with electronic evidence of his, yours, and Nightwing’s identities.”
Jason stared at him.
“I think Superman and Green Arrow were in it too, now that I think about it.”
Jason stared at him more.
“Are you… gonna say anything?” Tim prodded.
“I– I simply cannot believe that I turned out to be the supervillain Robin,” Jason said finally.
Tim snorted, but tried to cover it with a cough. And he doesn’t even know about Gun Batman, Tim thought to himself.
Jason raised an eyebrow. “You got something to say about that, Birdie?”
Jason was definitely not ready to hear about Gun Batman yet. Tim stalled. “Well, I mean…”
“Go on,” Jason prompted before abruptly grinning. “Are you…gonna say anything?” he said, in a distressingly good imitation of Tim from a moment ago.
“It’s just that– crime lord doesn’t necessarily scream 'supervillain', you know? Like, that’s normal villain stuff. Crime with a purpose, if you will.”
Jason gasped. “I am totally a fucking supervillain! Take that back right now you little–”
Tim interrupted him with an excessively loud, fake yawn. “Wow, it’s suuuuuuuuuper late, I better be going home now. Great working with you!” He grappled to the next building and made to go back home. Jason frantically swung after him.
“Robin! Come back here right now and say that I’m a supervillain!”
“Night, Hood!” Tim called into the wind. “Let’s do this again sometime!”