Chapter Text
Coffeemakers weren’t that complicated mechanically. Surely, Tim could figure out how to fix this.
Examining the guts of the coffeemaker strewn out over the kitchen table like the guts of a sacred cow before a Roman augur, Tim realized he could see into his future.
Future Tim was going to need a new coffeemaker
Either this was the most stupidly complex coffee pot imaginable, or one of the geniuses on the team had decided to trick it out. That would make sense, Tim thought mournfully. He’d need to figure out who’d done it and make them do it again; Titans Tower coffee hit different, and he refused to go without it.
Maybe if he just left it out, someone else would see the pieces and put the coffeemaker back together. It was entirely possible that Tim shouldn’t have messed with it, but fixing it had seemed both doable and a lot less work than leaving the Tower, buying a new coffeepot, and coming all the way back. They weren’t allowed to DoorDash stuff to the Tower because it created a vulnerability for sabotage, or this whole mess could’ve been avoided. Normally, Tim understood the rule, but normally, Tim had coffee.
These were not normal circumstances. Tim was getting desperate.
Tim was apparently the only one up, which was unusual. What building full of teenagers without adult supervision, especially teenage vigilantes, readily went to bed before midnight?
As if summoned by his thoughts—unlikely, but not entirely outside the realm of possibility—someone was walking down the hall toward the kitchen. Great, most his friends were willing to go get him coffee if he bought for the group. It was one of perks of being rich, his little servants. Like mini Alfreds, but more chaotic and far more willing to enable Tim’s love affair with caffeine.
Actual Alfred had gotten it in his head that Tim was an addict and basically needed to be forced to go cold turkey, all like, Master Tim, the CDC recommends no more than 100 miligrams of caffeine daily, and I know you have already had double that today and do not need another cup even if Master Bruce left it be, which was totally unfair. Tim loved Alfred, but the coffee thing really was proof that everyone had flaws.
The footsteps reached the kitchen door, and Tim glanced up, preparing to ask Kon or Bart to go on a coffee run.
Instead, he found himself staring at the Red Hood.
Well, fuck.
Technically speaking, Red Hood was Jason Todd, formerly-dead former-Robin. Practically speaking, well. Tim hadn’t met Jason in person before or after his death, but Tim had heard plenty of stories about him. They all said Jason used to be nice.
Now…not so much.
“I think you got lost,” Tim said, slipping into the trademark Robin flippancy even as his hand strayed to the panic button in his pocket, trying to make the gesture look casual. “Gotham is actually on the other side of the country. Easy mistake to make, but I’m sure we can get you on the next plane out of here, Red Hood.”
Tim was at a helluva disadvantage. First of all, he was in his pajamas with no weapons. The only reason Tim had the panic button was because Bruce insisted he have it with him at all times, even as a civilian.
But okay, button pressed, cavalry arriving at any moment. All Tim had to do was stall.
“Am I not welcome here? I was just in the neighborhood, thought I’d visit one of my old haunts,” Red Hood said, spreading his arms in a wide shrug.
Tim narrowed his eyes. Was that…was that unintentional, or had Jason Todd just made a ghost joke?
“Imagine my surprise when my access codes didn’t work,” Jason said, shaking his head with mock shock as he leaned heavily against the kitchen doorframe, blocking the one way out. “Luckily, my dear big brother was never very good at covering the keypad when he was putting in his codes, and, well…I don’t tend to forget things very easily.”
It was always nice to know what type of villain someone was right off the bat. Hood was, apparently, a monologuer. What great fortune to be blessed with a theatre kid while trying to stall for time.
“Wow, you should complain to management,” Tim said, shaking his head. “Do you remember his number, or do you want me to write it down for you?”
Jason considered him for a moment before chuckling, the sound garbled and mechanical through the modulator. Tim’s stomach twisted with the distinct sense that the monologue was over.
Jason shrugged off the doorframe and reached for his helmet, undoing the clasps behind his head and pulling it off. The face revealed made Tim gasp despite himself; he could feel the blood rush away from his face.
“Why, Robin,” Jason chuckled. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Tim had seen cowl footage, but seeing him in person…That was Jason Todd.
Jason didn’t look like a ghoul or a monster or a ghost. He just…he looked like the boy wonder Tim had watched from the shadows all those years but all grown up. That’s what he is. And Tim had known that intellectually, but that wasn’t the same thing as…as this.
“You do something with your hair?” Tim said, gesturing at the little white tuft that Jason definitely hadn’t had before.
Jason’s lips split into a sick grin to rival the previous owner of the Red Hood title. “You could say that.”
The grin stayed in place as Jason slunk from his place barring the door, stalking toward Tim like a cat stalking a mouse.
Tim rose from his seat, dropping the air of affability. “What did you do to the others, Hood?”
Tim hadn’t seen any of his friends in forty minutes. If they’d died while he was trying to figure out a coffeemaker…
“Nothing they won’t recover from,” Jason said easily, now only a few paces away, taking his time. Tim backed away at the same pace. “I don’t have a problem with them. After all, they weren’t the ones who stole my name and my life and my family…unlike you.”
“I take it you’re not here for a friendly chat,” Tim said, but that was a good thing. Hood would have no reason to lie about them being alive if he was trying to get in Tim’s head before a fight. Hood might have a reason to lie if he wanted to talk.
“What clued you in, Replacement?” Jason laughed cruelly. “I’m here to teach you what happens to naughty little boys who steal other people’s toys.”
Theatre kid, Tim thought again.
“Sorry,” Tim said, shrugging. “Kind of the thing about being an only child. I never learned to share.”
Tim rushed for the table, Jason meeting the movement by rushing for him. Tim grabbed a fistful of gears and assorted coffeemaker innards and hurled them into Jason’s face, blinding him long enough for Tim to jump onto the table, run the length, and leap down on the other side. Before Jason could even get around the table, Tim was out of the kitchen and in the wind.
Well, technically in the halls, but close enough.
Jason had the advantage of surprise, and Jason might be reckless, but he wasn’t stupid. Tim had to assume Jason would’ve locked down the armory and any known stashes of emergency weapons.
Luckily, Jason had no clue about the bo staff Tim had duct taped to the underside of the couch in the living room for emergencies because Jason had been dead when Tim did that.
Probably. Tim actually didn’t know how long Jason had been back, but Jason at the very least hadn’t been hanging around then.
It was a straight shot from the kitchen to the living room, but it was a long hall. Tim was only halfway there when gunfire echoed deafeningly down the hall. Great, Jason had to pick guns as his signature weapon. Why couldn’t he have picked something more stylish and less effective, like a bo staff! It would really help balance the fight and make things fair.
Tim zig zagged the rest of the way, throwing himself through the door and immediately rolling to the side out of the way of oncoming fire. He didn’t have time to waste, not with Jason right on his tail.
Tim launched himself over the coffee table and dropped to the ground, straining his arm for the bo staff. Shit, he hadn’t thought to measure his reach and make sure he could actually reach this this without lifting the couch.
The staff was too far under, forcing Tim to lift the couch and prop it on his shoulder to keep it up. With the few added inches, Tim’s fingers just brushed the cool wood of his bo. Tim grinned and curled his fingers around the staff, giving it a couple tugs toward him. The duct tape held, but Tim just needed a moment.
“Funny place to hide,” Jason drolled, slowly coming into view.
Fuck. Tim was pinned with his shoulder and part of his ribcage under a couch. He was pretty sure Jason could actually kill him by just sitting down. Getting his ribs crushed into his lungs by his vengeful sort-of old brother would be a terrible—and not to mention embarrassing—way to go.
Tim would just have to not die.
Tim switched his grip on the out-of-sight bo and pulled down instead of toward him, the change of tack rewarded with the bo staff clattering to the ground.
Jason narrowed his eyes, raising his gun. “What the fuck was that?”
Tim innocently shrugged both shoulders, the motion lifting the couch enough for to free his shoulder. Without a quip, Tim pulled his arm out and swung at Jason’s gun arm just in time to send a bullet flying into the coffee table and not Tim’s head.
Tim pivoted and sent the next blow into Jason’s crotch. That’s one thing that won’t be rising again.
Tim didn’t wait around for Jason to recover. Armed and dangerous, he swiped at Jason’s head—a blow Jason dodged—and sprinted to the door. He’d already sent the distress beacon; he just had to stall for time.
Jason opened fire down the hall after him, prompting Tim to throw himself at the nearest door—which was locked.
Because Jason had put the Tower in lockdown mode without triggering the alarms, shit. All the doors in the Tower would be locked, and the only rooms with no doors on this floor would be the kitchen and living room.
If Tim hadn’t been at imminent risk of death, he’d have to be impressed by how thorough Jason had been. Tim could try to get to the elevator and pry open the doors, but lockdown mode was meant to contain threats in the room they were in. Breaking into the elevator shaft would be only marginally easier than getting through any other door in the Tower, and he’d need time he didn’t have with Jason on his heels.
His best bet was going to be taking Jason down and figuring out how to turn lockdown mode off. Tim’s second best bet was going to probably be running between those two rooms till his friends broke out of whatever they were restrained with or recovered from whatever Jason had done to them. Hopefully nothing they won’t recover from meant drugs of some type, something that would wear off if Tim just wasted enough time before Jason wasted Tim.
Outside help wasn’t coming unless, by some miracle, someone thought to message the Titans at midnight and got suspicious at the lack of answer. Tim was under no illusion anymore that the emergency beacon had reached anyone; lockdown mode also blocked any incoming or outgoing signals.
Maybe our security should be less thorough next time, Tim thought as he zigged and zagged and gunfire rang out after him. No, next time I just need to hide projectile weapons too.
His one hope was that Jason was being hella reckless with his ammo. This wasn’t a comic book, Jason’s guns had a finite magazine capacity, and how many magazines was one guy going to carry?
Based on the brief pause in bullets followed by a click and then bullets again, Tim was going to guess at least two magazines. Hopefully that was it, because if Jason ran out of bullets before Tim ran out of steam, then Jason was just a hulking mass of muscle and daddy issues with lethal training, and that seemed much more doable given Tim’s current state of equipment.
Tim dove into the kitchen and rolled to the side again to shield himself from the gunfire, then he shot up and grabbed one of the knives from Vic’s fancy knife block.
Tim kept the bo in one hand in case he had to make another break for it, then he braced himself to throw the knife. Tim was going to have to buy Vic a new one, but he was pretty sure Cyborg would forgive him given the circumstances.
Jason came flying into the room, and Tim hurled the knife straight at Jason’s leg.
Tim’s aim was true, but Jason’s armor was stronger. The knife glanced off without piercing. Great.
Tim reached for the next knife, but Jason leveled the barrel of his gun with Tim’s face before Tim could do anything with it.
“Was that supposed to hurt?” Jason said coolly. “Go ahead, try to throw that one too if it makes you feel better. See if that helps.”
Tim looked Jason up and down with more scrutiny than he had while being chased or shocked. Jason’s whole body was armored up to his neck, only his head exposed. Tim could aim for a chink in the armor, but he wasn’t familiar with the weight of their cutlery and would probably miss a target that small.
Jason’s head was wide open, but Tim couldn’t throw a knife at Jason’s head without risking killing Jason again. They didn’t kill, after all.
Jason grinned like he could see the calculation running through Tim’s mind. He gestured wordlessly with the pistol for Tim to step away from the knives, which Tim did.
“Looks like you’re all out of tricks,” Jason taunted.
Tim forced a smirk and looked deliberately behind Jason. “I think I have one more.”
Jason calmly pulled a second gun from his belt and repeatedly fired behind him without even looking. If someone had been sneaking up on Jason, they would’ve been hit if not killed without a doubt.
Fortunately, Tim was completely alone.
“Does that ever work?” Jason asked, making quick work of the distance between them.
“It was worth a shot.” Tim swallowed hard, trying not to betray his growing panic. “Now I’m out of tricks.”
Jason grinned viciously and raised the gun as if to pistol whip him. He wants me alive.
With a surge of determination, Tim swung his bo, knocking Jason’s blow off course. He tried to pivot into the blow into a strike against the inside of Jason’s knee, but Jason was too close for Tim to build up enough momentum to do any kind of serious damage.
Jason grabbed the bo and tried to pull it from Tim’s grasp; Tim seized it with both hand and tried to tuck it against his side to keep Jason from being able to disarm him. Jason was too much bigger and stronger for that to work, instead of keeping himself from being disarmed, clinging so tightly to his weapon had turned the staff into a handle. Tim realized the mistake a second too late to do anything about it as Jason used his grip on the bo staff to swing Tim off balance and send him hurtling into the side of the island, Tim’s head clipping the granite countertop in the fall.
Tim groaned and dropped the bo before Jason could pull that trick again. A hand grabbed a fistful of his hair while his head was still spinning and pulled Tim onto his knees.
“Look at me, Replacement,” Jason growled, his voice dark and cruel.
Tim bit his bleeding lip and tried to ground himself enough for the world to stop swimming. That was going to give him a concussion if he made it through the next twenty seconds.
Summoning all his strength, Tim raised his eyes enough to meet Jason’s. Weren’t his eyes blue before?
“I want you to know that you failed,” Jason told him, shaking Tim by the hair just to prove that he could.
God, Tim was going to throw up all over Jason’s nice combat boots if he did that again.
“I want you to know that I’m better than you,” Jason went on, arching Tim’s head back to force Tim to meet his eyes again. “And I want you to know that there’s nothing you can do to beat me. That will make things so much easier for you.”
Tim knit his brow. What? What did Jason—
Tim hadn’t been watching Jason’s free hand. A sharp prick in his neck, the warm sensation of a foreign liquid entering his blood stream, and Jason’s hand retracted to wave the empty syringe in Tim’s face.
“Goodnight, Robin.”