Chapter Text
The moon barely shone, smothered behind Gotham’s thick clouds. Cold wind scraped across Jason’s skin, carrying the metallic scent of the storm rolling down from the north.
If it started raining and he ended the night soaked and alone, it would just be the bitter cherry on top of a cake he had never received. Maybe then nobody would notice the tears already slipping soundlessly down his face.
Pathetic.
Crying on the tallest tower in the city because everyone had ignored his birthday. Because they had looked at him with disdain. Because beneath their expressions lingered the quiet hatred Jason knew he had earned.
With the sickening feeling that everything had finally fractured, as though the lie he had been living inside for the past months had collapsed.
They had forgiven him before... but maybe that forgiveness had never existed outside carefully measured tolerance.
A painful knot swelled in his throat. He scrubbed at his nose with a napkin, jaw tightening as he fought the pressure swelling inside his chest, but a broken sound still slipped free.
He felt hollow.
Kori hadn’t answered his calls. Roy had replied to his message, but coldly. Distantly. Formally. Like years of friendship had been reduced to obligation.
Jason pulled the helmet tighter against his chest and, for one brief miserable moment, felt thirteen again.
Small in all the worst ways.
Below him, Gotham continued without pause. Cars crawled through the streets. Traffic boiled with noise. Even from this height, he could make out two—maybe three—accidents unfolding at once.
And he was up here crying.
Unable to stop.
Unable to blame anyone except himself for ending up here in the first place.
The wind shifted, carrying footsteps from behind him.
His skin prickled.
Jason lifted his head with nothing left to hide and found Tim standing there.
He wore the Red Robin suit without the hood. Long dark hair whipped through the wind beneath clouds heavy with the coming storm. His expression remained unreadable. Hard enough to make Jason’s stomach drop.
Any flicker of relief Jason might have felt at seeing the little bird there vanished beneath the coldness in Tim’s blue eyes.
Jason tightened his grip on the helmet as something twisted painfully inside his chest, hurt tangled with too many feelings to sort through.
Then he noticed the package in Tim’s hands, wrapped in bright red paper, tied with a black ribbon, and covered in weapon stickers.
Hope settled somewhere beneath the hurt before Jason could stop it.
“It was on my desk,” Tim said flatly, staring at the package instead of him.
Jason’s name stood out in gold ink, written in immaculate handwriting.
“It’s your birthday, right?”
The coldness in his voice knocked Jason off balance. He nodded slowly, not understanding.
Tim smiled, but it never reached his eyes, stripped of anything soft or affectionate.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s what the files said.”
Then he looked up.
“I hate you.”
Jason sucked in a sharp breath. He trembled violently, trapped at the edge of the rooftop with nowhere to run.
Every defense, every argument, every plea remained stranded behind his teeth. His voice felt too weak to drag even a single word out of his throat.
Couldn’t look away. Couldn’t survive hearing the words he had always feared from him.
“I hate you so much,” Tim continued. “You disgust me. You’re horrible. Looking at you makes me sick.”
His fingers crushed the package harder. Paper crumpled loudly in the silence, sharp and ugly, like something tearing open between them.
“The hatred I feel for you is so deep that it’s suffocating me.” Every word landed without hesitation. “Part of me almost hopes you slip off the edge, fall, and die.”
Jason flinched. His body reacted before his mind caught up. He pushed himself away from the ledge so abruptly that the helmet slipped from his hands and slammed against the concrete.
“What?”
Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance. The storm was getting closer.
Jason stood rigid, hands hanging uselessly at his sides.
No matter what was happening to Tim, he didn’t deserve this. Not after everything they had ended up sharing.
His thoughts tangled together until only one remained.
Had all of it been a lie?
“Tim...”
“No.” Tim cut in instantly. “Don’t say my name. Hearing your voice say it makes me sick.”
His grip tightened again. The paper finally tore.
Jason stared at the rip spreading across the wrapping and wondered if that was what his own heart sounded like tearing apart.
“And even with all of this—” Tim’s stare drifted briefly out of focus. “—I still don’t understand why I have an entire folder with your name on my computer.”
Jason froze. His pulse hammered against his ribs.
“What?”
“Thousands and thousands of files with ideas for the perfect gift.” The words sounded dragged out of him against his own will. “Your birthday marked with so many arrows it was impossible to ignore.”
Jason took a cautious step forward. His hands lifted instinctively before he stopped himself.
Every sentence left him dizzier than the last. “What are you talking about?”
Tim pointed the box at him like an accusation.
“What were you doing with the Outlaws before you came back to Gotham?”
Jason blinked, caught off guard. Even so, he forced himself to answer, struggling to understand where Tim was going with this.
“We were... looking for something for Kori.”
“What?” Tim pressed harder this time, almost desperate.
Jason frowned and searched his memory. Fragments surfaced: stone walls, brief fights, Roy laughing in the middle of complete chaos. The trip there remained clear enough. The return didn't.
The reason behind it even less.
It had been a quick mission. Clean. His gear had come back mostly untouched, and he hadn't taken any injuries worth remembering.
Nothing important enough to stay in his memory.
Apparently, it was.
“I don't remember.”
Tim barked out a short, fractured laugh.
He shook his head hard enough to throw his hair back. Something disbelieving flashed through his eyes, clashing violently against the strain pulling at his mouth.
When he spoke again, his voice trembled with restrained emotion.
“I hate you so much...” His jaw tightened. “That I think maybe I used to love you.”
He jerked the gift sharply in his hand, like he had almost thrown it again and barely stopped himself in time.
“You don't spend three weeks searching for the perfect present for someone you hate.”
The world narrowed around Jason. His ears rang.
For a moment he forgot the cold. Forgot the storm. Forgot the city spread out beneath them.
All he could hear was Tim. All he could see was the package in his hands.
Tim threw it at him without warning, and Jason caught it automatically, his fingers closing around the smooth wrapping paper hard enough to dent the corners.
“I hate what's happening inside my head right now.” Tim’s gloved hands curled into fists. The leather creaked. “And I hate people messing with it.”
His expression twisted with frustration.
“We need to figure this out, because my emotions are getting tangled together with the evidence on my computer.” His breathing roughened. “It's screwing with me, and I don't like it.”
Jason stayed silent, staring down at the gift in his hands. The small box felt heavier than it should have.
He didn't like this either.
Didn't like the implications behind everything happening around them. What it meant about him. Something powerful enough to affect other people—people that included Kori and Roy.
A knot tightened low in his stomach.
He needed to talk to them. Needed to figure out what had happened during that mission before anything else.
“Kori isn't answering my calls,” he said quietly. “Roy isn't either.”
Tim clicked his tongue.
“Of course.” He pointed toward Jason with open contempt. “If whatever's affecting you is influencing other people too, then they're being manipulated.”
Jason stiffened. A bitter grimace pulled at his mouth.
“They were fine when we split up.”
“Delayed spell backlash. Nothing new.” Tim dismissed the concern with a flick of his hand. “Call Zatanna. At least she's not emotionally compromised enough to ignore you completely.”
His mouth twisted faintly.
“I'll tell Dick to contact Kori.” Tim was already reaching for another phone. “I'll handle Roy.”
Jason swallowed and nodded.
If Tim was right, there weren't many people left he could trust to answer his calls.
At least not until they understood what was happening.
Still, the possibility that the entire disaster had been caused by a spell loosened something inside him. Not relief. Not quite. But enough pressure eased that he could finally breathe again.
He called Zatanna.
Beside him, Tim somehow managed three phones at once, gathering information with clipped efficiency as he bounced between conversations.
Jason looked away.
He didn't need to notice how good Tim looked in that uniform. Didn't need to notice the way his waist narrowed beneath the armor when he moved. And he definitely didn't need to think about what Tim's words had actually implied.
Not now.
Jason shoved the emotions aside together with the unopened gift, locking both somewhere high and unreachable before bending down to retrieve his helmet.
First, they would solve the problem.
After that...
He would figure out what to do with the rest.