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The neighbor kid knows morse code.
Jason finds that out during an exceptionally dull Earth Day gala at old Mrs. Venicci's place up in Gotham Heights.
Earth Day, right? You'd think it would have a cool theme for the outfits or benefit some kind of environmental charity, or even have tropical plants around to decorate the place, but no. There's little potted ferns strewn at the halfway mark of the buffet table, and that's about it, as far as theming goes.
By 10 pm, Jason's half hoping for Ivy to crash the place to liven things up a little — that's how bored he is.
B hasn't had a sip of champagne all night, but he's deep in Brucie Wayne mode, stumbling and smiling and pretending to be smashed. He's funny when he's like this, but he's about the worst conversationalist ever, and Jason's counting the guys in Park Row that used to get high off their heads on LSD and could hardly string a sentence together afterward, they were so lost in whatever shit they were seeing.
So anyway, Jason is bored. Like, really bored. Excruciatingly bored.
So bored he's paying attention to what the neighbor kid is doing with his hands, tapping the side of his plate with a thousand yard stare. And what he's tapping, in morse code, is I M B O R E D.
It's so unexpected that Jason has to fight for his life not to spit out the sip of sparkling apple cider he just swallowed. He still chokes.
Then he wipes his mouth, picks up his not-champagne flute, and sidles up to the neighbor kid, who looks all of about ten years old.
"Me, too," Jason mutters, and the kid looks so surprised you'd think Jason came up and punched him straight in the jaw.
He stares at Jason with these huge, round baby blues, and Jason snorts a little, because it's like one of those nature documentaries where the gazelle's just stuck there staring, all wide-eyed, until the predator pounces. "I," says the kid. "I didn't, uh."
"Bored, right?" says Jason, and he smirks, and the kid goes absolutely beet goddamn red. "So like I said — me, too." He sticks a hand out, and the kid stares at it like it's got seventeen fingers and a tentacle attached. "I'm Jason."
"I know," blurts the kid, and then, impossibly, finds a deeper shade of red to blush. "I mean. We live next door. I've seen you around. I'm Tim."
He seems to recover a little — takes Jason's hand and shakes it, like a perfect little gentleman, and as he does, Jason says, "You're the Drake kid, right?"
Tim wrinkles his nose slightly, at that. "I'm not a kid," says the kid. "I'm only like two years younger than you."
"You're a baby," says Jason, and Tim does the nose wrinkle again, and Jason laughs and doesn't think to ask how the kid knows how old he is.
"Anyway, listen," says Jason. "You're bored. I'm bored." He lowers his voice, conspiratorial, and leans in a little. "I heard Mrs. Venicci's got a game room down the hall. Bet we could sneak out and find a pack of cards or something."
The kid's eyes are doing that gazelle thing again. They dart around the room, like he's being hunted, and Jason turns, casual, to follow his gaze to where the Drakes stand against the far wall, smiles like sculpted porcelain as they titter and chatter and network, or whatever it is rich assholes do at events like this.
"What, your parents?" says Jason. "Who says they've gotta know?"
Tim's eyes dart to Jason's face and linger there. There's something in the look Jason can't quite seem to figure out, something way too intense for a kid who's bored at a shitty Earth Day party.
"Yeah," Tim says finally. "Yeah, sure."
Jason grins at him, sharklike. He finishes his sparkling cider in one pull, the way gunslingers in westerns finish off their whiskey before they go do something really cool. Then he says, "Alright, short stuff. You and me, we're busting out of here."
It's kind of a thing after that.
When the Drake kid's at one of the high society events Jason hates so much, they make a game of slipping out the back and finding something better to do, just the two of them. Mrs. Venicci's got her game room, and the Georges have a solarium that looks super haunted, and the Jarlsburgs have a full-on art gallery that some actual museums would kill for.
But today, they're at the Fredericksons, in some kind of music room. Today the kid's on the piano bench, where he just sort of gravitated like he belonged there, sitting down in front of the keys like it's long habit before twisting around backward to talk to Jason.
So he's got to ask. He's got to. And after a while of idle chatter, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe thirty, Jason gets around to it and says, "You gonna play something, Timbo?"
He's pretty sure he's right. He's got good instincts for this kind of thing — always has been able to read people, and he's only gotten more practice in since he started as Robin.
Tim pauses for a second, like he's not sure what to make of the question. "Do you want me to?" he says, at last.
"Sure," says Jason, disproportionately pleased that he was right. "Why not?"
Tim just watches him for a couple of beats, like maybe he's waiting for the punchline. But whatever he sees in Jason's expression must convince him one isn't coming, because he lowers his hands to the keys and starts to play.
And damn, the kid can play.
His hands fly over the keys, light and quick and nimble, picking out some classical piece Jason doesn't know the name of. It sounds good. Like lessons since he was three years old kind of good. Like more city orchestra level than middle school music class kind of good.
For a while, that's all there is: music like a river, flowing through the room, bolstered by the acoustics of the stately arched ceiling.
When Tim finally finishes, the last echoes fading away to silence, Jason gives a low, impressed whistle.
Tim startles a little, like he forgot he had an audience. Then he grins, all at once, pleased and maybe a bit shy, face going slightly red under the attention.
"Damn, Timbit," says Jason. "How come you don't do that on stage?"
That grin flickers; the space between Tim's brows creases, slightly, like he's working on a Rubik's cube. "Me?"
Jason snorts — gives an exaggerated glance around. "You see any other shrimps around here playing piano?"
Tim wrinkles his nose the way he always does when Jason calls him a shrimp. "I'm not a shrimp," he says, automatic.
"Pint-sized pianist?" Jason drawls, and barks a laugh when Tim gives him the world's flattest, more deadpan look, made about a thousand times cuter by the big blue eyes and chubby cheeks.
"I'm not pint-sized, either," says Tim, and then, before Jason can come up with anything else, he adds: "Besides, it wouldn't work. Nobody'd watch."
Jason blinks, taken aback. "What, at a concert hall? Kind of the point of seeing a concert."
Tim turns away, deliberately, ostensibly so that he can shuffle the sheet music back into its proper position. "Well, yeah," says Tim. "But not if I'm the one playing." Another shuffle; a papery tap. "It's kind of my superpower."
Jason's eyebrow ticks up. "You a meta or something?"
It might explain the way the kid collects information about random topics like other kids his age collect Pokémon cards, damn near encyclopedic, as if there's nothing at all out of the ordinary about it. Jason's learned more than he ever wanted to know about Gotham public transit since they started doing these meetups. Last week, Tim got on a tangent about new cyber security measures being introduced into local government databases.
Maybe the kid's some kind of genius prodigy. Jason's heard of metas who have brainiac powers before.
But Tim says, "Nothing that cool," and he says it kind of wry. "It's more like a metaphorical superpower."
Jason hums and looks him over, wide blue eyes and an earnest face that makes him look younger than he really is. "Okay," says Jason. "I'll bite. What's your superpower, kid?"
"People don't notice me," says Tim, matter-of-fact, like it's something he takes for granted as true. "And they don't want to notice me, either. "
Jason isn't sure what he was expecting, but it's definitely not that. He reels back a little, blinking — takes in the kid's expression, earnest and straightforward, like he's rattling off facts about his newest Wikipedia deep dive and not casually admitting that no one pays attention to him.
"I don't know if that's anything to brag about," Jason says, slowly.
Tim wrinkles his nose a little. "No, listen," he says. "It's great most of the time. Nobody pays attention. I can sneak in all kinds of places, like I'm not even there."
There's a strange sort of a sinking sensation somewhere in Jason's stomach. It starts way down low and then grows deeper the more he thinks about it. His Robin instincts kick into gear; he's wondering, suddenly, if he's ever seen this kid's parents say more than two words to him.
He doesn't think he has.
"That doesn't sound so great," says Jason, and it comes out kind of like a question.
"Well," says Tim. "Okay, maybe sometimes? But mostly it's fine. Mostly it's pretty cool."
He says it a little too quick, like he's trying to explain before Jason can get a word in edgewise. Like maybe he's trying to convince himself, before Jason has a chance to talk him around.
Jason sucks in a breath and opens his mouth to say something, but he never gets the chance.
"Jaylad?" says a voice from the doorway, and Jason turns toward it to discover that Bruce has tracked him down. Tim turns, too, but he does it with a nasty kind of jolt, like he's not used to getting caught out.
Which — checks out, honestly, given everything they've just been talking about.
"Hey, B," says Jason, a little sheepish.
Bruce's eyes track from Jason to Tim and then back again. "Sorry to interrupt, chum, but we're heading out. You about ready to go?"
Jason glances back at Tim again, and he hesitates for a second or two. The kid looks so prim and proper sitting there on the piano bench; between one heartbeat and the next, his posture's gone ramrod perfect, now that there's an adult in the room to see him.
"I gotta go," says Jason, even though he kind of wants to stay. He kind of wants to ask more about that bullshit not-really-a-superpower. "Catch you later, shrimp."
And Tim doesn't wrinkle his nose or complain about the nickname. He just sits there, spine straight and posture etiquette handbook perfect. He says, "Have a good rest of your evening, Jason," like they're still standing out in the gala proper, nibbling canapés from tiny plates by the buffet table.
It rubs him the wrong way, but there's nothing he can really do, not with Bruce watching. There'll be time to follow up later; now's not the right moment for it anymore, not when Tim's transformed into a weird, mannequin-creepy facsimile of himself between the space of one heartbeat and the next.
So instead of saying anything, instead of pushing it when Tim's already cagey and acting weird, Jason reaches out to ruffle the kid's hair.
He doesn't think he imagines the way Tim leans into it.
For a while after that, Jason doesn't have much time to think about the Drake kid.
Gotham does what Gotham does best and promptly falls to shit just in time for Halloween, kicking off the holiday season with a massive fuck-off Arkham breakout.
Ivy turns half the city into a jungle, and the Mad Hatter's got tea parties with brainwashed high society ladies at every fancy tea room in Gotham Heights, and even worse, they don't hear a peep from the Joker until a month and a half in. For once, they have no idea what he's been up to, and that's creepier than all the rest combined.
So Jason's busy for a while. More than busy. And then he's healing up, cause he broke an ankle tangoing with Killer Croc, and Bruce wants him to rest up before he starts showing up in public again.
So it's a while, is all. It's a while, and Jason hardly thinks of Timothy Drake at all.
The Drake kid's got a face mask on the next time Jason runs into him at a gala. It's one of those sleek, black, tailored ones, designed for form as much as function. Jason kind of wonders why his parents didn't leave him home, if he's sick.
Cause Tim does look sick. He's lost weight; those pudgy baby cheeks are honestly kind of gaunt, and there are dark shadows under his eyes that never used to be there.
"Jeez, kid," says Jason, and slips into the chair next to him, where he's ostensibly listening to the string quartet. "You look like death warmed over."
Jason reaches out to touch the kid's forehead, easy and casual, and Tim — Tim flinches.
He catches himself right away, recovers and does that same wrinkle-nosed look he always gives when Jason calls him a shrimp. Jason can only tell because the mask moves when he does it.
"I don't have a fever," says Tim, like it's obvious.
"Uh huh," says Jason, flat and kind of disbelieving. "What, your parents couldn't let you stay in bed and sleep it off?"
Tim gives a weird kind of nervous titter at that, high and thin. Then he cuts it short, almost mid-laugh, and he takes a sharp breath in. "Oh, they couldn't make it tonight," he says. "I'm here with my uncle."
Well, that explains why he hasn't seen the Drakes around. It doesn't explain how fidgety Tim is, hands in his lap, toying with the hem of the vest on his immaculate three-piece suit.
"He was coming anyway," says Tim, "And I didn't want to be home tonight."
There's something weird about the kid's tone. It's high and thready and almost nervous.
Jason looks Tim over again, but he does it slow and thorough this time, like he's taking down details at a crime scene.
He notes the dark smudges under the kid's eyes, and the lost weight, and the cagey look to him, all shifty eyes and nervous energy. The cuffs on his sleeves are perfectly fitted, but for just a second, Jason thinks he spots what looks like a new scar, the edge just visible on the back of Tim's hand, like the skin there's been scraped raw and then healed over.
Then Tim tucks his arms in around his stomach, like he's noticed Jason noticing, and that little glimpse disappears from view.
Jason watches him do it. There's a sick, cold sensation somewhere in his chest. He's thinking, suddenly, of how long it's been since he's seen the kid last, and how much can happen in a couple of months.
"Hey," says Jason. "Look. You want to raid the buffet and ditch out? I'm starving."
He's not starving; he just ate. But Tim kind of looks like a strong breeze would tip him sideways, and he was tiny before; now he looks like a Crime Alley kid, all hard angles and too-prominent cheekbones.
Tim doesn't take the bait. He says, "Didn't you just eat?" sort of casual, like he's been paying attention to Jason even before Jason saw him sitting here.
"They've got fancy pigs in blankets," says Jason, easy. "There's always room for fancy pigs in blankets."
Tim makes a little huff that might be amusement. "Well, I probably shouldn't take my mask off," he says. "But — if you want to grab some pigs in blankets for you, I don't mind ditching out."
Jason offers him up a practiced smile, even though he doesn't love that answer. But he doesn't want to scare the kid off, either, so he says, "I'll grab a couple extra in case you change your mind, kay?"
He turns to head toward the buffet table, and all at once a small hand reaches out to catch at his wrist.
The grip is surprisingly strong, perhaps desperately strong. Tim's fingers are trembling.
"Hey," says Tim, and his voice wavers a little. "It's, um. It's been a while. I missed you."
Jason half turns to look at him. There's an almost feverish brightness in the kid's eyes. He's staring up at Jason like there's something he needs — like this is something important.
Jason drags another smile up, even though he doesn't especially feel like smiling, this time.
"Yeah," he says. "I missed you, too."
And there's something so very much like relief in the kid's eyes that it makes Jason have to look away.
The neighbor kid's a fucking cuckoo.
Jason used to watch a stupid amount of nature documentaries, back when he was some dumb idealist curled up on Bruce Wayne's couch with popcorn. He knows all about how the little nightmares work, squirming into the nest and taking over space that doesn't belong to them.
Jason doesn't know how he didn't see it before.
He remembers scraps of his time talking to Timothy Drake — the barest fragments of memories — but he can't seem to keep a whole scene in his head anymore, can't seem to track an entire conversation from start to finish. Everything's scrambled a little now, the same way all the rest of his time pre-death is.
But that doesn't matter.
He knows the important things.
Fact: Timothy Drake waited all of six months after he was dead to pick up Robin's mantle.
Fact: Bruce put another kid in those stupid fucking colors, too bright to hide in the shadows, and let him go out on the street like a target to get himself killed.
Fact: Jason is going to teach both of them a lesson at once, and they are never going to forget it. No more dead kids. No more fragile little birds in capes.
No more washing your hands of one mistake and charging headfirst into the next one.
So Jason bides his time.
He collects information.
He watches the kid on patrol, and when he goes back to the manor afterward, and when he goes back to the empty house next door after that.
There's something, some small part of Jason that tries to make itself heard, that whispers about metaphorical superpowers. Some part of him that wonders, quietly, why Bruce is sending his Robin back to that other house at all. Some part of him that's buried in stolen moments, in playing cards and buffet table raids, in the elegant notes of a piano drifting through a high-arched music room.
But those are impressions more than actual memories, scraps of something that belong to a boy who's long dead.
Here and now, the simmering thread of green coils through Jason's chest like a snake and beats in time with his heartbeat. He watches, and he waits.
It's a cakewalk, in the end.
The kid's not expecting it. Bruce isn't expecting it. Nobody's expecting it.
Jason shows up at a tower that a dead boy belonged to, once upon a time — incapacitates three members of the kid's team, all without raising the alarm.
Nobody's going to notice, now, when he sets his plan into motion. If something happens to poor little Timmy Drake, nobody will come if he screams.
There's a thrill of anticipation running all through him. It's not revenge — it's not — but he can't help but look forward to it, all the same. Sometimes people just have to learn their lessons the hard way.
"Hello, replacement," says Jason, when he finds the kid, and Tim's head jerks up from where he's sitting at a table, hunched over a laptop and typing.
He reaches for the keyboard, doubtless to set off some kind of alarm, and Jason hooks a small, curved blade toward him. It buries itself in the screen and lodges there, sparking. The laptop goes dead.
"Don't tell me you're looking for an interruption already," drawls Jason, and stalks a few steps nearer. "I only just got here."
The kid's eyes dart over him, from jacket to armor to helmet; Jason can practically see the way he's cataloguing it all, drawing his inferences. "Red Hood," he says, and his tone is level.
He stands from the table, slow and deliberate — reaches for the retractable bo staff tucked into the holster at his waist. Jason lets him. It'll be more fun this way.
"That's me," says Jason.
"I figured," says Tim, and his voice is painstakingly even. "What are you doing here?"
"Wanted to pay Batman's new bird a visit," says Jason. He reaches up, slow and steady, to unclasp the security latches on his helmet, and then he peels it up and away. "Haven't you heard? Little birdies trying to fly solo can take some nasty falls."
The whiteout lenses on the mask have gotten higher tech, since the time when Jason wore Robin's colors. When Tim's eyes widen, the lenses flare to reflect it, mimicking the expression.
"Jason," the kid breathes, and he says it so soft that Jason hardly hears it. The kid's gone perfectly still, gone gazelle still, like all those years ago.
It's almost funny. Now, finally, there's a predator here to hunt him.
"Surprise," says Jason, and he smiles with all his teeth.
"Jason," the kid says again, and it wobbles this time.
Jason wonders if the brat's starting to have regrets. If he's starting to feel guilty over stealing the spot from a dead kid.
Well, that won't do. This is the kind of lesson that really only sticks if it gets beat in.
Jason's had a couple of those, before. The last one got reinforced with a crowbar. It was a good lesson, all about fighting in wars for people who don't bother to show up for you.
He thinks it's about time Tim learned that one, too.
Jason reaches out, almost casual, to pluck the bo staff straight from Tim's hand. He takes his time about it, getting all up in the kid's space — means it to be threatening. Tim hasn't grown all that much; even though he's fifteen by now, Jason's got a full head of height over him and at least eighty pounds.
He towers; he expects the kid to shrink back.
Instead, Tim lets him take it. Instead, when he leans in, Tim's leaning in, too.
Abruptly, there are thin arms around him, clinging tight and shaking.
"I missed you," he tells Jason, for the second time, and the words are kind of shaking, too. "I thought," he says. "I thought —" And Tim laughs, that same not-quite right titter from a gala all those years ago, like it's slipped out without him meaning for it to.
"You think something's funny?" growls Jason, and his fingers tighten their hold on the borrowed bo in his hand.
"No," says Tim. The word comes out ragged, comes out awful. "I just, I thought — Oh god, Bruce thought so, too."
"Thought I was six feet under?" says Jason, and he feels the surge of green light him up inside, simmering somewhere low in his chest.
Tim pulls back, then, but only slightly — only enough to look Jason in the face, the whiteout lenses still wide and staring. "He came for you," Tim tells him, and there's something so intent about the way he says it, like it's the most important thing in the world for Jason to know. "He went looking. He almost — he almost found you in time."
"They don't give out trophies for almost," snarls Jason, around the lump threatening to form in his throat.
"He never forgave himself," says Tim, and his voice wavers wildly. "He — he looked for you, and he almost found you, and — and it almost killed him, that he didn't make it in time."
"Right," says Jason, coldly. "So much that he handed over my suit to some pretender a couple weeks later."
He clicks the toggle to telescope the bo open, and Tim's eyes drop to it. There's a little crease between his brows, like he's not quite sure what he's looking at, not at first. Then he looks up at Jason's face, and he opens his mouth like he means to ask.
Now's the time. Now's the time when he should backhand the little thief right across the jaw with the metal of his own goddamn weapon.
Now's the time when he should beat the little cuckoo into the ground, break bones and leave him a topographical map of mottled black and blue.
Jason doesn't.
He just stares, instead.
The last time he saw Tim in person, back before Jason got buried six feet under, he was hiding behind that half-mask, mouth and nose covered under sleek black cloth. He wore that mask a lot during the last six months of Jason's life. He recalls, through the fragmented soup of his own memories, that the kid had claimed to have a cold he couldn't quite shake.
Tim's got a different kind of mask on now, but this one doesn't cover the lower half of his face.
Probably, if Jason were anyone else, he wouldn't have noticed. Tim's done a good job with the makeup, after all. The concealer is nice and even, like he's got practice with it; there's powder to tamp it down.
Only, the kid's started crying at some point.
A couple of tears have cut through the makeup, leaving lines in the powder, drawing attention to the fact that it is makeup.
And once upon a time, Jason used to be a detective. Some habits die hard.
He stares into those wide, white-out lenses, and he doesn't put the bo down. Instead he reaches out with his free hand, infinitely slow, to swipe a thumb over that tear-smudged spot beside the kid's mouth.
The concealer doesn't wipe away when he tries the first time. It's the expensive kind, probably, the kind you have to use a special makeup remover for. But there's a sick, strange weight somewhere at the bottom of Jason's chest, and the longer he stares, the more he's sure he needs to know.
He seizes the kid by the arm and hauls him down the hallway toward the kitchen. Tim stumbles after, unresisting, and he stays there, silent and staring, as Jason yanks a dish towel off the rack and dunks it under the stream from the faucet.
He scrubs, rougher than he needs to be, but Tim doesn't stop him. He's still just staring at Jason's face, those whiteout lenses wide, expression solemn.
When Jason pulls the dish towel away again, smeared now with concealer, he gets his answer.
Because there it fucking is, at the corners of the kid's mouth, just like on the corpses Jason's seen on and off for half a decade.
The scars are thin and barely present, faded with time but still visible. They're narrow lines that branch up from the corners of Tim's lips and form a smile that isn't there.
Jason's stomach bottoms out. He knows very fucking well who left those scars.
"How," he says, and the word comes out a croak, too flat for a question.
There's more water leaking out from under the corners of the kid's mask. "B came for you," Tim says again, almost a plea. Something in the tone makes Jason feel like he's going to throw up. "He didn't make it, but he looked. He tried."
Jason remembers a small hand catching at his wrist.
He remembers fever-bright eyes, staring into his own.
He remembers a voice, much younger than this one, saying, "I missed you," like there's something important about it. Like more than anything in the whole world, he needs to hear that someone's missed him in return.
"Jesus," says Jason. "Fuck."
The poisonous green that surges inside him has receded like the tide, leaving only dry sand behind.
Tim is still just looking at him, quiet and watchful, like there's too much he understands.
"You should sit down," says Tim, and then there are hands on his arm, guiding him over to a kitchen chair as though he didn't plan to beat the shit out of this kid only fifteen minutes ago.
Now Jason just feels like he wants to break something. Like he wants to slam a fist into the wall until the plaster gives way. Like he wants to put his head down on the kitchen table and never pick it up again, just stay here for the rest of forever, because —
Because —
"No one ever looked for you," Jason says, quietly.
He's afraid to be right. He doesn't want to fucking be right.
And the kid says, "My parents were traveling," like it's the most normal thing in the world. "And there was that Arkham outbreak." A nervous giggle forces its way out of him, and Tim kind of chokes on it. Now that Jason knows who it's meant to be reminding him of, he feels it like nausea churning in his gut. "You and B were busy."
Jason thinks again of that small hand catching at his wrist.
He thinks of fingers on the keyboard of a piano.
He thinks of Tim peering at him over the top of a poker hand, their voices filling Mrs. Venicci's game room with laughter.
How hadn't he noticed?
How hadn't he noticed?
Jason flicks the bo staff closed again. He sets it on the table, and it rolls, disconsolately, toward the edge.
"Listen," says Tim. "You want some tea? I can make tea."
It's such an absurd fucking thing to say. It's such an Alfred thing to say.
Somehow, despite everything, it tears a laugh from his throat, jagged and ugly.
"You're a fucking mess," says Jason. "You know that? What the fuck, replacement."
Tim reaches up to scrub at his face, at the smudged makeup and the thin white scars and the damp spots gathering below the mask. "You, too," he says, but it doesn't sound like an accusation, not really. It sounds like an acknowledgement, almost. "Earl Grey, or oolong?"
Jason huffs a laugh, a little wetly this time, and he says, "What the hell. Make it Earl Grey."
And Tim turns toward the cabinet to get the tea.