Chapter Text
Tim is out with his compact Minolta when he finds Robin, and nearly drops the camera in his surprise. Robin hasn’t been seen in Gotham for months. Tim was starting to worry something really bad had happened to him. But here he is, crouched on a fire escape and scowling down at the pair of dumpsters behind Tiki’s Bar. Tim edges out from his hiding spot.
“Robin?”
Robin’s eyes find him with eerie ease, the white lenses of his domino shining under the streetlights.
“Hey,” Tim says.
“Hey,” Robin says back.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Robin leans his arms on the fire escape’s railing, cocking his head as he looks down at Tim. “Are you? Do you need something?”
Tim shakes his head.
“Why do you have a camera?”
“I take pictures."
“Of what?”
Of you, Tim tactfully does not say, and Batman and Catwoman and Nightwing.
“Just stuff,” Tim says, instead.
“Huh,” says Robin.
“I thought something had happened to you." Tim studies his Robin; he’s gotten a little taller since he’s been gone, though he’s still whip-thin. His uniform hasn’t changed. There’s a new, silvery scar on the side of his throat. Tim is pretty sure that wasn’t there in the spring. “You’re a vampire now.”
“Mm-hm,” Robin says. “Problem?”
“No.”
“Do I know you?” Robin cocks his head the other way, birdlike, as though a different view will give him a different thought. “You look familiar.”
“We’re neighbors.”
Robin’s expression doesn’t change, but his shoulders tighten.
“It’s okay,” Tim says hastily. “I haven’t told anyone who you are, and I won’t.”
Robin snaps his fingers and points down at Tim. “I got it. You’re the Drake kid.”
“Tim.”
“Tim. Hey, c’mere, Tim.”
Tim climbs up the fire escape with some trepidation.
“So how’d you figure it out?” Robin asks.
“I, um,” Tim says, “followed you guys, a lot.”
“What a little weirdo,” Robin says. Though the words are mean, they’re spoken with vivid delight. “You stalked us?”
“It was research.”
Robin reaches out and ruffles his hair. “Hey, I like you. You’ve got guts, and you must be pretty sneaky if you were able to follow us without us knowing. But you know if you tell anybody who we are I’m gonna have to kill you, right? Ha! I’m kidding—or am I? Who knows?”
Not Tim, that’s for sure. If this had been a few months ago, he would’ve been confident in his answer. Batman and the Robins don’t kill, ever. But this Robin has come back new and strange, and Tim wonders if he even knows the answer to his own question.
“I won’t tell anyone,” he repeats.
“I’ll hold you to that.” This time, when Robin smiles, he shows fangs. “How old are you, Tim?”
“Thirteen.”
“I’m fifteen. We should be friends. You live next door, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Come over tomorrow. We can hang out. Your parents won’t mind, will they?”
“No.”
Robin looks back out at the alley, scraping rust off of the metal rail with his thumbnail.
Tim sits down beside him, dangling his legs over the edge. They’re not that high up; the staircase is only two stories tall. “Why are you here?”
“What do you mean? I’m here on official Robin business.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Well, how would you know?”
Tim does not admit that he’s been following Robin since the moment he saw him two hours ago, and that he knows Robin has been doing nothing but stomping around Gotham and scowling like a slighted child. Instead, he says, “Your comms are off.”
“Yeah? What makes you think so?”
“You tip your head to the right when you’re listening to them. You haven’t done it at all since I found you, and I haven’t heard you say anything to Batman, either.”
Robin’s grin widens. “I like you.”
“You’re avoiding the question,” Tim points out.
“And you’re being very ungracious by not allowing me to,” Robin says, with a sniff.
“Sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“Why are you here? It’s, like, two AM. Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“It’s still summer.”
“Oh. Right. Well, it’s too late for little kids to be running around all alone, anyway.”
“I told you I’m thirteen.”
“Ergo.”
“I was looking for Batman,” Tim admits—a token bit of honesty in return for Robin’s company. “I usually do, if I have spare time. I stay up late most nights. It’s this or video games.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Orozmani.”
“Bless you.”
Tim laughs.
“No, seriously, where the hell is that?”
“Georgia,” Tim says. “The one overseas, not the one in the US.”
“I gathered.”
“There’s an International Field School there right now. My mom’s teaching.”
“They left you home alone?”
“I have a housekeeper.”
“Yikes.”
Tim shrugs a little. It’s nothing he’s not used to, anyway, and he kind of likes being alone. It gives him time to do whatever he wants—like reading, or playing Legend of Zelda, or running around Gotham’s streets in the middle of the night taking pictures of his heroes.
“I got mad at my brother,” Robin says. It’s fair—an eye for an eye, a truth for a truth. This Robin has always liked his justice tit for tat. “He’s being a dumbass, so I ran away. I’m not actually supposed to be here right now. They’re gonna kill me when I get back, so I’m kind of just delaying the inevitable. But B already knows where I am à la tracker, and he hasn’t come to get me yet, so that’s gotta be some kind of implicit permission, right?”
“I don’t know,” Tim admits. “You’ve been moving around a lot. Maybe he’s having a hard time catching up.”
“Hey, you’re supposed to support me here, Timbo.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s just holding back to give you time to cool off.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Why were you mad at your brother?”
Robin blows out a breath, stirring the white tuft in his bangs that wasn’t there before. “Dumb shit.”
“I’m a good listener.”
Robin seems to wrestle with himself over this for a moment, then straightens up and begins to pace the tiny expanse of the landing. “He’s so overbearing,” he huffs. “And I get why, okay? It’s, just—it’s a bunch of stuff. Mostly it’s because I want to go back to being Robin, but he won’t let me. He talks Bruce out of it every time I bring it up. It’s not his choice, it’s mine.”
“Why doesn’t he want you to be Robin?”
“Because he thinks I’m going to murder someone,” Robin says, bitterly, “and so does Bruce.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So.”
“Because you’re a vampire?”
“I don’t know.” Robin crosses his arms tightly over his chest. “I think they thought it before, too.”
Tim doesn’t know what to say to that. Who would?
“Sorry,” Robin mutters. “Didn’t mean to dump all that on you.”
“It’s okay. That sounds hard.”
Robin’s eyes flick away from him, finding the silhouette of the Batman crouched on the apartment complex across from them. His cape billows dramatically behind him, edged silver by the moonlight. Tim’s fingers twitch for his camera.
“I gotta go,” Robin says. “See you tomorrow?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You said you’d come over, right?”
Tim nods hastily.
Robin smiles again, and this time it seems a little softer and a whole lot more real. “Night, Tim.”
Tim watches as he grapples his way to Batman’s side. Batman bends to speak with him for a moment, then nods to Tim. They both vanish across the rooftops. Tim peels a bit of flaking paint from the fire escape, and wonders at how strange this night was.
Tim is three seconds into his first official handstand when Dick Grayson enters the gym.
“—and then you gotta point your toes, like this,” Jason is saying, demonstrating beside him. He scowls when Dick enters the room, though the expression is remarkably underwhelming when he’s upside down and red-faced. “Go away. I’m still mad at you.”
Dick does not go away. Instead he kneels, cocking his head at them in that birdlike gesture inherent to the Robins. “Is that Timothy Drake?”
Tim attempts to cartwheel out of the handstand and succeeds in tripping over his own arms, which is actually more impressive. He stumbles a few steps forward until he regains balance, then straightens up with his hands on his hips. His face feels flushed from more than just being upside down. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Dick says. “I’m Jason’s brother, Dick. I didn’t know you two were friends.”
“Well, we are.” Jason flips out of his handstand with a grace Tim envies. "And he’s mad at you too.”
Tim asks, “I am?”
“Yeah, ‘cause I told him what a jerk you’re being,” Jason announces.
A smile touches Dick’s face. “Right. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Jason scowls harder and ducks his head towards Dick, growling in a distinctly inhuman register. Dick’s smile softens, and he leans forward to bump his head against Jason’s. His hand comes up to rub the back of Jason’s neck in a brief greeting.
“Hi, Little Wing,” he says.
“Fuck off,” Jason says, but he looks a little less grumpy, now. He watches as Dick leaves, then turns back to Tim. “He’s my sire.”
“Oh,” Tim realizes, genuinely surprised—which isn’t something that happens often, anymore. He’s used to being two steps ahead of everyone and everything. “Why?”
Jason shrugs and flips back into a handstand. “I was dying and he saved me.”
“That’s a good reason.”
“Well, I thought so, but I’m biased on account of the whole wanting-to-live thing.”
“What, um.” Tim pauses, crouching down so he can meet Jason’s eyes a little easier. They’re dark blue, with the dusky ring of a contact lens around the edges. “I guess I don’t know a lot about vampires. A sire’s the one who turns you into a vampire, right? So what does that mean for you guys?”
“Honestly no idea,” Jason admits. “We’re winging it.”
Tim tries another handstand and falls over.
“Hey, I feel like you owe me,” Jason says.
“What for?”
“I’ve told you a bunch of deep dark stuff, but you haven’t told me much about you.”
Always keen on fairness, this guy. Tim sits cross-legged on the floor in front of him. “What do you want to know?”
“Why do your parents think it’s okay to leave you at home alone? How long are they gone for?”
Tim shrugs a little. “They’ll be back in September unless they extend their trip, and they didn’t leave me alone. I have a live-in housekeeper. Her name’s Mrs. Mac. I mean, Bruce has left you guys alone with Alfred before, right?”
“I guess.” Jason bows out of his handstand and sits in front of Tim, plucking at a loose thread on his shorts. “But he’s never gone for months. That’s a long time.”
“Their work is important.”
“More important than you?”
“I think you’re polarizing the problem."
Jason lays down and rolls over on his back to look at Tim upside-down again. He does that, a lot—changing his view, looking for new sides to things and people as though that will bring him clarity. Tim wonders if it ever works, or if it’s just become a hopeful habit. “Okay,” he says, eventually. “But you should hang out with us more while they’re gone. Bring Mrs. Mac. Maybe we can set her and Alfred up.”
Tim rolls his eyes.
Alfred comes to get them for dinner, eventually. He serves lasagna with cheesy bread and no garlic.
“The garlic thing is only kind of a myth,” Dick explains. “It wouldn’t kill us if we ate it, but it makes us sick, and the smell is pretty nasty.”
“It’s still really good,” Tim says, after swallowing his mouthful of lasagna. “Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome, young sir,” says Alfred.
Tim and Bruce are the only two who eat the meal. Alfred sips a mug of something dark and steaming, and Dick does the same. Jason sits at the table with them but mostly plays on his phone. No one scolds him for it. Tim wonders when—and what—he eats, these days. Alfred clears their plates away once they’re finished, and Jason hops up.
“Wanna see my skateboard?” he asks.
“Your appointment is in half an hour, Master Jason,” Alfred says. “Better that you go and get cleaned up before we leave.”
“What about Tim?”
“Master Timothy is welcome to stay as long as he wishes.”
“That’s okay,” Tim says. “I better head back home anyway. Thanks for having me over, though.”
“If you’ll wait a few more moments, I can drive you back to your house. Jason and I have an appointment in the city, so I’ll be bringing the car around, anyway. It’s no trouble.”
Jason runs upstairs and returns with a cardboard box. “To keep you company,” he says.
Tim doesn’t open the box until he’s back in his own bedroom in Drake Manor. It’s a tiny stuffed robin. He sets it on his bedside table and pets its small gray head with one finger, and smiles.
It’s late August when Jason climbs through Tim’s window on the fourth floor.
“Hey,” Tim says.
“Hey,” Jason says, and flops face-first on Tim’s carpet to scream into the shag.
“You okay?”
Jason gives him a thumbs-up.
Tim moves off of the bed and sit beside him. He pats his back, a little awkwardly. “There there?”
Jason’s shoulders start shaking, and it takes a second for Tim to realize he’s laughing. He rolls over, a wide grin on his face. “You’re super bad at comforting people.”
Tim makes a face at him.
“Why am I here, you ask?” Jason asks, popping onto his feet and beginning to pace. Tim did not, in fact, ask this. It seems he’s going to get the answer anyway, with as much melodrama as Jason sees fit to include (which is usually a lot; he has a flair for theatrics). “It’s because Dick is being a dick again. It’s almost time for school to start, and I’m supposed to go back, right? But he says since I’m not finished turning, it would be too dangerous. Like what, Dick? I’m not gonna snap and tear somebody’s throat out! I’m not crazy!”
“Alright,” Tim says. “I guess this is just me being ignorant about vampires, again, but I have no idea what turning entails or if Dick is right or not. I don’t feel equipped to participate in this argument.”
“You don’t have to participate, Timmy.” Jason rolls his eyes. “You just have to take my side.”
“Hm.”
“What? You think they’re right?” Jason folds his arms across his chest, scowling down at Tim. “I’m not an animal. I can control myself. I don’t need a muzzle. But I said that to Dick, and he blew the fuck up at me.”
“Have you been around other people to know? Besides me, I mean?”
Jason is damningly silent.
“Well, why don’t you try that first?” Tim asks. “Then you’ll have some actual evidence to argue with. Go to the library or the park or something and see how you do.”
“I’ve asked to,” Jason says, beginning to pace again. “Dick says I’m not ready. Well, when am I gonna be? It’s been three months already. And, look, I know he’s worried because of what happened when he was turned, but this is different. I’m different.”
“Okay—look, Dick’s like your dad, right?”
“What?” Jason squawks. “No, man! And that’s part of the whole problem too, you know? He’s my brother, but he keeps trying to parent me. It’s super annoying. I get enough of that from Bruce. I don’t need two mother hens.”
“But I thought he was your sire?”
“He is. That doesn’t make him my dad.”
“I…did not know that.”
Jason drags his hands down his face and flops down on Tim’s bed, groaning. Oh, the drama.
“He’s just my sire ‘cause he turned me,” Jason mutters, turning his face out of the bedsheets so Tim can hear him. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It kind of seems like maybe it does?”
“And so I told him if he needed somebody to mother he should just adopt you,” Jason continues, loudly, refusing to acknowledge Tim’s words. “And then he got all weird about me hanging out with you! I asked to come over here yesterday and he said no, probably ‘cause he thinks I’m gonna exsanguinate you if we’re alone. He says it’s safer if you come over to our place. Like, are you kidding? He just—he thinks I have no self-control whatsoever, and I don’t know what to do to prove to him that I do.”
“Um,” Tim says, because what else can he say? “That’s kind of a lot.”
“Ugh, I know.” Jason rolls onto his back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come over here just to bitch. I mean, I meant to bitch, but that’s not all I wanted to do. The new Mario Kart came out yesterday. D’you wanna play with me?”
So the two of them descend to the game room, and Tim kicks Jason’s ass at Mario Kart for almost an hour. They break for snacks—or at least Tim breaks for snacks, and Jason pokes around the kitchen. He sits on the table and swings his legs while Tim devours a packet of strawberry Pop-Tarts.
“Are your parents still coming back next week?” he asks.
Tim shakes his head. “October.”
“Boooo.” Jason wrinkles up his nose. “Well, like I said, Dick would adopt you. He’s super broody right now. I think he’d adopt a rock if it looked at him the wrong way.”
Tim laughs. “I don’t need Dick to adopt me. Thanks, though.”
“No problem, man.” Jason looks down at the floorboards, picking at a hangnail. “Tim?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you afraid of me?”
Tim looks at him and wonders. Like this, Jason doesn’t look anything but human. His contacts are in, and his smile shows no fangs. The only mark of his vampirism is the scar on his throat, barely visible unless the light hits it directly. Tim knows, rationally, that Jason could kill him—but so could anyone else. Despite everything, he’s still just a melodramatic teenage boy who likes video games and doing back-flips and swimming. He’s still Robin.
“No,” Tim says, “I’m not.”
Jason beams at him, brighter than the sun.
Jason doesn’t go back to school in August, which he complains about at great length. Tim is still hearing grumblings about it deep into September. His relationship with Dick remains rocky, though he returns to his family without fail every night. Tim spends a few nights at Wayne Manor, but mostly he sleeps at his own house. He lays in his bed and stares up at the ceiling and wonders if his parents will call the next day, or the next, or the next. He misses them so much it makes him ill, sometimes. But he’s old enough to be on his own, now. He doesn’t need to be a baby about it—except he is, sometimes, like now.
Tim had come home after school and wedged himself beneath his bed and started crying in deep, stuttering gulps. He doesn’t even know why, really. He had a good day at school. He got an A on his essay, which he thinks probably had something to do with Jason tutoring him. Mrs. Mac made him pumpkin cookies yesterday, and even packed some in his lunch. He got to hang out with his friends during study hall. It was a good day. But his stomach still hurts and his eyes burn and he can’t seem to stop crying.
Naturally, Jason finds him there.
“Tim? Woah, hey—are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.” Tim swipes furiously at his eyes. Jason had come in through his window, again, a habit Tim has yet to break him of. “Sorry. I really am fine.”
“You’re crying.”
“Yeah.”
Jason lays down on the floor on his belly and looks under the bed. “Are you hurt?”
Tim shakes his head, pressing his knuckles against his eyes.
“Was somebody mean to you?”
Tim shakes his head again.
Jason asks, a little quieter, “Do you miss your mom and dad?”
Tim nods.
“Aw, Timmy.” Jason squishes up under the bed with him and hugs him, which helps a little. “I’m sorry. That sucks, man.”
“I got an A on my essay,” Tim says, his voice cracking. His face feels wet and hot.
“Oh yeah? That’s awesome, buddy. Good job.”
“I wanted to tell my mom. I called her but she didn’t answer.”
Jason makes a sad hurt noise, like Tim kicked him. “We can show Bruce,” he offers, “or Dick.”
Tim shakes his head. He likes Bruce and Dick, but it’s not the same. Jason sets his chin on Tim’s head, rubbing Tim’s back. If he squeezes his eyes shut tight enough, he can almost pretend it’s his mom holding him instead. She used to do that a lot when he was little. Jason waits a bit until Tim stops crying so hard before speaking again.
“Let’s go see Dick,” he coaxes. “He’ll make you feel better.”
Because, despite everything, Jason adores his big brother and trusts him to fix all of his problems. Tim seethes with jealousy for a moment. Why couldn’t his parents have had more kids? Why couldn’t he have a brother or a sister to stay home with him, and play video games with, and help him steal cookies from the jar? Dick and Jason are the closest things to siblings he’s ever had, and he still feels so far away from them. Even so, he’s unable to resist the temptation of company. Mrs. Mac has taken the weekend off, and the house feels terribly empty with only Tim haunting its halls.
“Okay,” he says.
Jason takes him back to Wayne Manor and to Dick’s room.
“He has his own apartment in Bludhaven, but he’s been staying here this summer,” Jason explains, as he knocks on the door. “His room’s a mess.”
Dick opens the door to let them in. Jason was right: laundry is strewn across his floor, the bed is unmade, and an empty chip bag sits on the corner of the desk alongside half of a broken Escrima stick and a framed picture of the Flying Graysons.
“What’s up, nerds?” Dick asks, but his face sobers swiftly when he sees Tim. Tim had tried to wash his face before they left Drake Manor, but his eyes are still red and puffy. “Aw, hey, what’s the matter?”
Tim doesn’t miss the way Dick’s eyes flick to his throat and his wrists, like he’s looking for a bite mark. He shrugs a little, bringing one hand up to clutch his elbow.
“Tim got an A on his essay,” Jason says, forced cheer obvious in his tone. “Tell him good job.”
“Good job, kiddo,” Dick says, ruffling Tim’s hair. “We should do something to celebrate. You wanna stay over for movies and dinner? If we tell Alfred, I bet he’ll make something special for dessert. What’s your favorite thing to eat, anyway?”
“I like sandwiches.”
“Oh yeah? What kind’s your favorite?”
“Italian subs are really good.”
“I’ll let Alfred know. Jay, go pick out some movies in the theater.”
Jason cheers and leads the charge to the theater room, letting Tim browse their collection of movies. They settle on Back to the Future, and Bruce joins them with several bowls of popcorn. Midway through the movie, Jason abruptly leans over and bumps his forehead against Tim’s temple the way Tim has seen him do to Dick a few times. Tim rubs his head and looks at Jason, baffled. Jason grins back at him.
“It means you’re family,” he says. “No take-backs.”
Tim bumps his head back against Jason’s, and laughs when he sees Jason’s delighted expression.
Alfred makes Italian sub sandwiches with homemade fries and chocolate cherry cake. Bruce sits on the couch and reads Tim’s essay and tells him he’s very smart and well-spoken. Tim tries to brush the compliment off—Jason had helped a lot with the formatting and verbiage, anyway—but Bruce squeezes his shoulder and smiles and Tim accepts it, instead. He and Jason spread blankets out on the living room floor, and Tim dozes in the blue light of the TV as Jason and Dick play Super Smash Bros until he falls asleep. He only wakes up when Dick gets off of the couch and bends to nudge his head against Jason’s in that family-no-take-backs way.
“Night, Dickie,” Jason mumbles. “Love you.”
“Good night, Little Wing. I love you too.”
Tim closes his eyes again and wonders if he might have a brother, one day.
It’s October when Scarecrow kidnaps him, which Tim thinks is thematically appropriate.
“Oh, yes, Robin will come for you,” Scarecrow says, dragging his nasty needle-fingers beneath Tim’s chin. Tim strains away from them, heart thrashing. Scarecrow hasn’t used any of his fear gas, yet. He hasn’t needed to. “I saw you that night, little one, on the fire escape. I knew then that you would make the perfect bait—and once I have the Robin, the Bat will soon follow.”
“Seems like kind of a convoluted plan when you could just commit a crime and Batman would show up,” Tim points out.
“Convoluted, perhaps,” Scarecrow agrees, rubbing his hands together in the manner of every cliche villain ever, “but more controlled. I’ll have him right where I want him, like this.”
“Yeah, okay,” Tim says.
A mere two minutes later, two of Scarecrow’s goons drag Robin in. He thrashes like a wet cat between them, snarling obscenities—but he’s not fighting as hard as he could. Jason’s taught him a few moves this summer, and Tim knows what a dirty fighter he is. He’s letting himself be caught. When he sees Tim, he bares his teeth in a mean grin. His fangs are out, bright and sharp.
“Tim!” he calls. “You okay?”
Tim nods.
“Alright,” Jason says, and turns that mean grin on the men holding him. “You guys are lucky. I would’ve had to kill you otherwise.”
Jason’s showing his hand, letting Scarecrow’s men know how worried he was for Tim. Then again, they had probably figured it out already—hence why they’d used Tim as bait in the first place. Maybe Jason figures there’s no point in hiding it, anymore. He lets himself be pushed into the chair next to Tim’s, hands bound behind his back with coils of rough rope. He catches Tim’s eye for just a moment, and he winks.
“Hello, birdie,” Scarecrow says, sliding the fingers of his un-gloved hand through Jason’s hair and hauling his head back. “Where’s daddy tonight, hm?”
Jason spits, a glob of saliva sliding down Scarecrow’s cheek.
Scarecrow backhands him, the tips of the needles on his fingers slicing through Jason’s cheek. The cuts are thin, but the depth isn’t what worries Tim—there’s fear toxin on the tips of those needles, already leaking sluggishly into Jason’s blood. Jason hisses through bared teeth, snapping his fangs.
“Feisty,” Scarecrow sneers, stepping away.
“Robin?” Tim asks, straining towards him. There’s rope wound around his chest and his arms, keeping him pinned to his own chair.
Jason looks at him, blood curving down his jaw. “I’m okay, Timmy. Just hang on, okay? B’ll be here soon.”
Tim remembers one of Jason’s one-off comments from their first meeting—he’s got a subcutaneous tracker that will lead Batman right to them. If worst comes to worst, they just have to wait Scarecrow and his goons out. But Tim would rather not lead the Bat into a trap if he can help it, and Jason clearly feels the same. His eyes dart around the room, analyzing. The goons clump around Scarecrow near the doorway, out of earshot as long as they keep their voices low.
“Can you get out of the ropes?” Jason murmurs, keeping his eyes fixed on the men.
Tim’s been trying for a while, now. He’s small and wiggly, and he’d managed to loosen the ropes a bit since he was brought here. He also has a piece of broken glass from his Minolta lens. It had taken some fidgeting to get it into the right spot to start sawing at his restraints, but he’d managed. He’d been out taking photos of the city when Scarecrow’s men found him; he had a tentative agreement with Jason that he would text whenever he was out exploring by himself. When he’d stopped responding, Jason had come searching for him—or at least, he assumes. He doesn’t know why else Jason would be here at this time of night. He feels the frayed edges of the rope and determines them to be thin enough to snap with a hard yank, and he nods.
“Good,” Jason says, eyes narrowing with satisfaction.
“If I can scoot closer,” Tim says quietly, “I can cut your ropes.”
“Got a knife?”
Tim shakes his head and opens his hand behind his back, showing Jason the gleam of his shattered lens. He’d tucked it into his pocket when the goons had shoved him to the ground and broken his camera. It had been a stroke of luck that they hadn’t patted him down and found it. He’d done his best to act like a bumbling coward, unworthy of their suspicion. He’s not as good an actor as Alfred or Bruce, but he’s learned a little.
Jason’s eyes gleam. “Try to move quietly.”
Tim scoots his chair closer to Jason’s. There’s about a foot of space between them. Luckily, they’re both wooden, and lightweight enough that Tim can move his without much trouble. But the feet of the chair scrape against the floor, and Scarecrow’s eyes snap towards him.
“Go,” Jason says. “Go, Tim, now.”
Tim uses the glass to shred through the last of his restraints and lurches out of the chair.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Scarecrow says, clucking his tongue. “Not so fast, Mr. Drake.”
Tim lunges for Jason, trying to slice through his ropes.
“No! No no, Tim, wait!” Jason’s eyes widen. “Run, you have to run—!”
Like Tim is going to leave him! He begins to saw through the ropes, but one of Scarecrow’s goons drags him away before he can make any real progress. He lashes out automatically, driving his heel back into the man’s kneecap in a move Dick taught him last week. The man retaliates by slamming a knife into his abdomen. Tim makes a choking, startled noise. Jason screams.
Look, Tim’s not a trained vigilante. He’s thirteen and he’s scared and he’s got a fucking knife in his stomach. But he knows he can’t give up—if he gives up, he’ll die, and who knows what will happen to Jason then? So he fights. He stomps back on the man’s foot and grabs the knife, ripping it out of his own belly and slicing at the man’s hands when they come for him. The minute the man releases him to avoid the blade, Tim throws himself back at Jason and slashes through the ropes. Jason is up and over him in seconds, blazing his way through Scarecrow’s goons like a wildfire. Scarecrow himself escapes through the door, but Jason drags his men down and takes out their throats with his teeth. Blood blankets his mouth, his jaw, his chest. Tim lowers himself to the floor, pressing his palm to his stomach. His shirt feels sticky, blood hot between his fingers. Jason crouches over the bodies of the men, pupils wide and unfocused. He licks the blood from his hands, and then he looks at Tim.