Chapter Text
There are eyes on him again. Jason's been back in Gotham for around a month now. And for most of that time, he's had a tail. He'd think it was the bat, except he knows B has been wrestling with one of the major crime families on the other side of town since Jason got here. And it's not Nightwing, because he's in Bludhaven. The only city that might actually be more of a shithole than Gotham.
Whoever is following him, they're good. Better than they have any right to be. Jason's never actually caught them. The closest he's come was scaring the hell out of some random kid during the first week, when he rounded a corner with both pistols drawn.
He feels kind of bad about that actually.
He's just so done with the feeling of being watched. It's been a bad couple of weeks getting himself set up as the Red Hood. The green that thrums in his veins ever since his little Lazarus dip has been pushing him toward more and more violence.
It urges him on now.
Jason stops long enough for his tail to catch up. Then he lets the green take over. He spins and lunges toward the shadowy corner of the alley he's lured his watcher into. Knocks over the trash cans and grabs the person lurking behind them.
He lifts them all the way up to his face before he realizes.
It's a kid. In fact it's the kid he scared the crap out of a couple of weeks ago.
And rather than scream or start pleading for Hood to let him go, he cringes a little and says, “Um. Hi.”
Jason thinks back to every time he tried to find his stalker over the past month. How many times he'd overlooked a street kid or two he passed during his search. He stares straight into this kid's face and focuses on keeping a lid on the anger that's boiling up inside him.
“How long have you been following me?” he asks.
“Uh…” The kid scrunches up his face as he thinks. “About three weeks?”
Fuck. That means he probably saw…
“Please tell me you didn't follow me to my meeting at the warehouse last week.”
“I did,” the kid says, apologetically. “But I didn't go into the warehouse so I didn't actually see much.”
Good. Jason hasn't exposed a tiny child to a bag of decapitated heads.
He sets the kid back on his feet, but keeps his hands on his shoulders so he won't run.
“Want to tell me why you decided following me was a good idea?”
The kid takes a deep breath and straightens up as much as he can before he replies. “Because I know who you are, Jason Todd.”
Jason takes the kid back to his closest safehouse, because this is a conversation he is not having on the streets where anyone could overhear. He sits him on the sofa and tries not to think about how many weapons he's got lying around.
His apartments aren't exactly childproofed. But then, if this kid has been following Jason for as long as he says he has, he's seen worse than a couple of knives left out on the coffee table.
Jason takes off his helmet and stares down at the kid.
“Okay,” he says. The kid gawks at him and Jason glares before continuing. “Who are you? Why were you following me?”
“My name is Tim Drake,” the kid says. His accent is pure upper Gotham. Bristol, probably. “Um. I was… a big fan of Robin when I was little.”
Jason tries not to flinch at the mention of Robin.
“I met you at a gala once,” Tim continues. “You probably don't remember. I was only five or six…”
He's right. Jason went to far too many of those stupid stuffy parties and met too many rich kids to remember all of them.
“You kept fidgeting with your collar,” Tim says. “And I thought you just didn't like it being so tight, like me. But then you pulled it down a bit and you had this huge lump there.”
Jason remembers that. Still not the kid, specifically, but having to wear a tux and pretend to be grateful to all the snobby assholes around him while he was dealing with a busted collarbone where it met his sternum.
“And then the next day there was a clip on the news of Batman and Robin fighting Killer Croc…”
“And you watched Croc tackle me into a pillar.”
Tim nods. “I didn't put it all together then. But I noticed you got injured a lot after Batman and Robin had been seen fighting. And then Robin disappeared just before your funeral, and… Well. Yeah,” he finishes.
“Okay,” Jason says, pacing in front of the sofa. “But you knew I died. How'd you know it was me now?”
Tim shrugs. “You move the same.”
Jason stops short. “I move the same as a two-hundred pound, six-foot adult as I did as a five-foot-four teenager who was maybe a hundred-and-twenty pounds soaking wet?”
Tim shrugs again. “I can't explain it,” he admits. “I just knew when I saw you that it was you. And then I said your name in the alley and you confirmed it.”
Fuck. Outplayed by a toddler.
“Say,” Jason says, “how old are you anyway, shrimp?”
“Ten,” Tim says, but he looks away right after.
“Ten?”
“Okay…” Tim admits. “I'm still nine. But I'll be ten in July!”
“That's six months away. You're nine.”
“...and a half,” Tim mutters.
Jason snorts. Then he sits down on the sofa next to Tim. “Here's what's going to happen here,” he says. “I'm going to get you an Uber and I'm going to track it and make sure you get back to Bristol.”
Jason would prefer to take Tim home himself, but that puts him too close to Bruce and the others.
“You don't know where I live!” Tim protests.
Jason resists the urge to roll his eyes and says, “Tim. There is literally a house called Drake Manor next door to Wayne Manor. You have a Bristol accent. We met at a gala.”
“Oh. Right.”
Jason rubs his temples. Kids are a nightmare. Glad he's getting rid of this one. “So, you're getting in the Uber and going home,” Jason reiterates. “And then you’re going to spend your evenings doing normal kid shit and not tracking me through Crime Alley.”
He probably shouldn't be swearing around the kid, but again, if he's been tailing Jason, he's definitely heard worse.
“But–”
“No buts,” Jason says. He hates how much of an adult he sounds. “Stay out of the Alley.”
An hour later, Tim is safe at home (or at least his Uber made it there). Good. Now Jason can get back to his plan with no more interruptions.
It's been a good week. Jason has run Black Mask out of the Alley almost completely. He's stolen three shipments that were supposed to be headed for Sionis. And best of all, he's managed to do it without Batman noticing that something's up.
He'll figure it out eventually, Jason knows. It's just too early for the bats to get involved yet.
So all in all, he's in a pretty good mood as he heads back to his safehouse.
Until he spots Tim Drake sitting on his doorstep.
“Didn't I tell you to stay out of Crime Alley?” Jason asks as he lets them both in.
“You did,” Tim agrees. “But this apartment isn't in Crime Alley. It's in the Bowery.”
Little shit.
Jason pulls his phone out. “I'm getting you an Uber again,” he says. “You can wait here until it comes. Your folks’ll probably throw a hissy fit if they figure out you're not at home.”
Tim rolls his eyes. “Kind of hard for them to figure that out from Singapore.”
Jason stops tapping at his screen. “Your nanny then. Whatever.”
Tim looks almost confused. “What nanny?”
“Or whoever's looking after you while they're off doing whatever,” Jason says. He books the Uber. Ten minutes away.
“Oh,” Tim says, relaxing. “Mrs Mac watches me when they're away.”
“Then we'd better get you home before Mrs Mac has a heart attack,” Jason replies as he takes his helmet off.
Tim takes off his backpack and sinks onto the sofa. “It's fine,” he says and he starts rummaging in the bag. “She won't be there until Tuesday.”
Jason pauses where he's taking off his boots. It's Saturday. “So who's at your house today?” he asks.
“Just me,” Tim replies casually. Jason just stares at him.
Then Tim says, “I think you should call Bruce and let him know you're back. He'd be so happy to know you're alive.”
Jason can feel the green boiling inside him. “I'm going to pretend you didn't say that,” he manages to grit out. Because he may be an asshole but he doesn't want to actually hurt the kid.
“Why won't you talk to him?” Tim asks.
Jason takes a deep breath as he wrestles with the green. He wonders how Tim managed to survive this long with such shitty self-preservation instincts.
“I'm not getting into this,” he replies. He checks his phone. Seven minutes until Tim's ride arrives.
“Is it because you think he won't be happy?” Tim asks. “Because I did some research and–”
“Shut up, Tim!” Jason snaps.
Tim's mouth clamps shut. The papers he's pulled out of his backpack are trembling in his hands. Jason feels like a total piece of shit.
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I shouldn't have shouted.” He's pretty sure his own hand is trembling. It's taking everything he has to keep the rage tamped down. “I can't talk about… about him right now.”
Tim nods slowly. “Okay,” he whispers.
They sit in silence until the Uber pulls up to take Tim home.
Jason paces his apartment as he watches the Uber on the map of Gotham. He doesn't settle until it's arrived.
And that's when he realizes Tim has left his papers.
Jason should trash them. Fuck this kid for getting involved in Jason's shit. But Jason has never been the type of guy who does what he should.
He leafs through the pages Tim left on his sofa. Looks like police reports, mostly. Jason doesn't want to know how Tim got these. He frowns as he tries to figure out what it was Tim wanted him to see.
Then he spots the dates. The first pages are the weeks immediately before Jason's death. The next pages are the weeks immediately after. Page after page of Batman getting more violent on patrol. Until around two months after Jason's death, when Nightwing starts being spotted in Gotham.
Jason seethes. So B lost it for a bit after Jason popped it. Big deal. Then Golden Boy Grayson came back and fixed the mess Jason made. Like usual.
The last page in Tim's pile is handwritten. Tim's writing is terrible, but Jason finally manages to decipher it.
The Jason Todd Memorial Library
The Jason Todd Scholarship at Gotham U
Charity drive for children's literacy
On and on. A full page of buildings and charity donations and public appeals attached to Jason's name.
The green finally bursts through.
Jason tears the page straight down the middle. He throws the whole pile up in the air before he grabs his shit and heads back out.
He's still got a couple of Black Mask’s lieutenants to take out.
That should be the last time Jason sees Tim. He's told him to stay out of Crime Alley (“and the Bowery and… You know what? Just stay home at night, Tim.”) and the kid could barely look at Jason after Jason yelled at him. Anyone with any sense would have stayed away.
Jason is beginning to realize that for all Tim's smarts? He has a worrying lack of survival instincts.
Tim has shown up on the doorstep of Jason's safehouse three times in the past two weeks. Jason's spotted him on patrol twice. He's willing to bet Tim's been out more than that and Jason just hasn't noticed him.
Every time Jason gets him inside somewhere, orders an Uber and sends him straight home.
Tim hasn't mentioned Batman again. Instead he tells Jason what various gangs are up to in his territory. This is not better.
Tim is on Jason's doorstep again when he gets home after blowing up one of Black Mask's warehouses. He still doesn't know exactly what they were cutting their shit with, only that the product coming out of that warehouse was responsible for most of the overdoses in Crime Alley over the past month.
“How'd you find this place?” Jason asks, opening the door. “I'm pretty sure I haven't brought you back to this one before.”
“You haven't,” Tim agrees as he sits himself down on a stool in Jason's kitchen. “But you always come back to this one after you've caused an explosion somewhere.”
“Huh.” Jason needs to stop being so predictable.
He opens the Uber app again.
“Did you know your downstairs neighbor is one of Sionis’s guys?” Tim asks.
Jason pauses just before he hits the confirm button. “What?”
“I've seen him coming and going a few times,” Tim says. “Could I have some water, please?”
Jason sets his phone down on the counter and gets Tim a glass of water.
“Thanks,” Tim says, taking a sip. “He's not, like, anyone high up or anything,” he continues. “But he definitely works for him.”
Jason rubs his temples. “Thanks for letting me know, squirt.”
“No problem, Jason!”
Four weeks into the routine that Jason really wishes didn't have to exist, the worst happens.
Tim gets hurt following Jason.
Red Hood has just finished putting fear into the hearts of his downstairs neighbor and his buddies when he hears a creaking. The fire escape on the apartment building behind him wobbles, then collapses with an almighty crash. Scummy landlord refusing to repair it most likely. He'll have to look into that.
Jason rolls his shoulders, aims his grapple and then–
“Ow.”
He sighs.
“Tim.”
“I know!” Tim says. He stumbles as he pulls himself to his feet out of the wreckage of the fire escape.
Jason frowns. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Tim replies. “I'll be fine. I've fallen from higher places before.”
That is definitely not the reassurance Jason was looking for. He sighs again. “Come on,” he tells Tim. “Let's get you inside and make sure you're all right before I send you home.”
“The safehouse by the pizza place run by the Falcones?”
“Tony’s is a Falcone front?”
“Mmhmm.”
Shit. Their sauce was the best. Jason's gonna miss it when he clears them out.
Tim manages to make it back to the safehouse okay. He doesn't seem to be limping or unsteady, so Jason's hoping he got out of the fall relatively injury-free. Kids are weird like that. When Jason was Tim's age he fell down a flight of stairs in his apartment building without so much as a scratch. The first month he lived with Bruce he tripped over his own feet and broke his left arm because he landed funny.
“Okay, Tim,” Jason says. “What hurts?”
Tim rolls his eyes. “Nothing. I'm fine.”
Jason just waits him out.
Tim huffs. “Fine! I bumped my head a tiny bit but it's not even sore anymore!”
Jason gets Tim to sit on the couch. “Where'd you bump it?”
“On the fire escape.”
“Smartass. I meant where on your head got bumped?”
Tim gestures to an area at the back of his head. Jason brushes his hair aside to take a look and Tim winces.
“Doesn't hurt, huh?” Jason asks.
“It doesn't hurt when nobody's touching it,” Tim argues. “So I just won't touch it and it'll be fine.”
He turns to face Jason again. “You can order the Uber now.”
Jason frowns. He squints into Tim's eyes. His pupils don't seem more dilated than usual, and he's his usual annoying self.
“No nausea?” Jason asks.
“Nope.”
“Hmm…”
It's probably not a concussion. But Jason's seen people shrug off head wounds that ended up putting them in the hospital not even twelve hours later.
“You're going to need to let whoever's at home with you know about the bump,” Jason says, picking up his phone. “They're going to have to wake you every couple of hours to make sure you're still okay.”
Tim fidgets with the ends of his sleeves. “Nobody else is home,” he admits.
Jason freezes where he was putting the safehouse address into the Uber app.
“But I'm definitely not concussed so I'll be fine,” Tim continues.
Jason's head spins. He feels like he's the one who brained himself on a fire escape. He figured the kid's parents would be back by now. It's been weeks.
He can't send a possibly concussed child home to an empty house. That much is obvious. Which means…
“Well then, Timmy,” Jason says. “Looks like you're staying here tonight.”
Tim just sighs. “Fine.”
Jason knows Tim is just a kid. Obviously. It's just… the way he's been giving Jason intel means Jason tends to think of him as older than he is. But he gave Tim one of his shirts to sleep in (so he didn't have to sleep in the jeans he tore on the fire escape) and. Well.
Tim looks so young.
The tee Jason's given him goes all the way down to his knees.
“I feel like I'm wearing a dress,” Tim grumbles as Jason finds him an unopened toothbrush.
“Nothin’ wrong with wearing dresses,” Jason retorts as he grabs a glass of water to put next to the bed.
He's dragged the sofa cushions onto the floor in the bedroom. There was no question of who was getting the bed. Tim's the one with the potential concussion. But it'll be easier for Jason to check on him if he's close.
“Goodnight, Jason,” Tim whispers as Jason turns off the light.
“‘Night, Tim,” Jason replies, setting an alarm for two hours’ time.
It's going to be a long night.
I drive these brothers crazy
I do it on the daily
They treat me really–
Jason hits the button to stop his alarm. Tim is sitting up in bed.
“Jason?” he asks. “Is your alarm that humps song?”
Jason figures the fact that Tim recognizes the song means he doesn't have to question him too much.
“It is,” he replies. “I choose songs that'll get stuck in my head if I don't shut them off quick.”
“That's smart,” Tim says, rubbing his eyes.
Jason checks his pupils. Makes sure he's not nauseous. Makes him sip his water.
Then he watches as Tim lies down and falls asleep within about thirty seconds.
He sets another alarm.
What you gon’ do with all that junk–
“Ugh.”
“Okay, Timmy, let me see your pupils.”
“Jason. I'm fine. This is really annoying.”
“If you'd stopped following me when I told you to, we wouldn't be here. I'm gonna ask you some questions now.”
“Ugh.”
My hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps–
“Jason?”
“Yeah, Timmy?”
“...Is she singing about her boobs?”
Jason closes his eyes and counts to ten.
“We can talk about it after breakfast.”
Jason feels like death warmed up the next morning. He supposes that's what he is. But after getting up all through the night to check on Tim he's a whole new level of tired.
He's never been so glad he's not a parent. Doing that for months on end with a newborn sounds like torture.
Jason watches as Tim yawns and shoves a spoonful of cereal in his mouth. Looks like he's not the only one tired this morning.
“My humps, my humps, my humps, my humps…” Tim sings under his breath. Then he groans. “Your alarm is the worst,” he says. “I'm going to be singing about boobs at school all day!”
School. Because it's Monday. Jason glances between his phone (where he's been slowly working towards ordering an Uber) and Tim struggling to keep his eyes open at the table.
“I'm not sure school's the best idea this morning, Timmers,” Jason says. “You'll be sleeping through most of your classes.”
“Wouldn't be the first time,” Tim yawns.
Every time Jason talks to Tim he finds more things he has to focus on not worrying about. He'd never really thought about it, but if Tim's been following him at night and then going into school the next day…
And that's how Jason finds himself on the phone with the school twenty minutes later.
He tells himself impersonating Tim's guardian is more responsible than letting him go to school in this state. And this way he can keep an eye on the kid throughout the day too. Just to confirm there definitely isn't a concussion.
(If he has to move his plans around to stay home, that's nobody's business but his.)
Tim spends the whole day with Jason. They play cards, because there's not much else to do (there's not even a TV in this safehouse). Tim further proves he is not concussed by wiping the floor with Jason in every card game he can think of.
He's just glad they were betting Skittles during poker and not money. It's embarrassing enough losing repeatedly to a nine-year-old without Tim somehow clearing out Jason's second-life’s savings.
Eventually, after dinner Jason orders the Uber. Tim is definitely not concussed. If he sends him home now, there is a tiny chance Tim will actually sleep, and he won't be tired at school tomorrow.
It's fine. Jason can almost pretend that he prefers the apartment empty.
At least now he doesn't have to explain Fergie’s lyrical choices to a fourth grader.
Jason has the breakthrough in the middle of March. Tim's parents are back in town for a week. As a result, his evenings are Tim-free.
It means Red Hood can push harder on Black Mask. He leans harder on the green than he would ever let himself with the kid around. It's easier when he doesn't have to worry about what Tim might get an eyeful of.
He's carving a bloody path through one of Sionis’s gun trafficking operations when it occurs to him.
His helmet has comms functionality.
Mostly Jason uses it to tune into the bats frequency and make sure they're not anywhere near where he's planning to be. But as long as he chose a different frequency… Tim could pass on whatever he's worked out this week without having to put himself in danger.
Jason wouldn't have to be on the lookout for a pint-sized detective popping up mid-firefight. Tim might even get a decent night's sleep from time to time. Everyone wins.
Well, he thinks as he surveys the bloody wreckage around him, everyone except Roman Sionis.
Tim is delighted with his comms access. He talks nearly non-stop to Jason the first night after his parents leave. It should be distracting to have the mini menace in his ear.
Instead, it's almost calming.
Jason doesn't have to wrestle with the green while Tim is telling him about the gala he went to with his mom and dad (“Ugh. It was so boring, Jason. People kept pinching my cheeks and telling me how much I've grown.”). Jason doesn't have to focus on pulling his punches with the small-time thieves, because he's too busy laughing at Tim's complaints (“Seriously. They're all like ‘You’ll be taller than me soon!’ like they haven't been saying that for literally years.”)
It's grounding.
Of course, because Tim is Tim, comms access doesn't keep him away completely. Jason finds him inside his safehouse when he gets back.
“I know I put you in an Uber before I left,” he says.
“Yeah,” Tim agrees. “Then I got the bus back out.”
Jason rubs his temples. “Why?” he asks.
“Um…” Tim looks down at his feet. “My house always feels really empty after Mom and Dad leave. And I wondered…”
Jason looks between Tim and his larger than usual backpack on the sofa. “You wanted to stay over again?”
“If… if that would be okay?”
The kid looks so hopeful. And it's Saturday, so it's not like they'll have to worry about school the next morning.
“Fine,” Jason agrees. “Just this once, okay?”
Tim beams at him.
“And you're going to tell me how you got past my security measures to let yourself back in!” Jason adds.
“A magician never tells his secrets,” Tim says seriously.
Little shit.
It isn't just once. Jason didn't know why he expected anything else at this point. He doesn't know if it's a kid thing or if it's just a Tim thing, but the squirt seems to enjoy skipping over any boundary Jason tries to set.
He stays over again on Friday.
And Saturday.
And then he says, “I could stay tonight and get the bus to school.”
“You can't get the bus, Tim,” Jason says, as he gears up for patrol.
“Yeah, I can,” Tim argues. “I just get the 12 for a few blocks then switch to the 7 and that takes me all the way to the school.”
Jason takes a deep breath and holsters the pistol he's just finished checking.
“No, Tim. I mean it's not safe to get the bus from here,” Jason explains. “A couple of months ago there was a literal serial killer grabbing kids from the bus stop two blocks down.”
“I know,” Tim says. “But you caught him in December so he's not a problem now.”
Jason has definitely never told Tim that story before.
“How'd you know I caught him?”
“I was trying to figure out who it was because the cops weren't doing anything and Batman was looking in the total wrong direction,” Tim says. “And then I realized all the kids lived in the same area, so I went to check it out. That was the first night I saw you.”
Jason's head is spinning. “You, a child, were investigating a serial killer who murdered children. On your own.”
“Yeah,” Tim nods as he settles himself on Jason's sofa with his comms and a blanket. “I saw you corner the guy and you yelled at him a lot and then I left when I realized you were probably going to kill him.”
Jesus Christ. This child is going to be the second death of him.
“That specific guy isn't really the point, Tim,” Jason sighs. “The buses here aren't safe like they are in Bristol.”
Tim just shrugs. “Have a good patrol!” he says.
Jason does not have a good patrol. Jason is busy imagining a certain chatty nine-year-old boy being grabbed off the street at a bus stop.
He buys a kid-sized motorcycle helmet in the middle of patrol. His one will be too big for Tim and the kid is going to need one if Jason's taking him to school in the morning.
“Okay, Timbo, the last word is ‘neighbor’.”
Tim rolls his eyes as he writes. “This would be much quicker if I just copied from the sheet like I usually do.”
Jason peers at him over the page of spelling words. “If you copy from the sheet, you don't learn anything,” he says.
“Ugh. Done.”
Jason looks at the paper where Tim has been scribbling his spelling homework. “You've got the I and the E the wrong way around here,” he points out.
“I thought it was ‘I before E except after C’?”
Jason shrugs. “Most of the time it is. Not this time.”
“This is so dumb,” Tim grumbles as he erases the letters in question. “Everything has spellcheck now. It doesn't even matter.”
Jason finds himself smiling. Tim's a smart kid. It means he's figured out all the shortcuts instead of actually doing the work that most kids do. It's just as well Jason’s here to prod him into actually getting an education.
As soon as he has the thought, a chill runs down Jason's spine.
He's been working for months on his plan for revenge against Bruce and the Joker. It's been long hours and hard work but it's almost at an end. Roman Sionis is almost desperate enough to get the clown out of the madhouse.
Jason, Batman and the Joker all in the same room. An ultimatum. Bruce can kill the Joker or he can kill Jason. It was the perfect plan.
Except now…
If Jason dies, who's going to make sure Tim is doing his homework? Who's going to take him to school or tell him to go to bed at night?
Without Jason, who's going to stop Tim going back out on the streets at night?
The streets that will once again be home to a psychotic clown if Jason's plan works.
Jason is acceptable collateral in his plan to humble the “World's Greatest Detective”. Tim is not.
He's going to have to change his plan.
The worst thing about changing his plan this late in the game is that Sionis has bribed his way into Arkham and is halfway to the Joker's cell before Jason catches up with him.
He planned to leave his comms off tonight, but Tim told him in no uncertain terms that he would track Jason down if the comms went silent. The chatter trailed off after the first half-hour of Jason hunting down Black Mask and his men. It's been replaced by occasional soft snores and shuffling sounds. The kid must have fallen asleep on the sofa.
Jason's knocked out every one of Sionis's men and has cornered Black Mask himself when the asshole says it.
“You think you're so tough, Hood,” he sneers through that fucked up skull mask. “But what about that kid of yours?”
Jason freezes. His blood turns to ice.
“Maybe I'll have someone meet him outside of school one afternoon,” Sionis laughs.
The green Jason has been pushing down all night floods back in with a vengeance.
He beats Sionis until he's pretty sure every bone in the bastard’s body is broken. Until there's more blood and bruises than visible skin. He only snaps back to relative sanity when he hears a muffled, “lovely lady lumps” from his comms.
Tim. Talking in his sleep the way he does when he's really tired.
Jason takes a deep breath, grabs the front of Roman Sionis's suit and lifts him up so they're face-to-face.
“If you ever threaten him, or any other kid ever again,” Jason snarls, “I'll make you wish I'd killed you tonight.”
He dumps the piece of shit unceremoniously on the ground. Gives his ribs a final kick for good measure.
Nobody threatens his kid.
“I don't understand why you moved your main safehouse, Jason,” Tim complains as he passes Jason his helmet. “The old place was fine.”
“The old place only had one bedroom,” Jason points out as they climb the stairs to his newly purchased Upper East Side apartment. “This way neither of us have to sleep on the sofa.”
And none of the people in this building have ever worked for Black Mask. Jason did extensive background checks on all of their new neighbors.
Tim huffs. “The nearest pizza place is a Domino's.”
Jason laughs and unlocks the door. “Tell you what,” he says, “next time I see Falcone, I'll ask him to move Tony's Pizza across the bridge.”
“Ha ha.”
“Okay then,” Jason says, putting both helmets down by the door. “Let's get your homework out of the way and then we can start training.”
Tim grins.
Yeah, Jason thinks, Tim's definitely his kid now.