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Tim didn’t know how the mission went so hopelessly wrong. It was supposed to be easy.
Intercept a shipment of drugs coming in from the docks, a concoction Scarecrow would be using in an attack soon, Tim was sure. Things had been a bit too quiet on his end for an unnerving amount of time.
Bruce and Damian were patrolling opposite side of Gotham, keeping an eye on where the Riddler had been spotted the night before. Cass was handling a stealth mission to gather evidence of a dirty cop’s hand in another trafficking ring Bruce busted. Everyone else was either sleeping or, in Dick’s case, on a mission.
Tim had assured Bruce he would be alright on his own for this, and asked Bruce to just trust him with this one thing. Somehow the man balanced the perfect levels of mother henning and distance to piss Tim off.
What was worse was the fact Tim wasn’t sure he could handle this, not when his head was all floaty and weird feeling.
Tim grunted as a leg slammed into his side, sending him sprawling to the ground, unable to get his feet under him in time. The mild throbbing of his headache had increased tenfold.
Pulling himself up, he barely had any time to recover before the goon swiped an arm out to grab him. Tim maneuvered away from the grab, but couldn’t pull away fast enough. He was tugged harshly to the ground, head spinning with the sharp action, hand coming up to grab the man’s wrist.
Ducking the rest of the way down, Tim shot his leg out and swept it under the man. He fell hard, still gripping Tim’s cape and jerking Tim’s neck down with it. Tim’s eyes couldn’t focus, everything blur around him, almost like if he had a concussion.
Had… had I gotten hit in the head? No, no right? I came in and… and–
Tim sluggishly pulled at his cape, arms and legs heavy with the weight of… something.
A click of a gun and cold metal being pressed to the back of his head cleared Tim’s head enough to freeze, head still bowed to how his cape is clutched in the unconscious man’s grip and knees weak under him.
His brain, usually so fast, able to make connection after connection in cases had halted, leaving Tim to put mismatched pieces together.
“What’s wrong with you?” The voice, metallic and familiar, of the figure behind Tim asks. Usually that would be said in a mocking tone, audible even through the voice modifier, but Tim can’t hear anything but bafflement. “Get hit in the head a little too hard?”
No, Tim was pretty sure he hadn’t gotten a blow to the head. Caffeine withdrawals? No, Tim hadn’t skipped out on coffee or energy drinks today.
“You in there birdie?” Tim jumped as the voice appeared right behind his ear, and his head snapped to the side. Glinting red entered his field of vision and Tim’s brain was thrown into a memory.
“Do you think you’re that good now?! Do you really, Tim?”
“Yes.”
Titans Tower had been brutal, the aftermath finding Tim knocked out on the ground with his blood coating the walls in the sentence ‘Jason Todd was here’. He didn’t know why that particular memory was coming back now though, he’d seen Jason countless times since that incident, even if most of them were from afar.
Tim was pulled out of his thoughts with a hand clicking in front of his face. “Holy shit birdie, you’re really out of it, huh?” A hand gripped his chin and pulled it to the side.
Jason had crouched in front of Tim, the white eyes of his mask expressionless, staring into his soul. He tilted Tim’s head side to side in analysis, and Tim can’t figure out why there’s a muffled voice in the back of his head that’s yelling something, telling him to do something he can’t decipher.
“Are you… are you high?” Hood’s tone of voice is so incredulous that Tim can’t help the snort of laughter, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. “You are, aren't you!”
Tim finally manages to get his hand to move, albeit sluggishly. He swats Jason’s hand from his face, shaking his head. “No I…” His voice trails off, mouth protesting the movements with slurred speech. “I was, uh.”
Jason sighs and looks around. There were bodies of goons all sprawled around the warehouse, so Tim had done a number on the operation before falling into his state. Jason stood up and walked over to one of the bigger tanks, leaving Tim to fall back into his state of mind numbing blankness.
There were no labels on anything, but he did find a convenient clipboard with what he assumed was the information and handling of the chemicals. Surprisingly organised of the rogue, and made Jason’s job a hell of a lot easier.
“Huh. Interesting.” Tim heard the older man mutter, and his head lifted to look up at him through the blank white of his domino mask. Jason strolled over and crouched in front of Tim, giving the clipboard a little shake. “You know what this is?”
Tim’s head flopped to the side in a sloppy attempt of a head tilt, so different from his usually precise movements. “No.”
“Well Red, let me explain.” Faint alarm bells were ringing in Tim’s head at the glee in his voice. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why though. “This is a new toxin our beloved Scarecrow had concocted, but it's not the fear toxin we both have intimate experience with. From what I can tell, this gas ,that you have so graciously decided to become the test subject in, focuses on heightening emotions and drawing out your deepest insecurities.”
Tim frowns, hands twisting in his cape he had pulled into his lap.
I don’t feel very emotional…
“Well think about fear toxin birdie, it has a bit of time before it kicks in.” Jason waves him off and Tim frowns deeper.
Did I say that out loud?
“Wow, you’re really out of it, huh?” The older man’s voice is a little softer, his own head tilting to match Tim’s. “I bet if anyone else found you like this, you wouldn’t even be able to think of fighting them off, huh? I mean, you don’t even seem to think I’m a threat, do you?”
Nothing was making sense and Tim’s head was pounding, he just wished he was home, curled up with an energy drink while doing case work. He looked down at his hands, a swirling quality to the objects in front of him.
Hood made a noise Tim doesn’t think he’d ever heard from him, or anyone, before. “Are you pouting? Holy shit bat bastard really should come get you before– Oh. Oh.”
Tim doesn’t like his tone when he says that, the same glee he had before. The teen peers up at Hood just in time to notice how his arms are reaching for Tim. He can’t hold in the startled yelp that comes out of him when in one swift movement, Hood has stood up with Tim thrown over his shoulder. Red rushes to Tim’s face, but any rising embarrassment is drowned when the dizziness that had settled down slightly was now back with a vengeance.
“Come on kid, lets see if daddy bats is willing to throw money at me to get you back, yeah?”
“Ransom?” Tim moans into Jason’s back, cheek squished uncomfortable as Jason hauls them both out of the warehouse. “Don’t you already steal his money?”
“Yeah but it’s more fun when I can freak him out as well.”
Tim resigns himself to his current position, exhaustion falling over him. He feels a little like crying, for a reason he can’t pinpoint and definitely isn’t because a murderous crime lord is kidnapping him, funnily enough.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
Okay, Jason had mostly done this for the money. Mostly.
He wasn’t lying when he told the baby bird this was partially for his amusement, but there was a part of him that didn’t exactly want Timmers, or any of the birds and bats, to die. And Tim, in the zonked out state he was in? Yeah no, that’s a death sentence.
But what he had stupidly overlooked was the very real and expected result of said kidnapping.
Tim, in full Red Robin getup, not even tied up, was sobbing Jason’s safehouse bathtub.
It had been fifteen minutes since they got here and fifteen minutes since Jason realised at some point in their trip to the safehouse, Tim had started silently crying.
Tim hadn’t even been crying like this when Jason had beat him black and blue in Titans Tower holy shit what was wrong with this kid.
Then like a dawning horror, Jason remembered what the toxin was really targeting. A vigilante's worst nightmare. Emotional vulnerability.
“Kid– just tell me what’s wrong.” Jason had abandoned his helmet when they got in, and he was currently pinching the bridge of his nose, trying not to get frustrated.
The kid had contorted himself into a ball, impressively small, and was shaking with sobs. It pulled at a part of Jason’s heart that was suspiciously labeled the ‘I always wanted to be an older brother’ heartstring.
“I just–” Tim starts, sniffling. “You’re never gonna get your money…”
Okay… very descriptive and helpful. Thanks Tim. Jason thought bitterly, crouching beside the tub and peering between Tim’s hands over his face. The bird's face was red and Jason really wasn’t qualified for this.
“And why is that?” Jason hummed, eyebrow raised.
Tim worked through another choking noise, pressing his face into the tub and raising his arms to cover his head. He said something that Jason couldn’t decipher.
Jason frowned, poking Tim. “What was that?”
Another noise, this time moany and accompanied by the kid shaking his head slightly.
“Kid, I’m gonna need you to speak u—“
Jason was cut off as Tim bolted upright, his expression distraught and frustrated. “Because Bruce doesn’t care!” He burst out, only to collapse against the bathtub edge with his arms folded under him like he was a Disney princess dramatically crying at her bed.
When Jason processed what just happened, he finally, truly, started to realise the reality of what he’d gotten himself into.
Shit, Bruce, what the hell did you do? This, right here, Jason knows exactly what Tim feels like. This is the ‘my father figure never gave a shit enough to tell or show me he loves me except through actions only he can recognise as love’ feelings.
And now, Jason was left with an emotionally unstable and drugged teenager who is one minor inconvenience away from killing himself. Or something. Jason wasn’t actually sure this kid was morally aligned with Bruce outside of the suit, so he might very well pull a Jason and kill a bunch of people— but that’s not here nor there! Jason has to figure out some way of helping this kid without accidentally triggering some kind of traumatic emotional reaction!
His first instinct was to call Dick, but Jason knew he was on some kind of mission with the Titans. Typical.
His second instinct was one he could actually act on.
Jason pulled himself back onto his feet and bent down to pick Tim up, this time his arms easing the bird up from under his legs and back. Tim didn’t fight, instead using this opportunity to use Jason’s chest as a pillow to cry on.
The kid was light, easy to carry to this safehouse’s bedroom. Placing the kid on the bed, Jason rummaged through the side table for a bottle of the mask glue solvent he always kept in his safehouses.
“Okay kid, face me.” Jason was mildly surprised when Tim’s head turned towards him. Jason was starting to feel very glad he didn’t leave the bird alone. His throat closed up at the thought of someone like Black Mask stumbling across Tim as drugged and compliant as he was now.
Jason focused back on Tim, casting those thoughts away fully. It hadn’t happened and Jason wouldn’t ever let it happen. Jason dabbed solvent just around Tim’s mask, placing the bottle back in the side table as it worked. It was easy to pull off, revealing the red rimmed eyes Jason had been expecting to see.
He didn’t know what it was about Tim that made him uneasy. Sure, he wasn’t exactly sure footed with Dick, Damian and all the other little birds and bats Bruce collected, but it was different. Jason had only interacted with Tim in the warehouse because of how out of it he looked. If it was Damian or Dick, he would have made himself a nuisance just for the fun of it.
Hell, even now Jason was on better terms with Bruce, not that it was perfect in any sense of the word. Some bastards still needed to be killed and Bruce still didn’t like Jason killing.
But Jason didn’t have the confidence to yell and fight with Tim like he did with Bruce. He couldn’t bring himself to reach out to Tim like he did with Dick and Damian.
Thoughts of Titans Tower flashed in his mind and all the guilt and anger at himself that followed. Jason had messed up with that stupid plan, even Tim in the moment knew it was a ridiculous attempt at letting his anger out. Jason could admit now that he understands that his issue hasn’t and wasn’t ever with Tim, but instead with Bruce.
Looking at the kid now, a toxin forcibly pulling emotions and feelings to the surface of his mind, it was clear how much of a kid Tim was. Sure, he was nearing adulthood, but he was barely one year off than when Jason himself died.
“Come on kid, lie down.” Jason sighed, moving to pull the sheets back. Usually when there was no antidote to a toxin in Gotham, the best thing to do was sleep it off.
Tim didn’t fuss as he curled up in Jason’s bed, bright blue eyes half lidded as he looked up.
When Jason moved to leave the room, he found Tim’s hand curled into his jacket. It was a loose grip and Jason could have easily pulled away. But as he looked into those watery blue eyes, guilt compelled him.
Sighing, it was ridiculously easy to just flop onto the other side of the bed, exhaustion weighing at his body. Tim’s emotional outburst hadn’t just been tiring for him it seems.
The kid still had a hand clutching in his jacket, but his eyes had fluttered closed and breathing started to come out even.
He would call someone to pick the bird up soon. He would, really. Right after he got… some…
Jason slipped into a peaceful sleep.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
A throbbing headache met Tim as he rose from blissful sleep. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, not with the copious amounts of caffeine he got and concussions he suffered from.
Useless, how are you able to help Batman if you’re constantly being a liability?
Tim frowned at the thought, it wasn’t uncommon for his brain to spout off self deprecating thoughts, but usually he didn’t feel as much like crying as he did now.
Yeah, you would cry, wouldn’t you? Not like you’re a teenager or anything, not like you’re a vigilante. Fuck, can you get anything right? This is why Dick wanted Damian to be Robin, not you.
Tim’s throat closed a little and swallowing got hard. He clenched his jaw, trying to breathe steadily, but they hitched with every comment his brain made.
“Go back to sleep, Red.” A voice grumbled next to him, a calloused hand running through his hair.
Tim’s body began to relax, thoughts turning into mush as sleep pulling him back like a siren's song.
Yeah, okay, sleep. Just for a bit, then I can work. Then I can be useful.