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Jason had broken into the Tower.
It had taken a little longer than planned due to his arms screaming at him whenever he moved.
Cutting off a dozen heads was a great workout, but it had consequences.
That, along with running a criminal empire, patrolling the alley, messing with Black Mask and tormenting the Bats, made for an exhausting week.
Jason stomped his way through the halls, too tired to try and be subtle. He was thinking of just skipping the monologue and jumping right into the fight. But he had spent hours drafting it, he shouldn’t let it go to waste.
The green pulsed, giving Jason a small boost of energy. He would do the monologue and he'd do it well, even without the Robin costume.
He would have cried if he'd tried wrestling himself into that thing with his sore arms. It was a shame he had to lose out on the dramatic flair, but he'd persevere. He brought the fake blood to write his name on the walls with, that should make up for it.
He found his successor in the kitchen. Sitting criss-cross on the counter, sipping his smoothie– which looked more like protein powder and old fruit had been blended together with minimal water– while red lights flashed and the alarms blared.
"Robin." Jason growled.
The kid didn't seem to notice him, too busy frowning at his smoothie as if confused about why it looked so bad.
"Robin." He said again, highly indignant at the fact he even had to.
The kid looked up at him, blinking. "Can I help you?" He asked, using a customer service voice.
Jason, in a fit of indignance at the brats cavalier attitude, took off his helmet. "I don't know, can you?"
"Jason." Tim smiled brightly. "I thought that it might be you, but I wasn't sure. What are you doing here?"
That…was not the response Jason was looking for.
"I'm here to kill you." Jason snarled.
To be honest, he wasn’t actually going to kill him. Just rough him up a little. But it felt more ominous and symbolic to say he was going to murder the kid. The dead Robin killing his successor and all that jazz.
"Why?" Tim asked, tilting his head to the side like a goddamn bird.
Jason would have snapped something appropriately threatening, but the kid actually seemed genuine. His face was open and earnest as he looked at Jason, throwing him off.
"For…taking my place?" Jason said, distracted by the green slowly receding from his vision.
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"I–" Jason cut himself off, frowning.
"Are you okay?" Tim asked, actually looking concerned. The last of the green fizzled out and Jason sighed.
"Honestly, I'm a little tired. It's been a long week." He sat down on one of the chairs, slumping into it.
Tim hummed sympathetically. "Right, with the duffle bag and all."
"My arms hurt like hell." Jason groaned.
"Why didn't you just use an electric chainsaw?" Tim offered him a drink from the monstrosity of a smoothie, Jason pushed it away.
"It wouldn’t have been as symbolic." He said.
Tim gave Jason a judgemental side eye. “Symbolic of what?”
“What I’m willing to do.”
"Right.” Tim paused and went to say something else.
“Don’t.” Jason cut him off. He did not need to be judged for his life choices.
“Wanna talk about it?” Tim slid off the counter and walked over to the fridge.
“No.” Jason growled. He was going to rest here for a few minutes, sedate Tim, pour the fake blood on him and go back to his safehouse.
Tim held up two tubs of ice cream. "You sure?"
-
“ – So after all that effort, no one even appreciated it. They don’t believe that I did it all myself.” Jason said. Tim hummed empathetically. “And the folks in the Alley are calling me Red Riding Hood–” Tim pressed his lips together, barely hiding a grin. He may or may not be the reason for that nickname spreading. “Nobody’s taking me seriously.”
They had gone into the living room. Tim let Jason take the best couch, the guy looked like he needed it. Jason was lying down, a tub of ice cream in hand, using his spoon to emphasize certain parts of his tale of woe.
Tim sat on the armchair across from him, listening intently between spoonfuls of his own ice cream.
“Batman is,” Tim soothed, Jason peeked over at him with hopeful eyes. “He’s freaking out. Internally, of course.”
Jason scoffed. “The old man can’t even panic right.”
“Don’t get me started," Tim huffed. "All he does is frown like he stepped in something gross and order people about. Like, get a better coping mechanism.”
“Exactly,” Jason gestured with the spoon, stabbing it into the air. “Damn, this ice cream’s good.”
"Kon got it from space." Tim politely didn't mention the fact that Kon would not be happy about them taking the last of it. “So how does killing me factor into your big plan?”
“Well,” Jason said through a mouthful of ice cream. “I wasn’t actually gonna kill you, just wanted you to think I was for, y'know, the fear and shit.”
Tim nodded. Fear factor was important when beginning a life of crime. “That makes sense.”
“Right? Talia was saying I should actually do that ‘avenge yourself’ and the whole shebang. But killing you wouldn’t really do much for me.” Jason’s eyes widened. “No offense.”
Tim frowned, he worked hard to make people want to murder him. Being annoying didn't come as naturally to Tim as it did to Dick or Steph. “No, no, it’s fine.”
Jason sat up. “I’d kill you in any other scenario–”
"You don't have to lie." Tim didn’t want a pity kill. He was too good for that.
"Really, murder was my first instinct when I saw you."
Tim's chest warmed. "For real?"
"Definitely." Jason smiled. Tim ducked his head to hide his elated grin. The last time he'd been openly excited about something like this, Bruce had started making him go to therapy sessions with Dinah.
Tim looked back up. “So they’re not taking you seriously yet?”
“No, I figure I’ve got to go toe to toe with the old man first.” Jason sighed. "It's gonna take so long to get a big fight set up. Being a starter rogue is hard."
“Fighting Batman shouldn’t be the main way to get initiated as a rogue,” Tim said. Jason hummed in agreement. “Like, Condiment King and Kite Man have fought him, clearly he’s not picky.”
“Huh,” Jason sat back in his chair. “Put like that, he doesn’t even seem worth fighting.”
Tim can safely say that he's not. Bruce just uses the same five lines on almost every rogue. He was like a wife absentmindedly placating her high maintenance husband.
Tim jolted as inspiration struck. At Jason's questioning look he said. “You should go for Nightwing instead, he fights Deathstroke every few weeks.”
Jason's eyes lit up and nodded slowly. “Yeah,” He said quietly, a smile creeping onto his face. “I’ve got to redraft my plan.”
"There's a lot of drugs and weapons trading going on between the gangs of Gotham and Bludhaven, you can start there." Tim said. He leaned over to pick up the tub of fake blood from the table, it kind of looked like raspberry sauce.
"Nice– wait, why does he fight Deathstroke so often?" Jason's brow furrowed.
Tim shrugged. "Nightwing is very annoying." He loved Dick but it was true. "I'd fight him too if I decided to become a villain."
Tim actually had a binder full of plans for if that ever happened.
"I feel that. Poor Deathstroke."
"Poor Deathstroke." Tim echoed, opening the tub of blood. "I think Kon has some stage make-up if you still want me to look beat up." He dipped his finger in the tub and licked the blood off. It was raspberry sauce.
Jason scowled. "Stop eating the blood."
"Make me." Tim said. "You should write your name on the wall."
Jason perked up. "That's what I was going to do." He said. "I'll leave a handprint as well."
Tim wrinkled his nose. "That might look kind of tacky."
Turns out, Jason had very strong feelings about the handprint.
-
They spent the next thirty minutes painting the wall and trying to give Tim fake bruises. The wall turned out great, the bruises, not so much. The kid looked like a deformed panda.
Still, it was way more fun than Jason’s original plan had been. Not to mention, the ice cream gave him a little energy boost too.
They started making their way to the zeta tube as Jason got ready to head back to his safehouse.
“If you need a hostage or anything,” Tim said.
“Thanks, kid,” Jason ruffled his hair.
“Just don’t do it on Sunday mornings because Alfred makes– “
“Brunch,” Jason nodded sagely. “I’d never do that to Alfie.” Alfred hadn't done anything wrong after all. Jason looked over at Tim as they neared the travel room. “So, I’ll see you around?”
“I’ll pretend to be really scared of you on patrol.” Tim promised.
Jason's chest warmed. “You’re such a sweet kid. B doesn’t deserve you.”
“I know.”
“Jaylad.” They both jumped as a voice spoke up from behind them.
Speak of the devil.
Bruce loomed in the hallway, staring at Jason with wide, watery eyes.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Jason hissed.
"You can take me hostage." Tim whispered. Not one to lose out on an opportunity, Jason grabbed Tim and held a plastic knife to his throat.
Tim had given him the knife as a last minute 'welcome back from the grave' gift. So far, he had been the only person to bother getting him one, solidifying his place as Jason's favorite.
"Look at what I did to your little bird." Jason snarled, shaking Tim slightly.
"Let me go," Tim glared, struggling weakly.
"I've been here for twenty minutes, I know it's all makeup." Bruce said. He gave Tim a chiding look. "Also, Tim, we've talked about you volunteering to be hostage–"
"You never let me do anything fun." Tim snapped.
"You just creeped outside the door for twenty minutes?" Jason scowled at Bruce's amused smile. He was not happy about the lack of horrified awe.
Tim patted his arm comfortingly. "Maybe you can still catch Nightwing."
Jason hummed. "That could work–"
"Little Wing!" Dick stood in the doorway of the travel room. Even in his Nightwing suit, he looked slightly disheveled. He must have rushed over from Bludhaven.
Jason sighed, ready to give up, but Tim whacked his arm.
"Tackle him, go." He hissed.
"Jason, no." Bruce held a hand out, as if that would do anything.
Jason, yes.
Tim launched himself at Bruce, giving Jason the opening he needed.
He lunged at Nightwing with a roar.