Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Robin’s distress beacon lights up Bruce tries to keep his calm.

(Keyword being “try”.)

It could be a malfunction (unlikely) or an accident (even less likely) but Nightwing will have gotten the notification, too. So Bruce refuses to think too hard about why Robin— who should for all accounts be safe at the manor— would be in a tight enough spot to light the beacon.

So, Bruce takes a deep breath and tunes back into Diana’s musings of possible strategies and Clark’s occasional questions.

The distraction works just fine and Bruce is even able to contribute his own reservations about some particularly daring moves when his emergency comm line clicks open and Dick’s voice comes through in a frenzied panic.

Bruce doesn’t bother to excuse himself from his teammates when he stands in one smooth motion and strides out into the corridor.

“Nightwing, report!” he barks down the line, perhaps more harshly than he intends, but it does the trick and his oldest takes a shaking breath.

“Robin’s distress beacon,” Dick begins, sounding pained and oh so young “B it… it leads to Gotham harbor. It’s- it’s inside  the bay.”

Bruce’s vision tilts dangerously.

No.

No, not again. Not again.

“I’m on my way.”

——

“How the fuck can you win with a one!? That makes no sense!”

Tim grins and jots down their scores while Jason starts collecting the cards to shuffle and distribute them for the next round. All while mumbling some truly impressive expletives.

“It’s wizard. That’s how it works.”

“Like fuck it does! You’re pulling my leg!”

Tim’s grin grows wider. “You’re just a sore loser.”

“If I was,” Jason replies, scowling fiercely, “I wouldn’t be letting you wear my clothes or my suit.”

“To be fair, I’m currently wearing pants that you volunteered yourself.”

“I’ve changed my mind. Give ‘em back.”

Tim raises an eyebrow and looks skeptically at his more or less useless left arm that shoots pinpricks of needles through his side with every move.

It had taken Jason and Tim one hour flat to peel him out of the suit, and then another half to realize that jostling his injuries to put him in a sweater just isn’t worth the pain and effort.

So now Tim is lying on the sofa with a heavily bandaged torso, borrowed sweatpants that are approximately fifty sizes too big, a comforter wrapped around his shoulders and a heater blasting crispy air in his face.

As far as crippling injuries go, he’s kinda hit the jackpot with the aftermath this time.

“Fuck you, short-stack.” Jason pushes Tim’s new pile of cards over the small table. “I ain’t losing this round!”

Even if Jason’s competitive nature threw Tim into a veritable panic at first.

But after almost two days of being coddled and yelled at for trying to stand up on his own… well, whatever reservations Tim had had about Jason have vanished.

It’s hard to remain scared of someone who freaked out over feeding him too-hot soup.

Just like Tim had always suspected, Jason is more bark than actual bite and tries his damndest to conceal that by fitting as many swears into a sentence as possible. Also, Tim might be just a little bitter about the fact that Jason is denying him coffee.

“Four!” Jason exclaims, glaring at Tim.

“You sure?”

“Bring it, Replacement!”

Tim shrugs and jots the prediction down, then adds his own with a hum of “three” and plays the first card.

What Tim is currently doing is stupid. Monumentally stupid. Jason threw his tracker in the harbor, and Dick is definitely still looking for Tim. For his body. And the mere thought of the elder’s desperation while doing so has Tim’s gut tie itself in knots.

But right now…

Tim hates it, he does. He doesn’t want Dick to relive the trauma of losing Jason by thinking Tim’s dead, but after carefully weighing the pros and cons of his plan…

Batman’s still off planet with the league, and Tim needs to use that.

Dick is a force of nature, but Tim is about eighty percent sure that he won’t be able to locate Tim without Bruce’s help. At least not until his panic recedes enough to help Dick remember that he’s not looking for Jason’s dead body; just Tim’s.

Which leaves Tim with approximately three more days to convince Jason to come home.

Right now he’s about three percent along with that plan. It’s a little discouraging.

“Ha! I fucking won!” Jason crows, collecting his stack of cards as Tim writes their scores down. “Two more rounds, Replacement. I will fucking crush you!”

But Tim can’t give up. Jason is alive, Jason can go home. And Bruce and Dick can finally heal.

“You know, this would be a lot more fun to play with-“

“You’re about as subtle as an elephant in a porcelain shop. The answer’s still ‘no’.”

Well, it was worth a try.

——

Robin isn’t in the harbor. Tim isn’t in the harbor.

Bruce wants to ruthlessly squash the surge of hope rearing its ugly head. Just because Tim— the body wasn’t in the harbor doesn’t mean it hasn’t been dumped somewhere else.

They’d found the tracker, blinking away steadily on the muddy sea floor. That alone… Robin’s tracker is integrated into the suit like an additional piece of armor. It’s almost impossible to find unless you know where it is. It’s even harder to remove without at least partially peeling Robin out of his suit.

Bruce hopes to any god that might listen that whatever happened to Tim is not as grisly as the images his brain keeps conjuring.

He hopes that if— if they’re too late, that Tim didn’t have to suffer long.

The almost inaudible thump behind Batman alerts him to the arrival of Nightwing and Bruce turns to greet his eldest son — perhaps the only child he has left— with dread heavy limbs.

“Report.”

Nightwing’s hands flex at his side. “Traffickers. Got the drop on Robin somehow and chased him into Crime Alley, then lost him there.”

Bruce closes his eyes, pushing back against the riptide of hope threatening to choke him. If he starts hoping the fallout of it being shattered would be catastrophic.

Regardless, Bruce will tear down Gotham brick by brick if he has to. Stopping isn’t an option, not until Tim is found.

“B, Crime Alley-“

“Red Hood.” Bruce interrupts him gruffly, casting a forlorn look over the distant skyline of dilapidated apartment buildings marking the border to Gotham’s most crime addled district.

“I know,” Nightwing presses, “but Hood— B, all our intel says that he protects kids.”

“And that he hates us.” Bruce reminds him pointedly. “If Hood found Robin in Crime Alley-“ he trails off, letting the implications of that hang in the air.

“But Robin is just a child!” Nightwing argues, stepping around Bruce until they’re face to face, jaw set. “Look, Hood hates traffickers and  people who harm children. Even if Hood didn’t find Robin, theres still a chance that he’d help us find him. He knows Crime Alley better than anybody else.”

“He’s a criminal.” A murderer, he doesn’t say. Someone who’d filled a duffel-bag with severed head. But his voice sounds dull and defeated even to his own ears. There’s little— if anything— he wouldn’t do to get Tim back. Working with a criminal doesn’t even come close to the lines he’s still unwilling to cross.

That’s his child out there—his son— perhaps being tortured and abused in the worst possible ways, crying out for Bruce to save him. (Perhaps already dead, body cooling on Gotham’s unforgiving grounds.)

“I will attempt to open a comm line. You will go out and see if Hood’s henchman can get you in contact.”

Nightwing straightens, determination carving itself into the vigilante’s anxiety-taut frame.

“Copy that.” Dick says and flips off the roof, grapple line shooting out and then Nightwing’s silhouette swings between the buildings, steadily advancing on Crime Alley and its inhabitants.

Bruce watches for another second before he turns, heading back to the  batmobile.

They will find Tim.

They have to.

——

Jason is meticulously cleaning his guns while Tim scrolls through the anime section of Netflix  when Jason’s phone starts ringing.

To be fair, Jason’s phone rings often enough. Business demanding his attention at least via phone while the Red Hood is stuck taking care of his injured baby bird.

A crime empire doesn’t run itself, and he’ll be damned if his momentary absence enables one of the mob bosses to get a foot back in his business  

“What?” He barks down the line, recognizing the number as that of one of his lieutenants. There’s not a lot of them, so whatever it is… is probably important, actually. Fuck.

The man on the other side— Dave? Dom?— clears his throat nervously. “We got a situation here, boss.”

No fucking shit. Every single man working under him knows better than to call Jason with trivial matters. 

Jason doesn’t respond and lets the icy silence speak for itself. Whatever it is had better be good, because he ain’t leaving the Replacement unattended unless some idiot mafia boss decided to declare war on him.

In which case Jason would require approximately five hours tops to clear up the mess.

Maybe-Dave gulps audibly. “Nightwing, sir. He’s, uh, dropped in. And demands an audience.”

Jason snaps to attention.

Shit. 

The bats have stayed out of Crime Alley since Jason asserted it as his turf, clearly deeming it too risky with what little information they have on him. Especially after he’d compromised all their safehouses.

But Jason should have known that wouldn’t last with their precious Robin missing.

Some damage control is in order. How much does Nightwing know? 

“Fine. Patch him through.”

There’s some shuffling, Dave’s phone switching hands, and then Nightwing’s voice rings through the speaker.

“Red Hood?”

Jason blanks.

It’s only for a second, but the sound of Dick’s voice makes every muscle in his body lock and his brain screech contradicting messages before he manages to wrestle the reaction into submission.

“Nightwing.” Jason growls, relieved to find his voice hard and unwavering. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

On the other side of the room, Tim’s eyes have gone wide.

“I-“ the crackling whoosh of air. “We need your help.”

Jason almost chokes on his own spit, rewinding that sentence in his head several times before he’s sure that, no, he didn’t mishear.

And then he can’t help it. He laughs.

“Please, Hood,” the sheer desperation in Nightwing’s voice crests. “Robin’s missing-“

Nah, not really.

“And how exactly,” Hood cuts him off, idly putting his feet up on the table. “Is that my problem?”

“There’s- there were traffickers- we didn’t catch- Robin-“

“Goodbye, Nightwing.”

“No!” Dick shouts, true panic bleeding into his voice. “Please, he’s just a child! Hood!”

Jason’s finger hovers over the button that will end the call, but something in Nightwing’s voice and the way the Replacement is looking at him with such raw longing in his face makes Jason hesitate.

Nightwing latches onto that hesitation like a bloodhound. “Please, I know you hate us, but he’s a kid, Hood. He’s just a kid, and the traffickers— if they got him—“ a heaving breath, “Please. Batman and I— whatever you want, it’s yours. Just… help us.”

Jason’s insides feel weird, like his body temporarily forgot how it’s supposed to work. Reality is a concept so far out of reach not even the pit’s whispers can touch him.

“Where was that kind of devotion when your last Robin kicked it?” he hears himself ask.

Tim’s expression shatters at the same time that Nightwing’s breath stutters.

“What- How-?”

Tim’s lips are moving and Jason is sure he’s saying something, but he can’t hear him over the rushing in his ears and Nightwing’s wounded noise of protest.

“Don’t,” Nightwing whispers then. “You have no idea how much it destroyed us.”

He hears the words. Understands them even, but there’s a wall in Jason’s head refusing to string his thoughts together into coherent sentences.

“Please, Hood. He’s just a kid.”

Jason swallows.

“Ok.” He says, suddenly breathless. “Ok.”

——

Tim doesn’t know what Nightwing says, but it makes Jason’s face shift from consternation to fury to shock and eventually into a blank mask.

And then he hangs up and just stares at Tim.

Unmoving.

“Jason?” he calls out tentatively, shifting forward until he can grab the armrest to pull himself into a sitting position despite his screaming ribs.

The older startles, blinking a couple times before he seems to process Tim’s struggling and immediately hisses “Don’t you even think about it, Replacement!”

Tim stops, torn, but eventually chooses to acquiesce.

“What happened?”

Jason huffs.

“I’m going out.”

——

Jason has no fucking clue what he’s doing. Or why he’s doing it.

No, scratch that. He knows why he’s doing this.

The sound of Dick Grayson on the verge of tears is enough to break hardened criminals and make you feel like you’ve just kicked a puppy. 

But fuck if Jason will go down without a fight.

That’s his Replacement sitting on the couch. His responsibility. Tim came to Jason— to the Red Hood— for protection, and Jason would really like to know why the fuck the baby bird thought he was the best fucking option.

And also why the flipping fuck they let Robin go out ALL BY HIMSELF. (Y’know, since the last time a Robin did that had gone so very swell.)

He tracks Nightwing’s steps through the dingy streets of Crime Alley with ease. A bird so far from the nest leaves quite a trail of antsy people in its wake, so Jason only has to swing a couple blocks until he’s caught up.

Nightwing’s silhouette is perched on top of a crumbling gargoyle and Jason shoots out his grapple line with absolutely zero regard for silence.

The vigilante turns to greet him, the line of his body tense. “Hood”

Jason tilts his head. “Dickwing.”

Nightwing huffs, a parody of his usual humor.

“Did you—“ the vigilante swallows visibly. “Do you know anything?”

“Nah-uh, birdy.” Because even though he isn’t planning on torturing the Replacement anymore doesn’t mean he’s going to walk out of all this trouble empty handed. “What’s in it for me?”

The lenses of Nightwing’s domino narrow and Jason finds himself mildly impressed. Looks like the masks got an upgrade since he last wore one.

“What do you want?”

“I want a lot of things.” Jason admits. “For one, I’d like for Batman to pull that stick out of-“

“What do you want for your services!?”

“Gee, way to make a guy feel special…”

The corners of Nightwing’s mouth curl into a faint scowl. “Hood, this isn’t funny-“

“I’m not laughing.”

“Then what do you want?”

The Joker’s head, is on the tip of Jason’s tongue.

The words curl along his gums like acid and the green writhes along to the beat of his heart. Kill him, he wants to say. Kill him, have Batman kill him, and I’ll get you your baby bird.

It would be so, so easy  

“Why?” Is what ends up coming out of his mouth instead.

The green recoils, confused.

What do you want, Nightwing had asked.

All of Jason’s plans boil down to one single thing, and it’s currently handed to him on a silver platter. He should use this. He should. Why isn’t he? It would be two birds with one stone.

(The hidden question: is the Joker’s life worth another bird’s?)

And the reply to Jason’s request should be obvious. Nightwing- Nightwing wouldn’t hesitate to promise him the fucker’s head, right? 

And then Jason could go home (finally, please, he’s so fucking tired).

But the terrified fifteen year old that had died in that awful warehouse as he watched the timer tick-tick-tick down had snatched the reins and spat that one word out like the answer could finally put him to rest.

Nightwing’s head tilts quizzically. “Why what?”

Jason grits his teeth. “Why do all your Robins feel the need to fly solo?”

The vigilante’s back straightens in obvious preparation for some kind of scathing reply, but Jason doesn’t feel like playing around.

“No,” he growls, the vocoder struggling to interpret the sound and settling for static. “Think long and hard about that answer. The condition in which you’ll find your baby bird depends on it.”

Nightwing’s mouth snaps shut with a click.

A gust of polluted air whistles through the cracks in the building, displacing pieces of loose debris and Jason watches dispassionately as a tiny rain of dust vanishes from view.

“We— I— forgot that they’re just- that they’re just kids. They think wearing a suit makes them invincible,” Nightwing says, so softly Jason has to strain to hear. “It doesn’t.”

Yeah, Jason had noticed when the first hit with a crowbar shattered his fucking collarbone.

But that’s still not enough. Jason didn’t go to Ethiopia because he thought he was invincible. And he’s pretty fucking sure the same goes for the Replacement.

Like, goddamn, that kid’s martyr complex rivals Nightwing’s. And that’s saying something.

When Jason still doesn’t say anything, the visible part of Nightwing’s face twists into a scowl. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Hood. I should have tried harder to be a better br— to be nicer to him. Someone he could trust before going out on his own.”

Only that Nightwing was off planet when Jason got murdered, and he knows for a fact that the vigilante dropped his current mission immediately when the Replacement lit his distress beacon.

“But it’s not Nightwing and Robin, is it? Where was the Bat? What does he do to your birdies that running seems like a viable option?”

That’s… a low blow, Jason will admit. But nobody ever excused him of being polite.

Nightwing huffs a breathless laugh. “Have you met B? He loves us, but even a brick wall can express emotions better than he can.”

He loves us, rings in Jason’s head long after Nightwing’s voice has tapered off.

Not enough, not you. The green hisses, sinking its teeth into the tender remains of Jason’s heart. Not an expendable street rat from Crime Alley.

“That didn’t save the first kid.” Jason says numbly, voice made more menacing filtered through his helmet.

The vulnerability Nightwing had allowed to slip onto his face fades into a mask of carefully practiced indifference and Jason plows right on, itching to wipe that disgusting sentimental-fake-pity me facade right off his face.

“Did he cry for you? Did he wait for you to come and save him? Did he die sad? Angry? Afraid?” Jason hisses, advancing on Nightwing with tiny steps that make the big bird tense up. “I wonder, did he die thinking you didn’t care enough to spare the fucking time to come and save him?”

He sees the punch coming from a mile away but the force of it still almost knocks him clean off the roof as he blocks it with his forearm.

“Screw you!”

“My, don’t ya wanna ask me out for dinner first?”

Nightwing snarls, pulling his knees up to his chest and suddenly there are feet planted flat against Jason’s chest plate as he’s thrown backwards.

The world spins around him as his body automatically adjusts to having his balance thrown, digging his gloved fingers into the crumbling concrete before rolling clean over his shoulder to regain his footing without offering his body up for another attack by not moving. But when he scans the roof for Nightwing, the vigilante is still in the same place as before, fists clenched at his side, knuckles white.

Fucking acrobat.

Jason dusts himself off with a glower that’s thankfully concealed by the helmet.

“Look,” Nightwing says, voice purposely neutral and revealing absolutely nothing. “I don’t know how you have so much information on-“ an audible swallow “-on Robin, but right now I don’t have time for your games, Hood. So just tell me what you want in exchange for your help. Money? Free rein over Crime Alley? M-“ Nightwing’s mouth twists. “Me?”

Jason blinks. The fu-?

Shit, no. Fuck. Jason knew his earlier quip would bite him in the ass.

“Fuck no!” to his (second, heh) dying day, Jason will deny that he yelps. He clears his throat and watches a bit guiltily as the vigilante’s shoulders sag with relief. 

“No, a favor will do. You and Batman will owe me one, if I can bring your birdy back in one piece.” Not that that will be hard to accomplish.

“Yeah, ok. Deal.” Nightwing agrees immediately. “Whatever you want.”

A minute passes in which they just stare at each other, assessing.

Far below them a car passes through the streets donning only one working headlight that briefly illuminates them both in clashing colors of red and blue.

It feels surreal, like looking at a mirror image of what he could have been if life had been kinder.

Jason turns away first and makes his way back the way he’d come.

“Wait, if you find anything-“

“Don’t bother. I know how to find you.”

Chapter Text

Tim doesn’t know what exactly happened to make Jason’s eyes shift from teal to acidic green like a defective mood ring, but he’s ninety percent sure it’s got to do with either Dick or Bruce.

Seeing as Jason has yet to draw his guns and start shooting his guess goes to Dick.

Jason is pacing from one end of the kitchenette to the other, only looking up to glare at Tim in intervals.

The moment his eyes start to seemingly glow he tears his gaze away and continues his pointless march, mumbling under his breath.

The almost-glow is reminiscent to the one he’d caught sight of before passing out the other night.

(He’d theorized about the Lazarus Pit since then. About those roiling waves of acid green, hoping against hope that some other miracle had returned Jason to them.

It’s horrible how much sense the Pit would make though.)

“Get up, Replacement. The bats paid your ransom.”

Tim startles, almost dropping the remote.

“What?”

Jason vanishes into an adjacent room and emerges again with Tim’s crumpled, bloody Robin suit. Then he pulls out a backpack from under the kitchen counter and stuffs the suit inside with a pinched expression.

“B and ‘Wing paid me to bring you back. So congrats, Replacement. You’re going home.”

Immediately Tim’s mind wanders to the empty halls of Drake manor, the cold radiating off unloved marble tiles, the loneliness of a dozen unused rooms. No matter how many items Tim had cluttered on the floor, or how many posters he'd taped to the walls, he’d never been able to rid them of the haughty air of vacancy.

And then his brain clicks and, oh, Jason means Wayne manor.

Still, Tim can’t go back yet.

If Jason drops him off with the bats and vanishes back into Crime Alley… Tim has the nagging feeling that their next encounter would end in bloodshed and irreparable damage.

Tim wants to go back to the manor, truly. He wants those quiet evenings curled up on the couch in Bruce’s study, researching their latest case. He wants Dick’s awkward, tentative invitations to the zoo. He wants Alfred’s cookies and hot cocoa after patrol. He wants the feeling of home, familiar, protected.

He wants all that— wants it badly, but not without Jason.

With a deep breath that rattles his broken ribs Tim calls forth all the stubbornness that accompanies the title of “Robin” and looks Jason dead in the eyes.

“No.”

——

When Nightwing is back at the cave Bruce has to hold himself back from immediately hurrying over and embracing his son like his life depends on it.

He does walk up to Dick at a sedate pace though and puts his hands heavily on the vigilante’s shoulders. 

“B…” Dick murmurs, swaying into the touch almost imperceptibly; vulnerable, and Bruce is hit hard with the reminder that his son offered himself up like a pig for slaughter (or worse, his mind shrieks) just minutes prior.

He heard the entire exchange with Red Hood, of course he did, and Dick— why would he ever do that?

Dick’s voice had wavered, so scared yet so determined, and Bruce shudders to think what could have happened if Red Hood was any more like his namesake.

Not that Bruce wouldn’t have intervened of Red Hood had agreed, but he’d been standing at the batcomupter, fingers clenched around the unforgiving steel of the table and miles away from Crime Alley.

He’d rather die than stand by and hear his child get violated, but he wouldn’t have made it in time before something horrible could happen, either.

So no matter how much Bruce despises the Red Hood for nearly giving him another heart attack on top of Tim’s disappearance, he’s eternally grateful that the criminal sounded just as disgusted at the prospect of Dick’s offering as Bruce himself.

Dick dips forward and Bruce catches him easily, pulling Dick into his arms where nothing would ever be able to harm him.

The younger man clutches at him, shaking, and Bruce runs a soothing hand over the top of Dick’s head, murmuring soft assurances.

“You’re safe,” a choked off sob is his only reply, “You’re home.”

“Tim—“

Bruce’s chest tightens. “I know chum.”

This… it’s the thing he’d feared most the moment Tim put himself square in Bruce’s path, stolen Robin suit too large and hanging off his slighter frame.

He’d had to choose between letting the boy traverse Gotham with or without him, and he’d chosen the former.

It was the same day that Jason’s battered face  had been joined by Tim’s, haunting him through every minute of sleep.

“We’ll find him,” Bruce promises.

He’s careful not to mention in what condition.

———

Jason’s eye twitches.

“What the fuck do you mean, no?”

Tim’s heart is in his throat but he refuses to back down. If Jason carts him back to the manor he will leave Tim there and go back to Crime Alley to sink himself even deeper under the pit’s influence.

And this time there will be nothing to dissuade him from that path.

Tim is terrified of what Jason is capable of if he decides to give into that cursed water’s whispers. Not to mention that nobody would ever believe him if he were to tell them that the Red Hood is Jason Todd, back from the dead.

“No,” Tim repeats, fingers pulling at the frayed edge of his blanket. “I want to stay here.”

Green bleeds into Jason’s eyes.

“I don’t think you understand, Replacement.” Jason says dangerously as he advances on Tim. “That wasn’t a question.”

Danger, his brain shrieks. Angry, danger, danger.

“I- I want to stay.”

His breath stutters, kickstarting Tim’s heart into an uneven-too-fast rhythm.

Stop, his instincts demand, clawing at his skull like a terrified cat. You’re being insolent. Stop.

Jason’s lips curl, revealing a line of perfectly white teeth.

“And why the fuck would I care what you want?”

Now that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it.

Tim could lie, appeal to Hood’s protectiveness of children and say he’s scared to go back, but that would only serve to estrange Jason and the bats further.

And even that wouldn’t guarantee his victory because he doesn’t know what Dick promised Jason, but it must have been good for him to agree so quickly.

In truth there’s very little— if anything— Tim can say to convince Jason to not kick him out.

Every time he tries to plead his case—the times it matters, the times he decides to be selfish, his brain signs off and goes on a lengthy vacation.

His parents never cared whether he wanted them to stay, either.

Stop crying, Timothy. You’re embarrassing us.

There’s rushing in his ears, quickly cresting into a roar and Tim opens his mouth to say something, anything, because even if it’s hopeless he still has to try.

“I-“ His lungs are tight, his ribs are screaming, but his minds simply sidesteps those sensations because Jason isn’t going to stay. He’s going to leave as soon as he’s dropped Tim off and then he will leave.

He’s going to leave and Tim will be alone in a house where he’s little more than a poor substitute for a dead boy and— and—

“-ey, hey, Tim!”

There’s no way they’ll believe him that Jason is alive and even if they do they’ll think Tim made him not want to come home—

“Shit. Breathe kid, breathe!”

And then Bruce will hate him and Dick will hate him and they’ll send him back home and take Robin and he’ll be all alone again and so, so cold—

“Tim, breathe!”

He can’t.

Jason will leave and everyone will be mad and think it’s his fault.

Oh god, it is his fault. He took Robin from Jason, and now Jason hates Bruce and Dick and he hates Tim, too—

“Fucking- Tim, I ain’t leaving.”

He is, because everyone is always leaving Tim. Because Tim is a failure who can’t even make his own parents want to stay.

Jason is leaving and the others will follow—

“Tim, kid, look at me.” Hands, grabbing his shoulders in a bruising grip. “Tim, calm down, I’m not leaving. Do you hear me?”

Liar, Tim wants to scream, but not a single sound makes it past his lips.

Jason is lying, because he wants Tim to stop embarrassing him and as soon as Tim lets his guard down Jason will be gone—

“For fuck’s sake- Tim, look at me!”

Tim’s eyes snap to Jason’s on instinct. That tone of voice is not to be disobeyed.

The older boy takes a deep breath. “Good. Now listen. You listening?”

Tim nods mutely.

“I’m bringing you back to the manor-“ Jason swears when Tim jolts in his grasp, more than ready to physically cling to Jason and make it at least harder for him to leave “Tim, I can’t stay.”

Why? Tim wants to scream. They’re you’re family. You didn’t see them. It should be me scared of going back. I’m the one trespassing.

“Baby Bird,” Jason says softly, smoothing a hand over Tim’s head. “Don’t you know? I was going to kill you.”

Tim blinks.

“And I was going to make it hurt.”

Oh.

His mind flashes back to that first night, crashing through the barely open window and coming face to face with the barrel of Hood’s gun. And his green, green eyes.

“You didn’t.” he says, because that’s what matters.

Jason’s face contorts with disbelief. “Do you understand me, kid? I was gonna kill you. Slowly. Painfully. I was gonna torture you.”

“Yeah,” Tim replies. It’s… quite understandable, after all. Jason came back, he came back from the dead, to some random kid wearing his colors and pretending to be something he’s so obviously not.

Tim can’t fault Jason for being angry.

“Please, stay.” His heart is still beating erratically when he looks at the older boy imploringly, begging him to understand.

“Fucking hell- kid, some times I still want to wring your neck. I can’t stay with you, even if I wa—,” Jason grimaces. “I’m not safe.”

“You’re Robin.”

Jason huffs a breathless laugh. “Kid, Robin doesn’t kill people.”

“I don’t care,” Tim says, voice edging into desperate territory. It’s so hard to form words when his lungs feel like they’re not working properly. “You have to come back, they need you— I’m—“ he’s not enough to make Bruce happy. To make Batman smile. Only Jason can do that. “Please.”

The other boy closes his eyes, looking pained. “Tim, I-“

Jason doesn’t get to finish the sentence.

The window behind him bends inward and shatters, catapulting sharp projectiles in every direction. 

And then everything descends into chaos.

———

Bruce knows he’s getting too vicious with the thugs he crosses on patrols. Knows that every trafficker he happens to run into walks away with no less then five broken bones and, more often than not, internal injuries that require immediate medical attention.

He… can’t make himself care enough to stop.

Robin does- did- that for him.

The part of Batman that had learned iron discipline with the League, the part that fought only enough to make his opponents surrender, had burned to cinders together with that accursed warehouse in Ethiopia.

Bruce… does not do well on his own.

And between Ethiopia and Dick’s return to earth even Clark hadn’t been enough to stop his downward spiral.

Dick can deny it all he wants, but Bruce knows that in those first months after his return from space, Dick had resented Bruce deeply for what he let happen to Jason.

Now he’s all alone again, even if Nightwing is tearing through Gotham’s underworld just a couple streets away.

Batman is alone, without his Robin, and the acute loss he feels almost makes him fall to his knees with anguish.

(In some dark recess of his mind, Bruce had hoped it would hurt less the second time around.)

A steady beeping pulls him away from his train of thought, and Bruce turns away from the groaning bodies of the traffickers to accept the call, expecting it to be Dick.

It’s not Dick.

“Batman.”

Bruce’s spine straightens.

“Hood.”

There’s a ragged breath over the line, the unmistakable whine of an engine, and then Hood’s mechanized voice filters through the comm again. “I have your Baby Bird.”

Bruce’s heart skips a beat, then picks up thrice as fast as before. “Is he-“

“I’ll meet you at your cave.”

The call cuts out, and Bruce’s stomach drops with the realization that if Hood knows where the cave is… their identities are irrevocably compromised.

He grapples to the roof of the nearest building, opening the comm line linking him to Nightwing. “Batmobile in two.”

“Copy. What happened? Did you find anything?”

Bruce doesn’t reply. He can’t.

His throat feels tight, burdened with the heavy dread that kicked in when Hood didn’t answer his question.

Still Bruce hopes.

(But a tiny part of him starts grieving, too.)

———

When Jason died he’d been alone.

Scared.

In pain.

He’d watched the timer on the bomb tick down, the sound not dissimilar to the clock that used to hang in the kitchen of the manor, and exhaled around the shift of bones in his chest.

There’d been no saving him. He knows that now. Even if Bruce had gotten to that warehouse earlier, Jason would have died.

(There’s only so many bones you can shatter, so many organs you can damage, before your body is working on borrowed time.

Borrowed time cut short by the 3-2-1 of a clock fused to explosives.)

And then he’d come back.

Alone.

Scared.

In pain.

A perverse kind of symmetry Jason can’t help but find absolutely hilarious.

Jason runs through another red traffic light, swerving around a honking car with practiced ease.

Tim is balanced on the seat right behind Jason, thin arms snug around his middle to keep from falling off the bike that’s racing at breakneck speed through Gotham’s streets.

There’s blood all over Jason, seeping through his pants and his jacket, and even through his helmet the stench of it is nauseating.

He feels each of Tim’s flinches when there’s a bump in the road, and Jason really wishes he didn’t have to make a kid with broken ribs drive a bike, but between an onslaught of heavily armed traffickers and some discomfort… well, Jason is pragmatic.

He’d killed the men who’d broken into his safehouse hunting for Robin, would have killed the ones waiting down on the streets, too, if one lucky fucker hadn’t managed to put a bullet in his stomach.

Because apparently he now has to get used to wearing fucking armor at all times to avoid gunshot wounds.

So yeah, they’re in a bit of a tight spot even if Jason is sure he’d lost their pursuers two blocks ago.

Tim clings to him even harder when Jason pulls onto the road leading out of the hubbub of downtown Gotham, leaving the skyscrapers behind them.

He presses down on the accelerator, pushing the bike as fast as it will go and suppresses a hiss when Tim’s hands press over the bullet wound in his gut.

This is fucking shit, but Jason hasn’t bled out yet so it could be worse.

He just hopes Tim doesn’t notice that not all of the blood currently ruining their clothes is a parting gift from the traffickers.

Jason truly doesn’t need the Baby Bird to start freaking out now.

He needs to be quick about this. Drop the bird off at the cave, salute his middle finger to the bats, leave, and stitch himself up. No biggie. If he’s lucky, the leather jacket will even staunch the blood flow some.

Jason has had worse. Significantly worse. So the encroaching darkness at the edge of his vision just makes him angry now.

And angry means green, and green means he’s awake and alive, which is good, because he’s driving a motorcycle at one-eighty miles per hour.

That ring of traffickers is so fucking dead once he’s back in Crime Alley. Jason just might start digging out a duffel bag again.

Jason swerves to the left and off road, tearing through the underbrush and straight toward one of the lesser used hidden entrances to the cave.

Cold envelops them, darkness close behind as the bike dips underground, and Jason grits his teeth against the onslaught of memories bleeding into his brain like the blood out of his body.

The Batcave opens to them like an old friend, admitting both Tim and Jason without a fuss.

It’s jarring to see how little has changed here. Blinking consoles, training equipment, the huge ass dinosaur…

Jason slows the bike, wary of rounding the corner that will inevitably lead to the heart of the cave where the bats will be waiting. 

There’s going to be a lot of heartfelt reunions, tears, and overall mush that Jason would like to skip out on.

Sure, he could just throw the Baby Bird off the bike now and leave like he’d intended… but Tim’s desperation from earlier is still burned into Jason’s very being.

The wide eyed, palpable panic. The shortness of breath, the stuttering… Jason had felt Tim’s terror as if it were his own.

Stuff like that… kids don’t panic like that. Not if they’ve been raised right and safe.

Whoever broke the kid… Jason’s gonna make sure they ain’t breaking anybody else. Ever.

The bike skids around the corner just when Jason’s vision blurs. They swerve dangerously, and Tim clings harder with a startled gasp before Jason is able to right them and bring them to a stop.

Just in time to avoid running both Nightwing and Batman clean over.

“Robin!” Nightwing’s cry is haunting.

The vigilante dashes forward before Jason can pull the bike to a full stop, clearly intent on pulling the Replacement off and into his arms and Jason doesn’t know why, but he’s seized by irrational terror at the thought of somebody taking the kid from him.

Although Jason needn’t have worried, because Tim scrambles after Jason like a madman when the older awkwardly climbs off the bike, clutching at his jacket like his life depends on it.

Jason suppresses some very colorful expletives when the action pulls the fabric taut over the wound in his motherfucking stomach and puts a comforting hand on the kid‘s shoulder.

Nightwing is frozen mid-leap, domino lenses wide and disbelieving as he’s forced to watch Robin cling to a veritable stranger instead of coming to him for protection.

Batman doesn’t look any better, the visible part of his face appearing frighteningly constipated.

For a moment they all stand there, staring each other down while Tim‘s gaze flits between both parties nervously.

Jason hopes the shrimp‘s gonna give into the impulse to run to the Big Bird because, quite frankly, Jason‘s getting a bit dizzy over here.

It’s Batman who breaks first, drawing himself up to his full height (which isn’t nearly as intimidating since Jason got the Lazarus Spa Treatment courtesy of Talia) and growls menacingly. “Hood, what is the meaning of this?”

Jason grins beneath the helmet even as an awfully metallic tang climbs up his throat.

“What,” he replies, squeezing Tim’s shoulder lightly in a display of familiarity that makes Nightwing flinch. “I thought you you wanted your Hatchling back?”

Batman’s mouth twists. “Robin, come here.”

Nightwing shoots a glare Batman’s way when Tim clings even tighter to Jason. Then the Boy Blunder crouches down, donning his perfect “you’re safe, I will protect you” smile and puts out a hand for Tim beckoningly.

“Hey, you’re home now.” Dick wriggles his gloved fingers. “How about we check you over?”

The kid tenses against Jason, looking somewhat torn in the face of Nightwing’s barely concealed distress.

“But-“ Tim looks up at Jason imploringly. “Jason.”

Batman’s frown deepens, and Jason tries not to curse. But there’s no way they’re going to draw the connection. Not when Jason should still be tucked into a grave six feet under.

Also, Jason is a fairly common name. So, kudos to his bitch of a birth mother for choosing it.

Jason‘ fishes a burner phone out of his pocket and shoves it into the Replacement‘s hand under the guise of detaching him almost-gently.

The kid’s eyes fly up to his, hope and awe igniting like fireworks in his face when he registers the item’s shape and purpose.

Jason rips his gaze away from the absolute trust in those blue eyes to stare at the Bat with barely restrained animosity. “Kid’s got a couple broken ribs. Shallow wound in his side. Nicked a vessel, some blood loss I took care of.”

A clinical report of the merchandise’s condition, but fuck if it doesn’t feel like pulling teeth to Jason.

Batman’s expression is inscrutable as he seems to mull that over while Nightwing tries and fails to be inconspicuous in his attempt to inch closer.

Tim, the little leech, is obviously aching for the big bird’s mushy affection in the way his eyes track every single of his movements. Why he’s still clinging to Jason then instead of skipping over to Dickface like a sugarplum fairy is anybody’s guess.

Then, like a hammer coming down to announce judgment day, all tension leaks out of the Bat’s hulking frame, leaving him looking worn and tired.

Jason is struck, suddenly and violently, by an epiphany that screams at him in shades of green, that he could destroy them all. Right here. Right now.

It would be so easy, too.

They’re strung so tight with worry for their bird,  so relieved at seeing him here— safe, whole, that they’ve forgotten to be wary of the monster right in front of them.

Jason could just reach out, take the Replacement’s delicate head between his hands— softly, gently, a caress— and snap.

He imagines Dick’s horror-laden scream.

Bruce’s shock.

(Tim, pliant under his hands. His wide, trusting eyes. Unfocused. Dull.)

It’s exhilarating.

Jason wants to throw up.

He nudges Tim. A simple bump of shoulders in the direction of the anxious bats, who can’t seem to decide whether coming any closer will make Hood whip out his guns.

Smart.

“Robin, come on kid-“

“Dick, it’s fine.” Both Nightwing and the Batman jolt at the former’s civilian name. “It’s Jason. He knows who we are.”

Way to go, kid.

He can see the lenses of Nightwing’s domino narrow, but the heavy stare that makes every hair on Jason’s body stand on edge belongs to Bruce.

“Head injuries?” He asks gruffly, foregoing Dick’s caution and stepping right up to Jason and Tim. 

Jason wastes no time and, before that traitorous part can rear it’s ugly head again and stop him, shoves Tim right into the Bat’s arms.

The kid squawks, even as Bruce’s arms fly up and around the kid’s torso, mindful of the broken ribs, and clutch at him like Hood would change his mind any second.

Nightwing pounces a nanosecond later and Jason isn’t even granted the luxury of bracing for an incoming attack when the vigilante is suddenly right there, shielding the kid’s back and draping himself over Tim like Jason was holding them at gunpoint.

“Tim,” he croaks, a visible shiver racing through him. “Timmy.”

Something in Jason shrivels and dies all over again.

(“They replaced you,” Talia had said, her small hands on his shoulders a mockery of comfort. Her smile a cruel, vicious thing as she leans forward to whisper in his ear. “Can you imagine why?”)

They didn’t even allow for a proper burial.

Jason had checked, back when a part of him still clung to that desperate illusion of family and unconditional love. When part of him still thought that they’d at least miss him, even if they’d replaced him.

The disillusion had come in the form of a grainy video with strangers dumping and burying his casket under six feet of dirt, only Alfred standing off to the side.

Neither hair nor hide of Bruce or Dick anywhere.

And here they are, doting on the noble-bred kid from uptown Gotham who isn’t even sporting a black eye, for fuck’s sake.

(Like Jason didn’t scream for them until his throat had bled. Like he hadn’t felt his skull cave in, his mind fading. Like the last thing he’d held onto when the clock ticked down to zero wasn’t the absolute certainty that Batman would save him.)

The bullet wound in his stomach tugs sharply at his senses, and the green haze Jason hadn’t noticed creeping up on him dissipates like smoke.

“Well, it’s been fun.” Jason grinds out, reining in the need to start shooting something. Like Nightwing. Or Bruce. But I think I’ll be on my way. I can trust you won’t give me trouble when I come to collect what I’m owed?”

Batman’s turn of head is minuscule, almost imperceptible.

“Of course,” he replies, voice grave. But there is no hitch, no hesitation. 

Jason wonders what Bruce would do if he ordered him to kill the Joker.

Would he do it?

(Please, please, please.)

But he can’t make any rash decision now. His previous plan is blown to hell thanks to the Replacement taking himself out of the equation. Jason needs to stitch himself up, re-secure and tighten his hold on Crime Alley, and reevaluate. Accommodate for all the changes.

“No- Wait, Jason-“

“See ya, Timmers.” Jason calls over his shoulder, resolutely not turning around and making a beeline for his bike.

Fuck, is it supposed to be this dark in the cave? Is the floor supposed to be swaying?

He makes it to the bike without toppling over and swings a leg across the seat with a grimace. The engine roars to life, the sound losing itself in an echo across the cavernous space.

Over the din he can hear Tim’s frantic arguing.

“No, it’s Jason-“ yeah, good luck convincing them.

“Tim, calm down, you’ve been through a lot-“

“He’s injured! You can’t just let him go!” Ah, fuck, so the Replacement noticed.  “B, Dick, you have to believe me!”

Time to get the hell out.

“Hood,” Dick calls out hesitantly, much closer than before, and Jason’s head snaps around, more than ready to spew insults and a stray bullet or two.

He stops dead, however, when he sees that Nightwing’s domino is nowhere to be found, giving him a clear view of his blotchy red face and glistening eyes.

“Thank you,” the vigilante says, gratitude heavily inflected in those two words.

Want tugs at the deadened strings of Jason’s heart, violent and sudden.

He grinds his teeth and revs the engine.

“Whatever.”

Jason, surprisingly, makes it to a new safehouse in one piece.

The wound in his stomach is ugly, edges such a fiery red that Jason knock back antibiotics before he even attempts to fish the bullet out of his gut.

It hurts. The green sings him through it.

He passes out on the bathroom floor, bloody suing materials and gauze patches strewn around him like a perverse halo.

Tim calls him three times during the next couple days, asking about the injury. Begging him to come home.

Jason threatens to stop answering the calls and texts if he doesn’t stop.

The conversations turn to something lighter.

Red Hood and his gang make it to the front page of every Gotham City newspaper after he hangs the traffickers who almost clipped Robin‘s wings by their necks from the bridge like Christmas ornaments.

The bullet wound festers.

It would have been fine.

Jason‘s had worse. He crawled out of his own fucking grave, dammit. A little bullet wound isn’t gonna do him in. Fuck you.

He hits the rooftop hard, agony surging through his body like lightning and whiting out his vision before he can find his equilibrium.

Nightwing, who appears to have been waiting for him, makes an aborted move forward like he wants to— gods forbid— steady him.

Jason slaps his hands away with a mechanized snarl.

Fucking bats. This was supposed to be his free day, goddammit. But then his lieutenant called in a tizzy and said there’s a motherfuckin’ bird flapping through the Bowery.

“The fuck d’you want?” Jason barks, entirely too worn out for any pleasantries. If they lost the Baby Bird again Jason is gonna fucking lose it.

A strangled noise escapes Nightwing’s throat, high pitched and forlorn.

Jason squints at the vigilante, taking note of how the older man jerks for- and backwards spasmodically like he’s torn between fight and flight. His shoulders are open, the muscles in his arms deliberately relaxed; the equivalent of rolling over and showing one’s belly.

Everything about Nightwing screams I-don’t-want-to-fight.

“Hood,” he greets.

There’s a tremor in his voice, making that single word sound strangely vulnerable. Jason doesn’t like it.

“If you lost the Baby Bird again I ain’t helpin’ a second time!”

Nightwing huffs a laugh. “No, that’s- no.”

There’s a pause.

A pause in which Jason nearly turns around to go back to the safehouse to sleep off the fever wrecking his body. Infections aren’t fucking fun, ok? And he’s also pretty sure that the last couple bullet wounds hadn’t hurt this fucking much and if Nightwing came here just to chat and play buddy Jason is gonna fucking knife him.

“Is it-“ Nightwing grimaces. “Is it true?”

Dear god, they did lose the Baby Bird again, didn’t they?

A faint shiver runs through the vigilante’s body and when he opens his mouth next he sounds lost and terribly young.

“Little Wing? Is that you?”

Jason freezes.

No, no! This is- not impossible, because Tim already knew but— why would they actually believe—?

Air escapes Nightwing’s throat in a loud whoosh.

“It is you.” He breathes, awe coloring each word. “Little Wing-“ one step forward, then another, and Jason’s brain short circuits with the horrible realization that Dick wants to play Happy Family and fucking hug him. “You’re alive!”

The gun rests in Jason’s hand barely a second later, barrel pointed right between the Boy Wonder’s eyes, safety flipped off, index finger hovering over the trigger.

Nightwing stops, the visible part of his face contorting into a mask of confusion and hurt.

Like he’s got any right to feel any of that. He’s lucky Jason isn’t emptying the entire fucking magazine into his pretty face.

“Get lost,” Jason says, deadly calm. “Or the next body hanging from a bridge is gonna be yours.”

There’s a beat of tense silence before Nightwing raises his hands placatingly, taking a step back. “Ok, I’ll go, just—… Robin says you’re injured.“

“Touching,” the ear splitting boom of the gun going off makes the vigilante flinch violently, head flying down to take stock of the damage— only to find the bullet stuck in the pavement at his feet. “Next one goes between your eyes. Now fuck off.”

Jason holsters the gun and turns to leave, fully intend on retrieving his bike and getting back to his safehouse to sleep off the infection. 

“Hood-“

“I’m fine!” Jason snarls, stalking to the edge of the roof with quickly dwindling patience.

This is just fan-fucking-tastic. Another aspect of Jason Peter Todd’s fucked up life and plans going to absolute shit. Nightwing knows his identity, which means so does the Big Bad Bat, which means Jason will have to start from scratch to come up with an appropriate way to make them suffer and-

His knees falter and Jason curses when a pang of excruciating pain lances through his stomach as he’s forced to right himself.

Behind him Nightwing calls out in something that might pass for worry if Jason were a lesser man.

Like Jason still believe in that Big-Brother shtick the Boy Blunder’s got going on.

Jason keeps going. It’s only a ten minute drive to his safehouse, it’s gonna be fine. He just needs some sleep.

But then, on the next step forward, his foot meets only air and the world is spin-spin-spinning on its axis for a heart stopping second.

Screaming. He can hear screaming, distant and frantic.

And then there’s darkness.

Chapter Text

When Tim insisted that the Red Hood is Jason, Bruce had Leslie check him over to suss out potential head injuries.

Meanwhile Dick had fussed over Tim, bundling him into blankets and reassuring himself every couple minutes that he was still there.

Bruce himself had hovered, either in the doorway or by Tim‘s side, obsessively staring at the monitor of Tim‘s vitals.

In his head, Bruce keeps listing Tim’s injuries like a prayer to remind himself that none of them are fatal.

Four broken ribs. Regressive pneumothorax. Stab wound with nicked vessel, expertly patched up.

Nothing damning in the grand scheme of things. Thanks to Hood, if Tim’s ramblings are to be believed. (His boy had sought out a bloodthirsty criminal for help as he bled out, clinging to the hope that Hood would keep to his code of keeping children safe even if he hates the Batman and all his associates.)

If the traffickers had gotten their hands on Tim… It’s a dark train of thought.

Tim probably would have survived and they would have found him eventually. But the damage that could have been done in that time…

There’d been too many children they’d saved from traffickers over the years. Hollow eyed wraiths, tiny bodies tucked into rooms that might as well have been cages.

Bruce looks at Tim, headstrong and defiant, and feels nausea churning in his gut at the thought of finding him— his son— like he did those children.

(Beyond the pain of Jason’s death, he’d feared the same thing when Leslie performed the autopsy. Feared she was going to find something worse. And by god, nothing would have stopped him from breaking into Arkham to snap the Joker’s neck if she had.)

All the while Tim keeps insisting that Jason is the Red Hood. That he is hurt. That he needs help.

Bruce doesn’t know whether to be angry or sad.

It’s only after two days, when Tim had refused both food and water in favor of screaming at them to “help Jason! He’s killing himself!” and Dick’s futile attempts at calming the boy down had resulted in almost violent fits that Bruce reads the blood from Tim’s clothes into the machine.

Both Dick and Bruce stare at the monitor anxiously, waiting for the results that would tell them who exactly had rescued Tim from his gruesome fate.

“If it’s him…?” Dick trails off and Bruce feels his heart break at the painful hope in his eldest’s voice.

“He’s dead.” Bruce reminds him, as gently as possible. Still Dick slumps, gaze sliding to where Tim is furiously tapping away on a phone Bruce… can’t recall ever seeing him with before.

Tim catches their looking and glares. 

The computer bings, alerting them that all the tests have been successful and that the DNA that’s been running through numerous programs has found its match.

———

“JASON!”

Bruce has jumped into action even before Nightwing’s horrified scream echoes across the rooftops, sweeping through the air just as a body comes sailing through the dark.

His grip is tight (too tight, you’re crushing him!) around Hood’s— Jason, his son, his child— broad torso as he carries him down to ground level, laying him flat on the ground despite every nerve ending in him screaming that if he lets go, Jason might vanish into the air like a heat haze.

His fingers tremble as he slips them under Hood’s collar, searching for a sign of—

There.

Hood’s heartbeat flutters against Bruce’s index finger and he exhales as some of the weight lifts from his chest.

Bruce itches to take that horrible red helmet off— to see his son’s face. To make this real.

He’d wondered so often what Jason would have looked like had he had the chance to grow up. If he’d been faster. If the door hadn’t been locked.

The only thing that’s stopping him is the high probability of Hood having installed a myriad of traps in his helmet if taken off the wrong way.

(It’s what he would have done.  What he’d taught Jason to do if he ever-)

Nightwing stumbles from the fire escape, almost breaking his ankle in his haste. “B- is he-?”

“Alive.” Bruce says, already in the process of unzipping Hood’s jacket.

Dick falls to his knees on Hood’s— Jason, the DNA match confirmed it, but Bruce needs to see— other side, undoing the clasps of Hood’s upper body armor until the lower piece comes loose enough to slide it higher.

Dick draws a sharp breath at the sight of the bloody bandages slung messily across Hood’s abdomen, the red interspersed by yellow-ish patches. The skin above and below the bandages is a fiery red, climbing up to just below his rib cage.

“Sepsis,” Bruce growls, sliding one arm below the man’s knees and the other under his shoulders before lifting.

It’s easier than it should be, despite Hood’s size.

The batmobile roars around the corner, slowing to a stop just as Nightwing pulls the door open and slides inside, opening his arms for Bruce to place Hood in his lap.

Bruce slips into the front seat, casting one last look into the rear view mirror before he hits the gas.

Dick’s domino mask is gone and he’s cradling Hood’s head in his lap, whispering soft assurances of safety and home.

Bruce’s eyes burn.

There’s a miracle slumbering on the medical cot in front of Bruce and he’s afraid to look away.

Jason is slumbering peacefully, the infection finally flushed from his body after three days of fever and delirious fits.

He looks older, Bruce thinks. Haggard. His cheeks are void of any baby fat he should still have left at only nineteen years— a murderer at nineteen, a duffel bag of heads, and bodies strung from bridges.

The Red Hood had brought terror and tentative peace to Crime Alley, and he’s lying right in front of Bruce and all he feels is warmth and peace for the first time in years.

Bruce reaches out to cup Jason’s face, marveling at the warmth.

(The last time he’d held him his body was already cooling, his eyes sightless. The last time he’d buried his face in Jason’s curls and allowed himself to cry he’d come away with soot and blood smeared across his cheeks.)

Jason is alive.

Jason hates them.

But it doesn’t matter. Bruce would rather Jason be alive and hate them than dead.

It’s been three days. Three days in which only Tim’s presence has managed to keep Jason marginally docile.

Even now he’s sitting at Jason’s other side, keeping a watchful eye on Bruce while Jason’s left hand is curled protectively around Tim’s wrist.

Tim had long since told them about staying with Jason while they’d been running themselves ragged to find him. How Jason—

His eyes are green. Shifting hues with his mood, the waters of the Lazarus Pit wreaking havoc on his nervous system. 

(“I hate you!” He’d snarled during a rare lucid moment, straining hard against Dick’s hold. “This is your fault! I hate you!”

It had taken Tim wrapping himself like a koala around him to calm Jaosn down, mood shifting from murderous to protective and caring in an instant with a single, strangled whine from Tim.)

“Hey,” Bruce turns when Dick’s voice permeates the silence.

Dick is standing at the entrance to the med bay, looking worn but happy with a plate with sandwiches in his hand.

“You guys should eat. I just talked to Alfred and he’s gonna be back tomorrow.”

Bruce winces.

He’d… forgotten about the butler for the moment. And he’s sure Alfred is going to be giving him one hell of a verbal lashing about not contacting him sooner.

Dick puts the plate on a table and moves closer as well, lowering himself onto mattress at Jason’s feet.

“How’s he doing?”

“No changes yet.” Bruce says quietly, withdrawing his hands reluctantly from Jason’s  sleeping face. “His temperature is normal. The wound is starting to scab over.”

“Thank god,” Dick sighs heavily. “What the hell was he thinking, letting it get hat bad?”

Tim huffs. “He probably wasn’t thinking much at all…”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m starting to think, too. Also…” Dick turns to Bruce, his expression pained. “I looked at Jay’s helmet… the failsaves we dismantled? They were linked to explosives.”

Bruce freezes.

“What?”

Dick runs a hand through his hair, slumping even further onto the bed as his other hand sneaks sideways to rest lightly on Jason’s covered ankle.

It’s a form of reassurance they’ve all been indulging in since that night on the roof.

Touch means Jason is alive.

Touch means they’re not just seeing things. (Again.)

“I know,” Dick sighs, expression pinched as he looks at Jason’s pale face and the huge y-shaped scar etched into his upper body. “It was rigged to blow if one of the latches were pressed in the wrong order.”

Bruce closes his eyes, steadying himself against the bed frame.

God.

If any of them- if Bruce had captured Hood in the cave like he’d previously planned, if they’d taken the helmet off by force-

Tim slips off his chair soundlessly and onto the cot beside Jason. The short moment where he pries Jason‘s hand from his wrist the sleeping boy‘s face immediately scrunches up, heartbeat accelerating ever so slightly right up until Tim presses himself up to Jason, hooking  one arm under his own.

Bruce could have killed his own son without knowing.

“Why would he do that?” Dick asks, voice rough with emotion.  “Why would- does he want to-?”

Dick doesn’t finish the question, just swipes the back of his hand angrily across his eyes.

Bruce is glad that Dick doesn’t expect an answer.

If he thinks about it too hard he might throw up.

——

Awareness creeps up on Jason like fall does on summer; slowly, with a faint sense of foreboding.

Everything is warm and comfortable.

The world is soft, blanketing Jason with a heavy calmness. All his muscles are lax, and his head feels blissfully empty, unlike when he’d woken up still screaming from nightmares.

This… it almost feels like a home he doesn’t have. Jason doesn’t know where or when he is, but the acute sense of safe-home-warm keeps him from thinking too much about it.

None of his instincts are screaming at him to move, so Jason doesn’t.

He sinks deeper into the warmth, exhaling softly when the blanket encases his… arm… tighter?

Blankets… aren’t supposed to do that?

How- when did he go to sleep in the first place? He was outside. He was- he was meeting up with- Nightwing?

And… there’s noise, distant and garbled, like he’s underwater…

Steady beeping… getting closer.

A… voice?

“-on, calm… -ok..“

The voice is familiar. Soft spoken.

(Flashes. A body rumbling through his window.)

“…safe. I promise….”

(Blood on the carpet. “Help me”.)

Tim.

Jason’s eyes fly open.

He doesn’t recognize the ceiling. He doesn’t recognize the bed he’s in. He doesn’t-

There’s someone in the room with him. 

A face, hovering above him, worried and afraid. Young.

Tim.

But he’s not the only one. Someone else is here. Jason can feel their eyes on them. He can feel them, and his head is screeching danger danger danger!

He’s acting on instinct, mind going from sleeping into hyper focus as his hand shoots out and wraps around the kid’s upper arm.

Tim yelps in surprise, but Jason is already tugging him forward in the same moment that he sits up, effectively disconnecting several cords and wires, causing alarms to start blaring.

He shoves Tim behind him, squishing him safely between his back and the wall as his eyes dart left and right to-

There.

He lunges for the empty plate on the table beside him, smashing it hard against the bead frame and then he’s holding a shard of pointed porcelain, brandishing it like he would one of his knives and waits another nanosecond in which Tim cries out for him to stop (not that he would, they’re in danger!) and he can feel someone else rushing closer and closer-

Jason leaps from the bed with a snarl, careful to keep Tim behind him and away from whoever is attacking them. Whoever is keeping them prisoner.

His vision tints green, the familiar rage overshadowing the stab of pain in his stomach as he collides with their captor and knocks them to the ground.

Jason goes down atop of them, striking out near blind at the person’s jugular with the shard of porcelain even as Tim’s shriek echoes around the room.

His hand comes down with surprisingly little resistance, the body beneath Jason’s soft and pliant and unguarded and-

Blue. Blue eyes.

He knows those eyes. He knows that face-

Jason’s hand jerks to an abrupt stop, the pointed piece of porcelain digging into the soft skin underneath the man’s— Dick’s— jaw.

He could kill him. A flick of Jason’s wrist and the porcelain would cut clean through his carotid artery, bleeding him dry in mere seconds.

But Dick doesn’t struggle, doesn’t try to disarm Jason or even beg for his life. His arms are splayed on either side of him, his muscles lax.

Jason presses down harder, watches a thin trail of blood run down the side of Dick’s throat only to vanish in a strand of dark hair.

And still Dick doesn’t fight him, just looks up at Jason with a sense of wonder and affection that makes Jason want to scream and hit something.

It’s the same look Tim had worn. That same look of absolute trust when all Jason wanted to do is take a gun and blow his brains out.

His skin is scrawling, Dick’s blood is metallic and heavy in the air and Jason’s hand trembles every so slightly as the green withdraws in confusion and leaves him utterly empty.

Dick’s mouth quirks up into a tentative smile, and Jason wants to bash his head in.

“…Jason?”

Jason blinks, focus shifting to the timid waver in Tim’s voice. He tilts his head, careful to keep Dick in his line of sight, to assess if there’s another threat in close vicinity.

But it’s only the kid there, padding forward on bare feet, hands extended as if he’s approaching a spooked animal.

“You’re safe here. Your wound got infected, do you remember?”

Yeah, he remembers alright. The wound that motherfucking trafficker left him with as a parting gift. But it was just a minor infection, Jason would have been fine if Nightwing-

“Where am I?” Jason growls, trying hard not to break out in hysteric laughter if his suspicion proves-

“The cave.” Tim says.

Motherfucker.

Jason bares his teeth at Dick. “And I suppose that was your brilliant idea?”

Dick’s wince is answer enough. “Little Wing-“

Jason lets go of the piece of porcelain and transitions his hold to Dick’s throat in a flash, fingers squeezing threateningly.

“Perhaps I should be thanking you,” Jason purrs. “Killing you here is so much more satisfying.”

“Jason!” Tim yelps, hands clamping down on his shoulders in an attempt to pull him off. It’s cute, because it feels like a kitten trying to move a fucking boulder and Jason‘s grin becomes even nastier as the green returns to his vision and makes his blood sing.

He wouldn’t even have to choke Dick, he could just press down a little harder and snap that delicate bone in his neck and— game over.

Just like he’d planned to do with Tim— no, no he wouldn’t do that. Tim’s just a kid.

Dick, on the other hand…

(“Please help me, please. Nightwing. Batman. Anybody. Please.”)

Yeah, maybe he doesn’t want to make it quick.

Jason’s hold tightens. He can feel the pulse of blood under his fingers, watches as Dick’s chest spasms lightly to compensate the sudden decrease of air flow.

“No! Jason, stop! B! Alfred!”

But Dick just keeps. Fucking. Smiling. Like Jason isn’t one inch away from murdering him in cold blood and-

Ah, finally, Dick moves. His arm comes up, perhaps to try and throw Jason off or jab it into the aching wound in his stomach or-

Or to rest it lightly against his wrist, misty eyed and still so fucking affectionate that Jason wants to scream.

“Master Jason!”

Jason’s head snaps up.

Alfred is standing in the entrance to the med bay, face set into a stern mask that’s radiating displeasure.

“I think that is quite enough.”

For the first time in years, Jason feels cowed.

Bruce’s ire he can handle. But Alfred? Fuck, no.   

Jason sits back on his haunches, his hand lingering another second before he removes it from Dick’s throat, immediately feeling angry when a wave of relief crashes over him.

He’s not supposed to be relieved. He wants them dead. He wants them all. Fucking. Dead.

“Good. Now please get back into bed. You are far from healed.” Alfred says in a tone that brooks no argument, striding forward to help Jason to his feet with blatant disregard for his own safety in the face of a murderer. “You have gotten yourself into a fine mess with that infection. Doctor Thompkins’s work shall not be so easily undone because you cannot bear to sit still for two minutes.”

Jason gets herded back to the cot and hooked to multiple monitors in a minute flat, all under Alfred’s close scrutiny. But despite the butler’s stern facade his touch is gentle when he wraps the blood pressure cuff around Jason’s upper arm and applies a bandaid to where he’d accidentally ripped out the IV.

Jason watches closely, opting to ignore how Dick is slowly getting to his feet and quietly talking to Tim.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, and part of Jason wants to snap at Alfred, but… it’s Alfred.

“Sore.” He mumbles, tensing his stomach muscles lightly and— yup, ouch. “Tired. Angry.”

Alfred nods, turning away momentarily to retrieve a glass of clear liquid. When he tries to hand it to him, Jason hesitates.

“It is only water.” The old butler says. And Jason… he wants to believe him. He does. But—

“Why am I here?”

“Your wound was infected.” Dick pipes up from across the room, voice scratchy. “Badly.”

A new wave of green washes into his vision, only abating when Tim’s voice filters through the haze. “You fell off the roof, Jason. We had to bring you here.”

Jason scoffs. “How chivalrous. Nursing me back to health and then what, B puts me in Arkham?”

Tim’s face scrunches up in distaste, but it’s Alfred who replies. “Don’t be silly, Master Jason. Master Bruce would rather chew off his own foot. And even if he were so inclined to admit you to Arkham,” the elderly man’s look becomes piercing “I can assure that neither the young masters nor I would stand by idly and just let it happen.”

“Of course not, Little Wing! We-“

“Master Dick,” Alfred interrupts, obviously taking note of how Jason tenses up again. “I think it would be best if you went upstairs and caught up on some sleep.”

“But-“

“Now, if you please.”

Jason watches with no small amount of glee as Dick scurries off like a kicked puppy, but then immediately sobers when Tim also takes a hesitant step towards the door before stopping and glancing back at Jason uncertainly.

“Uhm… I’ll be going… too? Let you rest…”

“…Whatever.”

Jason pretend not to feel disappointed when Tim ducks out of the med bay.

If the slant of Alfred’s mouth is any indication though he’s not doing a very good job though.

Jason also pretends that he doesn’t notice the kid sneaking back into the room when he thinks that Jason is asleep.

A day passes and Jason waits for them to cart him off to Arkham any second now.

He’s not naive enough to believe that they won’t. If the duffel bag stint wasn’t enough to condemn him, then the traffickers hanging from the bridge surely were. Bruce might play along with the others for now, but he’s not just going to let Jason continue his occupation in Crime Alley without a fight.

Not that Jason doesn’t plan on breaking out of Arkham once it comes down to it (that place is about as secure as a jeweler’s store in the middle of Crime Alley) but he’d like for them to stop pretending that they’re one big happy fucking family.

But then another day passes without anything happening except for warm meals and cookies and hot fucking cocoa.

Tim and Alfred at least he understands. The latter was the only one to attend his funeral, so there’s some amount of affection there. And Tim? The kid is touch starved to high heavens and has apparently imprinted on Jason like a duckling or something, so his actions can be chalked up to a fucked up childhood.

What makes Jason absolutely stir crazy his Dick’s hovering.

The older vigilante is around constantly. Sometimes under the guise of cleaning equipment, sometimes just to blab nonsense at Jason while Jason tries to tamp down on the desire to strangle him.

(The vibrant ring of bruises around Dick’s  throat does not make Jason’s chest tighten uncomfortably. It doesn’t.)

And then, of course, there’s Bruce.

Jason hasn’t seen him once, but he knows he’s there. Keeping out of sight.

He’s the one putting books on Jason’s nightstand when he’s asleep, Tim tells him. Spending hours sorting through the library and picking out ones he remembers Jason reading and others he thinks Jason might enjoy.

Jason resolutely does not touch any of the books. Yet, every few days, they’re exchanged for a new batch.

(Often, when Jason is on the cusps of waking up, he thinks there’s a hand carding through his hair.)

Sometimes he can hear Alfred arguing with Bruce, followed by Bruce’s quiet timber that always makes Alfred’s expression become pinched for the next half an hour.

Other times he can hear Bruce tinkering around in the cave, never out of hearing range; always out of sight.

Jason waits for Bruce to come to him. To yell. To tell him what a monumental fuck up Jason turned out to be, and that he’s going to put him into a cell in Arkham, or Blackgate, and throw away the key.

But he never does.

It’s vexing. (It’s exhausting.)

“He ashamed to see what became of the defective model?” Jason asks snidely, one week after waking up in the cave and trying to kill Dick.

Jason’s wound is healing nicely, what with the proper care it’s finally getting and regular, healthy meals, but Alfred still isn’t allowing him out of bed for at least another two days.

Tim looks up sharply from his laptop, lips pursing.

“Stop that. You know it’s because he doesn’t want to set you off.”

“Sure,” Jason drawls, “because B is a very considerate man.”

The pursed lips turn into a full out scowl. “You-“

“Little Wing!”

Jason groans as Dick skips around the corner, brandishing a brand new video game console.

“I got us-!”

“No.”

“But-“

“No. Fuck you.”

Dick’s smile doesn’t waver. “But I got us Mario Kart!”

Tim perks up.

Fuck.

Jason wakes up to a hand carding through his hair and deliberately keeps his breathing even and his eyes closed. 

The bone deep exhaustion of the infection is wearing off, and Jason has always been a light sleeper. Especially after his time with the League.

It’s not unusual to wake up with another person in the room. Usually it’s Tim, curled up beside Jason like a croissant, spine digging into Jason’s elbows. Sometimes, in addition to Tim, it’s Dick, hovering at the foot of Jason’s bed and watching him like a creep. Sometimes it’s Alfred, jotting down his vitals and checking Jason’s bandages.

And other times, like tonight, it’s the one remaining person in the household Jason has yet to lay his eyes upon.

Bruce’s fingers smooth back a lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes.

Jason doesn’t know why Bruce does it. He’s spent days trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind that gesture. Each theory more outlandish than the last.

It just doesn’t make sense. Why- why would someone offer any semblance of comfort to a person they despise? Especially when they’re supposedly asleep?

Some nights, Bruce will tell him about his day in that awkward way of his. About how Tim is doing with school, how Dick has filed for  indeterminate leave from his job at the BPD to make sure Jason recovers, and about the books Bruce found for Jason in the library and is currently sorting into neat little piles.

“I know Pride and Prejudice used to be your favorite,” hands tug at Jason’s blanket, pulling it higher before the fabric is nestled around his shoulders. “But it’s still in your room.”

Jason almost chokes.

No.

No, he must have heard wrong-

Jason- Jason was so sure that his old room-

The Replacement got his suit, so surely he also stole— got Jason’s room.

Even if he didn’t, they would have cleaned it out by now. It’s been years.

“Nobody goes inside without your permission.” Bruce continues, reciting the rule from years past, oblivious to Jason’s internal turmoil. “But maybe… you’re going to get it yourself soon.”

The bed creaks as Bruce stands. “Good night, son.” A pause, then, almost too quiet to discern. “I love you.”

The hand in his hair lingers a moment longer before withdrawing, followed by the muted sound of retreating footsteps.

Jason’s hands curl in the fabric of the bed sheet as a choked gasp shudders through his body.

No. No, he’s lying. It’s not true. It’s not true. Bruce is a fucking liar.

Jason’s eyes burn.

“Aren’t B and Dickface worried I’ll snap and kill you?”

Tim stops typing, blinking up owlishly at Jason from where he’s pressed against his side.

“Do you really think they could stop me from coming here?”

“What the fuck is B’s deal, anyway?”

Dick’s inane chatter cuts off abruptly, and the expression on his face would be hilarious if Jason’s vision would stop flickering in hues of green.

The older man gapes at him, clearly caught off guard by Jason addressing him for the first time (without outright insulting him) since being brought here.

“Uh,” Dick says eloquently. “What?”

Jason rolls his eyes.

“B. Has he even left the cave once?”

Dick’s face does something interesting, twisting and scrunching before settling on something like guilt.

“Uhm, no.”

Jason’s mouth quirks into a nasty grin. “I’m flattered. Am I really such a safety hazard?”

“Well, you did put multiple heads in-“ Dick cuts himself off and grimaces, the expression of guilt intensifying. “He doesn’t- he just wants to stay close in case-“

“In case I try to kill any of you again?“

“No!” Dick’s eyes narrow. “Will you please stop that? Look, Bruce- he needs to know that you’re ok, so he stays… close.”

“What, did all the cameras in here malfunction or somethin’?”

“Well, no…”

Jason knows Dick is being purposely cagey about this. Whatever the reason Bruce is acting so fucking weird, it obviously makes him uncomfortable.

“Maybe you should, uh, talk to him about that?”

“I would,” Jason replies, faux sweet “But B hasn’t graced me with his presence yet.”

Dick swallows visibly, his eyes dark and sad. “Litt-… Jason, I know that you hate us right now but… we love you, ok? I just want you to know that.”

“You sure have an interesting way of showing that.” Jason inspects his nails, countering Dick’s kicked-puppy expression with an amiable smile. “‘Cause I  always thought it’s common courtesy to attend the funerals of loved ones.”

Dick pales, stumbling backwards. “How-?”

Jason’s smile widens.

“If you wanted me to stay dead, you should have packed the dirt on my grave a little tighter.“

Dick flees the med bay like the hounds of hell are after him.

Jason is up and out of bed the second the clock strikes zero, disconnecting the monitors with precise motions before traipsing to the  closet he’d seen Alfred put his clothes in. Sans helmet. But that’s fine, he‘s got a spare one back in Crime Alley.

Alfred said two more days until he‘s allowed back on his feet. Two days are over, and Jason will be damned if he stays at the cave a second longer than absolutely necessary.

Tim had gone upstairs to make himself something to eat (Coffee. Jason isn’t fucking dumb, and the kid cant lie for shit. But that’s not Jason‘s problem.) thirty some minutes ago, and Jason estimates another ten until the Replacement manages to down the can entirely.

Dick hadn’t been back in the cave since their little talk, and Bruce had been herded out by Alfred to catch some sleep earlier in the day with a lot of stern wordings Jason never wants directed at himself. (Alfred can be fucking vicious when he wants to, holy shit.)

Which leaves Jason with a precariously small window for escape, but he’ll manage.

He pulls on his pants, followed quickly by a pair of  combat boots and a plain white shirt that’s obviously been exchanged for the one he’d bled all over. And, finally, his leather jacket.

He whirls around, striding out of the med bay with cursory glance around the room. Now Jason only needs to find a bike and get the ever-loving-hell—

The wind gets knocked out of him as he collides with something tall and solid, the impact rattling his bones and aggravating the still healing wound in his stomach, sending spikes of pain up his nerve endings and a strangled yell out of Jason‘s mouth.

Next there hands on his upper arms, holding Jason steady.

“Jason! What happened!?”

Bruce’s eyes are wild, his hair disheveled. He’s only wearing a light sleeping shirt and sweatpants, obviously just out of bed.

“Jason, answer me!”

He can’t.

Jason wants to snarl at Bruce. Wants to snap. To hurt. (The Pit is waiting for it, prowling and swirling around his rib cage in flares of green.)

But he’s too caught up with seeing Bruce— Bruce, not Batman— for the first time since- since that day, and-

He looks bad.

There’s really no other word for it.

“Jason!” Bruce’s voice is getting progressively more frantic, hands patting him down in a pattern that Jason recognizes from patrols as Robin. “What happened? Your vitals-“ he breaks off, drawing in a harsh breath. “They all-…”

They all flatlined.

Because Jason disconnected the monitors without turning them off first.

But why- How did Bruce even notice if he was sleeping? Why- He should have have been asleep, or relieve-

“Jason,” arms circle around Jason, making him feel dwarfed despite the two men having the same size now. “Jaylad.”

Something inside Jason cracks and shatters when he feels the dampness of tears against his temple.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. Bruce doesn’t care- he doesn’t care—

But Bruce clutches Jason against his chest like he does, and Jason finds he wants. He wants this so bad.

He’s denied himself the smallest of comforts for so long. Indulging this one embrace… Jason can still enact his revenge plans. Nothing has changed. He could just knock Bruce out when the hug is over and play everything off as a fever dream if the Bat tried to use it against him.

But for now… Jason doesn’t think he could bring himself to step away first even if he wanted to, drunk as he is on the feeling of safe-protected-warm- father blaring so loud in his head that it drowns out the din of the Pit clamoring for blood.

Bruce still smells of that ridiculously expensive aftershave of his, layered over the ever present smell of steel, Alfred’s laundry detergent and something that is uniquely Bruce and throws Jason back years to nights spent watching stupid cartoons after patrol and eating crappy takeout.

Jason’s arms come up slowly, hesitantly, unsure if he should return the embrace or if that would burst their bubble of calm-safe-care.

They stay like that for minutes. Jason, stiff and unsure, and Bruce, running a hand frantically through his hair and still half heartedly searching for injuries.

And then there’s a bang somewhere behind Bruce, causing Jason to jump and pull at the wound in his stomach and- fucking-ow, fuck.

The pained hiss Jason can’t suppress makes Bruce pull back immediately, concern once again morphing into panic when his eyes dip to Jason’s stomach. “Why are you out of bed?” He growls, immediately steering Jason around and back to the cot.

Jason lets him, too perplexed to argue, and catches the tail end of Tim’s shocked look over the older man’s shoulder.

Shit.

He’s not going back to Crime Alley tonight, is he?

Something went catastrophically wrong and Jason can‘t for the life of him say how.

He’s still in the med bay, for one. But there’s also the fact that Bruce is slumped in the chair beside him, upper body resting half on Jason‘s bed with one hand stubbornly wrapped around his wrist.

Every once in a while Bruce startles awake, middle and index fingers pressing down against the underside of it before he nods off again.

(Jason is starting to have the sneaking suspicion that Bruce thinks this entire night is just a dream.)

Then there’s Tim, glaring daggers at Jason from where he’s planted at the foot of the bed.

“You were going to leave.” he accuses.

It’s not a question, so Jason doesn’t reply.

Tim’s eyes narrow. “You can’t, Jason.”

“Kid, I told you-“

“No! This is stupid. Do you still want revenge? After you’ve seen- you’ve got to see how much they care.” Tim’s voice wavers in the middle, something sad and lost flickering  through his eyes so fast it’s almost not there at all. “They care so much about you. You can’t leave them again.”

Jason swallows down the instinctive anger threatening to cover his vision with greengreengreen.

“And what would you know about that?” He asks through gritted teeth. “They didn’t even show up to my fucking funeral.”

Tim grimaces.

“Yeah, because Dick was busy drinking himself into a stupor and hunting through Blüd for-… well anyway, and B…  after Superman— …  B was busy putting criminals in hospitals.” Tim’s gaze drifts off.  “It was bad, Jason. He wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t sleep. He went out every night to patrol and worked cases during the day. If Alfred hadn’t— …  it was bad.”

“And what about you, Replacement? B happen across you and was like ‘hey, kid would look good in a dead boy’s suit’?”

“No! Jason… do you know how I became…Robin?”

At Jason’s deadpan look Tim shifts uncomfortably.  “I stole your suit, although I think Alfred might have helped because none of the alarms went off… but when Bruce saw— when I followed him on patrols— he was furious.”

Bruce’s fingers twitch lightly against Jason’s skin but when he looks down, the man’s still fast asleep.

“He didn’t want me there. He didn’t want another Robin. But he was self destructing,  and Gotham- Gotham needs Batman, Jason. Seeing the suit out on the streets again… it reminded him of you, I think. Before Ethiopia.”

The kid’s eyes are still far away, replaying moments Jason hadn’t been alive to witness.

“Maybe you really don’t know, but B never smiled this much around anyone but you.”

Another twitch, but when Jason looks down this time Bruce’s face is drawn and pale.

“I never got him to smile.” Tim says softly.

Jason slips his hand into Bruce’s and squeezes gently until the anxiety begins to fade from his face once more.

“I hate you. All of you.” Jason lies.

Dick is hovering just outside the med bay like a fucking creep, peeking around the door when he doesn’t think Jason’s looking with big, sad eyes.

It’s fucking annoying and keeping him from falling asleep.

“C’mere already.” Jason bites out, pulling Tim a little further onto the way-too-small bed to make room for one more.

(It’d been a pain to get Tim to relax properly and lay down. Kid ain’t going anywhere before Jason hasn’t made sure that he’s slept for a solid eight hours at least.)

The vigilante freezes in the doorway, slowly leaning further into view— and then-… oh fuck no-

Dick… honest to god tears up and Jason has a few seconds to think “oh, shit” when 180 pounds of sobbing vigilante launches himself across the room. Straight on top of them all holy fucking—

“Little Wiiiiiing!”

“Fuck! No! Fuck you! I changed my mind! Get off!”

“Never!”

“I will fucking shoot you!”

“It’s gonna be worth it!”