Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Red Robin, Red Hood- Team Red, you should match, right?” The grin cracked wider as the lanky captor rolled the knife between their fingers, strolling closer to where Tim was pinned to the wall. Cuffs held his hands above his head, his hips against the wall, and his ankles to the floor. Jason was held similarly on the adjacent wall. It was dark in this crumbling abandoned warehouse.

Jason didn’t comprehend what the creep meant, too focused on trying to pull his hands against the cuffs in the right way to pop his thumb out of place to get free, studying the debris at his feet for something to help them out of this.

Tim’s breath hitched and metal rattled.

The kid was tougher than he looked. He didn’t make a sound as the knife carved three garish lines across Tim’s chest, and Jason’s stomach sank, understanding what the man had meant by them matching.

A y-incision dripped down Tim’s chest.

Jason had too many scars for Tim to catch up with. This would kill him. The kid already looked like a bad cold could do him in, though Jason tried to convince himself that had more to do with the stark lighting and the fact that he wasn’t used to seeing Tim out of his Red Robin uniform.

He tried again to pull against the cuffs but it was no good- they were too tight, biting into his skin.

Tim’s breathing was growing ragged, starting to groan on the exhales. He rolled his head back, swallowing and meeting Jason’s eyes. Tremors were wracking his pale form.

Tim’s neck was exposed now, and Jason watched the blade creep closer. The phantom memory of the betrayal that his own mark meant, the sensation of the blood tickling down his chest.

Each new wound on Tim felt like Jason’s fault, but Jason knew the odds of a neck wound deep enough to scar satisfactorily for the captor but not deep enough to kill Tim there was unlikely. He had to stop this.

“Hey, asshole.” He finally spoke up. He knew he couldn’t get out- it was up to Tim now.

“Jason, what are you-” Tim grit out.

“Wrong asshole, Robin, I wasn’t talking to you.” Jason grinned wolfishly. Tim was looking at Jason like he was trying to tell him to shut up, that he could handle this.

The man with the knife turned to face Jason, eyebrows raised. “Too impatient to wait your turn?”

Jason shrugged as best he could without dislocating his shoulders. “I fucking earned those scars, came by them honest. And now he gets them without putting in the work? Christ, as if he doesn’t already do enough of that.”

Tim freezes. “Jason, don’t.” He growls.

Jason knows he’s a monster, but it’s the only way Jason can see to keep attention off Tim for long enough for Tim to possibly do… something.

It might be too late already. Tim is bleeding pretty heavily, and might be too shaky to get free despite his narrower wrists. His ribs heave under the blood, and he doesn’t look far from passing out.

But it’s Jason’s turn. After all, they’re probably his fault too.

The man is still waiting for Jason to explain. He can’t let their captor suspect he’s trying to give Tim space to escape, can’t let him know he’s trying to protect Tim.

Jason doesn’t let his smile slip as he lets his eyes rake across Tim’s exposed torso. The kevlar in his uniform really made him look bulkier than he was, and the many layers of sweaters, hoodies and jackets he wore during the day hid how wiry his frame was.

“Take a closer look at his right arm. We’re supposed to match, right?”
The betrayal and horror dawns on Tim’s face even as he twists his arm in the cuff as far as he can, trying to hide it.

Delight spreads on their captor’s face as he whips around, wrenching Tim’s right forearm to face forward, rubbing a thumb up and down the soft skin there.

“No wonder you’re no fun, this is nothing new for you.” The man foux-gently places a palm on Tim’s face, shoving it harshly to the side as he turns his attention to Jason.

Jason clenched and unclenched his fists a few times in preparation. After what Jason just did, he doubts Tim will free him even if he does manage to escape. He’ll probably just slip away, call the cleanup crew in.

It’s already been a shitty night, and he doesn’t want to add to it by having to deal with Bruce and Dick.

Jason planned to keep his eyes on Tim, keep track of his progress, but all that is lost in the blinding wave of pain at the first deep gouge across his forearm. Followed by another, and another. The depth of the injuries didn’t seem to matter to the man, just the location. These were far deeper than what Tim’s would have been.

Jason watched his skin peel back over and over, blood curtaining down his arm. Interspersed among these slashes, other scars to match Tim’s gets added, injuries Tim got on patrol.

Jason’s not expecting it when it hits- he wasn’t prepared for such a severe injury so soon. He figured their captor wanted to drag it out for a while, seeing how Tim was treated.

Jason’s left side is on fire, knife almost handle deep up under his ribs.

“When the fuck did you get that?” Is all Jason can gasp out before his vision goes white.

“-better wake up. We’ve got to get moving and I don’t want to peel you off the floor or drag you out of here.”

Jason blinks trying to focus on the person very much in his personal space. Tim. Right.

Tim’s working above their heads, pausing for a moment to brace a hand against Jason’s chest to keep him from falling forward before popping the cuffs free.

“Ah,” Jason hisses as his arms fall slack to his sides.

“You with me?” Tim asks, studying Jason’s face, trying to gauge how alert he was.

“Just get me out of this.”

Tim takes a half step back and Jason slumps, taking a moment to adjust to holding himself upright. His side screams in response.

Tim quickly removes the other restraints, and the two of them stand eyeing each other for a moment, assessing.

Jason breaks eye contact first, uncomfortably glancing toward the crumpled body on the floor. Tim had managed to get free and incapacitate their captor, all while severely injured and probably in shock.

A scuff and flicker of movement in the corner of his field of vision puts Jason back on defense, attention snapping back to Tim.

He wasn’t even looking at Jason anymore, eyes unfocused on the ground in front of him.

Jason steps forward just as Tim’s knees go, easily catching him before he hits the ground. The jarring of his wounds immediately brings Tim back around. His hand flutters up as though he’s about to push Jason away, but instead grips Jason’s arm to pull himself more upright.

He barely winces even as Jason can see the base of his thumb purpling from where he either broke it or dislocated it to free himself.

Jason grits his teeth against the pain and drapes one of Tim’s arms over his shoulder.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

It’s dark outside the building, but Jason can hear the rumble of a busy street to their left that’s probably the main interchange, and the skyline that’s visible is familiar.

“Talk to me, Red.” Jason says, guiding their stumbling feet through an alley. “It’s not too far, just keep talking, keep us awake.”

Tim’s feet gain some coordination, and his weight rests a little lighter on Jason. “You can go to hell. If I had any other option, I would tell you to fuck off. You had no fucking right.”

“It’s not that surprising, is it? I’m an asshole, had to save my skin.” Jason half snorted at his own poor choice of words. They took a turn onto an unpopulated one way street.

Tim began to flag again, words slurring a bit. “Of all the people to notice, it had to be fucking you.”

“You’re telling me in that family of detectives no one noticed their little genius was going all wristcutter on them?” Jason winced internally at his own cruelty and stopped them in front of a brutal looking apartment building, debating. It was late, so the likelihood of running into anyone inside was unlikely, but the fear of being caught, and the delay it would cause, was unthinkable.

Jason didn’t know how he was going to get both of them up onto the fire escape and up to the sixth floor though either.

Tim gasped softly with each breath, but when Jason looked down at him, the hatred still burned lively in his expression.

“Had to be stuck with you. Just get me to a phone and I’ll call backup. We can get patched up and never speak of any of this again.”

Jason knew he was a piece of shit. There must have been a better way to get them out, but instead, Jason had found the way that would hurt Tim the worst. And he just kept rubbing salt in the wound.

He hadn’t even talked to Tim about it, about how he saw the white lines up and down his arm. Tim hadn’t even known Jason knew. Jason had figured Tim had a good support system, that it wouldn’t have escaped Dick or Bruce’s notice, that it was taken care of.

That Tim was taken care of.

“Lean here for a second.” Jason propped Tim against a dumpster against the wall of the apartment building, keeping a hand on him for a second until Tim met his eyes. “Don’t fall down. I’m not going to be able to pick you up if you do.”

Jason was expecting a withering glare from Tim, but instead he was wide eyed and serious, like it was going to take work to stay upright.
Jason was cold. He could feel the blood pooling in his boots, and even though it was impossible to see against the color of his uniform in this light, Jason was afraid Tim wasn’t any better.

Jason jumped, blood-slicked fingers barely curling around the lowest rung of the fire escape ladder, dragging it down to the ground. He leaned heavily against it, holding his breath until he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to scream or vomit.

Tim had pushed himself off the dumpster, shakily crossing the distance to reach the ladder while Jason had been collecting himself.

“You first, Replacement. Get going, I don’t want to be out here all night.”

Tim painfully pulled himself up, rung by rung.

A wave of dizziness washed over Jason. He breathed deeply, trying to clear the spots from his vision. He owed Tim, so he was going to get a grip, and get them into the safehouse. But just in case…

“Tim. It’s the sixth floor, the window has blackout curtains. It’s latched, but you can slip a blade between the window and the sill and open it.”
Cold sweat dripped off Jason’s face. He heard Tim’s voice from above him. “Hood, I…” a pause. “I can’t do five stories.”

Jason squeezed his eyes shut. He just wanted to rest, wanted to give up. He might not have a choice. But he had to try. He could feel Tim shaking through the ladder.

Biting down on a groan, Jason began to drag himself up the ladder to where Tim waited, leaning heavily on the railing.

He draped Tim’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him against his side, trying not to think about how badly it must be pulling at Tim’s wounds. He tried to ignore how his lips and fingers were losing sensation.

Tim was trying to move his legs in step to help, but they were uncoordinated. The climb had clearly sapped the last of his energy reserves.

The second time Tim nearly brought them both to their knees, Jason scooped Tim against his chest. He had to pause for several moments as he waited for the pain to level out until he could move again.

“Just because I’m doing all the work doesn’t mean you’re allowed to check out, got it?”

Tim didn’t answer.

“Hey.” Jason jarred Tim. “You know we’re going to have to have a chat with Dick, and probably Bruce, about your arm, right? They should know about your extracurricular knifework.”

Tim’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t open his eyes as he said, “You say a word and I’ll tell them it was you. I’ll tell them you did it in an attempt to make me seem unstable, back when you were actively trying to kill me.”

“That would do it. Probably the only half-believable excuse there is. Was that your contingency plan all along?”

Tim grumbled indistinctly. One more flight of stairs.

By the time Jason managed those last eight steps and got the window open, Tim was gone. He didn’t stir despite the muttered threats Jason made, even as he wrestled them both through the window.

Jason lay on the floor where the two of them had fallen. He had to get up, had to get to the phone, had to stabilize Tim. Tim who was still bleeding sluggishly onto the floor, hair glued to his colorless face with sweat.

He didn’t bother disguising the growl of pain as he rolled himself to his knees and once again lifted Tim, laying him out on the kitchen island and flicking on the lights.

His vision was fuzzy, and it took several tries to open the drawer and grab hold of the burner phone. Painfully slowly, he dialed, putting the phone on speaker and leaving it on the counter.

“Come on, Tim. If you’re not awake, you can’t convince them all how much of an asshole I am, can’t use me as your scapegoat.” Jason ground his knuckles against Tim’s sternum and checked his pulse. No reaction, heart beating frantically.

He almost missed the voice coming through the phone speakers.

“Who is this?”

“Nightwing,” Jason said, weak with relief. “Red needs an assist at this location. He’s not conscious, not reactive, severe bloodloss.”

He fumbled in the cupboards underneath the island, rummaging through the medical supplies. He was fading fast, had to prioritize what would hold Tim the longest. Saline.

Jason had to duck close to Tim to see well enough to insert the needle. He quietly apologized for the two times his shaking hands missed.

He was pretty sure Nightwing was demanding more information, but Jason could only focus on so many things at a time, and right now, suppressing his pain and trying to keep Tim alive was more than he could manage.

He tried to sort through the mess of Tim’s torso, find the worst injuries.

Tim had lost a lot of blood, sure, but Jason didn’t think he should be in this bad of shape.

Jason was pressing gauze to the worst of the wounds when something solid slammed into his side. It took him far too long to realize it was the floor. Halfheartedly he tried to sit up, but a hissing sound filled his ears, and he saw nothing after.

Chapter Text

Someone was speaking urgently, that familiar tone of voice that unconsciously made Tim want to stand up straight, do what he’s told.
He should really be paying more attention.

Bruce would be disappointed in his situational awareness. Tim couldn’t tell where he was, who was speaking, or even when they had arrived. But he was fairly certain something was wrong.

Someone shook his shoulder, painfully prodded his side, began to run a hand down his arm-

Tim jolted awake, twisting away from the touch, barely managing to keep himself from falling off the surface he was on. It came back to him in bits and pieces-

Jason must have kept his word. He had told.

“Easy, easy Tim. It’s Dick, we’ve got to get you back to the manor.”

Dick was holding his hands up, torn between wanting to check over Tim’s injuries, hug him in relief, but not wanting to startle him into falling off the counter.

“Don’t touch me.” Tim whispered, eyes searching the apartment. “Jason, is he…”

“Did he do this?” Dick asked.

“Where is he? He was hurt too.” So Jason knew, but Dick still didn’t.

That still gave Tim time to get ahead of this, leverage Jason into helping him get out of this.

Dick helped Tim sit up, pausing as he blacked out. “He’s here, I was more worried about you.”

An indistinct pool of blood is smeared under Jason’s limp form on the floor, source mostly unclear.

“Come on, Tim. Car’s downstairs, let’s go, we can send someone for Jason after we get you taken care of.”

Tim’s thoughts are sluggish, half-connected ideas dissolving before he can articulate them. He allows Dick to help him off the counter, dragging the IV bag with him. He doesn’t say anything about the nauseating sensation of pulling himself free of where his blood had glued his skin to the counter.

Tim tried to convince Dick to go out the window, but Dick refused. Something about timeliness and not aggravating injuries being more important than Hood’s secrecy.

The dimly lit elevator lurches in a way that suggests that the window was probably the safer option, and Tim concentrates on not letting the half-empty IV bag slip from his fingers.

Tim shouldn’t care. After everything Jason had done to him, he shouldn’t care. Besides, Jason had come back from worse.

“You can’t leave him.”

There’s no response, and Tim wonders if he had actually spoken or just thought about it.

He looks up at Dick who’s grimly watching the floor number tick slowly down.

“You can’t leave Jason. He’s hurt worse.”

The elevator doors slide open, and Dick pulls him forward, barely checking that the hallway was clear. “It’s Jason, he’ll be fine.” Dick shoots him a nervous smile that was probably supposed to be reassuring. “As soon as we get to the car we’ll send Bruce for him.”

Tim’s legs stutter to a stop. “He comes with us.”

Dick could easily wrestle Tim into the car, but one look at Tim’s expression convinces him it wouldn’t be worth it.

“If you’re sure.” Dick sighs.

Tim doesn’t move until Dick promises. “He comes with us.”

Tim waits in the car for what feels like months after Dick disappears back inside. Tim shouldn’t care what happens to Jason but…

A small stab of anger surprises Tim. But Dick of all people should care what happens to his little brother. Someone should. The image rises unbidden of Dick running to Tim despite him clearly already having had first aid attention, despite Jason collapsed on the floor.

Even after Dick knew Tim was conscious and stable, he hadn’t even checked on Jason. It wasn’t like him.

Tim jumps as the car door opens, Dick groaning with effort as he arranges Jason in the back seat.

Good. Jason will give them one more thing to focus on that isn’t Tim.

Things in the medbay always happen so fast, so abruptly. Tim doesn’t feel real under the bright fluorescent lights as his limbs are manipulated this way and that. Alfred and Bruce barely speak beyond asking basic questions about his condition, too busy connecting Tim to machines and inspecting his wounds.

Tim watches it happen from far away, reminding himself not to pull his arms away from their scrutiny, knowing it would draw unwanted attention.

Dick calls Alfred over to Jason’s bedside, finally arriving at the conclusion Tim had all along. Jason was in greater danger.

He just habitually looks less like death warmed over than Tim does, ironically.

Distantly, Tim watches Bruce piece his skin back together, a numb tugging sensation accompanying each suture. It’s satisfying to watch, bit by bit, as the blood gets cleaned away and the flesh is neatly organized. Like watching a puzzle come together.

In the next bed, Jason is being stitched back together as well. Where tubes feed only saline into Tim’s veins, Jason is being given blood. The wounds on Jason’s arm are being ignored for the time being, all focus on the stab wound under his ribs.

Tim wonders if Jason will keep his spleen.

He’s startled when a bundle of cloth drops in his lap. Stupidly, Tim stares down at the scrub pants Bruce has given him to change into before joining Dick and Alfred next to Jason.

Quietly Tim pushes them to the side, closing his eyes and shutting out the noise surrounding the bed next to him.

They were alone in the medbay when Jason finally wakes up, face scrunching and hands moving vaguely across the bandages on his side. Alfred is running ops while Bruce and Dick are on the streets of Gotham, presumably cleaning up Tim’s mess.

Tim dangles his legs over the side of his bed to sit up and face Jason.
“They’re going to be back before long, and asking a lot of questions.” Tim hisses. “You can’t tell them about-”

“They’ll figure it out.” Jason slurs, feeling the full effects of some heavy duty painkillers. He seems to consider for a moment, frowning at the ceiling above him. “Fuck. Did they give me morphine? They can’t give me morphine.”

He scratches at the IV, fumbling at the tape holding the needle in place.

“We just have to get our story straight, something that they’ll believe that will keep them from thinking your injuries are an imitation of mine.” Tim presses on.

From where Tim sits, he can see Jason’s heart monitor tick up in speed.
Jason’s hands shake as he twists his fingers in the IV tubing, pinching it closed.

He sounds almost breathless. “If I come up with a story that will keep them from finding out, you have to do something for me.” He cuts his eyes over to Tim.

“Depends on what it is.” He hedges. Truth is, Tim would do just about anything, but a bargain with the Red Hood felt a lot like a deal with the devil.

“You can’t let them give me any more pain meds.”

Tim blinks. “Why would-”

“Can you do that or not? If I find a way to hide your secret, you keep them from giving me pain meds. If you don’t, I’ll tell them my fucking self.” Jason looks like he can barely move, too tired to even hide the raw fear choking him.

“Tell me the story first.” Tim still doesn’t trust Jason, and he currently seems to be missing a few more marbles than usual.

Jason was silent for a moment, brow furrowed. Then he rolls away from Tim onto his side, raising his right arm into the air. Before Tim can ask him what the hell he's doing, Jason brings it down on the railing of the bed, hard.

He stays still for several minutes, breathing ragged, before rolling onto his back, a few shades paler than before.

Tim watches, speechless.

“He wanted us to match.” Jason whispers roughly, not looking at Tim. “But when he started on me, he started with the spleen shot. I had to try to get him to stop before he killed me. I told him I’d do it to myself. At least then I’d be in control. He was intrigued, wanted to see how long I could last. My right hand was too damaged from trying to escape to hold the knife, which is why all the wounds are on my right arm.” Jason levels his gaze at Tim.

“Good enough story?”

Tim stands, rolling his IV stand toward Jason. The morphine was a timed device. He could turn it off, but that would raise questions when someone noticed. Carefully, Tim replaces the morphine with plain saline.

“What’s the deal anyway, with the pain meds? Anyone else in your position wouldn’t be able to get enough.” Tim asks as he sinks back onto his bed.

If Tim didn’t know better, he would think there were tears of relief in Jason’s eyes.

“What’s the deal with your arm?” Jason shoots back, face instantly switching from relief to something closer to contempt. “Better yet, what’s the deal with you not changing out of your blood soaked uniform pants? Something wrong with your thighs too?”

Tim froze, fighting the urge to smooth a hand across the tops of his thighs.

He couldn’t stay a single step ahead of Jason, ever. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jason smirked. “Come on. For a family of detectives, they sure miss a lot. It’s not that hard to see the bandages under your uniform pants. The arms became too risky, too likely someone would see, so you stick to the thighs now.”

Tim felt… detached. Dick and Bruce were going to find out, he was going to be benched, Dick was going to make good on his word to send him to Arkham. It was over. He couldn’t tell if everything around him had slowed down, or his breathing had sped up.

But Jason was still speaking.

“It can’t be comfortable, with the blood drying. Look, I get you don’t want them to find out. I have another safehouse, it’s got some medical supplies. We can recoup there. You can get cleaned up, keep your secret secret.”

“What do you get out of it?”

“Can’t I just want to look out for my successor?” Jason clearly read the skepticism on Tim’s face and sighed. “I can’t drive like this, and I might need a hand while I’m recovering, out of the watchfull pillhappy eyes of the bats.”

Tim considered. “Fine. After the debrief with Bruce, if he believes us.”
There was something Tim couldn’t quite interpret in Jason’s eyes.

“Tim, stop.” Jason glanced meaningfully at Tim’s hands.

His fingers were digging into his thighs so hard his joints ached.

No one batted an eye at their story. It all lined up to them, except Jason dragging Tim to his safehouse. They called it a fluke, payback for Tim breaking them free, or Jason lining up a favor to get out of Tim later.

The incident was written up, concluding with their captor in Blackgate. The clinical efficiency felt out of place next to the half-truths being filed away as fact.

Alfred gave the two of them a last once over for the night. As he refilled the morphine drip, Tim watched Jason grit his teeth as though the medication hurt worse than his injuries.

Tim slipped out of his bed as soon as they were alone again, disconnecting Jason’s IV before he could ask.

He could feel Jason’s eyes on him as he picked the lock on the pharmaceutical cabinet, throwing a bottle of pills into a duffel bag he retrieved from his locker. Just because Jason wanted to tough it out didn’t mean Tim had to go without pain medication.

Tim easily dismantled trackers on one of the less distinctive bikes, tossing a jacket and helmet to Jason. He clung to Tim as they burst into the cool night air, a fine mist collecting on the visors. Jason directed them through the helmet’s radios.

“How many safe houses do you have?” Tim asked as he killed the engine and pulled off his helmet, looking up at the crumbling brick building towering above them.

“Not enough.” Jason groaned as he got off the bike.

Jason sprawled on a mattress on the floor as soon as they got inside, words half muffled in the pillow, telling Tim where to find towels and shampoo, as Tim hesitantly set his duffel bag next to the door.

He looked more serious when he rolled over to look at Tim, wincing as it pulled at his sutures. “There’s a med kit under the sink too. You should probably change the dressings on your thighs.”

“Piss off.” Tim called over his shoulder, heading for the bathroom.

Once there, he studied the lines on his arm. They were so faint, almost invisible. Hard to believe Hood had noticed them, as little time as they spent together. How long had he known? Why did he wait until now to say anything?

Tim peeled his uniform pants off, wincing as no matter how he moved, every injury tugged, and the gauze and tape caught on his pants.

He opened the med kit. It had the basic band aids, gauze, and tape, but the more Tim dug through, the lonelier his picture of Jason became. Suture kit, antibiotics, wound clotting powder, scalpels, lidocaine. A tourniquet.

After cleaning up, Tim pulled on the sweats he had brought in his go bag, and left the steam filled bathroom. He was expecting Jason to be asleep, as tired as he had seemed when they arrived.

Instead, Jason was hanging up the phone, leaning heavily against the kitchen counter. “I ordered takeout.” He watched Tim tug the sleeves of his down almost over his hands. “If it comes before I’m back out here’s some cash.” Jason flicked a rumpled stack of bills on the counter.

He looked sheepish for a moment. “I’m not really set up for guests, these places tend to be kind of bare-bones. For now, as far as accommodations, this is it.” Jason gestured to the room separated from the kitchen by the counter, unfurnished aside from the bed on the floor.

“I can- well, I can’t, but you can move the mattress down the hall into the bedroom. The door locks, so you’ll probably feel” Jason winced. “safer.”

Tim’s tired brain was screaming several things at once. About sharing such a small space with Jason. His mother’s expectations on how he should be behaving as a guest, which is to say, as unobtrusively as possible, certainly not displacing his host from his own bed. Strangely, the loudest was the takeout on the way.

Tim waved a hand vaguely. “You need a proper bed more than I do, you got stabbed.”

Jason studied him for a moment. “We’ll figure it out later. I need ibuprofen.” Jason disappeared behind the bathroom door.

Of course, that was the moment the pizza arrived. Tim paid the bored looking teen and left the boxes on the counter unopened.

Jason returned, somber. “You didn’t have to wait on me.” He flipped open one of the lids and snagged a slice. He didn’t start eating until Tim got a slice himself and picked at it.

“Do you…” Jason hesitates. “Do any of them need stitches?”

Tim chokes down another bite of pizza to avoid answering, not meeting Jason’s eyes.

“I noticed the missing scalpel.”

Tim feels sick, and realizes he’s polished off the pizza slice. Jason pushes the box toward Tim, and he doesn’t have a choice but to take another.

“Maybe I just need some insurance in case you try to kill me. Again.”

Jason pulls back so he isn’t leaning on the counter anymore, adding another foot of space between himself and Tim. “Is that what it is?”

The discomfort grows, and Tim stays quiet as he almost finishes the other slice of pizza. He sets the crust back in the box.

“You should eat more, you need energy to heal.” Jason says tactlessly.
“Meds are fucking with my stomach.” Tim lies.

“Whatever.” Jason shrugs and shoves the pizza boxes in the empty fridge.

Tim pulls out his phone, trying to think of how to respond to the handful of worried texts from his abduction. A shiver wracks through him, and the phone almost falls from his hands. “Fuck.”

“What was that? You okay?”

Yeah, I’m fine except I don’t have enough calories in me to both keep me warm and digest food.

“Just a little cold.” Tim answers. “The fuck do you care.”

Jason studies him, not missing the faint shivering and the blue tinted fingernails. “I’m cold just fucking looking at you. Christ, go lie down, get some blankets.”

“Fine just…” Tim slowly eases himself under the covers. “Tell me when you’re ready to crash and I’ll move to the bedroom.” His mother would be ashamed of him.

As much as Tim doesn’t like Jason, there’s still something Tim feels like he’s missing about him. In any case, he doesn’t think Jason should be sleeping on the floor in his condition.

Tim must have dozed off, but he wakes to a jolt of pain. He can’t stop the shaking, goosebumps pulling his wounds apart.

“Fuck,” He whispers under the covers, curling tighter.

“It’s not that cold in here, is it?” Jason’s voice comes from behind him. “Tell me what’s going on. Are you sick?”

One secret. Tim just wants to keep one secret for himself. But the cold hurts, and his tired brain can’t find a way around it.

“Calorie deficit. Not enough to keep warm.” He manages around his clenched jaw, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

“Move over.”

Tim starts to extract himself from the blankets and get up.

“I said move over, asshole, not leave.”

Tim wriggles over, tensing when the covers move and the mattress dips behind him.

“What are you doing?” Tim asks, wishing the scalpel was closer at hand.

“If you have enough of a calorie deficit that you get cold from eating, you’re not going to be able to warm up by yourself.”

A hand touches Tim’s ribs and he jerks an elbow back. It connects, and a pained gasp comes from behind him.

“Shit, okay, sorry.” Jason’s voice was breathless. The mattress moves again as Jason retreats.

But already, the warmth was too much to lose. “No, I’m sorry, I just… reacted.” Tim said. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.” Jason grunted. “Will I get elbowed again if I touch you?”

“Why do you have to touch?” Tim tries to remember the last time outside of being patched up or sparring that he had been touched.

“Because I don’t want to fall off the bed, and the longer you stay cold the more miserable you’ll be.”

Tim takes a deep breath. “I won’t elbow you again.”

Moving slowly and carefully, Jason wraps his arms around Tim, drawing him back against his chest. Despite his care, it pulls at Tim’s injuries and he hisses in pain.

“Sorry, sorry.” Jason whispers.

Tim would never admit it, not to himself or to Jason, but it’s worth it. Warmth sinks into his muscles and his breathing eases, lulling him back to sleep.

Chapter Text

Tim freezes, holding his breath, waiting to wake up enough to figure out what’s wrong. Familiar sensations war with the unfamiliar.

He’s no stranger to waking up injured, it being a more common occurrence than not. His entire torso is screaming, feeling like he’s been half flayed.

He’s not cold. His muscles are uncoiled, more relaxed than they’ve been since… Tim doesn’t want to think about how long it’s been.

Tim’s also not alone. He can feel the rise and fall of someone’s chest against his spine.

In a rush, it all comes back to him. The warehouse, the agonizing journey to Jason’s first safe house, escaping the medbay. Jason picking apart every one of Tim’s secrets.

Jason’s breathing is steady and rhythmic- he’s still deeply asleep.
Tim can’t tell what time it is, no light bleeding through the blankets to give any hint.

Moving slowly, Tim disentangles himself from the blankets and Jason’s lax grasp. He stops after sitting up, knees awkwardly folded under him off the edge of the mattress. He considers forgoing getting up, just laying back down, burrowing back into the warmth.

His curiosity won’t let him. Tim pushes himself to his feet, almost limping over the ice cold wood floor.

The kitchen is mostly empty. Tim opens and closes each of the cupboards and drawers silently with practiced ease. The most domestic things Tim finds are a box of protein bars and some mismatched cookware.

Underneath the counter there are enough first aid supplies to probably perform a DIY splenectomy. The only thing noticeably absent was any pain medication heavier than aspirin. All of it was easily accessible from the floor.

Tim looked across the room to where Jason was still a formless mass under the blankets. How he managed to sleep through the pain was a mystery to Tim.

Yet another one to add to the growing list.

Checking one last time over his shoulder that Jason was still out of it, Tim crept down the hallway, pushing open the single bedroom door. He squints against the light burning through crooked, gap-toothed blinds. The beginning twinges of a caffeine withdrawal headache shoots behind his eyes.

The room looks like it hasn’t been touched since the last occupants left, leaving behind nothing but holes in the wall where pictures once hung. As promised, the doorknob has a button lock. Both Jason and Tim know how useless it is, but Tim still appreciates Jason’s gesture to offer the room to him. Another second of warning between him and a threat.

Behind him, the kitchen sink turns on and off. Tim joins Jason in the kitchen, biting down on the urge to apologize for being nosey– it wasn’t Tim’s fault the apartment was small and that Jason was so tight-lipped about himself that any information was new information.

Jason opened the fridge, turning around with a slice of leftover pizza dangling from his mouth as he tossed the box on the counter. “Here. Breakfast.”

Tim wrinkles his nose at the cold pizza, instead carefully pulling his phone out of his pocket. His thumb didn’t want to grip it right, stiff with a pain that ached most of the way up to his elbow. The discoloration hadn’t been as present in the medbay, and the injury had been missed by Bruce. It had only been a dislocation, and Tim had been able to reduce it once his left hand was free. At least his dominant hand was undamaged, he could still use a grapple.

Similar bruising marked Jason’s right wrist as well.

Their captor’s words echoed in Tim’s head: You should match, right?

The phone screen didn’t light up, battery dead, and Tim had taken his backup charger out of his go-bag last time he had been at the manor and forgotten his.

“They’re probably losing their minds right about now, wondering where the hell we are.” Jason nudges the pizza box a little closer while Tim resolutely ignores it.

“Can I borrow a phone charger?” Tim asks, distracted. He needs to check in. If Dick finds the medbay empty before he can explain, he’ll start a manhunt. Jason’s right though, it’s probably already too late.

Jason opens a drawer and tosses a cable to Tim, but it doesn’t fit. Tim uncomfortably remembers Dick’s frantic question “Did he do this?” when he first found Tim and Jason unconscious in the first safe house.

“We’ll go shopping today– get a charger that works and some food you’ll actually eat.” Jason drops his unfinished slice of pizza in the box, ducking down to retrieve a bottle of pills from under the counter, wincing and pressing a hand to his side as he straightens up again.

“You did just have emergency surgery yesterday, you can take something a little stronger than a NSAID.” Tim eyes Jason as he dry swallows the pills.

Jason rolls his eyes. “It was hardly emergency surgery. I got a few stitches.”

Infuriatingly, Tim can’t tell if Jason’s being serious or not.

The walk to the run-down grocery store is relatively short. Tim and Jason split up as soon as they get inside, Tim sorting through a rack of electronic accessories, wincing under the buzzing and flickering fluorescent lights while Jason disappears deeper into the store. Once Tim finds the charger he needs, he trails after Jason, who is filling a basket with almost all the first aid supplies the little store has to offer.

As they move on to the rest of the store, Jason occasionally holds up a package of food, raising his eyebrows at Tim, who shrugs impartially, only adding himself the largest bucket of coffee grounds the store offers. Once both the basket and Tim’s arms are full, they make their way to the front counter.

The woman at the counter looks suspiciously between the two of them and their items, but the scowl on her face looks like it’s a permanent fixture, not an opinion of them.

Her voice is gritty in a way that speaks of many years of smoking as she hands the change over to Jason and says, “You two stay out of trouble. And if you can’t do that, at least keep your trouble to yourselves.”

“Yeah, well if trouble comes looking, tell’em you’ve never seen us.” Jason snaps back, disguising a wince as a sneer as he begins to pick up the bags.

Tim hurries to take the heaviest bags before Jason can wreck his “few stitches” by lifting too much.

Jason is sweating and Tim is light-headed by the time they make it back to the apartment.

Tim plugs his phone in, dreading the calls he knows he’s missed. He finds the coffeemaker stashed in one of the cupboards and fills it, the familiar bubbling relaxing him. A flash of movement startles him, and he catches the protein shake more out of reflex than intent.

Jason has already turned away before Tim can throw it back at him, busying himself with putting away groceries and medical supplies. Tim contemplates throwing it anyway, but instead cracks open the drink. He only has time to take a sip before his phone screen lights up. Eight missed calls from Dick, over a dozen text messages, and an alarming two missed calls from Bruce.

Tim dials Dick’s number, the phone only ringing twice before Dick answers. Tim almost hangs up, wishing he had rehearsed what to say before calling.

“Where are you? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours after Alfie told us both you and Jason were missing. Bruce is driving around looking for you two…”

Tim picks at the label on the protein drink while he waits for Dick to slow down enough for him to get a word in.

“I’m fine, Dick.” He finally cuts in softly. Jason pauses, not bothering to hide the fact that he was eavesdropping.

“I can’t get a fix on your phone’s location.” Dick plows ahead. “If Jason’s listening and you can’t-”

Jason’s jaw clenches.

Tim cuts in again. “Dick. I might be able to fill you in on the situation sooner if you actually let me speak.”

The other end of the line finally goes quiet.

“My phone has always been untrackable.” Maybe not the ideal place to start. “We’re both fine, by the way. Mostly. Jason and I were just feeling a bit… cooped up.” Tim finishes lamely.

“Where are you?” Dick demands. “Last time the two of you went off the grid, we didn’t exactly find you in one piece.”

“We’re in one of Jason’s safehouses. Can you just tell Bruce we’re fine? I’ll talk to you later, just wanted to call off the search and rescue party.” Tim hangs up as Dick protests, saying something about Bruce killing the messenger.

Tim silences his phone and turns it face down, pouring the small amount of coffee into a chipped mug with the handle broken off, wrapping his hands around it to warm them.

“That sounds like it went well.” Jason scoffs, picking up the bottle of ibuprofen, only to check his watch and set it down again. His glance wanders around the small apartment, stopping on the drink in front of Tim.

“You going to finish that?” Jason asks.

Tim pushes it across the counter to him. “No, all yours.”

“Let me rephrase: You should finish that.”

Tim ignores him in favor of sipping at the still too hot coffee, biting back a growl as it’s pulled from his hands.

“I’m holding your coffee hostage until you get some kind of nutrition.” Jason says, sliding the shake back toward Tim.

“I can take care of myself, you know. Besides, what about you?” Tim turns his focus to Jason, abruptly realizing that Jason hasn’t really eaten today- taking in his irregular breathing and how he’s hunched in on himself.

“Probably wouldn’t be able to keep anything down.” Jason says, matter of factly. “Rather not risk it, with the stitches.”

“Maybe if you took some actual painkillers that wouldn’t be an issue.” Tim glares as he drinks. He wants his caffeine fix before his headache reaches the “voluntary trepanation” stage.

Jason just raises his eyebrow, unimpressed.

Tim rummages through his duffel bag and pulls out two pill bottles, rolling them between his palms. He rattles one of each into his hand and downs them with the rest of the protein shake.

Now Tim does throw the empty bottle at Jason, who bats it away before it can bounce off his smug face.

When Jason returns Tim’s coffee mug to him, Tim holds out one of the pill bottles in trade.

“You’re like every trick-or-treater’s parent’s worst fucking nightmare. Hasn’t anyone ever told you to never share prescriptions?” Jason doesn’t even look at the pill bottle in Tim’s hand, as though making eye contact with it would give it power over him.

“If we’re being technical, they’re not even prescribed to me. They’re for…” Tim squints at the label, “Mathew Valencia.”

Tim turns and leans back on the counter, continuing to argue as he watches Jason unearth his leather jacket from his own duffel bag, pat down a couple pockets, and lay it carefully down on top of the bag.

“Pain management is important in recovery. It will take longer for you to heal if you are in pain, especially if it’s bad enough you can’t even eat.” Tim doubts he is going to actually change Jason’s mind, but now that he’s started the debate it’s hard to stop.

“Uh-huh. I don’t think you’re really the best person to be lecturing on pain management.” Jason pulls a bulky laptop out of a backpack and sets it on the milk crate that acts as his nightstand. “I just need a distraction.”

Tim tops off his coffee mug with a sinking feeling that he’s going to wind up being that distraction.

“You going to start freezing to death again?” Jason asks, rummaging through the cupboards he just filled, confirming Tim’s suspicion. A package of cookies sails past him, narrowly missing the laptop when it lands on the mattress.

Tim doesn’t answer, but Jason hardly seems to notice.

“Come on, we’re watching a movie.”

Jason settles on the bed and messes with the laptop, glancing up at Tim expectantly.

“Christ,” Tim groans as he joins Jason. “You’re bossier than Bruce.” He cradles his mug carefully, both to keep it from spilling, and to keep Jason from stealing it in retaliation.

Jason hits play, and while Tim buries himself in the blankets he peels open the package of cookies and sets it across Tim’s knees.

Don’t You (Forget About Me) plays, slightly tinny through the laptop’s speakers. Tim toggles on subtitles and tries to force his mind to drop the debate.

And Tim does, for a while. Watches the movie and relaxes as the coffee thaws him and eases away the headache.

His mind wanders, watching the basket case crush cereal onto her sandwich, absently picking at a cookie when he finally asks. “How long have you known?”

Jason doesn’t need to ask for clarification, as though he’d been expecting the question.

“A while, I guess. It’s not like I marked it on a calendar.” Jason fiddled with the drawstring on his hoodie. “I suspected you were hiding something pretty soon after I started working things out with you all.”
Tim waits for Jason to elaborate. When he stays silent, he asks, “What gave it away?”

Jason weaves the string through his fingers, looking like it took all his concentration. “I have a habit–” he stops himself, and starts again. “I was watching for track marks.”

“What?” Tim whirls to face Jason, who was still intently focused on his hands. “Why would you–” Things fall into place with a sickening click.

Jason’s still talking, though Tim isn’t paying attention anymore, mind connecting dots between Jason’s odd behavior and his history that was hidden behind three firewalls on the bat computer’s personnel files.

“...smaller things added up. You wouldn’t let Dick check your arm when that mugger got a lucky stab in, not rolling up your sleeves when washing dishes. The whole costume redesign. I don’t remember when but your sleeve was pushed up and I saw.”

Tim… Tim doesn’t want to be having this conversation anymore. At least this implied that Jason only knew because he was specifically looking. As long as Tim could play his part, stay focused, and keep a smile in place, he could get away with it.

Tim blinks. Jason’s head is crooked back at an awkward angle, eyes closed, and the end credits are playing on the screen, and his nearly empty coffee mug has been set to the side. Tim closes the laptop and burrows deeper into the blankets.

He could get away with it, if he kept Jason on his side.

Chapter Text

Tim wakes up with the immediate knowledge that he’s overslept. He flails a hand toward his nightstand for his phone to figure out how screwed he is and why his alarm didn’t go off, only for his arm to swipe through empty air and for his heels to abruptly jar against the floor.

Stupidly, he stares at the grain of the wood floor beneath his feet and wonders who stole his bedframe. And his carpet.

Also, how someone stole his bedframe and carpet.

His train of thought is interrupted as the rest of his brain finally comes online.

Jason’s safe house. Right.

He turns to apologize for waking up Jason, but the bed is already empty. Tim pushes himself to his feet, wincing as he’s reminded of the souvenirs from his most recent kidnapping, feeling the stitches tug. He wishes he had tried to convince Bruce to use butterfly bandages instead– at least those wouldn’t cause more damage if he moved wrong and pulled them free.

He retrieved his medication and tried not to think about the responsibilities he needed to postpone, delegate, or complete, and what excuses he could use to hide the fact that he had been injured from half the people in his life, and the fact that he wasn’t superhuman from the other half.

He needed caffeine before he started untangling that mess.
The coffee pot was still mostly full from yesterday, though its contents were cold by now. He filled a mug and downed his pills. Caffeine was caffeine.

Wet coughing from down the hall gave Tim a welcome excuse not to check his phone.

“You alright?” Tim called.

In the quiet that followed, he could hear ragged breathing, but no answer.

The bathroom door was mostly closed, but Tim could see a sliver of the mirror and sink.

“Jason?” He cautiously pushed the door open farther.

Jason was propped up where the shower door and wall met, skin pale and hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His eyes, when they finally met Tim’s, were half-lidded and hazy.

Tim felt unnaturally tall, and it took him a long time to realize it was because he wasn’t used to Jason looking so small.

Jason opens his mouth as if to say something, but closes it with a click and swallows convulsively.

Tim pushes the rest of the way into the small bathroom and crouches in front of Jason, pressing a hand to his forehead while Jason tries to turn his head away. He already suspects infection, given how quickly Jason has gone from overbearing hulk to sad bulldog left in the rain.

“Not a fever.” Jason’s voice is raspy and almost inaudible. “I’m not sick.”

“What do you call this then?” Tim rocks back on his heels and gestures at Jason as a whole. But he doesn’t have a fever, at least as far as Tim can tell.

“Just…” Jason’s hands flutter up to hover over his side for a moment, then fall back to rest in his lap. “Just really wishing I got a turn after you clocked that guy.”

Tim swipes a hand over his face, then reaches into his pocket and offers the bottle of pain pills to Jason, rattling it slightly when Jason just stares at it.

“No thanks.”

Tim takes a page from Jason’s book and tosses the bottle to him.
Jason slowly picks it up, studies the label for a second, and holds it back out to Tim. “I’m good.”

Tim huffs out a laugh. “You’re good? Jason, I’m pretty sure what you’re doing to yourself right now is worse for you than any addiction would be.”

They both freeze, because there it is, out in the open now.

“You’re one to talk.” Jason mutters, not letting Tim forget that for every secret of Jason’s he uncovers, Jason already knows the one that will end Tim’s life as he knows it. But his resolve is crumbling. He taps the bottle against his knee a couple times. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t keep anything down anyway. Would just waste it.”

“Just let it dissolve under your tongue.”

Jason finally opens the bottle and fishes out one pill, managing even with his shaky hands to break it in half. He hands the bottle back to Tim.

Tim sags with relief when Jason tucks the pill under his tongue.
“You can’t let me take too much.” Jason insists, making a face at the taste of the medicine.

“I won’t.” Tim promises.

“And you can’t tell Bruce.”

Tim nods, though he doesn’t know exactly what he’s not supposed to tell Bruce– Jason’s resistance to taking pain medicine, or the fact that he finally did. Tim has no idea how Jason survived being Robin in either case.

Or, He corrects himself mentally, how he survived being Robin for as long as he did.

“And just in case,” Jason continues, “the right inside pocket of my jacket has Narcan.”

“Narcan, right inside pocket of your jacket.” Tim repeats back.
Jason nods in relief, closing his eyes and taking deep, steadying breaths.

“Nope.” Jason’s eyes snap open again. “Nope, this isn’t working, I’m not doing this.” He lurches forward, but Tim is faster, grabbing Jason’s bicep to keep him upright against the wall.

Jason makes a pained noise that he only partially manages to turn into a growl, but he stops struggling. “I am not above spitting on you, asshole.”

“Shocking.” Tim deadpans.

Jason doesn’t answer, looking like he’s too busy calculating the angle needed to spit in Tim’s eye.

“It’s probably going to take an hour for it to take effect. We don’t have a lot of options here– it’s this, or back to the cave for morphine to tide you over. Is the pain just from the stab wound, or is there more going on?”

The fact that Jason caves probably speaks to how bad it is, if finding him huddled on the bathroom floor wasn’t indication enough.

“A few weeks ago…” Jason grimaces at the memory. “A couple of assholes got the drop on me, got some lucky hits in.”

“How lucky is “lucky”?”

“Well, Mister steel pipe got my collarbone pretty good, and Mister two-by-four cracked some ribs. And, you know, this and that from the past few years adding up.”

Tim drops Jason’s arm.

“If it makes you feel better,” Jason continues, pill momentarily forgotten, “I’m pretty sure the ribs aren’t just cracked anymore.”

Tim isn’t caffeinated enough for this. “And you couldn’t have mentioned this to someone before now, why?"

At the expression on Tim’s face, Jason laughs shortly, practiced at mostly laughing around damaged ribs. “Ah, relax. Dr. Thompkins checked me out. The collarbone was just a hairline fracture, said I just had to take it easy for a bit and I’d be fine.”

Tim stands. He really isn’t caffeinated enough for this.

“What? Where are you going?” Jason calls after him.

“I need more coffee if I’m going to continue this conversation, because I don’t think being kidnapped and tortured falls under anyone’s definition of “taking it easy” except yours, apparently.”

Tim gets a few minutes of blessed quiet, broken only by the occasional hiss and bubble of the coffee maker. There are no raised eyebrows or well-intentioned nagging as he retrieves his mug from beside the bed and fills it to the brim.

He sips at it, picking at where the vinyl edge of the countertop is chipping and peeling free. Slowly, his thoughts add up on top of each other, crowding out his attempts at a peaceful morning.

He drains the last bit of coffee from his mug, refills it, and flips his phone over, turning it on.

Everything is marked urgent, and the red notification light blinks ominously in the corner as Tim flicks away the few notifications that aren’t important.

He needs his laptop, or better yet, his full computer setup. And if he’s going to do any virtual meetings, he needs his suit. He needs more clothes anyway, if this situation with Jason is going to continue. It seems likely it will.

Tim can’t stay at the manor, not under everyone’s prying eyes, watching for the fallout of having been kidnapped and tortured, then kidnapped again by Jason. He’d certainly be benched from patrol, not that he’s gone out anyway. But at least right now it’s his choice.

Everyone is definitely already aware of his houseboat, both Bruce and Dick having made a point of dropping by at least once unannounced. It wouldn’t take long for Tim to set up a separate safehouse of his own, but that would require one of the aliases hidden in his boat.

Besides, he’d rather get a better idea of how far Jason is willing to take all this. How small of a slight is going to get him outed to the rest of the bats?

Tim thinks of Jason curled up on the bathroom floor. He’s survived worse since he came back, but there’s still something in Tim reluctant to leave him. All those years of being Robin, protecting people, never leaving a wounded ally behind.

Another notification pops up on the screen. An email from Tam regarding an upcoming meeting with the heads of the R&D department.

Tim sighs. He needs to answer her. He needs to attend the meeting, but he needs to review the progress and reports before that. He needs…

He needs to get his thoughts in order.

He rummages through the kitchen drawers, finding a pencil with a completely solidified eraser, but nothing to write on. He tears off the top of a box of granola bars to use instead.

Tim writes the top few priorities before he can forget them, then flips the flimsy cardboard around and begins his list of things to pick up from his boat.

Tim hears movement from down the hall, and looks up to see Jason approaching stiffly. He still looks pale, but not as shaky.

“Better?” Tim asks, opening the fridge and pulling out a protein shake for him.

Jason grunts noncommittally before accepting it. “You had one?” He asks after he drinks, eyeing the half empty coffee pot.

Tim rolls his eyes. “Should have left you on the floor- wouldn’t have to deal with the mother henning.” He adds a couple more items to the list, ignoring Jason’s glare. “I’ve got to drop by my place, pick up some things. I’ll be back soon.”

“Ugh,” Jason groans, pulling a face. “You’ve got CEO face on.”
Tim retraces his thoughts, backtracking before he forgets what he was going to put on the list.

“Well, I’m not getting on a bike with you unless you’ve eaten breakfast. I don’t want to end up smeared on the road when your blood sugar crashes and takes us with it.” Jason leans over to read what Tim is writing.

“You don’t have to come.” Tim says, distracted.

“Oh yeah, ‘cause wrecking on your own is so much better. That’s not a conversation I want to have with the bats when they find you, after having been last seen with me before dropping off the grid.”

Tim doesn’t pay much attention to the finer points of Jason’s rambling, but he does peel the wrapper off a granola bar and take a bite.

Jason waits next to the door, jacket on and helmets in hand as Tim tucks the list in his pocket and finishes his coffee.

It feels wrong to be leading Jason to the boat, though he probably already knew where it was. Tim turns off the bike and leans it on its kickstand in the marina parking lot. He still makes a token attempt to shield his phone screen as he disables the sensors before stepping from the dock to the deck and heaving open the watertight door leading below.

“How is this thing even floating?” Jason grumbles, scuffing a toe at where a tiny seedling is sprouting from a pile of debris on the deck. Rust stains what remains of the flaking white and blue paint.

Compared to Jason’s safehouses though, Tim’s the boat is a luxurious mess. Every one of its many surfaces are buried under clutter. Energy drink cans sit knocked over on the small galley table, joined by magazines, newspapers, and diagrams.

“Get hit by a bad storm?” Jason says. When Tim turns to look at him quizzically, Jason gestures widely at the room as a whole. “You seem to have some gear adrift.”

Tim easily navigates the mess, digging a duffel bag out of a closet in the companionway. “I’ll just be a minute, feel free to-” Tim casts his eyes around the compartment, hurriedly shoving aside a pile of coats on the booth seat, sheepishly clearing a space to sit. “Feel free to sit while I pack. Or help yourself to anything in the galley, not sure if anything’s any good anymore.”

Jason waves a hand indifferently, descending into the hold. “Go, I’m sure I’ll survive. If you need me, I’ll be here reading…” He wiggles a catalog free from a pile of unsorted mail on the table. “The latest issue of JEMS magazine. You know, there’s this crazy invention called the internet that has digital versions of this shit.”

“It’s easier to ignore people trying to get a hold of me when I’m not on my phone.” Tim gripes, shoving open another door further forward.

Jason idly flips through the magazine, listening to Tim rummaging through the next room and the water eerily lapping against the hull. He slams the magazine closed, pages flopping disappointingly. But it does hide the photos of a collapsed building and the clinically distant description of first responder’s actions.

The low hum of another boat’s engine resonates through the hull, and the ground beneath Jason shifts.

He tosses the magazine back on the table as casually as he can manage and takes the steps two at a time until he’s back on deck, back in open air, before he can think any more about collapsed buildings and cramped spaces.

The cool breeze rolling off the water clears his head as he makes his way to the upper decks, stepping into the cockpit. It’s entirely at odds with the rest of the boat. It’s an office, and even without the lights on, it’s brightly lit from the windscreen.

He wrinkles his nose at the stark, minimalist decor, but admits that it does look professional. The chart table has two monitors, an overflowing inbox, and a plant that must have been plastic, given that it still looked alive. The wall opposing the monitors is smooth off-white, decorated with an artfully bland painting of a cityscape in a simple black frame.

Behind the monitors, out of view of the webcam, the walls bristle with cables and antennas.

Jason resists the temptation to dig through the file cabinets wedged beneath the steps, deciding that they were probably full of itemized expense reports or something equally as tedious.

He hears something fall below him and quickly ducks out of the office/cockpit, arriving below deck again just in time to see through the partially open door as Tim kicks a pile of clothes on the floor as though it personally offended him.

Jason pushes the door open a little further, only for it to meet resistance. Probably another pile of clothes.

Gutted electronics and open files obscure Tim’s desk, a few scattered at the foot of the bed that takes up most of the room. Crushed coffee cups and energy drink cans overflow a garbage can in the corner.

Tim looks up as he crams a laptop into his bag. “Hey, almost done. Just have to grab my suit and hard drive.” He fights with the duffel bag’s zipper, shaking the contents until he can force it closed. He eases the strap onto his shoulder.

“Alright, ready.”

Chapter Text

Tim absently kicks at the mooring lines once they’re back on the dock, seemingly satisfied with their condition despite the algae growing on them.

Driving through Gotham in daylight is an entirely different beast than at night. The thrill of danger isn’t quite the same when it comes from a cabbie cutting you off instead of gunfire ricocheting off the handlebars.

As they near the safehouse, Jason directs Tim through the helmet radios, having spent more time actively avoiding Oracle’s gaze. It’s far from foolproof, but might buy them some distance.

The muzak is tinny and staticky in the elevator, but the smell of exhaust on their clothes covers up the smell of mildew mostly.

The elevator pauses on the third floor, and a mother holding her baby against her shoulder eyes them before stepping in.

Jason shifts to the back and slouches against the wall, suddenly very interested in the zipper pull of his jacket.

The baby stares wide-eyed at Jason, making indistinct humming noises as the mother bounces her in her arms. Jason glances up, and when the baby doesn’t look away, he sticks out his tongue.

The baby shrieks delightedly, and Jason immediately goes back to studying the zipper pull as the mother turns around.

They get out on the floor below Jason’s safe house, Tim fighting a smile the rest of the way up.

As soon as they get back to the safehouse, Tim claims the unused bedroom as an improvised office space, balancing his laptop on a cardboard box so the webcamera is at face height.

He transfers his to do list onto the legal pad he brought, adding to it as he goes. It’s… a long list. He’s only been out of commission for a little over a week. He could have been doing more work in that time. Should have been.

Tam rescheduled the R&D meeting once, and postponed several scheduled phonecalls. Typically, she emails any communication relevant to WE, but texts have started piling up on his phone. He begins to open his email, but stops.

Jason pretends not to watch him from where he’s doing something on his laptop as Tim retrieves his coffee mug and picks up the pot before thinking better of it. Instead, he unplugs the whole thing and takes it with him. Jason’s eyebrow is raised even though his eyes are still fixed on the screen.

Neither Bruce nor Alfred would approve, but they don’t have to know.

After plugging in the coffee maker next to his laptop, Tim takes a bottle of pills, these ones prescribed to Thomas Hicks, washing two down with coffee before finally opening his email. He has to scroll to the bottom of the first page before he finds one not labeled ‘urgent’, and it’s a reminder that the eighth floor break room is out of order due to the laughing gull incident.

He deletes that one, only for it to be replaced by another one flagged as urgent.

As he sorts through his inbox, he feels his brain click into gear. Over the next week he has three meetings, all of which he should be able to attend remotely. He wishes he could stack them one on top of the other and get them over with now instead of them hanging over his head all week.

He can already hear the cyclical, overly polite and professional debates that he would have to diffuse.

He needs to review meeting topics before them, catch up on the progress R&D has made, and go over the expense reports to make sure the money is being put to good use.

Tim would rather be working on one of the cases Bruce asked him to look at. Crane had developed a new strain of fear gas, and Bruce had sent him the data from the tests run on it to analyze.

He’s even tempted to open up the case files on his and Jason’s abductor. The only word he’s gotten was a short update from Bruce that they’re in Blackgate now. It should be enough, but he can’t turn off the part of his brain looking for exact method and motive. Having the case solved without him feels like expecting another step on the stairs but finding the ground instead. It’s done, but something still feels incomplete.

He scrawls METHOD/MOTIVE on a new page of the legal pad and tears it out, setting it aside for later.

Tim begins composing the email to Tam, apologizing for the delay. He spins a vague story about a surprise family bonding getaway as an excuse, before confirming meeting dates and signing off on new R&D project proposals.

He has a list of people waiting for him to call at least half a dozen numbers long. His hands shake as he dials, side effect of the stimulants. He paces the small room as he talks, reassuring investors that their money will change the world, indirectly convincing them that the return on their investment will make them rich. Or, richer.

By the time he’s wrapped up the third phonecall, lying through his teeth as he promises to meet up with Mr. Hildur for golf, he has absentmindedly wiped the dust off of each slat of the blinds and found three distinct sets of fingerprints on the window.

Tim sits back at his laptop, crossing off another name on his list and adding a note to check that Mr. Hildur is on the invite list to the next Wayne Enterprises charity gala, and to donate a nice set of golf clubs for the silent auction.

Jason knocks twice, then opens the door, launching a granola bar at his head when Tim ignores him in favor of squinting at the calendar of upcoming WE events.

“Ugh, you’ve got CEO face again.” Jason says as Tim balances the granola bar on his coffee mug. “Have you even moved since we got back?”

“Cleaned the blinds.” Tim mutters. “You need something?”

“I’m going out for a bit, but before I left wanted…” Jason trails off.

“Going out?” Tim drags his focus to Jason. “Going out as Jason or Red Hood?”

“Not as Red Hood… though I need to show my face around the Narrows soon.” Jason inspects the newly cleaned blinds, avoiding Tim’s gaze.

“So, as Jason.” Tim presses, thought processes switching their focus to what’s making Jason so cagey.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s civilian stuff. Mostly.” Seeing that his answer doesn’t satisfy Tim, he caves. “I’m dropping off some stuff at a new safehouse. I wouldn’t have interrupted your…” He gestures vaguely to Tim’s computer setup, “But I wanted another dose before I left.”

Tim studies Jason’s posture while he fishes out the pill bottle, trying to see how much pain Jason was hiding for him to request painkillers.

“Relax,” Jason says, picking out the other half of the pill from the bottle. “I just didn’t want things to get as bad as they were this morning while I was out.” He throws the bottle back to Tim. “You should come along, get some fresh air before your face sticks like that.”

“Sticks like what,” Tim mutters, putting on his jacket, as Jason tucks the pill in his pocket.

“Sticks like “Why yes, Mr. Trillionare, I did see your latest acquisition in the business section, I would love to go to your yacht party, but I’ll be too busy signing paperwork”.”

Tim scowls and closes his laptop.

Tim waits in the parking lot while Jason goes inside to pick up the keys to his new safehouse. He’s honestly surprised that Jason let him come this far, so when he insisted that Tim wait here, he didn’t argue. His mind is still half on his work, so he sits on the curb and goes through his mostly empty inbox.

He glances back at the apartments, wondering if he has enough time to squeeze in another phonecall. Doubtful, given how lightly Jason stocks his safehouses.

Tim stares at the latest string of text messages from Dick, chewing his lip. Checking in, an invitation to grab coffee, a reminder that there’s always room at the Manor if he wants it, or he’s always welcome to crash in Bludhaven.

He’s still overthinking his reply when Jason comes back out. He shoves himself to his feet, the streetlights flickering on and off in the dusk light as they head back.

As they cut through an alley, the world around Tim becomes clearer, situational awareness returning like shrugging on a heavy jacket, sweeping aside the thoughts straying to work and responding to Dick. The part of his consciousness that constantly reprimanded him for his mistakes was lecturing him on defenselessly and mindlessly wandering through the streets of Gotham.

But he wasn’t defenseless. Or maybe he was worse than defenseless, because Jason Todd was walking beside him.

Even without the helmet, Jason didn’t exactly look like an easy target.
However, Tim wasn’t entirely certain that Jason would lift a finger to help him. With Tim gone, a number of Jason’s problems are solved.

So Tim thinks his instincts must be on the fritz when three men walk toward the two of them as they cut through the alley, their body language screaming threat.

The sound of litter being crushed underfoot behind them confirms his instinct, though.

“Uh-huh.” Jason hums next to him, agreeing with Tim’s subtle change in posture as though Tim had pointed at the men approaching them and shouted “Look!”.

The three men ahead of them appear to be thoroughly engaged in an argument, occasionally shoving each other, but the tone is just a hair too rehearsed, and one too many glances dart their way.

The world fragments into a collage, the subject of each photo clear and focused, all meshing and slotting together into a dizzying whole.

The shadows stretching from behind Jason and Tim bring the number of threats up to five, though Jason lingers like footage pulled up on a separate computer monitor, not yet fully categorized as a threat or an asset.

Part of Tim is zeroed in on their gait, determining location of weapons and watching for the first sign of attack. His eyes scan the ground for obstacles. Another part of his consciousness is debating motivations- who is being targeted? Two random Gotham citizens who walked down the wrong alley? A random associate of Red Hood? Tim Drake, member of the Gotham elite? Or worse, Red Robin in plainclothes?

Tim will have to wait until they attack to know for sure, and until then, he has to play it safe. He can’t blow his cover, has to react as a civilian.

Abruptly, Jason is no longer keeping pace beside him. As Tim hears grit scratch under Jason’s pivoting heel, he falls into the ‘asset’ column.

Tim is unarmed as the three men rush him. No weapons make an appearance in his attacker’s hands, though Tim knows they are there. One man’s stride falling a few inches short on his right side, arm not swinging so far forward. The uneven lump at another man’s ankle. As the third man winds up to strike, elbow drawing back, fist curling, his jacket opens far enough to reveal the straps of a chest holster, though the gun itself is still obscured.

They don’t know he’s Red Robin, or they wouldn’t have risked hand-to-hand.

So it’s a Gotham citizen, who may or may not be Tim Drake, who drops into an unstable fighting stance and ducks, sloppily raising an arm to block the first punch.

The man’s forearm skates across Tim’s, momentum pulling the man forward. Tim ignores the opening that would allow him to target the man’s floating ribs, awkwardly shifting his feet, wincing as the man trips over his foot, hopefully rolling an ankle.

The first man stumbling past clears the space in time for one of the other men’s fists to connect with his side. Tim curls around it, not fighting as it pushes him off balance and sends him sprawling across the grimy pavement of the alley, almost colliding face first with a heap of garbage.

Tim knows he’s bleeding, felt the sickening pop as several stitches tore through the skin. But bleeding is a problem for people who aren’t dead in an alley, so Tim ignores it. His right hand digs in the sludge in the gutter and his left reaches into the pile of rubbish for the neck of a wine bottle.

Twisting onto his back, Tim flings a fistful of gravely mud into the face of one man, bashing the bottle into the side of another man’s knee as he rolls to his feet.

“Worthless fucking piece of shit trash!” The man with a facefull of mud screams, scrubbing a sleeve across his stinging face and drawing a knife from under the back of his coat while another advances and the third cradles his knee.

Tim smiles to himself. Insults in the heat of a fight can’t always be taken at face value, but…

Tim is worthless.

Not a spoiled piece of shit, not a fucking rich brat. He’s worthless.

He’s nobody.

He can’t fight like Red Robin, but he doesn’t have to fight like Tim Drake either.

He sends a quick glance toward Jason. One of the goons who had tried to sneak up behind them is sprawled out limp on the ground while the other exchanges blows with Jason.

The man who first came at Tim is bleeding heavily from his nose. If Tim had to guess, he staggered right past Tim and was met with Jason’s elbow.

Tim tightens his grip on the wine bottle and throws himself back into the fight, smashing the man’s right hand before he can remember to draw his gun.

He watches the man with the knife lunge forward. The angle is bad, so Tim doesn’t bother blocking, waits until the knife is snagged in the fabric of his hoodie, waits until the elbow is fully extended before pinning the wrist against his side and neatly dislocating the elbow. A sharp blow to the temple with the wine bottle sends the man crumpling to his knees, but Tim is already turning back toward the others before the rest of him hits the ground.

The ornamental serrations on the back of the knife are still caught in Tim’s hoodie until he tears it free. One of the remaining men is stooping for his ankle holster, taking advantage of Tim’s distraction.

The knife easily slips free of Tim’s grip, spinning once through the air before pinning the man’s hand to his own calf. In his peripheral vision, Tim see’s Jason’s opponent go limp in a sleeper hold as Tim brings the wine bottle down on the head of their final standing attacker, then tosses the bottle aside.

A groan escapes the man who was going for his ankle holster as he tries to twist and reach the pistol with his uninjured hand. Tim gets there first, disarming him and pulling the knife free, feeling the slight resistance of the achilles tendon give way.

Jason gives a low whistle as Tim slides the magazine out of the gun, tossing the gun and knife in a dumpster, and the magazine down the storm drain.

Tim tries to catch his breath, feeling the adrenaline begin to slip away. “You good?” He asks.

“Fucked up my stitches.” Jason pulls his shirt away from his skin before the pinpricks of blood can spread further.

Tim nods. “We should find somewhere to lay low and get patched up before we head back. It’s light enough we might draw attention. We’re not too far from…”

“Yeah,” Jason sighs. “Most of the medical supplies are still there, minus some gauze and saline.”

As they leave the five crumpled forms behind them, Tim fishes the pill bottle out of his pocket, offering it to Jason. “You’re going to want this before the adrenaline crash, or you’ll be worse off than before.”
Jason grimaces, but doesn’t argue.

They take the elevator. As bedraggled as they are, in their plainclothes won’t look any more out of place than they would on the fire escape.

The door is unlocked, and both Jason and Tim stop short in the doorway.

The smell of iron is thick on the air, congealed drips of blood point from the smears on the counter to the pool on the floor. Now that Tim remembers to look, he can see scattered drops here and there on the hallway carpet, leading back toward the elevator.

“Oh. Right.” Tim says. Logically, he had known that no one would have been back here since Nightwing had come for them. He had known it would be a mess, that there would be blood, both his and Jason’s. He had known this.

“‘Scuse the mess,” Jason says, forcing Tim to step further into the apartment or be hit by the door as he closed it. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“No worries.” Says a voice from deeper within the apartment.

Jason flings a drawer open, contents slamming against each other, and has a kitchen knife in his hand before Tim’s eyes manage to find the figure stepping out of the shadows.

“Perhaps I should have called first.” Nightwing smiles.

Tim flicks the light on to reveal Nightwing isn’t alone. Batman blends into the dark curtains, and while the cowl still obscures most of his face, Tim can still read the disappointed expression there.

Chapter Text

“Any injuries?” Batman asks, though he clearly already knows the answer.

Jason wants to turn around and walk out. He needs to turn around and walk out. Because Batman is here in his safehouse that’s covered in an innocent person’s blood, and every line of his posture is showing exactly what he thinks of Red Hood.

But Tim was right about the adrenaline crash. His energy and coordination are flagging as the pain seeps back in to his awareness. He can’t fight both Batman and Nightwing, and odds are if he tried, Tim would side with them too.

Jason shifts his grip on the kitchen knife in his hand. Tim is a couple steps behind him and to his right, halfway standing at attention with his hand still on the lightswitch. He could grab Tim, put him between himself and Batman and Nightwing, threaten to finish what he started if they didn’t let him go. But even on the off chance that Tim went along with it, he wouldn’t be able to keep it up long enough to get away.

Besides, he already knew how it would play out. Had a scar on his neck to prove it.

“We’re not here to fight.” Nightwing says, posture open and sincere, shooting a glance at Batman. “Oracle picked up the fight on a security camera, and I guessed this is where you two would end up. We wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Jason scoffs, relaxing his stance. “Must be a slow night if you’re here just because of our little scuffle.”

Nightwing glances over Jason’s shoulder. “You alright, Tim?”

“I tore some stitches, nothing too bad.”

“Let’s get you fixed up then.” Nightwing tilts his head to gesture toward the bathroom.

His attitude is casual, but there’s something calculating in his attention on Tim. Jason can’t tell if Nightwing is trying to get Tim away from the room covered in his blood, or away from Jason.

Tim hesitates for a moment, as if debating whether or not it’s an order. With a tense sigh, quiet enough that only Jason can hear it, Tim begins to follow Nightwing.

“Putting on the hood didn’t make me suddenly forget how to do first aid, I can patch him up.” Jason growls. He checks his tone. “I’ll even spring for the good stuff, not just duct tape and safety pins.” Tim stops, and Jason glances at him long enough to see the faintest hint of relief on his face.

Batman’s tone invites no argument when he speaks again. “Tim, go have Nightwing take care of your injuries. I need to have a word with Jason.”

And, like a good little soldier, Tim hops to and follows Nightwing into the bathroom, who shuts the door firmly behind them.

Jason throws the knife back into the drawer, shoving it closed, ignoring the twinge in his ribs.

“What do you want, old man.” He says flatly, opening a cupboard door, trying to avoid touching the bloody fingerprints already there.

“Are you injured?” Batman asks by way of an answer.

“Considering I was half flayed a week ago and haven’t found the time for a Lazarus spa day, yeah, I’m injured. No worse than before the fight, though.”

Jason sets a cutting board on the kitchen island to set the first aid supplies on. There’s a bit of counter space beside the stove behind him that’s clean of blood, but his skin crawls at the thought of turning his back to Batman.

He awkwardly works his shirt off, trying to avoid making things worse.

“Let me help.” Batman says, coming forward a couple steps.

Jason picks up a small pair of scissors. “Fuck no.”

Batman stops, watching Jason prod at the sutures, clipping away the ones that were torn through the skin. The exhaustion and adrenaline comedown make his hands shake, the simple process becoming slow and painful to watch.

“When Alfred told us you and Tim weren’t in the medbay, we feared the worst.”

“And what, exactly, is “the worst”?”

Batman doesn’t answer.

Jason plucks the sutures from his skin more harshly than necessary. “I can’t fucking believe that you’re saying this here.”

He tosses the scissors onto the cutting board and exchanges them for water and gauze, swiping at the fresh blood on his skin. “Tim said he was okay when Nightwing called afterward. Or did Nightwing not bother to report the details to you?”

Jason throws the pinkened gauze onto the countertop and picks up a threaded needle. “I’ll clear it up for you. This,” he gestures at the counter with the needle, “is Timmy’s blood.” The anger steadies his hands enough that it’s not as hard as he expected to push the needle through his skin.

“And that,” Jason nods toward the gauze packaging stuck in the dried blood, “is what I was using to try to keep the rest of his blood inside him.”

Another stitch.

“And this,” Jason looks down at the floor, “is my blood. Frankly, I’m surprised I wasn’t left there with it.”

“We wouldn’t have left you there, Jay.” Batman says softly.

Jason wishes he were having this conversation face to face, not trying to guess around Batman’s cowl. He wishes he was having this conversation with Bruce.

Jason covers the wound and tugs his shirt back on, crossing his arms and leaning back against the fridge. “What is this really about.”

“I watched Oracle’s footage of the fight.”

Jason frowns, then reaches to touch his lip. He hadn’t realized until now it had been split in the fight. He goes over the details in his mind, trying to think of what he had done that would result in Batman looking so grim.

“And?” Jason says defensively. “I took the two guys on me down as… humanely as possible. Is this about Tim? Look, I was going to help with the three on him but by the time I could have, he had already taken them out.”

“That’s the problem.” Batman says reluctantly. “Jason…” He sighs, a hand coming up almost as if he was going to remove the cowl, but lets it fall back to his side. “I love you, Jason. And you’ll always be my son.”

“But,” Jason says, bracing himself.

“But,” Batman nods in agreement, “You’re leading Tim down a dark path. The way he incapacitated his opponents was unnecessarily brutal.”

Jason once again sees Tim throwing the knife, not just winging the man, but sinking it through the man’s hand. Sees Tim withdraw the knife, angling it to sever the achilles, even though the opponent was already down.

Tim never did anything like that as Robin. Not that Jason had seen, anyway.

“Tim’s his own man, he can make his own choices.” Jason snarls.

Batman nods, voice infuriatingly calm. “He can. But he might one day regret those choices, and I don’t think either of us want that for him.”

“So I can be your son, but I can’t be his brother.”

Before Jason can keep going, before he can destroy whatever tenuous truce they have, the bathroom door opens and Tim walks out, tugging the zipper of his hoodie up, followed by Nightwing.

... 

“I can take care of this by myself.” Tim says, opening the cupboard under the sink. As he suspected, he finds a well-stocked first aid kit and balances it across the sink.

Dick takes off his domino mask and opens the kit. “Sure you can, but it’ll be easier with help.”

Tim unzips his hoodie slowly.

Dick hisses in sympathy, gently prodding at the lazily bleeding wounds. “Looks like you did more than tear a few stitches. The guy with the knife get you?”

Tim nods, watching as Dick does his best to school his features, hiding how sickened he was by what he was seeing.

Dick rummages through the first aid kit.

“Just butterfly bandages,” Tim says before Dick can tear open the sterile suture kit. “With my luck I’d just tear out the new stitches too.”

“If you’re sure.” Dick says, gently dabbing the blood away.

Dick was so determined to get Tim alone, so he waits Dick out to see what his real reason for being here is.

Tim holds his breath as Dick gently pulls the edges of the wound together with the butterfly bandages. “How’s living with Jason?”

Ah.

Tim shrugs the shoulder farthest away from where Dick’s working.

“Tim, you gotta breathe.” Dick reminds, smoothing another bandage in place. “Do you have pain medication?”

“Already took some.” He says after letting out a shaky breath.

“So why did you two bug out of the bat cave? When Alfred told us you were gone, I thought… well, I thought Jason might have something on you, or was threatening you.”

Dick snips through the torn stitches on Tim’s older wounds.

“You’re not breathing again.” He says.

“Your hands are cold.” Tim lies. “And I told you I was fine when I called you. I would have used a distress code if things weren’t okay.”

“It just didn’t make sense, you leaving with him like that with no warning.”

He doesn’t ask anything directly, so Tim doesn’t offer up any answers. He couldn’t give any satisfying ones without giving up more than he wanted to anyway.

Dick begins taping the reopened wounds. “Jason’s a good man, he’s come a long way since he’s come back.”

But… Tim thinks.

“But,” Dick goes on. “He can still be a bit… volatile.”

Tim smacks Dick’s hand away from where he’s needlessly fussing with the last bandage. “Do you really think Jason would have dragged me back to his safehouse and called you to help me just to kill me now?”

Dick holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying Jason would hurt you, I just think he might be rubbing off on you a bit too much.”

Tim narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I saw how you took those guys down. You took it a little far.”

“You weren’t there.” Tim snaps. “Besides-” He stops himself, turning to the sink to re-pack and close the first aid kit.

“Besides what?” Dick asks, trying to catch his eye in the mirror.

Besides, none of that was Jason. What would you do if you knew it was just me?

“Nothing.” Tim jerks his zipper into place and leaves before Dick can say anything else.

Chapter Text

Jason eyed Tim and Nightwing as they came back into the room, trying to gauge what their conversation had been about. Tim glances at Jason, but quickly darts his gaze back to Batman, something like suspicion or nerves crossing his expression. Jason could have almost mistaken it for guilt if the situation were different.

Jason’s eyes caught on the tear in Tim’s hoodie, thoughts spinning but muffled under the exhaustion and the pain medication. Distantly, he heard the conversation continuing around him, tone lax and non-urgent.

Jason realized it didn’t matter who was right. Either Jason was turning Tim into a monster like himself, and should stay away from him, or, Jason was right and Tim was his own person capable of making his own choices. But if that’s the case… Jason watches Batman and Tim talk, something about Tim’s progress on an ongoing case. Batman so stiff, Tim calm, professional, flipping through information on his phone, attention flicking back up to Batman to monitor his reactions.

Jason couldn’t tell if he was watching and hoping for approval, or hoping to avoid disapproval.

Even if Batman was wrong, and Jason wasn’t a bad influence on Tim… Was it worth taking this away from Tim? Was it worth it if it meant driving a wedge between Tim and Bruce, risking making Tim lose his family again?

Tim shifted, leaning closer to Batman, lifting his phone to show him something on the screen. It stretches the tear in the fabric enough that a white bandage underneath is visible.

“You didn’t tell me they winged you?” Jason asks, not bothering to wait for a break in the conversation.

Tim looks down at his side startled, almost as though he had forgotten about it. “It wasn’t a big deal.” His expression was tight, a tiny shake of the head telling Jason to drop it. Nightwing is looking between them with interest.

Jason sees now. Tim is going to have to choose to either have Jason or Bruce and Dick as family, but not both. The least Jason can do is make the right choice easy on him.

“Any other hidden injuries you want to share with the class?”

Tim’s face hardens. “Do you?” He snaps. “That wrist looks pretty painful, maybe you should take something for it.”

Batman and Nightwing latch onto that detail in their attempts to follow the nonverbal conversation happening between the lines.

Batman asks, “What happened to your wrist,” at the same time Nightwing says, “Your wrist is hurt?”

Tim and Jason glare at each other. “It’s nothing. Happened during the escape.” Jason grits out.

The silence stretches out, tension thick enough to cut with a knife.
Fortunately, Jason’s injuries take a backseat to whatever Nightwing and Batman are hearing in their comms. Batman vanishes through the window without preamble, while Nightwing hesitates, smiling thinly at them. “Just, come back to the Manor. You know you’re welcome there whenever you need– whenever you want.” He waits a second longer, and when he doesn’t get an answer, is gone out the window as well.

Jason doesn’t pretend Nightwing was talking to both of them.

“What the hell was that?” Tim demands, slamming the window shut and whirling back to face Jason.

Jason ignores the question, rubbing a hand tiredly across his face. He winces as he’s reminded of his newly-split lip. “This place is burned. Even more than it was before. I’m gonna get something to clean up…” he gestures vaguely. “This.” His voice is flat with exhaustion.

Tim protests, but Jason ignores him, snagging a butter knife out of a drawer on his way out.

He follows the scattered trail of blood back to the elevator. Across from it is a locked door labeled: JANITORIAL: KEEP OUT.

Jason wedges the knife in the door. The combination of a poorly installed door and cheap frame means shimming the door open takes only seconds. He loads his arms up with rolls of paper towels, trash bags, and bleach, making a mental note to come back and properly close the door.

While shuffling the contents of his arms to try to open the apartment door, he drops one of the rolls of paper towels. He sighs deeply, and it’s inexplicably almost the last straw. He just about drops the rest of it, turns around, and walks out of there.

He doesn’t, though, and after a second he hears a faint noise on the other side of the door. Tim swings it open, still stony-faced.
Jason kicks the fallen paper towels into the apartment, nodding a thanks to Tim.

Tim ignores him, flopping down onto the mattress to do something with his phone. Probably devastate a foreign arms dealing operation, knowing him.

Jason shakes open a trash bag, carelessly throwing the cutting board and gauze wrappers in once he picks them out of the dried blood. He pulls on latex gloves from under the counter and sloshes peroxide across the surface.

It’s almost meditative, wiping the blood away to reveal the beige countertop underneath.

It lets his mind wander to ugly places. To what words will piss Tim off enough to make going back to the Bats his idea. To whether or not he’ll still have a place in the city when all this is done, whether or not he even needs to bother with a new safehouse in Gotham.
He knows Tim is a dangerous enemy to make– Bruce’s attempted rehabilitation of the Red Hood was probably what saved him last time.

This time? Tim knows too many of Jason’s secrets. Bruce already knows what happened to Jason’s mother, probably already suspects the building blocks of that downward spiral are already built into Jason’s DNA.

Even as Robin, he rarely accepted the offered pain medications from the Cave’s medbay, and he imagined the expression on Bruce’s face was pride at that.

And now? He knows how easy it would be for Tim to ruin what’s left of Jason’s reputation. He could tell Bruce how despite his fear of addiction, how easily he caved. How easily he is controlled by his wanting to stop the pain.

Then there was the conversation within a conversation. When Jason had pushed, Tim seemed willing to throw his own secrets under the bus if it meant taking Jason down first, and Jason wasn’t interested in trying to call his bluff.

And if it comes out that Jason knew what Tim was hiding, that he helped him hide it?

Tim knows how to tear Jason’s life to pieces, and Jason doesn’t doubt that even if Tim didn’t have all that ammunition, it would take no effort at all to fabricate it. His ammunition against Tim feels flimsy in comparison.

Jason doesn’t want to push Tim away. Not really.

He’s found he doesn’t mind living with Tim, circumstances aside. They went through something together. They’re… blood brothers.

The countertop is spotless. Probably cleaner than it was when he moved in. He works his way downward, scrubbing blood off the front of the cabinets, pouring a puddle of bleach onto the floor to start working at the grout.

He wanted to strike up an argument with Tim, just to have a distraction to keep him from spiraling, but he couldn't risk it here, in this apartment that Nightwing and Bruce have been in alone.

Logic suggests it’s unlikely that they bothered to bug the place, but that doesn’t change what his paranoia believes.

So he scrubs in silence, moving more urgently.

Tim seems to get more restless the more time he spends on his phone, until he finally sits up with a wince, drums it on his knee a couple of times, and tosses it to the side.

He’s thrumming with energy as he approaches the counter. “Want a hand scrubbing things down?”

Jason slides cleaning supplies towards him. “Sure. Your mess, you clean it up.”

Despite his words, Jason continues wiping blood off the cabinets and floor.

“I’ve got a question for you,” Jason says, watching Tim manically scrub.

“Yeah?” Tim asks, not looking up.

“How did you survive so long as Robin being as clumsy as you are?”

A brief pause in Tim’s motions. “I’m not clumsy.”

“I definitely saw you go down, though. You can’t tell me that’s not clumsy.”

“It wasn’t clumsy.” Tim sighs at Jason’s smug disbelieving stare. Tim’s anger was dull and muted, muffled under the exhaustion of the adrenaline crash and the proven futility of trying to explain. He’s had endless versions of this argument, and at some point, he’d given up. Sat quietly as the same debate played out in his head while he half listened to another pitying, one-sided lecture.

“I was unarmed, and I didn’t know if they knew who I was. I couldn’t risk giving away my identity or drawing suspicion to Tim Drake. Taking the fall put me close enough that I could grab a weapon.”

“That’s some clever thinking to come up with that kind of excuse for being taken down in a fight.” Jason goaded. “And the knife to the ribs? Was that protecting your secret identity too?”

What little anger was left was smothered out by resignation. He listened to the peroxide fizzing in the grout.

“No.” Tim said to the nearly spotless floor. “It wasn’t important. I could see he was going to overextend himself with the strike, and it gave me an opening. It was the most efficient way to neutralize him. I knew it would be a minor injury.”

“Jesus. It would be less fucked up if you went with the ‘clumsy’ story. You should do what I did. No secret identity to protect if you’re dead.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Chapter Text

It would stand to reason that the street thug’s knife wasn’t clean. Tim had his shirt pulled up and tucked under his chin as he critically poked at the wound around the butterfly stitches, studying it in the mirror. It was red and hot to the touch. Most damning though, was being able to smell the rot trapped in the wound.

He should have taken care of the wound himself, should have made Dick sterilize it better. But Tim had been too focused on whatever Dick had really been there for, and keeping him from seeing anything he shouldn’t.

He and Jason had navigated their way to one of his other safehouses, avoiding Oracle’s neverending cameras as best they could.

Tim didn’t have time for this.

Tim dropped his shirt back over the wound and went to raid the superior medical stash in the kitchen, passing Jason scowling at his laptop screen on the bed.

When Tim stood with an arm full of supplies, Jason looked him over critically.

Tim ignored him, trying to retreat back to the bathroom, but Jason managed to toss his laptop to the side and jump to his feet, blocking Tim’s path.

“This something old or something new?” Jason asked.

He didn’t have time for this.

“What answer will make you leave me alone?” Tim grumbled. He wanted to sit down. He could feel sweat pricking along his spine.

Jason didn’t back down. “You look like shit.”

“Fuck off.” Tim tries to shove past him.

Jason takes the opportunity to grab Tim’s right arm none too gently, watching for a wince.

“You really think I’ve suddenly lost the ability to take care of myself?” Tim snaps while shuffling the contents of his arm to avoid dropping them as Jason firmly pats down the arm, not letting go as Jason frisks his thighs.

“If you ever even had the ability in the first place. One of those?” Jason asks, having not missed the bandages.

Tim thrashes out of Jason’s grip, but Jason still blocks his way.

“Christ, Jason. It’s this one.” He works his shirt up enough to reveal the infected gash before dropping it again.

“Come here and lay down. Take your shirt off.” Jason herded Tim toward the mattress, his tone telling Tim he could go willingly or by force.

“It’ll mess up the blankets.”

Jason muttered something under his breath, but herded Tim to the kitchen instead.

Tim slowly set each item tidily on the counter and stood there looking at them. “It’s not that bad, I can take care of this myself.” He tried again.

“You can take the shirt off or I can cut it off.” Jason says conversationally.

Tim pulls the shirt over his head and clenches it in his fists. Jason turns him toward him by the shoulders, inspecting the wound.

“Lay down,” Jason says, washing his hands in the sink.

“No.” Tim says softly.

“Lay down.” Jason repeats, turning around, all predator. “You’ve got a fever, is it screwing with your head?”

Tim doesn’t say anything, goosebumps rising on his skin as it touches the cold linoleum. Jason towers over him, sorting through the supplies.

“You’re worse than Bruce about injuries.” Jason mutters as he kneels next to Tim.

Tim focuses on not freezing at the proximity. It’s just Jason. Jason already knows everything, and so far, hasn’t ruined Tim’s life over it.

He lets Jason manipulate his arm to rest over his head, biting down a hiss of pain and the shudder of being so exposed. Jason telegraphs his movement, but Tim is staring at the light above him. He feels the tug of the butterfly bandages being peeled off.

“Shit. It’s going to take some work to get this cleaned up- it’s going to hurt.”

I know.

He doesn’t have time for this.

Jason pauses for a moment, waiting for a response. He gets none.

“Alright.” He says. “You know the drill. I’m going to scrub out the wound, flush it, and redress it. It’s going to hurt. Yell at me when you need a break.”

Jason starts gently. This is part of why Tim wanted to do this himself. He could get it done quickly and move on to more important things.

Then Jason stops being gentle. The gauze might as well be steel wool, and the smell of rot grows stronger. Tim wants to push Jason away and curl around the wound, wants to dig his fingernails into his skin to pull his consciousness away from the agony.

Tim doesn’t do any of those things. It’s just pain. Tim focuses in on it. The texture of it. He focuses until he’s wrapped in it, and it becomes a series of sensations, chemical reactions, unimportant feedback.

Jason might be talking. If Tim’s concentration slips, he won’t be able to hold still and this will take longer.

There’s a large hand flat on his chest, weighing heavily. Maybe Tim isn’t holding still.

It’s replaced by biting knuckles grating against his sternum. But it’s just sensations, chemical reactions, feedback.

His ribs won’t expand right. Something is pressing down on them, and there’s something around his neck. He can’t breathe.

Tim thrashes, twisting out from under the weight and shoving himself away until he checks up against the cupboards, gasping for breath.

…

Jason’s patience is thin. Tim seems to have inherited some of Dick’s misguided independence, and the fever probably isn’t helping. It tends to bring out the stubbornness in them.

Ordinarily, Jason would have relented, let the kid retreat to lick his wounds in peace. But Jason hadn’t even seen that the kid had been wounded in their alley fight. He knew Tim wasn’t dumb. He wouldn’t let himself become a ‘liability’ due to his injury, but he wanted to see the extent of the injury, see how bad the infection was and make sure he knew how closely he needed to keep an eye on Tim’s condition.

He already had a flush in his cheeks, and his hair was limp with sweat.

Jason should have known he’d fuck it up.

He’d get the wound cleaned up, then let Tim have some space to be pissed off at Jason.

He can see all the moments he should have stopped. When Tim took his shirt off, something fell out from behind his eyes. The hollowness as he stared blankly at the ceiling. The lack of tension even as Jason hovered above him, shifting his limbs so he could access the wound.

It took him too long to notice that Tim wasn’t breathing right. That he didn’t wince or jerk even as Jason scraped dead flesh out of the wound until clean blood welled up. He didn’t ask for a break.

Jason was nearly done when he noticed. There was no relief when he told Tim it was done, that he was going to rinse the wound and tape it closed.

He placed a hand on Tim’s chest, trying to feel his breathing.

“Tim? We’re done.”

Jason thought he felt slight movement, little slow sips of air. Not enough.

“Tim.” He says more firmly, trying to draw Tim back with a sternal rub. “Tim, you’ve got to breathe.” Of course pain didn’t work, he hadn’t reacted through the whole debrieding. The pain didn’t feel like enough of a threat.

Jason rocked forward, one hand on Tim’s chest, the other layed lightly across Tim’s neck. He leaned his weight on Tim’s chest, forcing Tim’s body to fight him to breathe, not just itself.

Tim bucked, and Jason let go, allowing Tim to scrabble back into the cupboards, one hand guarding his throat, lungs heaving.

“Did you-” Tim’s brows furrow. “-strangle me?”

“You back?” Jason asks.

“I didn’t go anywhere.” Tim replies, grimacing as he reaches for the shirt on the counter above his head.

“Bullshit you didn’t go anywhere.” Jason snaps.

Tim ignores him in favor of working the shirt back on and standing up, bracing a hand against the sink until his vision cleared again, every movement coiled and precise.

“You’re welcome!” Jason calls after Tim as he retreats down the hall to the unfurnished guest bedroom.

Chapter Text

Jason did his best to give Tim space. The pain was scratching at his awareness again, but his guilty conscience wouldn’t let him bother Tim over it just yet. He listened for any sounds of distress from the guest room, but knowing Tim, there wouldn’t be any even if he were in trouble.

After all, he’d just shut down while Jason tortured him by cleaning his infected wound.

At least it probably pushed Tim away, a step from keeping him from getting further contaminated by Jason’s violence.

Jason cleaned to avoid thinking about it. Scrubbed the floor, sanitized the surfaces, made sure all remnants of the procedure were gone.

Eventually, as it got dark, Jason couldn’t distract himself any more.
“Tim?” Jason raps on the door.

The lack of response is unsurprising, but still sends a hum of concern through Jason.

“Tim, I need proof of life here. A simple “fuck off” is enough.”

There isn’t so much as a rustle of movement.

“I’m coming in.”

One more way I can fuck this all up. Jason thinks as he pops open the lock.

The room is empty. Tim’s duffel is slumped in a corner, but otherwise, the room is unoccupied.

Tim had a lot of respect for Oracle. And for Barbara Gordon. She was family, whether or not she wanted to be, and had saved their collective asses more times than Tim wanted to think about.
He’d always felt that much safer having her unseen presence watching his back. And sure, sometimes she would catch a stumble or misstep of his and gently rib him about it later, but she had his back.

They’d always said that Oracle was every Gotham criminal’s worst nightmare, in joking sympathy.

Now, the back of Tim’s neck prickled every time he stepped outside. He and Jason took convoluted routes when they neared the safehouse to avoid cameras and confuse surveillance.

They were no longer regulars at the coffee shop down the street, since it had installed security cameras as part of a WE partnership with Gotham PD to reduce crime and protect small businesses.

It had been Tim who made the proposal, hoping to expand Oracle's vision and make Gotham safer.

It wasn’t until the night Oracle had seen the fight in the alley and sent Batman and Nightwing to them that it hit Tim.

It was nearly impossible to hide in this city. Jason’s number of safehouses didn’t seem so paranoid anymore. He’d been navigating this for years.

Whenever he and Jason went out, Tim contemplated evading the surveillance. He might be able to make a short range transmitter that they could carry that would automatically loop the last few minutes of footage as they passed, but that wouldn’t hold up to more than passing scrutiny.

He thought about altering his height and gait with uneven lifts in his shoes.

It was probably just his guilty conscience. He knew he hadn’t needed to sever that man’s achilles tendon, but it guaranteed he wouldn’t follow them, and might keep his comrades from following them too, if they stopped to help him.

But Oracle had seen, and had sent the Bats to them. It could have saved their lives, if it was anything like the first time Tim was in that safehouse. But it wasn’t.

He and Jason had just wanted to lie low for a little while, wanted some space from the bats.

It was exhausting to be continually watching for cameras. He knew it was impossible to truly evade Oracle- if she really wanted to find them, she would. She just had some sense of boundaries. She wouldn’t just spill their location because Dick wanted to know where he could spontaneously drop in on them.

But she was the one who defined the terms of those boundaries.

The challenge would be not to reveal their location with their tampering, and not draw too much attention. Once Oracle knew someone was messing with her, she would find them.

He started small. Inconspicuous.

There was a tech startup in central Gotham. It had decent web security, but nothing that would phase Oracle. Or Tim. And it wouldn’t register as out of place if they updated their security.

He and Oracle had worked together long enough that Barbara would recognize Tim’s coding style unless he was very careful.

It helped that Tim already knew how Oracle had gained access to their system. He hadn’t been… eavesdropping per say, but Barbara had been laughing about it with Cass when everyone had gotten together last time Cass was in town.

Barbara had done it partly out of spite. A couple of representatives from the tech startup had been at a charity event. Something about funding equal access to technology and computer equipment for Gotham schools, regardless of funding or location.

Barbara had spoken at the event, discussing her perspective as a librarian. A large part of her day job was helping kids use the computers for homework.

As guests mingled afterward, one of the representatives had approached her.

“He made two mistakes.” Barbara said. “First, he tried to tell me how I was wrong about what the effects of a DDOS attack on a system was. I told him he could submit his thoughts to the head of the organization, and tried to politely leave before I bit his head off, because this was a charity event after all. As I turned to go, he grabbed the back of my chair.”

“Second mistake.” Cass gravely signed. “Break wrist?”

Barbara shook her head. “I wish. But the startup would be potentially instrumental to the organization’s cause, and I didn’t want him to blow it. I told him to keep his hands off of me, loud enough that he was worried about me drawing attention. He told me “it was just my chair” and he “didn’t mean anything by it”. So I explained he was an asshole, and he offered to buy me a drink to make it up to me.

“I told him he could actually make it up to me by helping me out with a tech problem, that I had an issue with my laptop.”

Cassandra raised an incredulous eyebrow.

“I know. But social engineering is pretty much the easiest way to gain access to a system if you’re trying to be quiet about it. And if the startup actually gets anywhere, it will be nice to have access. So I brought my laptop by the next week with some bullshit operating system issue that had frozen the screen. While he plugged the laptop in to “fix” it, it was crawling through their systems and making me an admin.”

Tim’s method was good old fashioned breaking and entering. After hours, he picked the locks and plugged directly into the building’s security system, changing the internal clock, slowing it down so the one minute he had to input the disarm code became ten hours.
He plugged one of his phones into the corner office computer and lifted the password. Tim didn’t want to create a separate admin account, because even though none of the employees would notice, Barbara might.

Tim’s boat, to put it nicely, was a wreck. It had been one of those tasks he’d been promising he’d get done, cleaning it up, organizing, doing scheduled maintenance on the machinery.

At least now he can pretend his kidnapping and recovery got in the way.

Now he just has to find a way to keep Barbara from regaining access.

Tim plugs his phone into the computer network in the cockpit and studies the coding already in place. After briefly glancing at the employee resumes, He finds one of them had interned at LuthorCorp. He could replicate the coding style, disguising his presence.

The easiest thing to do would be to simply remove Barbara's admin account, but that would tip her off.

Tim settled on a ridiculously convoluted solution that was stupid enough to be unnoticeable. He removed the permissions to change the time in the system from every account except the one he was borrowing, then reset the time on Barbara’s account to just after the security system was installed.

Everything Barbara saw on the cameras would be about a six month delay. Eventually she would notice, if an incident happened nearby and the weather didn’t match up on those feeds, or if she was watching the footage carefully and noticed the time stamp.

When she did eventually notice, she would have to give herself a new admin account to view current camera feeds. Tim left code that would require his borrowed account to confirm creation of any new admin accounts. Barbara would have to rely on brute force or social engineering to regain access.

Tim felt a small smile creep onto his face. The cornered feeling he'd had since Batman had tracked them down began to lift.

Chapter Text

It was less than 12 hours after Tim had climbed out the guest room window when Tim was caught alone by Batman.

Technically, it was Bruce in his nice suit, having Alfred pull the car up next to Tim with the window rolled down.

Tim was on his way to scope out a bank’s security camera situation, still leaving Jason alone in the apartment to do whatever Jason did on his own time when he wasn’t hounding Tim.

“Tim! I’m glad I ran into you.” Bruce said. “Get in, I’d love to catch up.”

Tim glared at the corner store’s camera across the street. “I wish you had run into me.” He muttered.

Still, it’s not like he had other options. Tim slid into the backseat next to Bruce, and noted that the privacy divider was up between the back and front seats. Definitely Batman, not Bruce, Tim was going to have a conversation with.

“How have you been doing?” Bruce tried to ask casually. It wasn’t his strong suit.

“Bored.” Tim answered somewhat honestly. His current lifestyle was definitely more boring than whatever Bruce had been conjuring up in his paranoid mind. “How have you been doing?”

“Same old, same old.” Bruce said, forcedly. Then, “Worried about you.”

Alfred had since pulled away from the curb and was absently driving back toward the manor.

“You know, it’s normal for kids to move out and not be surveilled by the adults in their life.” Tim said, cutting the small talk to the quick. “Sure, our lives are more dangerous than some, but I think I’ve proven time and time again I can handle myself, and that I know when to go to someone for help. I deserve some space.”

“When Dick described how he had found you…” Bruce looked drawn and exhausted. “It was too much like when I lost Jason. I can’t lose another Robin.”

He says Robin like he wanted to say something else.

Tim doesn’t point out that Jason himself had been half dead right next to Tim, and Bruce could have easily lost him again.

Tim knows he’ll regret the words even as he’s formulating them in his mind. He already sees the wounds his cruelty will leave. He doesn’t stop himself.

“When I die, it won’t even be about me.” He scoffs. “Just another dead Robin, just another Jason.” Because it’s the truth. His death in the mask is a when, not an if, and Bruce will be too busy mourning Jason again to grieve Tim.

“Then I’ll be living up to Jason’s name, at least. It’s impossible to live up to a memory ‘till you are one.”

Bruce sits in stunned silence as the car eases to a stop at a light. Uncaring of the honking traffic, Tim throws the door open and jogs to the side of the road, trying to orient himself. He’s a good distance in the opposite direction of the bank he was planning to go to, definitely too far away to reach it before it closes. He had already been cutting it close.

He huffs out a frustrated breath through his nose and ducks through an alley, taking winding one way streets that would be difficult for Alfred to catch up to him on.

Tim barely avoids slamming the cockpit door when he returns to the boat. Distantly, Tim knows Bruce’s overstepping comes from a place of loving concern. But it’s hard to feel any empathy towards him when Tim can’t go anywhere without Bruce breathing down his neck.

With the bank cameras out for the day, Tim settles down to the mind numbing work of securing public weather and unsecured doorbell cameras. He briefly ducks below decks to retrieve a couple of energy drinks from below the settee in the galley.

On his way back up, he sees a shadow pass the window. On alert, but trying to remain casual in case it was one of the other marina residents, Tim shifts the drinks into his right arm so his dominant hand is free.

Tim curses.

“Sorry about Bruce.” Dick says, nudging a weed somehow growing on the deck with his foot.

“Y’know,” Tim grits out, latching the door behind him. “This would be a lot more effective of an apology if you weren’t on my boat. Have either of you heard of boundaries?”

Dick shrugs sheepishly. “I haven’t seen you since I patched you up-”

“-Less than a week ago.” Tim cuts in. Under his breath he mutters, “A lot of good it did.”

“C’mon Tim, we don’t talk like we used to, let’s go grab some coffee and really catch up. I know I haven’t been helping the distance between us, but I want to change that. Please, Tim.”

Tim’s chest twinges a little at that, but it’s not enough under the frustration of the day. “Really, really not in the mood, Dick.” He says, heading up to the cockpit. “What’s the point of having your own place in this city if it’s not even your own.” He snaps as he closes the door behind him.

“I swear, at this rate I’m moving to Iceland.” He says to the empty cabin.

Chapter Text

The silver lining to Dick’s visit was that it provided motivation to keep working on taking out cameras. It also limited the radiuses in which he could work. If Oracle suddenly lost access to the cameras surrounding the docks, it would tip her off.

Although, that could be a reality check for her and the bats.
Tim decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

Although… Tim thought, If I program in a kill switch, I could knock out several locations remotely all at once.

Oracle would definitely notice that, but it would be harder to trace.

Tim began tediously covering his tracks as he created admin accounts and firewalls for any privately owned surveillance cameras in the area. The public weather cameras were out- Tim couldn't work out a way to prevent Oracle from accessing them without also preventing the public from utilizing them.

The more Tim worked, the more the nagging worry for Jason became concern. Tim had left a couple pain pills in the spare bedroom, but he doubted Jason would go looking. Even if he found them, he probably wouldn’t take them without he and Tim’s usual harm reduction measures in place.

Sighing, Tim knocked back the remains of his energy drink and shut down his systems before heading back to the darkened dock. From there, he walked to a street busy enough to call a cab from, had them drop him off in a camera blind spot several blocks away from the safehouse, and made his way to the fire escape.

Jason heard the window in the guest room slide open.

“Tim, can I come in?”

“It’s your apartment.” Comes the distracted reply.

Jason slowly opens the door, Tim tugging a clean shirt over his head.

“Where were you?” He asks cautiously, watching Tim shove dirty clothes into his duffel.

“I needed some space after-” Tim flaps his hand dismissively in Jason’s direction. “So I went to GTech, then the boat.”

“GTech? The boat? That tells me nothing- what were you doing?”
“I needed more processing power.” Tim finally stands and meets Jason’s eyes. “I’m going to blind Oracle.”

Jason squints at Tim. He’s sweaty and his eyes are bright, but it’s hard to tell if it’s fever or caffeine induced mania.

“You alright? How’s the wound?” Jason asks.

“Did you not hear me? I’m going to shut down Oracle’s surveillance system, they won’t be able to follow us anymore.” Tim says, exasperated.

“I heard you, I just don’t know if this is you or a fever talking.”

Tim rolls his eyes, lifting his shirt and ripping the bandage off so quickly Jason winces.

“Tim…”

Tim looks down. “Oh.” The skin is still red and swollen, signs of infection still clearly present. “Should’ve let it breathe. The point remains,” Tim says, dropping his shirt in favor of rummaging through his duffel bag. “We’ll be free.”

Tim checks the labels of three different pill bottles before opening one and swallowing a pill dry.

“Should I be worried about what you’re taking?” Jason asks, on alert.

“It’s antibiotics, Jason. I keep a supply on hand since the ‘spleen incident’.”

Jason rubs a hand over his face. “Do I even want to know?”

“I thought everyone already did.” Tim replies, offering Jason pain meds on the way out to the kitchen with no further explanation.

Jason took it without complaint, and by the time he catches up to Tim in the kitchen, Tim is chewing at a slice of several day old pizza absently.

“Nobody ever talked about your home life, but Christ, your parent’s must have really fucked you up.” Jason says.

Tim talks around a mouthful of pizza. “Nah, wasn’t them. Was all me.” His words draw out just a bit too long.

“C’mon, Tim. You don’t end up as Robin if your home life is all on the up and up. You don’t end up hiding an infection if your parents looked after you right.”

“‘S’not like that.” Tim says. “I’ve seen what bad home lives are like, I’ve seen bad parents. It’s not like that. We were just… separate people. I was always doing my own thing, even as a kid. Running off to gymnastics, or a friends house, never remembering to tell them where I was going.”

“They didn’t ever ground you? Didn’t ever stop you?” Jason asks.

“Don’t put this on them. They tried, and next time, I would forget again. Or justify it to myself. Once I got older, they started going on digs, or business trips, and the nannies would give up after a while.”

“I wasn’t built like them. I just… never connected. They were like college roommates to me, just shared a house with them. They tried pretty hard, but eventually realized that it would make us all happier if they did their thing and I did mine.”

“That’s… fucking bleak, Tim.”

“It’s not, give it a rest. It’s just me. My brain was screwed up the whole time, and they couldn’t do anything about it, so stop blaming them. I didn’t have some unhappy tragic childhood. I was a happy kid. We did stuff together, they went to all of my events, or at least the ones I remembered to tell them about.”

“It’s your parent’s job to build connections, to make sure their kid is okay!”

“Jason! Enough. They did all of that, all of it. We went to therapists. They did everything right. I just wasn’t built to be someone’s son. When I came here, I thought that’s how it would work, but Bruce wanted me to be a son to him and I tried, but that’s not how I work. I don’t do any of that. And yeah, it rubs all the adults in my life the wrong way, but I can’t change how I am.”

The way he says it makes Jason think he’s tried.

Eggshells aren’t Jason’s style, but over the next day he tries to be more cautious of Tim’s boundaries. He worries that one of these times when they both have a bad day and the bats catch up to them, that Tim will tell them the callous way he tortured him to clean his wound, strangling him to top it all off. Jason still hadn’t explained that one, but Tim seems to have moved past it worryingly quickly.

“Hey, Tim.”

It takes a long moment for Tim to drag his gaze up from his phone to Jason.

“What do you think about both of us moving to the boat?” Jason remembers the trapped feeling below the deck. Then he remembers the casual clutter, the unfinished projects there. He thinks of Tim stuck in his shithole safehouses.

“The bats would never think you would let me stay there. Assuming you’re alright with-”

“Sharing my space with my “attempted murderer”?” Tim cuts him off. “If you don’t mind the mess. Which I’ll clean up. Besides, I think there are probably more dangerous things than you buried in that wreck.”

Jason will be fine. He just won’t think about collapsing buildings or being buried alive.

It’s not as bad as it was last time. In fact, it’s not bad at all.

Tim moves more freely here. He winces, pressing a hand to his side as he scoops everything off the galley table so Jason can set his things down.

He dumps the armload onto his bed. “I’ll have this room cleaned up by tonight, sorry.”

Jason sits down on the bench, leaning sideways into the pile of coats. “It’s your place, Tim. You don’t have to clean it up on my account. I’ve lived with much, much worse.”

There’s a muffled crash from the next room.

“I want you to be comfortable here, especially after-” A heavy thump and some cursing cut him off.

Jason’s pretty sure he knows what Tim was trying to say anyway. Something about being a guest, or taking up space, or breathing too loud or something.

Jason taps a couple of times on the mostly open door. “You alright? Something from the bilge get you?”

Tim’s balancing a lopsided stack of boxes with one arm while trying to shift it with the other so it won’t fall. “Bilges don’t leak that bad anymore.” He mutters absently.

Jason takes a couple of boxes off the stack so it’s less perilous. “You want a hand in here? If you’re cleaning it up for me, the least I can do is help.”

Tim looks like he’s about to argue.

“I’m bored, and it’s weird not doing anything while someone else is working. I can take out trash or some shit.”

In the end, Tim tosses semi-clean clothes for Jason to hang up in a latching cupboard. The hamper is overflowing.

“I really need to do laundry but the marina laundry machines are a pain.”

In the end, Tim and Jason manage to get the boat mostly squared away, making use of improbable spaces to stow things, leaving Jason with plenty of room to store his couple of bags and sprawl out while Tim works.

Chapter Text

While Tim spends his time either on the computer or off on mysterious errands, he asks Jason to look over the engines.
Jason ducks into the engine room. It’s claustrophobic, but the smell of oil and soot is somehow comforting. Weighted down by tools on the workbench, stuck to the walls with magnets, and on every other nearly horizontal surface are covered in little stacks of printed out repair manuals and parts diagrams.

It actually makes it pretty straightforward to go through each of the components to get the vessel as operational as possible.
Jason changes the oil and filters, checks the batteries, and replaces a leaky hose or ten.

He’s in the middle of tightening a hose clamp when he hears a thud above him. That alone is not unusual, but the semi-rhythmic thumping isn’t.

“Tim?” Jason wipes his hands on a rag that doesn’t do much to clean his hands. “Tim? You being attacked by a bilge monster up there?”

The lack of reply has Jason skipping steps on his way up.

The door hits Tim’s feet as Jason opens it.

On the floor, Tim twitches spasmodically, eyes stretched wide and unseeing.

“Shit.” Jason closes the door so it’s clear of Tim. His arm is repeatedly hitting the leg of the galley table, and his head is alarmingly close to the bench.

He jerks off his hoodie, quickly wrapping it into a pillow shape to put under Tim’s head and checks his watch. Carefully, he guides Tim’s arm closer to his body.

“Tim, you there man? I’ve got you, don’t worry. This’ll be over in a sec.” Jason keeps talking as calmly as possible.

Only seconds pass before the jerking becomes more organized, Tim pushing himself onto his back with his knees up.

“Jesus, Tim, this ever happen before?”

“Hold on.” Tim clumsily pats Jason’s arm where it holds his other wrist. “Can’t see or hear yet.” His voice comes out slurred.

Tim blinks a few times, breathing more deeply and steadily. “Sorry, didn’t sleep enough.”

“Sorry? Tim, you had a seizure.”

Squeezing his eyes shut against the light, Tim says, “Wasn’t a seizure. Sometimes when I don’t sleep enough and I’m sick, I black out. My body still tries to balance to stay upright so it twitches around. Not a seizure.”

He says it like it’s commonplace, like it should make Jason feel better.

He opens his eyes to gauge Jason’s silence.

“Shit.” His eyes drop to Jason’s bare torso. “Can’t believe you’re not taking more pain meds."

Jason lets his eyes drop too.

Black stitches prickle through lines darting across his torso, still the bright pink of barely healed wounds. Some are becoming knotted like earthworms, stretched or reopened by too much movement.

“On the plus side,” Tim says, still a little sluggish, “Now the autopsy incision looks much less garish in comparison.”

“Fuck off.” Jason says with no heat. Gesturing broadly at Tim slowly sitting up to lean against the galley bench he asks again, “This happen to you a lot?”

“Define a lot.”

“Jesus, Tim, more than once or twice?”

“That’s an incredibly low bar. Anyway, I was coming to get you.” Tim slides himself up onto the bench where his laptop waits. “Batman filed his interrogation of the person that got us.”

Distantly, Jason knows Tim is avoiding giving a direct answer to his question, but his curiosity is too intense.
“And?”

“And they’re some Twoface wannabe, were transferred to Arkham a couple days ago. Somehow decided I was some sort of beacon of light or whatever, and you were the opposite of that I guess. They decided the problem with Gotham was a lack of balance and thought that if we “matched” it would somehow even out the good and bad.”

Jason grunts. “Those are some… unique mental acrobatics.”

“You think it worked?” Tim asks sarcastically. “Might’ve if they had chosen someone else."

Jason doesn’t know if Tim is talking about choosing someone other than Jason or himself.

Chapter Text

Jason was on the deck enjoying the evening breeze out of the cramped engine room. He was working a rag over his fingers trying to wipe off the oil that was permanently embedded in his calluses these days.

He heard a noise behind him.

“Coming up for air, Tim? How goes your project?”

The oppressive silence has Jason whipping around.

He’s so sick of this shit.

“Jason.” Batman says, full cowl and cape.

“The fuck do you want.” Jason asks, “If I couldn’t guess.”

“Come back to the manor.”

That… wasn’t what Jason was expecting. “Why would we do that? Just so you can keep a closer eye on us? That’s barely even possible.”

The thought of returning to those hallways and rooms, haunted by the past, left Jason’s skin crawling.

“Not we, Jason, you.”

Jason’s scars ached. Of course that was what Bruce meant.

“No. I’m happy here. Tim… isn’t unhappy here, as far as I can tell. We’re staying.”

Batman stepped closer, laying a hand Jason’s shoulder in what was probably attempted paternal affection but came across as confining.
Jason strikes his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Jason, I just want my son home. For both of you to be safe.”

“So now Tim’s not your son now?” He skips over the implication that they make each other unsafe. It’s true though, isn’t it? Jason and Tim were only thrown together by the threat of mutually assured destruction.

Jason hasn’t lifted a finger to stop Tim from hurting himself, hasn’t stopped him from wreaking havoc on Oracle’s surveillance systems. Tim is slowly but surely slipping into a dark place, and Jason’s only pushed him farther. Jason hurt Tim, tortured him and barely noticed.

“That’s not what I meant Jason and you know it. I-” Batman raises his hand like he wants to put it back on Jason’s shoulder but thinks better of it.

“Get off the boat.” Jason growled. “If you show up again, it will end badly.”

Jason returns below deck a long moment after. “I’m going to head out. This has been fun and all, but it’s time to leave the nest. Just give me a half dozen of those pain pills as a farewell gift, and I’ll be on my way.”

“You don’t have to go.” Tim says.“What’s your plan here, you just going to survive the rest of your recovery alone rationing out a handful of pills?”

“You’ll be better off without me around. I owe you that much, not having to hang around with your would-be murderer.”

This gets a reaction from Tim. His whole body stiffens and his face turns stormy. His voice is painfully level though, when he says, “I am so sick of other people telling me what I’m owed. I’m sick of people keeping score for me, of everything being transactional and not being allowed to forget anything because someone will always be reminding me I should be jumping on every opportunity to get back at someone.” He fiercely shoves his hair out of his face.

Jason grits his teeth. “Your martyr complex is not attractive, Tim.” Hood says.

Tim’s fists clench, then his whole form relaxes.

“I’m serious, Tim. Your whole doormat schtick just makes you a tripping hazard. You’re all ‘go along to get along’ and no one knows what you’re really like. You turn everything back on yourself until you claw yourself to mincemeat. You think it’s fun for people to watch? Do you think people like having someone that just agrees with everything said and lies their way into becoming who they think they’re wanted to be?”

Tim’s skin prickles. “I know.”

He knows he should be angry. The heavy handed reminders that Jason knows Tim’s secrets, the cruel way he discounted every calculation and sacrifice Tim had made.

“I know nobody likes the way I am, the way I’m cold and distant, and a liar, and put on acts to smooth things over. I hate it too. And I know people would hate the decisions I make if they knew about them, and I know it annoys people how I just ‘go along to get along’. I know.

“Have some faith in me,” Tim laughs wryly. “If I were doing it to be liked, I would have noticed by now that it doesn’t work.”

He gets pretty sick of his shit too, but it’s harder to get away from himself.

Satisfied he’s pushed Tim away for good, Jason shoulders his duffel bag and turns to go.

Tim gives Jason a long, calculating look. “You’re going to let B win that easy?”

Jason hesitates. “You heard all that, huh?” Jason sighs. “I don’t really see another option.”

“Not all of it, but enough.” Then, “They’ll leave you alone if you’re dead.” Tim says, not breaking eye contact.

“Thanks, Tim. Tell me how you really feel.” Jason’s voice is full of acid.

“No, I mean, they’ll leave us alone if they think we’re dead.”

“Bruce’ll never believe it, not after I came back once.”

“He will if there are bodies.”

“He’ll test DNA, we can’t just borrow a couple cadavers from the morgue and fool him.”

Tim gives Jason a withering look. “I know.”

“So, what, you just happen to have clones of us kicking around in the bilge or something?”

“No. But I could. It would take a few months, but that will give me time to get into more surveillance systems. We can set up a believable story-” Tim cuts himself off as Jason sits heavily on the settee.

“And they say I’m the drama queen.”

Chapter Text

It turns out, Jason has a couple warehouses in addition to his collection of safe houses.

Their footsteps echo up in the high rafters, dust motes drifting in the light from the open door.

“Alright, what do we need to get this insane plan rolling?” Jason asks, voice startling some small creature in the rafters.

It still felt impulsive, the whole idea of it, but Jason and Tim are caught in the current of it. They can stop at any time, but are waiting to see where this plan sweeps them.

“I’ll have someone deliver the cloning chambers. They’re being stored as “cryofreeze chambers”, so people will probably think this is just weird rich people stuff. Lab equipment I can bring from the Nest, and I’ll talk to Ivy on the way there. She’s got some sort of growth formula that will cut down on the time it takes the clones to develop.”

“You have this concerningly well thought out.”

“I’ve had a whole day to think about it.” Tim says distractedly, typing out something on his phone.

The air as soon as Tim passes the threshold of Ivy’s forest cool and fresh, with none of Gotham’s damp mugginess. He knows it won’t be long before he’s found, so he walks slowly, staying on the overgrown path, and avoids brushing against any of the overhanging branches.

He’s already had the ‘cryofreeze chambers’ dropped off at the warehouse where Jason waited, along with the other supplies they would need. All that was left was the growth solution.

Ivy soon stepped out of the shadows. “I don’t take kindly to visitors, but I’ll make an exception for you, Mr. Drake.”

Negotiating with Poison Ivy was easier than expected. She seems to have a soft spot for Robins, and had guessed Tim’s identity years ago when Drake Industries had made a sizeable donation to the restoration of a wetland that got contaminated during a fight between Red Robin and Scarecrow.

“What’s in it for me?” Was all Poison Ivy asked, without malice, once Tim explained what he needed. She plucked an insect off a nearby plant and set it on a different one.

“I’ll buy you a golf course.” Tim answered easily.

Tim starts by thoroughly sterilizing the growth chambers, the smell of disinfectant burning Jason’s nose.

Jason stands back and watches, unnerved by how the whole process seems to be almost muscle memory to Tim. He doesn’t want to ask.

Tim takes DNA samples from each of them, suspends them in a test tube with carefully measured saline and some of Ivy’s growth solution, and slides them into an incubator that looks alarmingly like an air fryer. While the first step ‘cooks’, Tim pumps the growth chambers full of a similar solution, and installs oxygenators and a system to deliver small electrical shocks to stimulate muscle growth.

It’s been 48 hours and Jason hasn’t seen Tim slow down once, despite Jason having taken a few naps braced in a dusty corner.

The incubator/air fryer dings and Tim triumphantly pulls out two test tubes with tiny blobs in them. It must be a good sign though, as Tim climbs a ladder to unceremoniously pour each of the contents into their own growth chamber.
“Okay,” Tim says, expression overbright. “Let’s lock up and go back to the boat. Ivy’s solution worked better than I expected, we should be ready to go in a month or so. We’d better get prepping.”

One evening, while Jason’s busy doing what sounds like mostly swearing at some engine component, Tim sells the boat.
It’s believable. Jason and Tim burned safehouses after being visited by bats, so it stands to reason that after the altercation between Jason and Batman that they would leave the boat.

He finds the records of some couple planning to buy a boat and move to the Everglades and simply overwrites the vessel information. Secondhand boat sales were almost concerningly easy to hack in to. The couple still gets their boat, but the paper trail shows it as being Tim’s.

This still leaves the boat as their escape route, but won’t raise eyebrows if it’s no longer in the marina.

Whenever Tim gets too wrapped up in the work, Jason drags him out to get supplies. Tim’s marina contact fills up the newly emptied and cleaned tanks with diesel, and Tim and Jason slowly stock the galley shelves with non perishables. Jason’s now accustomed to the work of pumping out wastewater tanks and refilling freshwater ones.

Sometimes, Jason just pulls Tim away from his work to do laundry, or get dinner from the diner down the road.

“So, how are we going to die?” Jason asks one evening, the interior lights barely making a dent in the shadows inside. “Murder-suicide? Double murder?”

Tim looks pointedly at the splatter of oil across the front of Jason’s shirt. Jason looks down and pulls it away from his skin. “Oil filter. I don’t want to talk about it.” Jason answers Tim’s unasked question.

“You should clean your injuries. I know some are still a bit open.” Tim starts.

Jason grumbles while rummaging through the galley, gesturing go on to Tim as he takes off his shirt and scrubs at the oil that soaked through.

Tim drags his laptop closer. “Murder or murder-suicide might be believable enough, but it’s too much of a chance. I’m thinking making a rogue a scapegoat.”

“Who’s even out of Arkham right now? I don’t think anyone will believe Ivy killed us.”

“I was thinking break someone out who wants us both dead.” Tim watches for Jason’s reaction.

Jason freezes. “That Two Face wannabe. Do they have a name yet?”

“Apparently not high enough on Gotham’s radar to get a catchy nickname yet.”

“You know the… remains… will have to be believable, right? Matching wounds and all? We’re going to have to either carve ourselves or each other up. We can’t chance that someone hasn’t seen your injuries and never mentioned them. Your secret will be out, Tim.”

Tim’s silent for a long moment. “I’ve fought so hard for so long to keep them a secret. It won’t matter when I’m dead.”
“We shut down the cameras, then we free the Two Face wannabe from Arkham, which should be straightforward.

“Batman and Oracle are already in their system so it will be no problem to open the right doors. Then we just get the clones in our suits, and set up one of your other warehouses. All we have to do is put convincing duplicate injuries on each of them. I know we both have scars that should have been lethal, so we’ll make sure those would have been if the clones were viable.”
“With the cameras down in Gotham, it will be hard for the bats to track them down or find any kind of alibi, and there will be too much evidence in favor of the wannabe having killed us.”

“Either way, there will be enough evidence that we’re dead, they won’t be able to dispute it.”

Weeks later, in the warehouse, Tim breaks the comfortable silence.

“Why did you never tell me to stop?” He asks.

Jason knows he hasn’t been sleeping. The waiting is the hardest part- the plan is in place. A kill switch for most of the cameras in Gotham is ready at a second’s notice, the paperwork transferring ownership of the boat months ago has been fabricated, routes and provisions for the trip are secured, bomb components are manufactured and are stored in a nondescript warehouse.

All that’s left is waiting for the clones to finish growing.

It’s torture.

Tim bounces between checking the progress on the clones, to running through the cameras programming, to obsessing over communication logs between the Bats. He cracks more cameras as he goes.

Jason suspects Tim’s overtired brain is muddying his filter, for him to be asking Jason that question. Probably using it as a distraction to keep him alert.

Jason blows a long breath through his lips. “What right did I have? At least some of your other scars are from me, so it’s not like it’s my place to tell you not to add to them.

“And what could I say that would be any different than what you’ve pictured the others telling you over and over again in your head? That it’s more risky because of your missing spleen? That you need different coping mechanisms? That you already pick up a lot of injuries on patrol and you shouldn’t add to that?

“It’s a symptom, so whatever is going on in your head is the bigger issue. I can’t help much there, so I’ll just try to avoid making things too much worse.”

Tim scuffed a hand through his damp hair. “I… I knew Dick wouldn’t send me to Arkham. I mean, logically I knew that.

The jump in topics sends Jason reeling to keep up.

“But it brought up some bad memories. It was after my mother died, while my dad was still in a coma, I did something stupid. Insomnia was nothing new to me, but with everything going on, and living with Bruce, I wanted to seem… normal. So I stayed out of trouble and didn’t use any of my typical coping mechanisms. I figured I’d deal, by distracting myself and medicating.

One night, I hadn’t slept more than a couple hours in a week. So I took a couple OTC sleep aids, then a couple of a different kind, then more when they wouldn’t work.

“Long story short, I OD’d and panicked. Could barely stand up, was having a hard time breathing. Called Bruce back from patrol, he took me to the ER, and they thought I tried to kill myself. When your in the ER and they decide you tried to kill yourself, they stop treating you like a person. They said I wasn’t allowed to leave, couldn’t have my phone, wasn’t even allowed to wear my own clothes. My options were to either explain myself to Bruce or be committed. When I hesitated, they went with committed until I panicked for ten minutes and called them back in, that I would explain myself to Bruce.

“So when Dick wanted to get me help, all I could think about was how I had all control stripped from me, how I was treated like a problem, not a person, and I couldn’t let that happen again. And the fact that I wear a mask, that Bruce already worried about the things I did to get him back, it wouldn’t have surprised me in that moment if I were sent to Arkham. Even though deep down, I knew Dick would never let that happen.”

This feels like a confessional Jason was never meant to hear.

But why not? Jason and Tim had their secrets pried out by each other, knew each other’s dark sides. Why not have one confession be in Tim’s control?

Chapter Text

They’ve fallen into a routine, Tim and Jason. At the end of the bat’s day, or very early in most normal people’s days, they would go to the warehouse to check on the clone’s growth.

As the days go by, Tim gets more and more anxious. He spends more time running tests on the clones, more time staring at data on a computer screen, more time not sleeping.

Jason chalks it up to second guessing their plan. He doesn’t want to think about how there’s a third prescription bottle Tim’s been dipping into more and more.

Jason’s considered finding a way to get a couple of cots or a mattress or something to the warehouse so there could be the slightest chance he could convince Tim to get some sleep, however futile that attempt might be.

When Tim’s not in the warehouse obsessing over clones, he’s up in the cockpit of the boat obsessing over cameras and the logistics of breaking the Two Face wannabe out of Arkham.

He didn’t even scoff at Jason’s joking suggestion that they just go in there guns blazing.

It’s been just under three weeks. Jason has been avoiding the clones as much as possible. There’s something about them that sits in a deeply wrong way to him. He’s taken to bringing a book or his laptop to occupy himself while Tim works, reviewing Tim’s Arkham breakout plan for deficiencies or drafting goodbye letters that will never see the light of day.

Tim’s kill switch is complete, able to knock out ninety percent of the cameras in Gotham by sending one command. The boat’s engine has been tested when they took it out for a spin around Gotham Harbor, and runs smoother than it did when Tim bought it. Tanks are full, and every spare space on the boat is full of food. And medical supplies.

Jason is under no illusions that this will be a clean break for Tim.
All that’s left is to break the person who tortured them out of Arkham and set up the clones in a believable way.

Tim smashes his fist against the cloning chamber. "Fuck! This isn't going to work!"

Jason jerks and looks up at the contents, really taking in what he’s only seen out of the corner of his eye for the first time. The limbs of the thing are distorted, clumpy masses of flesh twisted in on itself. It turns Jason’s stomach. There are extra fingers. No eyes. Teeth where there shouldn’t be teeth.

Tim storms to the power supply, jerking it free of the wall. The chamber goes dark, but Tim has been running on no sleep, too many stimulants, and desperation for too long. "This was our only way out." He smashes both his fists against the glass.

Jason watches, waiting for him to exhaust himself enough to hear reason again. They can find another way. They can call it all off.
But Tim's too full of frantic energy, slamming his palms against the chamber, harder this time. And again. And again.

Jason stands as Tim throws his shoulder against it with more force. The thing sways on its platform before it tilts, smashing against the floor, a metallic sweet smell filling the air, the distorted mass of flesh adrift in shards of glass.

"Tim!" Is all Jason can get out before he flings himself at the other chamber, the slightly less mangled clone of Tim looking almost viable as it's sent crashing to the floor as well, the chamber's power cord tearing free of the chamber with sparks.

Tim crouches in front of his would-be clone, it now covered in lacerations bleeding thinly. "They'll never believe it if there aren't bodies." He says, burying his face in arms crossed over his knees.
He's quiet for a long time, and Jason wouldn't put it past him to fall asleep like that. Or pass out.

Jason swallows against the nausea as his boots crunch over the glass shards, keeping just out of reach of Tim.

"Remains."

"What?" Tim asks, voice still muffled by his arms.

"They'll believe it if there are significant remains. That's why the clones, more than just blood evidence that's easily faked. I know the plan was to frame the Two Face wannabe, make it look like he finished the job, but there are other options."

Tim tilts his head so he can look up at Jason.

"You've been awake too long." Jason says, not unsympathetically. "The clones have bone, tissue. Right?"

Tim nods.

Jason's stomach turns at the thought, but he continues. "We'll wrap them up in our suits, remove any parts of them that might give away that they're clones, and blow them up. I," he gestures vaguely to the mass of his DNA on the ground, "was closer to the blast, so there will be fewer remains to recover anyway. They'll believe that- that I either screwed up a build or blew us up out of spite or revenge or whatever they think motivates me these days. There will be enough genetic material that they'll believe it."

Tim's eyes focus on the distance, brow furrowing as he tried to think through possible pitfalls and failure points.

Jason interrupts him. "Look, you need sleep. Take a couple of whatever heavy duty sleeping pills I know you have stashed somewhere, and come back to it in the morning." Morning being a vague term. Jason was just desperate for Tim to get some sleep.

Tim slowly rises to his feet. "That might work." He kicks at the mess at his feet. "I'm not going to be able to sleep until I figure this out, though."

Jason grabs Tim by the shoulders and steers him towards the boat. "Hence the sleeping pills."

Red Hood wasn’t hiding. He was standing openly on the rooftop, looking over the city, like he was waiting.

Batman alighted on the rooftop behind him, heavy enough that he knew Hood was aware of his presence. “Hood, final warning. Leave him alone.”

Jason sighed heavily, dropping to sit on the ledge, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He allowed his head to duck forward. Everything about his body language was unnerving to Bruce, and it took him a moment to realize why.

Jason wasn’t on guard. He wasn’t keeping Bruce in his sight lines, he wasn’t standing, ready, with the nearest escape routes planned. His shoulders were caved, and the bow of his head looked almost like he was baring his neck for the executioner's axe.

“I get it Bruce. I mean, I think I always did, mostly. Not… not right after I came back, but I was half out of my mind with rage then, and Talia had gotten my head all tangled up, but after everything with the kid, I think I get it more now.” Jason’s voice was dispassionate, but Bruce couldn’t tell if it was him or the helmet’s distortion.

“You have to be safe. No matter who someone is, they have to feel like they’re safe with you. That you’ll protect them from whoever is out there who is worse than them.” Jason absently lifted a hand to rub his throat.

“And that’s not just for the bad guys, it’s for the people trapped in bad situations. And for the kids who think they’re fucked up and evil inside, but they’ll still know you won’t hurt them too bad. I understood that, once I got my head on straight again.”

“But you still…” Bruce trailed off.

Jason seemed lost in his head, but half heard him.

“I understood that. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t be like that. Sometimes, the only way to save someone is to kill someone else. And I have, saved people.”

Bruce wanted to reassure him, to acknowledge that he had saved people, that he had done good for people, but he couldn’t find the words. He helplessly watched as Jason continued, unable to even see his face.

“But…” Jason seemed to consciously lower his hand from his neck, dropping it limply to his lap. “The blood doesn’t feel any better on my hands than it would yours. That’s not why I do this, not why I do it like this. I don’t enjoy it. I hate it, and I can’t forget any of it. But I do it because someone has to, and someone has to keep their hands clean, and I’m already a lost cause. I came back a lost cause. We both already know where I went when I died, and there’s sure as hell no way that’s changed.” There’s a crackle of static that might have been a huff of laughter.

“Anyway.” Jason pushes himself to his feet, some of his Jasonness coming back. “I get it, there’s no need for any more of this.” He gestures between himself and Bruce.

“Good talk, old man. Let’s not do this again.” Jason touches two fingers to his helmet, and flings himself off the roof, catching himself on the rail of the opposing fire escape, kicking off to land in a roll across the top of a dumpster and hitting the ground running.
Bruce doesn’t follow.

Throughout Jason's Robin training, Bruce had always emphasized thinking first before fighting, before going after anyone. Have all the information to make sure you are going after the right person, and to know exactly how the fight will play out before it even happens.
Jason learned the methods, but didn't like them.

He was better at adapting than planning.

They’re on a short timetable now.

They have to leave before the decay sets in.

“Alright Tim, your turn to sit back and relax, we’re in my wheelhouse now.” Jason says, once his contacts have come through and provided him with the massive quantities of bomb components he needed.

Jason had cleaned up the remnants of the destroyed cloning chambers after Tim had gone to bed to try to sleep, overfilling a dumpster with twisted metal and shattered glass.

Now, where the cloning chambers had once sat, Jason was carefully measuring and mixing chemicals, tracing and retracing wiring, calculating blast radiuses. The clones blindly watch him from the wall Jason had dragged them to while cleaning up.

It feels so much like when he first came back from the dead, that sometimes he loses himself in it, startled to look over his shoulder to see Tim on his laptop, or dozing. Or doing unspeakable things to the clones.

Jason shudders as he hears the squeaking wrench of bones as Tim pulls the wrong teeth from Jason’s clone.

He should have known this wouldn’t work right. No one had ever tried to clone someone brought back by a Lazarus Pit before.
Jason cautiously shakes boxes of nails and screws into the bomb’s casing. There has to be as much shrapnel as possible to hide what Tim’s doing to his body right now.

The smell of blood fills the air. Jason pretends the metallic tang is the chemicals he’s working with.

He can’t pretend away the noises, though.

With the sick motivation of an ouroboros, Jason wires the bomb to a bright red digital clock.

“You finished?”

Jason jumps, too enthralled by the red numbers to have heard that the horrific noises had stopped.

“Yeah.” Jason says, unsure of how much time he’s lost. “We’re at the eleventh hour. Last chance to back out, Tim.”

Tim’s hands are covered in blood. “I can’t. Do you want to?” He asks quietly.

Jason feels the suffocation of Gotham, feels the haunting of the downward spiral. Feels the knife to his throat. “No.”

Chapter Text

Two Robins stood in front of the bomb.

Jason thought it was better this way, more symmetrical. Finishing what was supposed to happen all those years ago, for good.

Tim was lost in his own last moments. Brightly colored memories flashed through his head, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember any of the bad ones, any of the ones that led him here.

He remembered the pride of saving Batman and Nightwing from Two Face, the stunted way Bruce showed he cared, the lives he saved.

His mouth went dry, his hands went numb. He didn't want to do this anymore. He couldn't do this.

He hadn't said goodbye. He knew he wouldn't be able to without giving something away, so he hadn't said goodbye. Not to Bruce, or Dick. Not Barbara or Steph, Cass, or the Titans. Not even Alfred.

And he was never going to see any of them again.

His younger self is screaming at him, he's undoing everything that he worked for since he first came to Batman to stop him from burning through Gotham's criminal world.

But it's worse than that- last time It hadn't been Tim's fault that Jason had been taken from them. This time, it is.

But there is a quieter version of his younger voices. It reminds him of his sixteenth birthday, of the loss of Steph, the fear that he had killed a man and the numbness to that idea that had grown with time. Losing the Robin mantle, being nearly killed by someone wearing the colors he had saved lives in.

"We doing this or not?" Jason growls.

The bodies should be dressed in yellow, red and green.

Tim pulls out his phone and sends the final command, shutting down cameras across the city. He pauses, almost expecting screaming, chaos. The city drones on. It takes time, but soon his phone is lighting up with alarm calls from Oracle and Batman, warning to keep your eyes open, that something big is happening.

"Cameras are down." Tim answers.

Jason connects the timer to the bomb.

"Let's get out of here.”

A morbid part of Tim wishes he had set up cameras, wants to watch the explosion and the aftermath, to be sure it works.

But instead, they walk away. Back through the city to the marina.

Gotham has never looked more beautiful.

The warehouse was on fire when Batman arrived, fearing that this was just the beginning. Oracle’s cameras going down was the calm before the storm, and he knew he was in for a long night. He’d called Nightwing from Bludhaven, and started investigating the warehouse. Searching for survivors caught in the blast.

He had hoped he was wrong when he caught the scent of charred meat underneath the smoke and chemical odor. He had hoped he was just preparing for the worst.

He couldn’t have prepared for this.

The smell was gone now that he was breathing through a respirator, and the burning wreckage made more shadow than light as he systematically searched- both for survivors, and the source of the blast.

A flash of red tangled in the rubble caught his attention. A shard of red metal. He would know that color anywhere, but no, Jason wasn’t here. He was fixated on how much it looked like Jason’s helmet, though.

There was another shard. There was something burnt to it.
Further ahead in the smoke, he saw it. A mangled, burnt hand, sticking out from a small pile of rubble.

Batman’s logic was failing him. The pile of rubble was too small to obscure the rest of Jason’s body, but it wasn’t Jason, despite the helmet fragments.

It was too small to hide the body of anyone.

He shifted a piece of concrete to uncover charred bone. The arm had been severed in the blast.

Jason could still be alive, though. He had to be.

An indistinct shape is curled beneath fallen debris. Bruce stumbles to his knees, brushes the dust off the charred flesh. The victims clothes are melted past the point of recognition, facial features burnt and peeling back from a garish smile.

Bruce forces the rigored jaw down, snapping a picture of the teeth.

“Oracle, need dental ID on a victim of the warehouse bombing, sending picture now.”

“Thank god, I’m making no headway on the cameras. Whoever did this is good. It’s torture sitting here not being able to see.”

Bruce steps away from the body, back to where he first saw the red in the rubble, waiting for results.

He pieces together two more fragments of what is now undeniably Jason’s helmet. The awful truth of it settles in his chest.

“Oracle, what’s taking so long.”

Her voice is subdued when she answers. “I started with public criminal records and didn’t find anything, so I checked against private files on the batcomputer’s database.

Bruce’s heart sinks, already knowing what he’s going to hear.

“Bruce, it’s Tim.”

Bruce is frozen, staring down at the red fragments in his hands.

“That can’t be right.” He says quietly to himself.

There’s another fragment at his feet, not red. White, charred to black around the edges.

He doesn’t remember choosing to leave the warehouse, just finds himself leaning heavily against a shipping container, fighting the urge to take off the respirator because he doesn’t want to smell it.

“Whew, someone forgot to turn their stove off.” Nightwing alights silently next to him. “What are we looking at here?”

Bruce can’t tell him.

“B?”

“Two victims of a bomb blast.” He forces out.

“Do we have IDs on them?”

Bruce nods.

Nightwing waits. “You going to make me guess?”

“Dick,” Bruce turns to face him, seeing a quip about names die as Dick sees his expression. “It was Jason. And Tim.”

The boat’s engine coughs to life, sputtering for a gut wrenching moment before catching rhythm.

“Bowline.” Tim calls from the cockpit. The boat’s bow swings out as Jason throws it onboard.

“Sternline.”

Jason throws the sternline, leaping onboard as the boat eases out of the marina.

He looks back at the darkening skyline of the city, the city that made him. They’re at the mouth of the river when the bomb goes off. A faint thud, that from this distance could be construction noise, or fireworks.

Because Jason knows where to look, he can see the buildings close to the warehouse glowing, and the plume of smoke rising thick and black like another skyscraper.

The sirens start shortly after, and Jason watches their progress as the flashing lights converge on the wreckage.

Tim is probably obsessively listening to the communications, but Jason can’t bring himself to go join him. He watches as though he’s going to be able to see Batman arrive.

Eventually, when he can no longer see the plume of smoke, Jason finally turns his back on Gotham.

Tim’s staring stoically through the windscreen when Jason enters

“They weren’t-” Tim clears his throat. “They weren’t awful.”

“Dick, he… he’s the reason I became Robin. He tried so hard to be there for me when I needed it. And Bruce, he tried to be there too. When I was a kid, he was so worried about overstepping, but he still tried.”

Jason kept quiet. Didn’t mention that Tim still wasn’t much more than a kid. Didn’t bring up Tim’s 16th birthday, or the suffocating way they tried to be there for Tim to prevent him from going down whatever dark path they saw.

Jason kept quiet, because the kid was mourning, as though it was Bruce and Dick who died, not them.

The motor was a comforting hum below them as they reached the open ocean, sun setting ahead of them, wavering like fire on the horizon.