Chapter Text
Tim is just. Staring. Right at Jason, through the glass. He doesn't have the freaky Joker smile anymore like Jason had seen in the files on the Batcomputer, and his hair is back to normal, but he's still unnaturally pale. Not quite Joker-pale, though, so maybe he's getting better.
And he's not laughing, so maybe the improvements aren't just physical.
"Hey," Jason says. Tim's stare doesn't waver. He doesn't move at all, in fact, and Jason's sure the kid is catatonic for all that he seems to notice his presence, but then he licks his dry lips.
"Hi," he says back. The only part of him that moves is his mouth. It's really weirding Jason out.
"I heard—I only just found out you were in…here," he says lamely. He really should have prepared more for this conversation.
"Why do you care?" He says it so dryly that it’s almost like he’s reading from a script. Asking because that’s what a normal person would do.
Jason deserves that. "I'm sorry for being an asshole before."
Tim shrugs, finally, and seems to shift more into…normal-human mode. He's still staring, but he's blinking, and his body is making all of the normal little micro movements a normal body should. Some of the tension in Jason's muscles eases.
Then he remembers why he's here and it comes back tenfold. It would have been easier to give this news to a freaky robot person.
"So…I don't know how to—I have bad news."
"Batman's dead," Tim says. "I know."
Wait. "What?" That isn't supposed to be public information.
"Is it supposed to be a secret? All the other inmates are talking about it. Eddie is upset because he doesn't have anyone to play with anymore. The Harvey part of Two-Face is sad. I think everyone is sad."
That's…Oh. That actually, weirdly, makes sense.
"No offense," Tim continues in a tone that suggests he doesn't care at all if Jason is offended, "but why are you coming to tell me?"
Jason opens his mouth, then closes it. How does he explain to this kid that he came because he didn't think anyone else would bother telling him about Bruce's death and Jason feels like a piece of shit for the stuff he's done to the kid and he feels bad that everyone else seems to have abandoned him so he’s taken up the responsibility himself? "I looked at your visitors log."
And Tim immediately gets it. "Oh." He settles back into robot mode and looks like a porcelain doll again.
"Has anyone…snuck in since you’ve been here? To see you?" He really hopes so. There isn't a single name on the visitor's log for the kid's entire stay. Not even Bruce, or Dick, or Alfred. It’s been over a year.
Tim just shakes his head. Jason feels bad for poking at an open wound.
This is probably a bad idea. The kid isn't stable. Jason isn't stable. "You wanna get out of here?"
Tim looks at him warily. "You just want me out of here so you can kill me."
"I said I was sorry." And he really, really is. And he'll probably never be able to convince Tim of that, but that's not going to stop him from trying.
Tim looks at him for a long time before shrugging. "Fine. I don't really care if you kill me, anyway."
That's not healthy, but Jason has no right to judge for so many reasons.
By the next night, Tim is out of Arkham.
— —
Jason will admit he didn't really…have a plan past breaking Tim out of that hellhole. It had really only been a ghost of an idea when he'd gone in to see the kid, but once he saw him he couldn't just leave him there like that.
He thinks maybe he'd planned on breaking him out since the second he'd known he was there.
No wonder no one had visited him. Out of sight, out of mind.
And now he has a mentally and emotionally unstable seventeen-year-old torture victim following him around like a duckling.
Tim has been on his heels since he'd stepped foot on free ground. He doesn't seem at all interested in being alone.
Jason has things to do. What has he gotten himself into?
"So…" he says a few days after they've left Arkham and he thinks Tim might be at least a little over the shock of being his own person again. Maybe. "Where do you plan on going now that you're free?"
Tim blinks up at him. Jason maybe should have chosen another day, now that he's looking in his eyes and realizing Tim isn't really present today. He seems to float in and out of lucidity like this. He really probably should not be on his own. And Jason got himself into this mess.
He sighs. "Nevermind. Do you want to take a nap?" Tim nods. The kid's stamina is abysmal. He'd been drugged to high hell and locked in an 8'x8' box for over a year. He can hardly stay awake.
And that's a problem—the drugs. It's been three days and he's going to start experiencing withdrawal symptoms very soon. Probably within the day—Jason's surprised that he hasn't already. He's going to have to hack into Arkham's databases and figure out what drugs they had the kid on and then he's going to have to break into a pharmacy. He can't just cut him off cold turkey.
Taking care of this kid is going to be a hassle. He's going to have to figure out how to juggle Tim and Red Hood business; he might even have to step back a bit depending on whether or not Tim ends up being able to be left alone for any period of time without either hurting himself or other people.
He has the brief thought that he could just dump the kid on someone else's doorstep.
Then he reminds himself that no one came to visit him. Not a single one of his so-called friends or family. No way is he leaving him with one of those assholes.
Well. Fuck.