Archive of Our Own ^beta

The thud of Jason’s boots hitting the roof was intentionally audible, but the kid didn’t spare him a glance—well, he said kid. Tim was…eighteen? Nineteen, maybe? He hadn’t really made the effort to get to know birthdays after he’d come back, and it had yet to become a big enough problem for him to start learning. 

Tim’s legs were dangling over the edge of the building, cape sprawled over the roof behind him. It was new—the whole costume was, if Jason wasn’t mistaken.

“New suit,” he commented, and Tim turned for the first time. In profile, his mask was sharp, evoking the image of a beak.

“Thought I’d see if it held up in the real world,” Tim said, which…yeah, Jason wasn’t going to ask.

“Not a very Robin look,” Jason noted, and Tim shrugged.

”Probably past time, right?” He shifted, and Jason’s eyes caught on the line of red running down his arm, all the way to his fingertips, a clear nod to Dick’s fingerstripes. He couldn’t really make a joke about looking to Dick for fashion advice, not when he’d taken the original Robin costume with barely a change, and before he could figure out a way to comment on it, his attention was grabbed by Tim shifting and—

“Are you hiding on a fucking rooftop to smoke?” Tim shrugged again, breathing out a stream of smoke. “Dick was worried this was some stakeout you’d need help with.”

“It was a stakeout,” Tim said—pointedly not addressing anything else. “But Dimaccio’s apparently not around tonight, so I definitely don’t need help.”

“And you’re still here because…” Tim snorted a laugh.

“Because it seemed like a decent place to hide and smoke, Jason. Keep up.”

He took another drag of the cigarette—which was nearly a stub, Jason noticed—and blew out directly into Jason’s face (or, well, what would have been his face if he didn’t have his helmet on).

“Fuck you—since when has this been a thing?” he gestured at the cigarette, and Tim’s brows lowered.

“Since when have you given a damn?” he shot back, a frown tugging at his mouth.

“Since dying of smoke inhalation,” Jason deadpanned, and even though the mask covered it, he swore he could sense Tim’s eyeroll.

“I meant about my life.”

“I care about your life,” Jason said, his tone more defensive than he meant it to be.

“Oh, sure,” Tim’s voice was laced with amusement. “The stabbing and cutting my throat really communicated care.”

“Jesus, Timothy, just answer the question.”

Tim held eye contact as he took another drag, and it was only after a slow exhale that he spoke.

“I dunno.”

“Sure, that’s definitely not a fucking lie.”

“God, Jason, what does it matter? Long enough.” Tim’s arms raised dramatically.

“Because if you’re having a breakdown, I’d rather know in advance.” It wasn’t even a lie—Tim’s crashout world tour had included art theft and espionage and the League, and even if it had been fine enough in the end, Jason would rather be aware of a repeat.

“I’m not having a breakdown,” Tim said drily.

“Convincing. Dick and B know about this?”

“Only you—congrats, you’re super special.” 

“Only me.” Jason couldn’t quite believe that Tim had managed to hide this from Babs and Alfred if it really was a long-term habit and not an in-the-moment act of rebellion, which he still wasn’t fully convinced of. Tim shifted slightly.

“You and Helena,” he adjusted, and Jason’s brows shot up.

“Huntress.”

“That’s the one. She’s a pain about it too—something about being too young to have two hobbies that could kill me.”

“How young, exactly?” Tim glared at him. “I’ll go ask her if you don’t tell me,” he added.

“Don’t you dare,” Tim spat—but, seeming to see that Jason wasn’t joking, he huffed a sigh. “I don’t know when it was, I didn’t save the date. I was…fourteen, probably?”

Fourteen—Jason stared at Tim, unsure of what to say.

“It wasn’t like, a pack a day or something. It was after the quake, and I was stressed, and—“ he shrugged, this one more defensive than anything “—Mom hated it, but Dad always smoked when he got stressed, said it calmed him down. And I thought—hey, maybe it would work. And Dana didn’t like him smoking either, and if a pack went missing, he just assumed that she’d thrown it away.” Tim’s words were matter-of-fact, but the way he was absently grinding the butt of his cigarette into the roof next to him belied any notion that he was calm about telling Jason this.

“And no one ever found out.”

“I just told you, Helena did.” Tim grimaced. “I stopped after that.”

“Clearly not,” Jason pointed out. 

“For like a year,” Tim amended.

“Why—“ Jason broke off, remembering a significant source of stress in fifteen-year-old Timothy Drake’s life. “Are you stupid? I know I fucked up your lungs.”

“I waited until they were mostly better,” Tim defended. “And it was only a couple times, before things started getting better, and I stopped again.”

Jason was sensing a theme.

“So what happened this time?” 

Tim looked confused at the question for a moment before understanding crossed his face. Jason raised a brow (not that Tim could see it).

“Nothing, really.”

“How are you this bad of a liar?”

“I’m a great liar,” Tim argued. He lifted the cigarette butt, seemingly surprised to see that it had been ground out. He grimaced, dropping his hand. “I guess it was because Steph died.”

Jason jolted in shock, but Tim kept going.

“And Kon and Bart, and my dad, and Bruce, and it was a lot, and…I mean, this definitely wasn’t my worst coping mechanism.”

“You’re talking about years ago,” Jason said, understanding dawning. “But—“ Tim smiled bitterly, anticipating his question.

“Things never really got…unstressful.”

“That’s not even a word.” The response was automatic—not because he actually cared about the point, but because it would annoy Tim, and that seemed like the fastest way to walk the conversation back from the too-real emotional space it was dancing on the edge of.

“Oh fuck off, Jason,” Tim said, real irritation bleeding into his tone. “Don’t you have literally anything else to do?” 

“Nope. Cleared my agenda for the night for you.”

“For Dick, you mean,” Tim corrected. “I never asked you to be here.”

The funny thing was, he sounded more annoyed when mentioning Dick than he had at any other point in the conversation—obviously so, like he was dangling it out as bait.

Jason bit.

“What’d Dick do to piss you off?”

Tim raised his brows, his face a perfect mask of befuddlement.

“What do you mean?” (And here was the thing—if Jason hadn’t just heard Tim’s voice when he said Dick’s name, he would’ve bought it: the tone, the expression…everything was perfectly tailored to sell the cover. So maybe the kid could lie after all. Also, maybe he was just annoyed at Dick and hadn’t hidden it well enough, and it hadn’t been bait. Oh well.)

“You tell me.”

Tim held his confusion for a few moments more and then slumped. 

“Dick thinks I should go to college,” he said, sounding for all the world like the words were being physically dragged out of him, which Jason would have found offensive if he and Tim had a history of ever sharing anything with each other. 

College didn’t sound like a terrible idea for Tim, to be honest, especially not if he wanted to keep getting more involved at WE, which his work with their charities seemed to suggest.

“Out of Gotham,” Tim added, before he could say anything, and—oh. That, Jason could see the issue with. 

For all that the two of them were different, and for all their different life experiences, both Tim and Jason were Gothamites at their cores. Sure, the others had all gotten used to Gotham, and they all loved it, but…even Stephanie had grown up in the suburbs, and Bruce had lived in Bristol his whole life. Tim might have lived in a nice place in the good part of town, but he’d spent his childhood in the city proper. Jason had overheard him talking to Cass once about how the moving to Bristol—first to stay with Bruce and then with his dad, once he’d woken up—had been jarring for him, how he’d stayed at their old place at Mooney Tower when he’d gotten the chance, wanting to be back in the bustle of the city. The idea of leaving the city long-term…yeah, Jason could imagine it hadn’t gone over well.

The thing was, if Jason knew that, Dick certainly had, and he’d still pitched it, which meant there was a reason. He must really, truly believe Tim needed it.

“Maybe he’s right,” Jason said, and Tim shot him a frankly poisonous look. 

“He thinks I should take time off from Robin while I do it, too.” Which…again, Dick was probably right, and probably aware that him preaching ‘take a break from vigilantism’ to anyone was hypocritical at best. Jason still winced slightly.

“Should you?” he asked, and Tim scowled, turning back toward the city. “You said you might be leaning away from Robin anyway,” he pointed out, gesturing at the suit. “You could take some time, cook up a new name…”

“I don’t need to take a break,” Tim snapped. “I’m doing fine." 

If Jason were Dick, he would have been ready with some well-meant response like ‘Sure, but are you doing good? Because I want you to be doing good.’ But he wasn’t Dick, and also he was pretty sure that if he said anything like that, tomorrow’s papers would have stories about Red Hood getting flung off a roof by an unknown assailant, so instead he just said, “Right.”

“I hate this family.” So Tim had seen through his absolutely paper-thin sheen of sincerity—ah, well.

“Sounds like something you should talk to your therapist about.”

“Sure—I’ll try to pencil in a meeting with Dinah next time I see her—‘course, that’s usually because the world’s about to end, so...”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it, none of us are getting help.” Tim had to talk to someone about things though, right? Jason had Roy and Kori, and Dick had Babs and Wally and…well, also Roy and Kori, who must be tired of hearing about their shit at this point. Tim had—“Talk to your boyfriend about it then.” 

Tim blinked.

“I mean…yeah, I’m going to talk to Bernard about potentially moving out of the city.”

“Who the fuck is Bernard? I thought your Super’s name was Conner.”

“Bernard’s my—wait what? I’m not dating Kon.” 

“You have a boyfriend named Bernard?”

“Why did you think I was dating Conner?”

(Tim was red, and his voice was pitched up slightly, and he looked five seconds away from dropping off the building and grappling away. Interesting. Jason filed that away for later use.)

“I mean, I was joking,” Jason said. “But again, Bernard?

“Yes, Jason, Bernard. This isn’t new information.”

“New to me—please tell me you call him Bernie. God, that would make my night.”

“No. Also, you can’t talk. Your boyfriend’s name is Roy,” Tim deadpanned, and Jason rolled his eyes.

“We’re not dating.”

“Okay.” Jason braced himself, because there was no way Tim was giving in that quickly. “Sorry, I was never in touch with these things—what are they calling it when your friend’s kid calls you ‘Papa’ now?”

“Things like this are why your parents didn’t love you.”

“Hey—not fair to set me up for a comeback I can’t make.” (Bruce and Alfred had declared jokes about Jason’s death off-limits. It had affected no one more than it had Jason, which seemed like bullshit, but Tim had been second-most affected, and he’d eventually had to cut them out altogether because he kept slipping up around the others. Moments like this almost made it all worth it.) 

“You can’t win ‘em all.”

“You certainly didn’t,” Tim muttered, and Jason gasped.

“Oh, I am so telling Alfie,” he said, gleeful. Tim’s eyes narrowed.

“Do it—I’ll tell everyone about the safehouse on Porter you’ve been using to duck out of conversations during patrol.”

Damn. He’d really thought no one knew about that.

“Do that and I’ll tell Dick you’ve been smoking since you were fourteen—no!” He grinned. “I’ll tell Steph.”

Tim made a face. Dick would be concerned, but he’d also keep it quiet, approach Tim one-on-one. Steph would call him a dumbass in front of everyone and generally be a menace about it, both because that was how Steph and Tim were about each other and because she would know it would be more effective.

“I’ll do the overhaul on your system security you’ve been putting off asking Babs to help with.”

It took Jason a moment to register that this was a bribe instead of a threat.

“You—wait, for real? Hell, yes, I’ll take that deal.”

“Good—not a word, then.” 

And, okay—maybe a good older brother would have hesitated, or been more concerned, but Tim was an adult who was fully aware of the meaning of fuck around and find out, and the two murder attempts made them both felt weird saying they were brothers anyway, no matter how shockingly well they’d moved past them. And Jason really did need that system overhaul.

“Not a word,” he agreed. “Don’t think I’ll need to say anything, if this is your idea of discretion.”

“It was only you,” Tim said. “I figured you’d be chill about it.”

“I was chill about it.” Tim shot him a disbelieving look, and Jason spread his hands. “I was—didn’t even shake you down to get the rest of the pack from you and lecture you about it being a bad choice for your long-term health.”

“Wow—have you considered being a spokesman for the truth campaign?”

“I mean, ‘I died from smoke inhalation and it sucked’ would probably be a fresh new perspective.”

“Mm—not quite the same though. Might not be as convincing.” Tim shook his arms out slightly, looking back out over the city. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to take a look at things—I should be able to do most of the coding from my place, but I’ll want to be in person to run the update and deal with any troubleshooting.”

“Any shot you’ll come out of the mask?” Everyone knew Red Hood worked with the Bats by now, but one of them showing up to one of his bases still made some of his crew jumpy. Tim—who took it in turns with Dick to do just that, and knew how annoying Jason found this—gave him a sharp grin, the one they’d all copied from Dick when starting as Robin.

“I’ll consider it.” (Which meant that Jason had to be really nice to Tim this week, or absolutely not.)

“Your thoughtfulness knows no bounds,” he said drily, and Tim laughed instead of responding, pushing off the building with his feet and using his grapple to swing over to the building across the alley, where he threw a lazy salute before heading off over the rooftops, presumably toward wherever he’d parked his bike for the night.

Jason stood on the roof for another moment before heading over to the fire escape and heading down toward where he’d own bike, comming Dick as he walked.

“Hood? And trouble?”

“Nah—stakeout was a bust.” Jason hesitated for a second—he had promised to stay quiet, but Dick really should probably know. “Red’s headed home safe and sound.” 

He only felt a twinge of guilt, which he was easily able to push down by reminding himself that Tim was not only entitled to privacy but also operating with full permission to get his hands on Jason’s systems. (Admittedly, Dick’s sigh of relief made it a little worse, but still nowhere near enough for Jason to cave.)

“Thanks, Hood.”

“Sure.”

“See you tomorrow?” Right, Cass’s birthday. If Jason didn’t show up, Tim might actually plant a virus in his systems. (Not that Cass would really care that much—she and Jason were fine, but they weren’t exactly close. It was more the implied slight of skipping out on a birthday that would cause the issue.)

“Not until after dinner,” Jason landed on, deciding it would be acceptable timing. “I’ve got a meeting.”

“Boring.”

“That’s the hope.” Interesting meetings usually ended in Jason shooting people or getting shot at by people—or, most often, both—and he would really rather not have to deal with that before cake and ice cream.

“Ugh. See you then.” Not two seconds after Dick disconnected the line, Jason heard a sigh.

“Hello?”

“Just making sure you kept your mouth shut.”

“Jesus Christ, Tim, who taught you personal boundaries?” 

“My parents,” Tim answered easily. “But I mostly stopped listening to them once I started as Robin.”

“You’re worse than Babs.”

“Names on comms,” Tim chirped, as though they hadn’t just had a full conversation in uniform that included the names of nearly everyone in the family.

“You’re my least favorite sibling,” Jason decided. “I hope you go to college across the country and never come home to visit just so I get four years of peace and quiet.”

“Bold of you to assume I couldn’t destroy your peace and quiet from across the country.” He probably could, too.

“Remember when you said you hated this family?” Tim hummed in acknowledgment. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Look at us agreeing—peace in our time. Also, you’re in charge of ice cream tomorrow so get the good stuff and don’t be late.” 

And then, like the nuisance he was, Tim disconnected, leaving Jason standing next to his bike in silence, ninety percent sure Tim had just foisted his own job off onto him, but with no proof.

“Gonna plant packs of cigarettes in his room,” Jason muttered, getting on his bike and heading in for the night, trying to think of which stores had the best ice cream.

(God, he wished Bruce had stopped at two kids. Jason didn’t even know what kind of ice cream Cass liked.)

With a sigh, he started a call.

“This better not be you asking for backup, because unless you’re actively dying, I am not changing back out of my pajamas to come save your ass.”

“Hello to you too, Stephanie.” 

“That’s a Bruce Wayne-ass response, Jason.”

“Fuck you, too. And this isn’t about patrol. Apparently, I’m in charge of ice cream…”