Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Tim gets five days.

He never figured his peace would stretch this long, but he can’t help but mourn once it’s over, something curling heavy in his chest. These days haven’t been easy, not by a long shot, the air thick with tension and a scent like gunpowder, but they were his. His and Jason’s.

Jason hasn’t left the apartment, not since Tim had dragged him back there, that night at the warehouses everything felt so fragile, like he was choking on all the broken pieces. He just sits around, cooks for Tim, reads his books. Tim knows it must be driving him crazy- hell, Tim hasn’t been on patrol in long enough, too, he can feel it settled like an itch in his bones. But Jason doesn’t show it. He’s acting like nothing’s real outside their little apartment, like there aren’t big bad elephant-in-the-room type problems that make him cry out at night, shaking and stifled against a pillow.

It’s a far cry from healthy. Tim’s not stupid; he knows that- Tim isn’t healthy either. But they’ve been figuring it out, is all, figuring each other out again, and the progress is there, and now it’s being disturbed he feels so goddamned scared.

Two days ago, Jason had walked out the bedroom in his old uniform, jacket against his shoulders like a second skin. He’d looked at himself, reflected in the darkness of the window, eyes full of something unknowable. Tim had watched, half-asleep, stretched out on the couch. He’d felt so full of worry, felt like he should say something but fuck-knows-what. Everytime he pauses to think about how out of his depth he is, trying to piece Jason together, barely holding together himself, there’s a horrible feeling deep in his lungs like drowning; like they’re full of tar. He hadn’t let himself fall into it, hadn’t known what to say so had stood, pressed himself all up against Jason, mouth open against his neck until, in the window, Jason looked a tiny bit less lost. It’s a small victory. Probably.

“What’re you doing in that, Jay?” he’d asked, voice quiet.

Jason had closed his eyes, a hand going to his forehead, the other arm wrapping around Tim’s shoulders. Anchoring them together, in the midst of some storm Tim can’t see.

“Trying to- to figure stuff out, I guess,” he’d breathed out, heavy. “I'm not patrolling, not yet, I don’t wanna-”

“See any bats,” Tim had supplied. “I get it.”

There was something else that needed to be said, there. Something that meant there’s no obligation for you to figure anything out, Jay. You don’t owe anything to anyone. You can be anyone you want to be, and there’s nothing the bats or anyone else can do to stop you, and I will always be here to support you, because I love you, and as somebody who loves you I need you to understand that you need more help than I can give you, but Tim couldn’t find the goddamn words.

Two days later he still hasn’t found them, and though things get just a little easier every day, as Jason winds down, he’s worried that time is up now, that he’ll leave again and Tim will never have been able to make him understand how precious he is. How loved.

Tim’s had five days, five days of quiet footsteps and slow, careful kisses, but the world’s caught up with him now.

As in: Nightwing is on his fire escape.

The door is locked; he’s been trying to dissuade Jason from smoking out there. It’s probably a lost cause. The first time he had brought it up, Jason had said ‘what’re they gonna do? Kill me?’ and his smile had been like broken glass, an ugly, ugly thing. They haven’t really talked about that, much, either: that Jason is a dead man walking. Tim wants to know, burns to know, but if there’s one thing he’s capable of doing for Jason it’s respecting his boundaries; God knows the guy deserves it after everything.

And now Dick is here, let’s be honest, probably to trample all over that and then try and hug someone.

He moves into Dick’s line of sight so the fucker will stop tapping on their window. Jason is in the shower but he’s got the instincts and senses of something deadly. He’ll know someone is here, probably already knows who. But the rushing sound of running water doesn’t cut off. That’s reassuring. Tim thinks?

Dick brightens the second he sees Tim, and it makes Tim soft, for a moment, but he isn’t dissuaded. He comes up to the glass so Dick can read his lips and says ‘No.’

Dick blinks at him. He’s taken the domino off, which. Urgh.

“No.” It probably bears repeating.

Dick makes a helpless gesture, and fuck, hello puppy eyes. Tim makes a noise that’s probably best classed as a growl and opens the window, freezes Dick in place with a look. Tim doesn’t put it past him to try and clamber through.

“Timmy,” Dick starts, then pauses. Thinking before he speaks, huh- miracles do occur. “Tim. I- I promise I'm not here to fuck things up.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. He can’t tell if it’s a promising start.

Dick twists his mouth. “I, uh- we- we don’t want to come storming in here and messing with stuff we don’t understand,” he says, a thin length of glass and politeness away from storming in here and messing with stuff he doesn’t understand.

“We?” Tim says, flat. “Bruce said that?”

“Bruce- look, he didn’t argue when I said it, okay?”

Tim looks at him some more. Without the domino he seems so terrifyingly young, not so much older than him and Jay after all. There’re bags under his eyes, and a crease at his forehead, like maybe he hasn’t been sleeping so well. It occurs to Tim for the first time that maybe Dick has thought this through, maybe he really is trying to be careful.

Tim lets out a big breath. “If you’re not here to force your presence on Jason, what’re you here for?”

Dick looks at him, wounded. “Timmy, you’re my little brother too, yeah?”

Oh, yeah. Tim’s brain has possibly been running on preservative measures for a little too long. It’s hard to think of your own life, your own future, when there’s a dead boy curled up around you.

“I'm going to make you some tea,” he tells Dick. “You can drink it out there.”

“Alfred’s going to be very ashamed of how you treat your houseguests!” Dick calls after him, as he moves the short distance towards the tiny kitchen. The shower cuts off as Tim dumps teabags into mugs, methodically pours the hot water. He’s trying hard not to let the cracks show in front of Dick, to not give the man even a hint of how overwhelmed he is, but a chill of worry settles against his chest even so. It’s a small apartment; if Jason enters the kitchen they’ll see each other and Tim doesn’t know how that confrontation will work out. He’s so far past having contingency plans for any of this.

He passes Nightwing his mug, and the man curls his hand around it, introspective, not actually drinking. Tim does the mental equivalent of rolling his eyes. Ungrateful fucker.

“There,” he says, “tea. Alfred would be happy.”

Dick smiles, and it’s a little tight but all too familiar. It’s also a relief, Tim finds, a smile so easy, so uncomplicated. He feels a little like he’s betraying Jason and it stabs at his gut.

“Yeah, well. He likes you better anyway. You make less of a mess and clean up after yourself, most days.”

Tim snorts. “I'm a fucking delight. If it’s any condolence, he probably prefers you to Damian.”

“Oh, wow,” says Dick, “so at least I'm not the least favourite child, right? Is that what you’re saying?”

Tim laughs, and it’s easy, and he remembers for a flash that he’d begun to get his family back right before everything had slid away from him.

Dick’s laughing too, but then his eyes go glassy for a second, and he says, “but, uh. Don’t get cocky. I'm pretty sure Jason was always his favourite.”

The name hangs in the air between them, heavy like the sky falling. Tim smiles, sad. “Yeah, I believe you. You should go, Dick.”

Dick’s shoulders slump, a little, his voice resigned. “I just got here.”

When Tim doesn’t reply he puts the mug down, untouched, on the metal railing of the fire escape. Fixes his domino in place, slow and careful. Shoots a look backwards before diving into the dusky morning.

Tim waits, five beats, then lets the guard bleed out of his body. He slumps forward, pressing his forehead against the cold of the window. A weight shifts behind him.

“He’s right, you know,” Jason says from the doorway. “Alfred fucking loved me.” His tone is incidental, matter-of-fact, but when Tim turns to face him there’s something very fragile in the fractured light of his eyes.

“That so?” Tim smiles, tired, trying to force the fragility away with sheer willpower. “Anything to do with the fact that you’re the only one out of the four of us who could actually cook?”

Jason snorts, something looser in the set of his frame, leaning against the wall. “Couldn’t cook back then, babybird. I’d been on the streets for about four years, before they took me in- you think I knew which way ‘round a wok fucking went?”

“What, so it was just your charm?”

“Something like that.” Tim shuts the window, leaving Dick’s mug abandoned outside. He wanders back over to the kitchen area, pulling pathetically at cupboard doors and squinting at the contents. “And if you’re trying to flatter me into cooking, you really ain’t subtle.”

Tim makes big sad eyes at him, stomach growling convincingly even if his heart isn’t really in it. “Alfred would make me eggs.”

Jason looks stung. “First- that’s bullshit and you know it. Second- you shouldn’t have missed your chance to go crawling back to the manor with Dickieboy, then, should you?”

Tim frowns up at him, still a little sleep-hazed. It’s earlier than his previously-nocturnal schedule is used to, and Dick woke him up, goddamnit. “I don’t wanna go back to the manor, Jay, especially not for eggs. Especially when you’re right here…” He moves around the counter, plasters himself to Jason’s side, watches the pink spread across his cheeks, warm and alive. Jason’s arms go around him and he finds himself relaxing, despite everything. “Does it bother you?” he asks, unsure if he should just be biting his tongue.

“Nightwing being here?” Jason asks, voice a low rumble where Tim’s head is pressed against his throat. He makes Tim feel so small, still, and what’s scarier is that Tim likes it. “I guess I saw it coming.”

Tim shakes his head. “Not an answer, Jay.”

“I don’t know, man. It’s weird- everything is weird. Like, a week ago, I didn’t have to deal with any of them, I was sorting things out for myself, and now- now Dick is making house calls and Bruce is gonna start sending fruit baskets? They all think I'm their Jason, the one that died, but,” he cuts off, leaning heavier against Tim.

“Yeah,” says Tim. “But a week ago you still had to deal with me. And I'm not going anywhere.”

He knows Jason is raising an eyebrow, above him, the same way he could tell even when Jason was wearing the hood. “Deal with you?” he queries, a smirk thick in his voice. “Is that what we’re callin’ it?” Tim pulls back, blushing.

This close it’s impossible not to be drawn into Jason, golden in the morning light. He’s warm and clean and bright, impossibly alive. Tim’s only noticed recently, but the poliosis at Jason’s forehead, his bright white shock of hair, spreads down and out. His eyelashes are the colour of lace, like they’ve been dusted with powdered sugar, and half of his left eyebrow stands out, alabaster. Moreover, there’s discolouration ashen across the skin of his face, even traces of heterochromia in his eyes, splashes of jade. Tim knows he didn’t look this way before his resurrection, and the knowledge that this is Tim’s Jason, Tim’s alone, is buoyant in his chest. He can’t help but take him in, flawed and barefoot in their kitchen, theirs, and Tim can barely ride the surge of love that follows.

It must show in his face. Jason stops teasing, goes pink, moves to hide his face making eggs. Tim is so content it bubbles up inside of him, and he can’t stop smiling. He wonders at himself even minutes ago, missing his life at the manor. Okay, so there are bad days, so Jason is damaged in ways Tim can’t comprehend. So last night Tim stumbled upon a memory of Hood shooting at him, dark and furious, and sat up in a cold sweat. But he gets this. This is his.

So: it’s all okay. Everything is good. Tim Drake is fine.

His life doesn’t fall apart after five days, then. The scary part of that is now he has to figure out what he’s going to do next.

-----

‘just try to appreciate what you got, while you got it,

so if it ever goes away,

 you can say you enjoyed it while it lasted.’

-----

It’s mid-afternoon, their little apartment brimming with light. Jason’s full length is stretched out on the sofa, only in boxers, immersed in a crumbling copy of ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’. Tim is in front of him, on the floor, mid-routine. He’s starting his sit-ups and his tiny huffs of breath are the only sound in the room. Sweat beads at his neck and drips down his forehead; all of a sudden he can feel Jason’s eyes on him.

“Do you think he’ll come back,” Jason says, flat. His fingers are gripping the embellished cover of his book just a little too hard; Tim’s eyes are drawn to the creases. He sits up.

“Dick? Yeah, probably, Jay. I mean, I can tell him to fuck off to hell, and maybe he’ll even listen, but it’s a temporary solution. Every measure to keep them away would be temporary.”

“Not every measure,” Jay mutters, and Tim shoots him a reproachful look.

“They’re my family. They can be yours too- I know that’s what they want. But everything is up to you.” Tim doesn’t know why Jason is talking about it. Their whole thing is not talking about it; they’re great at that. He makes a grumbling noise, as if he doesn’t know himself.

Tim’s almost ready to go back to his routine when Jason speaks again. “Left thigh, and the shoulder on the same side, but just a graze.”

“What,” he replies, unsteady with the non-sequitur.

“That’s where I shot Nightwing,” Jason says, cool and blank, not looking at him. Oh. Right. “I was aiming for the chest, both times- he’s too fast. I could never tell if any of my shots on B got through his armour, ‘cause he doesn’t let it show. But there was that bomb under his car.”

Recognition stirs in Tim’s mind, hazy. “No, wait- I remember, I think. He was- Christ, he was furious, when he found it. He was scared. Somebody had bypassed all his systems, just to send a message- ‘I could kill you if I wanted’- but then never followed it up. It just hung over us.”

Jason looks pleased at the memory; always so fucking proud of Tim, it makes his heart beat weirdly. It quickly shifts to smugness- he’s still an asshole, after all.

“Right,” he says, shutting his book on his chest, turning his head to stare at Tim, eyes earnest. “And I fought you, a little, and I’ve shot at the demon before.”

“Right,” Tim repeats, uncertain. Jason looks at him like he’s missing the point.

“Right.” He scratches at his hairline. “So you’re wrong. They don’t wanna be my family.”

Tim can’t help it; he laughs. “Jesus, Jay. Like you’d get out of it that easy.” Jason looks perturbed, and Tim doesn’t know how careful he needs to be, if this is going to upset him or not. “Look, before I found you, before we came here, they were looking as well. They were ceaseless. N doesn’t look like he’s getting enough sleep even now. They’re worried about you; they miss you.”

Jason’s expression shifts to disbelief. “Nah, birdie. They were concerned because you’ve been running around with a murderer. If they miss anyone, it’s a dead fifteen-year-old. It ain’t me.”

“Sure it is.”

Jason throws up his hands, frustrated. “I'm not that kid-”

“Jay, I know- I promise. You’re not the same as you were back then. But you’re not a brand-new person either. They loved you then, they love you now. That kind of stuff- it’s not conditional, yeah?”

Jason glowers. Tim thinks maybe the point is being missed a little on both sides. He goes back to his sit-ups. Time will tell, he guesses.

“Anyways, by the time they’re through with you, you’re going to wish I was wrong.”

-----

While Dick had been uninvited, at least his presence had been an event, something to get Jason’s hackles raised, to cut through the heady tension, the pensive atmosphere shadowing their apartment. It’s not that Tim and Jason are uncomfortable in each other’s company, but there’s the weight of unspoken lifetimes between them, secrets that have always existed, but now feel real and raw, solidified.

It’s the kind of pressure that has Jason pacing room-to-room, picking up and discarding distraction after distraction. Tim, by contrast, is very still, buzzed by too much caffeine, gnawing at him from the inside. After watching Jason shoot an angsty glance towards his Red Hood uniform for perhaps the sixth time, he gives up.

“C’mon, Jay. Let’s go somewhere.”

Jason turns to him a little too fast. “I don’- what about-”

Tim forces down the urge to roll his eyes. “You know you’re being a little irrational, Jay? Batman isn’t waiting to drop down on us the second we leave the apartment. Let’s just be normal people for a bit, yeah?”

Jason bites his lip, looks like he’s struggling with a weight of excuses and arguments, but relents. “Okay, babybird, whatever you say.”

“Look, it’s not as if he doesn’t know where we live. There’s actually a greater chance of running into him here-”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, you win, already. Where do you wanna go?”

Tim twists his mouth, thinking. He genuinely hadn’t expected to get this far. “We always used to find somewhere, I guess. How about the bar?”

“Dude, it’s like eleven. Anyways, I was always over there. Odds are like fifty to one B will be sittin’ there holdin’ a newspaper with eyeholes cut out.”

Tim snorts, despite himself. “Alright, smart-ass. How about a library? You just finished ‘American Gods’ for like the third time.”

Jason stretches, lean and catlike. “For the record, that was by choice and not ‘cause I'm out of books. Neil Gaiman is a fuckin’ legend, which you’d know, if the last book you read wasn’t, like, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’-” ­

 “-hey, I read! Just ‘cause I'm not a snob-”

“-but whatever. Sounds cool, I'm down.”

Tim beams, bright and pleased. He could use the air too, to be honest. Although Jason isn’t wrong- Tim hasn’t been to a public library in- well, in ever. He takes a quick shower and blushes when he’s getting his things together and absentmindedly asks Jason how much money he’ll need to bring.

“Jeez, Timmy, you’re somethin’ else,” Jason is still going as they lock the door behind them. “I bet you never even got the bus as a kid. I mean, hey, reasonable question- those old-fashioned library butlers still get all snooty if you don’t tip them your mortgage-”

“Oh my god, please shut up,” he groans, trying to manoeuvre getting on Jay’s bike with his head still buried in his hands. Jason slips on in front of him, turns the key in the ignition, and it’s been a while since they’ve done this but, hey, she still purrs as beautiful as ever.

Naturally, it’s Gotham, and the joy is shattered the second they make it onto a street with like, actual people driving on it, but still. They’re vigilantes. They can handle mid-morning Gotham traffic.

“Motherfucker!” Tim screeches, two minutes in. “What the fuck? Was that supposed to be a MERGE? Who the fuck raised you? Oh, yeah, buddy, I'm sure that’s perfectly legal so long as your fucking turn signal is on, sure glad you’re not being UNSAFE!”

“Tim, honey,” Jason says from in front, sounding very much like a man who is struggling to keep a straight face, “this ain’t the Batmobile. They can hear you. Also- backseat road rage? That’s not a thing. Nobody gets that.”

“What?” Tim blinks. “It’s not road rage, it’s just. Constructive criticism. And yeah, so what if they can hear me? I could take any one of those fuckers while teaching them to drive a fucking car-”

“Tim,” Jason says, again, laughing openly now but simultaneously sounding sort-of concerned. Tim grumbles himself into silence. The bike does cut through the traffic beautifully, a sharp gleam of black and red. Before he even knows it, they’re pulling up to the library, squat and brown and ugly like every public building in the city. It doesn’t seem to matter to Jason. For a second he just looks up at it, eyes wide with a peculiar melancholy. Then he shakes his head, steps off the bike, reaches a hand out to Tim with a grin that’s bright and glinting. Tim thinks maybe the library was a better idea than he’d known.

Tim ends up at the computers, obviously.

He’d tried. For a good hour he’d wandered up and down the aisles, picking out anything with an interesting cover. Everything he’d chosen is spread around him, now, open on seemingly random pages, but the book about sociopathy had referenced two really interesting sounding studies, and then the one on dinosaurs hadn’t had any pictures and he sure as hell wasn’t going to learn about dinosaurs without knowing how badass they looked. Now he’s sort-of kind-of trying to read eight books at once, looking things up as he goes, and it turns out this doesn’t work nearly as well with literature as it does with his case files and Wayne Industries work.

He only becomes aware that Jason’s behind him once the prick starts laughing at him. Scowling, he twists in his seat only to see that Jay’s carrying a literal mountain of books. Tim squints at the titles.

“Is that… Dante’s Inferno? Jason what the fuck?”

Jason blushes, immediately on the defensive. “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about? Also, y’know… it’s on-brand?”

Tim laughs hard enough that people start giving them dirty looks, so the day’s probably already a success. Jason’s other books are a lot less dramatic, as it turns out, although Tim’s beginning to think that’s probably because the guy’s already worked through all the pretentious bullshit. When he asks, Jason smirks. “Hey, I had a lot of free time back in the day, when I wasn’ fightin’ for my life. The League had a pretty decent collection.”

Tim’s eyebrows shoot up- the fucking League. Of course, Jason would choose to let that slip now, when Tim can’t press him about it- not that he would anyway. He wants to know how Jason’s back more than anything, but Jay’s playing his cards close to his chest, and Tim can respect that. The guy trusts him enough to live with him. Tim’s not pushing anything.

-----

They take their time, the public space refreshing in ways Tim didn’t realise he needed, and deep veins of red and gold cut the sky by the time they drive back, motorcycle creaking under the added weight of a metric fuckton of books. Jason most likely has a problem, but it’s not the worst problem to have, under his circumstances, and Tim can’t refuse him.

Still, his arms are killing him once he has to drag half them up the tower block’s stairs. He’d like to submit that as his official excuse as to why he doesn’t immediately notice the blonde who’s invaded their fucking living room.

He moves past it, dumps the bags on the kitchen counter, and moves to stretch his aching limbs when a unsubtle cough echoes from behind him. The noise he makes is seven kinds of embarrassing, and he barely has time to recover from the initial shock, before he’s twisting to face her, assaulted by a barrage of memories.

Her blue eyes are narrowed at him, and there’s a guarded, twisting hurt there, the kind of hurt that stabs guilt into his chest even if he doesn’t quite know why. She’s shorter than him but her presence bubbles vast through the room, overwhelming in shades of muted anger. He knows instinctively the line of her shoulders, the curve of her mouth, the softness of her hair where his hands had curled into it, at the nape of her neck-

She hits him all at once, the shapes and sounds and form of her. In uniform, grinning at him from across a classroom, and in hooded purple, the same smile glinting from rooftops away. She resettles herself in his timestream, rethreads her influence through every part of him. Tim knows her as he knows himself. As he knows Jason.

“Hey, Steph,” he says, quiet, and her anger crumples.

“Hey, Tim.” Her voice is just like he remembers. “You look like shit.”

He blinks. “I'm doing okay. A lot of stuff is fuzzy.” Are those tears in her eyes? “I… I should’ve come to see you a while ago. I'm sorry.”

For a second he thinks she’s going to be furious, but she just smiles at him, wetly, says, “Get over here, you asshole,” so he does. The hug slots something back into place within him, something he didn’t know was missing.

“Fuck,” he says, oddly disconnected. “You’re my best friend.”

She looks at him accusingly, “Yeah, and fucking forget it again and I’ll break your- sorry. Wait. Rule Three was no threats. Oh my God, Tim, Bruce probably bugged me, help-”

He starts laughing, hugs her again, reality settling around him, and she’s laughing too. Sometimes thinking about the magnitude of life that was taken from him, by one syringe from Joker, it overwhelms him. But he’s so thankful to have her, now, pieces of flat memory bursting into vibrant life around them, that it doesn’t seem to matter.

They’re still pressed together, more leaning on each other than anything else, when Jason walks back in, carrying the second load of books effortlessly. If he’s shocked, unsettled, he doesn’t show it, instead slouching against a wall, amused. He whistles, low.

“Oh, damn, am I interrupting?”

Steph turns to face him, coolly. “Maybe you are, Red Hood.” Oh, he loves her. Loves both of them so much it’s a little like floodwater, all around him. He has a sudden flash of recent memory, back when he first met Hood, of hiding silent-still, pressed down against a rooftop from Batgirl- Steph- and feels a bizarre urge to laugh.

Jason lazily lifts an eyebrow. “In my very own secret safehouse? Well, they say nothing’s sacred.”

She looks him directly in the face, blankly, and oh, this could probably end badly. “I guess it ain’t. Feel free to take your pretty red ass anywhere else for an hour or two.” Her voice is suddenly all native Gotham and challenge.

Which. Oh. Tim has a type.

Jason smirks. “Timmy, she thinks I'm pretty. Oh, go ahead. Enjoy your little powwow.” He uncurls from the wall, dragging the books with him through to the kitchen. Pauses. “Hey, will you be wanting snacks? Cocktails?”

Steph’s grin is wicked. “Oh, we’re keeping this one.”

Tim gets the feeling he’s possibly created a monster. He’s also fully aware his protests will do him no good. He slumps back against the sofa, rubbing his eyes.

“If we get drunk,” he points out, quite reasonably, he feels, “and you’re still mad at me. I will cry. You know this.”

“Maybe that’s the justice I'm looking for.” Oh, he’s fucked.

“Doesn’t sound very bat-approved.  You said he sent you?”

She snorts. “More like he knew he couldn’t stop me. He gave me about twenty rules. Notably, no coming onto you and NO MENTIONING THAT JASON’S SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!” Tim buries his head in his hands.

“I’ll show you how dead feels in a second, Brown!”

“Wait- B’s cockblocking me?” he demands, then immediately turns bright red. Steph cackles at him. It’s so familiar it’s terrifying, after only a few minutes. She wiggles her eyebrows.

“B seems to be under the impression that you’re already getting it, which-”

“-Oh my God, Bruce has literally never said those words in that order, but thanks for traumatising me-”

“-hey, I'm just wonderin’, how come you got more game as an amnesiac? That doesn’t add up right, huh, Timothy.”

Tim rubs his eyes. “You’re just jealous of my natural charm,” he says drily.

“My working theory is that you’re fedora-less for the first time in your life-”

“Okay, too far, I have never owned a fedora.”

“How would you know? You have amnesia.”

“We dated for like two years. I remember that. It’s your standards I'm trusting.”

Steph shrugs, eyes flashing with mischief. “I do enjoy doing my bit for charity-”

Jason’s laugh echoes in from the kitchen.

-----

‘sometimes you get sad when we're together

because you're not sure if you'll miss me when I'm gone.’

-----

It’s cold out here, some kind of hellish Gotham speciality that could generously be described as snow dropping around him. Behind him the apartment is a warm glow, echoed through with old beginnings. He’s almost envious of what Tim and Steph get, now, this seamless reunion. Nothing Jason’s ever lost has come back that easy.

Not much he’s ever lost has come back at all.

He stands on the fire escape and smokes, five back-to-back until his fingers are stained and the world seems quieter. Dick was here, barely any time ago, inhabiting the same space. Rationally, Jason knows it was for Tim, knows just how well he’s driven his family away, but the evening is already too awash with sentiment to keep away thoughts of forgiveness, of belonging.

That’s not even- he doesn’t even want that. He was in Bruce’s presence unguarded for ten seconds and it made him feel all of eleven years old, again, cold and hungry and feral, staring up at this myth in black and grey. The phantom itch of Bruce’s gloved hand against his shoulder. The illusion of warmth in his chest, sparked back when someone had cared, cared unconditionally for the first time.

Bruce had said ‘Jason’, almost the same way he’d always used to. But there’d been new cracks in it, this time, edges like grief. The kind of tenderness that could almost come off real, unfettered, if Jason let it. But Bruce has never been unconditional, right down to the bones of him. There’re rules everywhere he is, boundaries and constraints that Jason has ripped to shreds, again and again and again.

It just hurts, is all. Deep down where Jason didn’t think the Pit had left him any heart to break. There’s everything that used to love him, a world that bent tender to the bite of his lip, the duck of his head, to every desperate plea. That Jason never realised how lucky he was, how much was out there waiting. This Jason’s edges fit ugly into the gaps of his old world, too much anger, things that maybe were best left six feet under.

And even the little mercy he’s been able to carve out of this city- Jason knows he will have to lose this too, cold certainty settled in his lungs. He’d tried, that night, to break away, but he was so weak, love-starved, and, well. It was hard to stand the thought of Tim wandering the city, searching. Alone. He knows it’ll only cut deeper when he does go, but Tim will have to understand, right? The kid’s not blind. Jason is- Jason is corrosive, acidic, burning away anything in range. He’s doing everyone a favour. Just ‘cause it’s cliché doesn’t mean it ain’t true. He’s still lying to Tim, after everything. Still hasn’t summoned the fucking courage to tell him the one thing he needs to know, and it sickens Jason to his insides.

‘Course, some people are stupid enough to stick around, not like his family. Some people Jason doesn’t have to worry about breaking. He’s been meaning to make this phone call for a few days, actually, and his thoughts are slick enough with nicotine that it’ll be easy.

The tone rings three times, abrasive against the snow-strewn night air. A voice answers, muddy with something that could be sleep, but isn’t, and sour worry curls in Jason’s gut.

“Heeeey, Jaybird. Was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried. You… you doin’ okay?”

“Sure.” Jason lets the silence stretch. “Okay, dude, it’s only weed. Loosen up.”

He makes an abstract, groaning noise into the phone, unable to find the right words to say that’s not really okay, buddy, but I'm proud of you anyway, and besides it’s my fault for being a shitty friend and not calling earlier. A couple out on their fire escape two doors over shoot him an odd look.

“Aw, love you too, Dad. What’s up? It’s been radio silence for at least a week.”

“It’s complicated. Stop tryin’ to change the subject- are you good? And you could always try callin’ me first, for a change, y’know.”

“Ooh, complicated. And, see, the problem with that is I know you’ll pick up. Like, no matter what you’re doing. I’ve heard wayyy too many bones breaking- you owe me so much for therapy. Luckily, I take cash and credit.”

Jason needs to get him to talk serious, needs to know if he actually needs to be picked up. But it’s the easiest conversation he’s had since- since the last call, really. “I actually have a gift card?”

“For therapy? The new boyfriend getting pushy, huh?”

Jason huffs out his breath. “Roy.”

“…Yeah?”

“Are you good? Cause you’re on somethin’, and I'm right by my bike, I could come get you-“

“-Jay. It’s cool. You got your own shit-“

“-Roy.”

“Okay, listen, I know what I’m doing, I jus’ needed things to stop mattering for a bit, you don’t need to be my fuckin’ mother, Christ-“

“-Harper.”

Jason can almost see him, the way his shoulders will be slumping, in the corner of some room that’s too bright, too hot, too heavy.

“Yeah, okay, Jay. Come get me?”

“Anytime, kid.”

“… Don’t hang up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs, peeling himself off the wall and crushing his smoke underneath a heel. “’M not entirely stupid, dude.”

Steph and Tim both look up when he re-enters the kitchen, surprise registering at Roy’s chatter on the phone. Whatever. Just ‘cause he’s never mentioned having friends.

“I got errands to run,” he says, “don’t wait up.”

Steph, a little blurry around the edges, seems satisfied with the explanation. Tim is faring much worse- Jason knows from experience he’s a complete lightweight, and it’s visible in the pink blush staining his cheeks as he makes a confused face.

“But- I thought- you weren’t gonna leave, right?” His voice slurs pretty across the words, and Jason’s too busy melting a little to register that Roy has very much heard as well.

“Ooh, Jaybird, that him? Wait, what does he mean, you’re not leaving? Leaving where?”

Tim looks even more puzzled, his face scrunched up like when he’s been at the case files on Jason’s laptop for hours and his edges are starting to fray. Steph rubs a hand across her forehead, Batgirl instincts slowly grinding into life.

“Wait, who’s that guy? I swear I know-”

“Jay, who’s this? How many new friends have you been making, anyhow?”

Oh, wow. Jason had almost forgotten how fun it was, being the only sober guy in a room. He pushes his hair back from his face and heads for the door.

“Errands!” he repeats. “Don’t wait up!”

Roy leaves him in peace for the minutes it takes to ease his bike purring into life, bring up the map with a beeping, red tracker on it. It’s nothing creepy- Roy has one on him, too, he can feel its cool metal on a chain around his neck, even now. They’re both just fucked up enough, they both crashed together hard enough, that they’ll trust each other with just about anything, and that’s why this job is Jason’s, here and now.

As Jason picks up speed, Roy drawls, “spill.”

He sighs, weaving in and out of the late-night traffic without sparing a glance. “The boy you heard was Tim. The girl was his ex. Y’know, Batgirl.” Roy whistles, sharp. “Oh, shut it, it’s not like that. I think.”

“Cool, I believe you,” lazy through the phone speaker, but the hint of a slur makes worry coil, unconsciously speeding up the bike. “But what’re they doing at your safehouse? She’s a bat, right? And you didn’t sound like you were wearing your helmet.”

For a second he’s convinced he’s being chastised for road safety, crazy when Roy is eight kinds of fucked up on the other end of the line. Then it clicks that Roy means the Red Hood mask, to hide his identity, and realises he has a story to tell.

What comes out is, “you were tracking me?”

“I was bored. This party is boring. What’s up?”

One of the best parts of talking to Roy is quite often they don’t need to explicitly state what they’re feeling, not with each other. It means Roy can probably understand the bit of Jason that’s screaming if the party is so shit then why did you fucking go?

“Shit’s gone down, Harper. It’s why I didn’t call last week, I'm sorry. Things are just real fucked up and I don’ know what I'm doing.” He feels his voice get quiet, taper off, hates the weakness it condemns him with.

Roy hisses a breath. “Shit, naw, Jaybird, I'm sorry. I should’ve been there for you. Shit’s gone down… with the Bats?”

Jason can’t help the break in his voice, the ache at his throat, like he’s being choked by the whipping night air. “B knows. They all know, and it’s fucked up, ‘cause they all miss how I was but they’re stuck with how I am, and they fucking hate me, and I was around them for all of ten seconds and I still couldn’t fucking breathe-”

“Hey, hey, shh.” Roy’s voice grounds him, keeps his eyes steady on the road, although tears are welling. “Are you overreacting? ‘Cause from over here it sounds a lot like you’re overreacting. They won’t hate you. And anyway, fuck what the Bats think, yeah?”

He snorts, still shaky. “Sure. Apart from Tim.”

“You’re whipped, Todd. Whipped. So what’s up with that? He’s moved in, now?”

Talking about it is bizarrely helpful. Even thinking events through enough to speak them aloud orders something tired and messy in Jason’s head. “Yeah. I kinda- flipped out? When they found out. He chased me down and took me back to the safehouse and- we’re looking after each other, I guess. But his family won’t want him around me- Dickface turned up to check on him and now Steph- and- it’s just a mess?”

Roy sighs heavy, right into the microphone so it blasts loud static out of Jason’s speakers. He doesn’t make any attempt to solve Jason’s problems, to relate to them- it’s not what Roy’s about and it’s not what Jason needs. Instead he offers compassionate silence, for a few moments, until the tracker beeps. Jason clears his throat. “I'm a minute out. Sorry. We’ll get you home safe, soon.”

“Don’t apologise, Jaybird. What friends are for, right? Hey, it’s no consolation, but you’ll always have me, dude. Unless tonight kills me. I think it might be killing me.”

Jason groans. “If you’re being nice to me ‘cause you threw up and you expect me to clean it, on God-”

“Ah, you love me really.” Jay scowls and hangs up as he pulls up outside the club- it’s dingey and dark, traces of neon leaking from the windows. Exactly the kind of place for a kid like Roy to fall all the way off the wagon, but. Jason’s here now. Things’ll be fine. They have to be.

None of the bouncers try and get in his face, which, thank heaven for small mercies. He orders a beer from the nice bartender in the ripped fishnets, because there’s no fucking way he’s getting through tonight without some kind of buzz. Maybe that’s how Roy felt. When it comes, he takes a long draught, grateful for the chill of the glass bottle in the sweat-slick air, and goes searching.

Everything is far too loud, searing in hot pinks and lime greens and cobalt under the furious strobe lights. The crashing beat of the music makes thinking hard, and he searches the back rooms in a sort of trance. Comes across more people fucking than he needed to see, tonight, to be honest, but they’re all off their faces on whatever and they seem to care about the intrusion far less than he does.

When he finds Roy he’s being pressed against the wall by a guy in leather who looks like he doesn’t quite know whether he wants to fuck the kid or smash his face in. Jason actually spent a while feeling just that way about Arsenal, so he sympathises. Sympathises even more as he watches Roy- pupils blown, twitching in a way that can’t possibly be healthy- silently relieve the guy of his phone, his wallet, his headphones, in the guise of feeling him up. Even shitfaced, he’s an artisan at what he does, and it’s almost a shame to interrupt.

He clears his throat. “Harper,” he says, warning, puts an inflection of threat into it. Both heads snap to him. Damn, still got it.

The leather guy looks guilty. “You didn’t say you had a man.”

Roy snorts. “Oh, he wishes. That’s just my driver.” Jason wants to be mad, wants to let Roy come grumbling after him, but instead he’s hyperfocused on the chemical tang in the air, the twitch at his eye, the slump of his body as he breathes through whatever he’s done to himself this time.

“Roy,” he says, makes it worried, mournful, sorry, all the other thousand things that he’s feeling, and leather guy steps away like he’s been burnt. Roy meets his eyes for the first time and it’s like all the cracks spiralling through him are backlit, burning visible and fragile for the whole room to see.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and follows Jason out. He remembers to be grateful that Roy’s not covered in his own sick, and gives the kid a motorcycle helmet since there’s a considerable chance that whatever he’s taken could cut off the use of his limbs any second now. They clamber onto the bike and Roy leans forward, plastered hot and heavy against the back of him. Jason can’t be angry. He thinks of Tim, remembers coaxing him into movement on the days his psychosomatic pain got particularly bad, rewarding him with little open-mouthed kisses, and thinks, who in the hell is trusting me to take care of these people.

The answer’s nobody, of course. Jason’s here for them because no one else was really cutting it- he thinks of Oliver Queen in his place, of Batman, and shudders. ‘Cause really, look at him- he’s a last last resort kinda guy.

“Hey,” he grunts, bringing the bike to life beneath them, “careful not to fall asleep, yeah? You said you’d only had some weed? Buddy, this is important.”

Roy sighs into his shoulder. “-nly joints, yeah. All other people’s- dunno what was in ‘em. Bad idea, I know.”

“You’re a dumbass,” he says, tired and fond, and they accelerate into the night.

-----

‘and we’re both into letting this develop,

but the thought of starting over always sounded much better.’

-----

Around Tim, everything is awful fuzzy. The room blurs when he stops focusing on it, and his eyes slip shut without him meaning them to, if he isn’t careful. He knows Steph knows that he’s bad with drinking, and she slowed down a while ago, so she’s let him do this on purpose. Distraction, interrogation, he’s not sure. It’s hard to care, perfectly focused as he is on the way the harsh streetlamp light outside refracts and scatters through their little window.

“- and he still gets really broody, sometimes,” Steph is saying, fluffy hair a little wild, eyes a little unfocused. “And we’re all supposed to pretend it’s normal and he’s not just being a giant dick ‘cause he’s angry about not bein’ allowed to see two of his kids. One of whom was, like, dead ‘n’ stuff. Yanno?”

Tim frowns up at her, absorbing. “But, he’s done, like, DNA tests, and stuff, right? Like, he knows it’s Jason?”

Steph poofs up her mouth to blow hair out her eyes, and it’s so funny that Tim’s almost too busy giggling to hear what she says next.

“Sure, he probably knew before you even left. That’s what’s driving him crazy- he just wants to be able to do the Bat-pout on Jason, and tell him how sorry he is for being such a shit dad, and probably kidnap him and put him in that case in the Cave along with his old suit-”

Tim laughs. “The Bat-pout?”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

Tim considers; concedes. “Okay, maybe. I don’t think Jason knows any of that, though. He’s doing the dramatic brooding thing too.”

Steph makes a dramatic, sweeping gesture with her strawberry daiquiri. “Right! The both of them. Dumbasses.” She pauses, face twisting. “He’s… he’s treating you good, though, yeah?”

Tim blinks. “What- yeah! Did B ask you to ask? He’s fine; he’s lovely, it’s just sometimes,” he gulps at his drink, “I just get worried, y’know? He’s so hurt, some days, and I never know how to fix it?”

Steph looks at him levelly. “You know you’re a boyfriend, not a therapist, right? Like… he isn’t your responsibility.”

“Yeah, but… yeah. But I love him? I want him to be okay.”

She snorts at him. “Wow, so eloquent. Remind me again how you managed to get into multiple relationships?”

He tries to elbow her from where his head is pillowed in her lap, drowsy, but it doesn’t quite work out. She’s about to retaliate when the door creaks open. Both of their heads slowly peer over the top of the sofa. It’s ridiculous.

Jay’s back, and it looks like he’s brought his ‘errand’. There’s a boy, a little older than them by the looks of it, wrapped halfway around him. He’s got messy red hair, freckles, and he looks barely able to stand.

From beside him, sounding a lot more drunk, Steph hisses, “is that Roy fucking Harper?”

Jason tries to make ‘ta-da’ hands, but instead almost drops Roy, cursing. They scramble over to help, probably too sloppy to be much but a hinderance, and drag him over to the couch, where he collapses, groaning.

Steph looks put out. “I was gonna sleep there.”

“You were, were you?” Jason sneers.

“Uurrghghghghgh,” contributes Roy.

“As his best friend, it’s my duty to inform you that I'm pretty sure he just said ‘you’re still welcome, babe.’”

“Gross.”

Tim scrubs a hand over his face. “Jay, what’s. What’s?” he tries, looking imploringly at Roy, who’s now snoring on their sofa.

“Yeah, sorry for not explaining before. We go way back- had a thing right after I escaped the League, when we were both pretty fucked up. Now I'm working on it, and he, well…”

Tim says “yeah,” and at the same time Steph asks “the League?”

“Nosy. Anyways, you’re cool with him crashing, yeah?”

Tim beams up at him, dizzy-drunk and happy just to be asked, and says, “your apartment, dude.” Jason wraps an arm around him and it’s so safe he melts into it a little.

Steph ends up on a dusty spare mattress in the hall, which Jay has to drag out, ‘cause they’re giggly-drunk and useless. Tim showers, on strict orders not to slip and kill himself, and then sits quiet, watches Jason undress for bed, notes the bags under his eyes, his tired, crinkling smile. There’s a nameless, faceless warmth in his chest. It’s like suffocating.

“You’re,” he tries, tongue tripping over the words. “You know that you’re a really good person, right?”

Jay smiles at him, tired and soft. “Get to sleep, Drake.”

He kinda wants to chase it, kiss Jason everywhere, soft and slow, until he understands. But the room is safe and warm and quiet around him and he finds he can’t quite keep his eyes open, sinks down deep and mindless into the darkness.

_____

Tim’s clock reads 3:34 am, blinking and green in the smothering darkness. Their bedroom curtains have drifted open, slitting the room with dirty yellow light. That’s not what wakes him up, though. Beside him, every one of Jason’s muscles is tight- he’s suddenly a slab of something cold and unmoving and it chills Tim’s blood enough to rouse him.

“Jay,” he says, choked, and then again, louder and stronger. “Jay.”

Jason’s eyes snap open, and Tim swears there’s more green swirling in them than normal, dusky and scared. For a second, he thinks that Jason is still dreaming, that this is sleep paralysis, but then those eyes lock onto his face and he feels the muscles untense, one by one. He’s aware of his hands, rubbing comfortable circles against Jason’s skin, and he’s thankful for wherever those instincts came from because in his mind he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.

“Jason. You’re scaring me.” His voice is cracked and scratchy. “You need- you need to start talking to me about this. Please.”

Jason’s breathing is rapid, pupils still dilated with fear at some horror Tim can’t protect him against.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Jay? It’s the only thing that’s gonna help you.”

Jason is clammy, cold, his skin swirled with goosebumps. The silence drags long enough that Tim thinks he’ll just go back to sleep, refuse to acknowledge it in the morning. The idea that Jason’s been through so much shit that it can paralyse him like this, that he refuses to even mention it- it aches in Tim’s chest.

Then Jason begins, “thing is. When you wake up in a coffin-” and Tim’s blood runs cold.

“When you wake up. You can’t- if you panic you use all the oxygen and then where would you be?”

His voice is something awful.

“You breathe easy; you use your legs. Pray to whatever the fuck you still believe in nobody put you in a metal box. Kick at the centre, where the wood’s weakest, until it gives way.”

Tim doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. Jason’s breath scratches, ragged on the still air.

“You don’ let the dirt trap you inside. You stand up into the ground where it’s cold and wet and craggy and you drag yourself to the surface; or you die, and someday someone’ll dig you up and say oh, that poor motherfucker.”

Tim keeps his breathing steady, refuses to freak out. This is what you asked him for.

Jason’s voice turns thin, brutal, nasty. “’Course, Bruce didn’t teach me any of that. Maybe he thought it would be kinder if I stayed where I was, y’know? Or easier.”

He’s trembling. “So when I woke up- I, uh. I just screamed.”

Tim’s hands aren’t comforting anymore; they’re clutching at the mattress. There are bleeding half-moons where his nails have bit into his palms.

“I must’ve gotten a hold of my belt buckle, I guess. Tore my way out. It gets a little fuzzy. Mostly I remember scraping my fingers down to stumps. Then I stood up. Right?”

The layered, silvery scars at Jason’s fingertips. Tim is such a fucking idiot.

“It’s kinda funny, though, I guess. Everything’s real hazy, and I- I can’t remember digging out, no matter how hard I try. Sometimes it’s hard to believe I'm not still in there, y’know?”

Tim just looks up at Jason, steady. Jason, who isn’t crying, who is already all the way fallen apart. A sad smile cracks his face, small and warm.

He says, “you’re right here, Jay,” as soft and real as he can make it. Jason’s face crumples.

“Yeah,” he says, like he doesn’t believe it at all. “That’s what it looks like, isn’t it?”

Tim puts his arms around him, feels Jason’s voice break. He realises he’s chanting ‘righthererighthere’ under his breath, like a mantra, like a prayer.

God, he’s so tired. It’s soul-heavy.

Jason is crying a little, now. It’s muted, unpractised. He dimly wonders it’s Jason’s first time this lifetime.

Mouth against his collarbone, Tim says, “if you were still down there, Jay? I’d come for you. On God.”

“If I'm still down there, you’re not real.”

It scrapes across Tim’s chest, the impact of it, leaving something raw and heavy in his throat.

“I feel real, right now.”

“Yeah, babybird.” Jason sounds unquantifiably exhausted, all at once. “Me too.”

They stay right there, real and unmoving, until the sun rises. It feels like bleeding out.

When Jason sits up, Tim thinks he probably hasn’t slept at all. Tim doesn’t remember sleeping, not exactly, but the in-between hours are cloaked in a merciful haze that doesn’t seem to follow here, in the stretched-sharp light of morning. Jason’s eyes are puffy and bruised. It’s human and damaged in a way Tim can’t handle.

“You need to go back to the manor,” Jason says. Tim frowns, his brain uncooperative.

“What? No?”

“Tim,” Jason says. His voice isn’t awful and flat and raspy anymore, it’s somehow scarier. “This is fucked up. Everything about me is fucked up. You don’t deserve to be here; you deserve to have your family looking after you.” The kindness in his voice makes Tim’s throat ache.

“You look after me,” he says, sitting small on the edge of their mattress. “I look after you. I thought that was what we did.”

“We can still do that. Fuck, babybird, it’s not that I don’t want you. I just don’ know how to tell you that this can’t go on. It’s not- I'm not enough. To be everything for you.”

Tim turns bodily to look at him, hunched and miserable against the headboard, and believes him. Thinks of every single time he’s thought I don’t know what I'm doing, I don’t know how to fix him, and reflects that Jason’s probably been thinking the same.

He lets his head drop to his chest. “We’re really that fucked up, huh?”

Jason lets out a tired laugh. “It’s on-brand. Probably.”

They sit there, thinking it over. When Tim reaches across the bed to pull their bodies together, Jason doesn’t stop him, and they lie intertwined as the brightening sunbeam travels up their bed.

“If you want me to go,” Tim says, “I think you should tell me everything first. As a trust thing. And also so none of the bad things that might happen will surprise me.”

Jason huffs a laugh against his back. “That sounds like Red Robin to me. How many contingencies for this conversation?”

“Bold of you to assume I had any plan for absolutely any of this.”

“Oh, well, that explains a lot.” His tone is offended but his body is still pressed warm around Tim’s, so Tim doesn’t bother apologising. The silence between them is comfortable, this time. “Look,” Jason continues, when he’s ready, “I’ll tell you anything you wanna know. I swear. But- just be careful what you say around the bats, right? I got a reputation, and all that.”

Tim smirks, tiredly. “Oh no, not your reputation as a callous asshole who never talks to anyone.”

“That’s the one.”

“Seriously, like, over a year of fighting crime on the same streets as your dad and you never bothered to, like, make a house call?”

“He ain’t my dad.”

“Sorry, my bad, ex-dad-” and it’s so stupid but Jason is laughing behind him and the empty of the night feels millennia ago. “Drama queen,” he accuses.

“That is on-brand. Know how I used to have the helmet and then the mask?”

Tim gasps, loud and mocking. “You were allowing for the possibility of a dramatic reveal?”

“Never say never.”

“’Course, it didn’t quite work out like that, huh.”

Jason’s silent for a beat too long, and Tim thinks maybe he’s strayed into sensitive territory without meaning to. But then:

“Nah. Probably- probably for the best. I had all these plans, you know? I was gonna make them pay, for leaving me unavenged- for replacing me.” There’s something vaguely apologetic in his voice, where his breath ghosts against the nape of Tim’s neck. “But some days it just got so hard to keep that anger, not when there were people suffering all around me already. And then I figured- I’d already died for Batman, y’know? I wasn’t going to live for him too.”

Tim doesn’t answer, doesn’t have an answer. But Jay’s finally, finally talking, secrets fading in the quiet air, and the truth of him settles firm and secure against Tim’s spine.

-----

‘you say I deserve it, all that is coming, the good and the bad

but I don't regret it- how could I? you were the best I ever had,

I ever had, I ever had, I ever had, I ever-‘

-----

They force themselves out of bed around ten, Tim’s hangover catching up with him the second he tries to stand up. It’s almost comic how quickly his face turns green, and Jason laughs at him, long and slow, like a prick. He gets his revenge, though, because Jay’s entirely forgotten about Steph’s mattress in the hall, and he trips over it spectacularly, goes sprawling. Groaning, Steph opens her eyes, rolling over to absorb the mess.

“Huh,” she says, voice thick with sleep. “The dreaded Red Hood. Mornin’.”

“Mornin’,” mumbles Jason, unintelligible where his face is pressed into the floor. Tim scowls at her.

“How’re you not hungover? The fuck?”

She beams. “God loves me too much, stupid. Hurry up- I can smell coffee.”

Tim and Jay exchange puzzled looks, but sure enough, as they step into the kitchen, there’s a fresh pot on the side and bacon sizzling in a frying pan. Roy smiles at them sheepishly from where he’s poking at it.

Tim groans. “Okay, bullshit, there’s no way you’re not hungover.”

Roy looks smug, spreads his arms. “Sorry, Timmy. I’ve had worse.”

He’s lying, a little bit. Tim’s good at noticing stuff like that. He’s very pale, unnaturally so, his lips dry and chapped, his smile forced. But in fairness he’s in a room full of people who’ve just seen him at what must be a low point, and it’s an easy mercy to pretend the cracks don’t show.

Jason slots in behind him, reaching up to the cupboard where they keep the bread, his shirt riding up over his stomach. Tim pours some coffee for himself and Steph and watches the two of them as he drinks it, contemplative. They slot together so easy, so familiar, Jay pulling Roy close to his side for a moment, like he’s ascertaining he’s really here, really okay. It presses a tiny burning jealousy into Tim’s stomach, like a brand, but. It’s no different from how he is with Steph, really. And Jay having a support system outside of Tim is a relief he can’t even name.

Speaking of Steph, she catches his eyes and smiles like she’s read his mind. She was always good at that, he remembers.

“What’s the plan, then?” he asks. “What’s your mission report going to look like?”

It would be a rude question if he hadn’t spent most of the previous evening quizzing her on every detail of her life that he missed, every future plan or idea. He’s actually avoided asking about his family- it’s daunting in a new and scary way.

She blows hair out of her eyes, thinking. Jason has notably stilled in front of the stove, probably remembering for the first time that one of their comfortable little entourage is technically a spy.

“Um. Honestly, I'm not sure? He’s already going to kill me for staying over-”

“-Why?” Roy raises an eyebrow. “What will he think you’ve been up to?”

She snorts. “Whatever you’re even implying- fuck off. Nah, he’ll have waited up all night in that fuckin’ chair, ready to interrogate me about his sons. He’s already beyond pissed that Dick says he’s not allowed to do his creepy lurking thing. And Alfred. Dick on his own couldn’t say shit.”

Jason turns, amused, though a little shaky. “This place is under the protection of Alfred? Christ.” He looks at Roy. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

“Wait, what?” Tim’s eyebrows make a little crease.

“Oh, yeah,” a grin spreads on Roy’s face. “Forgot to mention. You’re harbouring a fugitive, little Timmy- the Bat doesn’t want me in his city.”

Steph looks interested, which, for Roy, is a first. “I’ll bet that’s a story.”

“Mm-hmm. Not that I could tell it. Wouldn’t want the secret juicy bits getting back to the man himself- I gotta keep some of my secrets.”

“Ah, I'm not gonna tell him shit about you. You know what they say about snitches.” She pauses, considering, her face paling a fraction. “Unless, y’know. He asks.”

“He stopped daddy dearest from dragging Killer Croc’s ass back to Arkham. It was pretty insane, actually.” Jason rolls his eyes, divides the cooked bacon and toast across four plates.

“Aw, Jaybird, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Roy simpers, batting his eyelashes. Jason apparently doesn’t deem this worthy of a reply, and they eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Eventually Steph pushes her plate back and pulls on her jacket, looking regretful.

“Okay. Plan is this: I go back, suck up to Alfred for a bit so at least if Bruce murders me then he’ll get the look-”

“Bruce Wayne is Batman?” Roy asks, mock-stupefied. Jason elbows him in the side.

“Oh, shut it. Then B’ll ask me for a ‘mission report’ and try to pretend he’s not hanging on every word. I say you were fine, and we just talked for a couple of hours and went to sleep. I say Jay was there and he didn’t really speak much except to groan and say ‘braaiins’-”

“-Brown-”

“-okay, okay, Jay was here but he just stayed in the bedroom to give us some space. By which I mean his bedroom. His separate bedroom from Tim’s. Tim who still doesn’t know what intercourse is, I don’t know what you’re talking about, B-”

“If you say anything about my sex life I'm changing the locks.” Steph smirks at him, unrepentant and radiant, and oh, he’s missed her.

“Ah, you know that wouldn’t stop me. Okay, boys, it’s been a pleasure.” Jason nods, smiling, and Roy flashes her a salute. She turns her gaze to Tim. “You’ve got my number, now, okay? Use it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You better. See you around, yeah?”

The door clicks shut behind her and Tim’s sad, but a little hopeful too.

-----

“Sure you don’t want a clipboard?”

“Shut up, Jay. The twenty-minute psychology TED talk I watched says you’re using humour as a deflection mechanism.”

Jason flushes, displeased, perched on the sofa opposite Tim. He’s got the door on one side and the window on another- multiple escape routes, Tim notes. But Jason won’t run. He promised. It’s mid-afternoon and Roy’s out doing something of questionable legality, so they have the apartment to themselves to. Well. Jason’s calling it an interrogation, but there was something soft and relieved in his eyes when Tim broached finally having this conversation. There’s probably a lot of shit he’s kept deep down for a long time, now.

“Of course you researched this. That’s why you’re the boring Robin.”

Tim frowns at him. “I'm not the boring Robin- don’t think Bruce didn’t used to tell me how much of a nerd you used to be. In order it’s holy Robin, Batman! then nerd Robin, then the model B finally perfected, then demon Robin. The Internet agrees with me, probably.”

Jay looks moderately weirded out by the Internet having any sort of opinion on them. “I didn’t make all those horrible life choices to be the nerd Robin. I deserve cautionary-tale-Robin, at least.”

Tim can’t stop himself from wincing, and cold seeps into Jason’s eyes, his frame stiffening. “Oh. He went there. Alright.”

It’s so blank and awful, the way any mention of Jason’s past usually is, and Tim so desperately wants to push past it. Instead he makes himself sit still, receptive, says, “Jason.”

Jason’s shoulders sag, just a little. “Alright, fine. Let’s get it over with. You know the whole sob story, right? Mom, Ethiopia, Joker, boom.”

Tim flinches. Jay has the courtesy to look a little sorry.

“Right. So, fast-forward a year, thereabouts, and. I just- I wake up. You know that bit. Total shitshow. We figured I spent about a year on the streets, after that, just… catatonic. I’ve seen surveillance footage. The lights are on, but nobody’s home, yanno?”

“Jesus. You don’t remember anything?”

“Snatches. Sometimes it gets me thinking- all those times I must’ve slept streets away from the Manor? I know it’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just-”

“Yeah,” says Tim. It’s all he can say.

“Anyways. Eventually some street thug gets lucky, recognises Robin. Phones it in to wherever he figures he can make the most cash.”

“The League,” finishes Tim, heavy-hearted.

“Mm. They drop me in a pit, probably for blackmail, I was never sure, and. I, uh, wake up angry.”

And, oh. Suddenly a lot of things click into place. The anger, rolling and heavy, the trace of green in Jason’s irises. An immeasurable sadness weighs at him. “There’s a name for that, you know,” he says, keeps his voice steady. “What the pit does to you. It’s a recognised mental illness.” The words are hollow in his ears.

Jason doesn’t look particularly convinced. It can be a problem for another day. God, he really knows nothing about Jason, does he? “Sure, babybird. I was- I was pretty fucked up, anyway. They ‘trained’ me for a good year, which was, uh. Not that different from what I’d been used to, before? Then Talia showed me a handful of pictures of this new Robin, and the Joker alive and well. It was- I was so mad. We fucked around for a bit, and she sent me off to learn- what?”

Tim’s bright red. “Talia? You’re sure?”

Jay blinks at him. “It was pretty memorable, yeah..? Look, it sounds weird-”

You have no idea, thinks Tim. How do I tell him ‘don’t tell Damian you fucked his mom’ without telling him ‘you fucked Damian’s mom’?

Aloud, he says, “No, nevermind. What happened next?”

Jason winces. “I told you, it ain’t pretty. She put me in contact with people, around the world, to train me into this perfect little assassin. I, uh, I didn’t leave much behind.”

Tim feels a little numb. “Right.”

“But then I feel myself… losing momentum, I guess? I know now that it was the stink of the Pit rubbing off of me, but back then it just felt like a whole lot of nothing where the anger had been? I ended up running back to Gotham, after all those years. I guess I just wanted to finish something? But by the time I put that bomb under Bruce’s car all the rage was bleeding out, and- you know how that story ends.”

Tim does. He remembers, crystalline, the pinched, pale look on Bruce’s face, the ugly curling mass of wire and metal, disassembled in his hands after near four hours. There’s a motion, a kind of squeeze at the bridge of his nose, that Bruce does when he’s very tired and very close to losing it. He’d seen it for the first time then, sad and raw and awfully human. He nods at Jason. He doesn’t fully trust his own words.

“I was gonna make another go of it, this final showdown, y’know? I’d make it so the bastard had to choose between me and Joker, and, goddamn best case scenario, he’d just fuckin’ end the both of us?” He makes a dismissive gesture at Tim’s little intake of breath. “It’s not- I'm over it, ‘kay? But everything was falling apart so quickly, and, lucky for my sorry ass, that’s when I met Roy.”

Tim sighs, relieved even though he knew from the start how Jason’s story wound up. “And you guys looked after each other.”

Jason nods, his eyes a little hollow from the outpouring of truth. “And now you look after me, too. I'm pretty lucky, all considered.”

Tim bites his lip. “But you still want me to go.”

“I still think it’s a good idea. I'm not- Christ, babybird, I'm not kicking you out. I just mean… eventually.”

Tim thinks those’re enough answers for today. He stands and wordlessly drops into Jason’s lap, feels Jason’s arms wrap around his waist, like coming home.

Jay is shaking, bodily. Tim thinks about trying to lay out his own life like that, the solitude, the loneliness, the messy race just to prove something. It leaves him feeling hollowed, an echo chamber for Jason’s grief. Jay’s braver than he can even understand, and it’s so messed up. He clings tight, rubbing soothing circles into his shoulders, and feels Jay let go against him, little fragmented sobs, like how a child cries.

“Oh, Jay,” he says, even though pity isn’t what Jason wants or needs. “If I’d known from the start- I swear I would’ve been better. I'm sorry. I just- I never thought-”

Jason pulls him up, kisses the apology out of his mouth, soft and messy and tearstained.

“I didn’t want you any better. You did just fine, yeah?”

Tim relaxes, pressed so close to Jay it’s like they’re one being.

“Alright. Okay.”

It’s about then when Roy Harper lands with a heavy thunking sound on their fire escape, messy with blood. Jason swears, soft and pronounced, in Tim’s ear, and oh, hello, normalcy. Guess this is his life now.

-----

Tim is staring at his phone.

Jason’s immersed in a book at the other end of the sofa; Tim can’t read the title from here. Roy is tinkering with something electric in the other room. Jason officially benched him after yesterday’s fiasco, and his nervous energy is humming throughout the room, grating. Tim ignores it, a nervous feeling in his gut as he contemplates the device. He’s already had several conversations over text with Steph, after she’d left. But the most recent message she’s sent him is just a string of numerals, one he’d specifically requested.

He wants to call it. But, although he doesn’t remember everything, yet, it would be hard to forget that Cass never answers her phone.

Tim fights down his nervousness, tries to convince himself it’s irrational. He copies the phone number, creates a new contact, hits the ‘text’ button.

Oh, God, he has no idea what to say.

Sorry I didn’t speak to you much when I was a total amnesiac and had only a vague idea you were my sister? In hindsight, a semi-mute combat trained Chinese teenager would’ve been quite hard for Bruce and Dick to explain away, but I know everything now, and I miss you?

He swallows, types out ‘hey, Cass’ and sends it. Roy swears softly as Tim sees sparks flash from the other room.

Almost immediately, his phone buzzes. He looks down. It’s… three heart emojis. Okay then.

you’ve been keeping yourself safe?

One thumbs up, two smileys.

um, this is Tim.

A much longer pause, then:

I know. Silly.

Right. Of course she does. Tim has absolutely no idea where to go from here. His fingers hover over the keyboard uselessly for a few seconds, but then Cass sends another text.

I can come. He breathes a big sigh of relief.

okay yes please

Possibly he’s too emotionally stunted to have a successful text-reunion anyways. On the way out of his messages app he notices something, snorts.

“What?” says Jason, sleepily.

“Nothing,” Tim says. “I forgot your contact was still saved as Red Hood. Dramatic bastard.”

Jason smirks at him. “Hey, don’ change it. I like it.”

He rolls his eyes. “Cass is coming over, by the way.”

“Really,” Jason delivers deadpan, so he twists, and sure enough, that’s Black Bat on their fire escape. Damn, that fire escape has seen a lot. Roy wanders in, in the general direction of the kitchen, spots the black silhouette and nearly falls over. Cass shoots him a little wave.

Tim opens the window, watches her climb in, impossibly graceful. She does cut a daunting figure, but all he can see is his sister.

“That was quick,” he says, unable to keep the smile out of his voice. She tugs off of the cowl, face impossibly young and happy. He feels Roy do another take behind him, knows Jason is looking on with interest.

“Steph told me. What you asked,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “You took ages.”

He blushes. “Sorry, was working through some stuff. How’re you doing?”

The hug she gives him is answer enough.

“Missed you,” she says, voice muffled.

“Yeah,” he says, thickly, tears rising unbidden to his eyes. “I really missed you too, Cass.”

She pulls away, looks at him levelly. “Everyone has been missing. Bruce and Dick and Damian. And your friends, the little superheroes. They come by sometimes and they are always sad. Everybody feels you gone.”

His throat aches. Conner and Cassie and Bart and- fuck, a whole life just taken from him, oh-so quick and brutal. Behind him, Roy asks, “do you guys want some space?”

Cass turns to him, gives Tim a second to regain his composure.

“You are Roy Harper.”

“Uh, yeah. My reputation precedes me?”

“Jason trusts you. Tim trusts Jason. Is okay.” Roy looks briefly stunned. Tim can sympathise. They’ve all heard stranger things, done stranger things, but something about Cass’s particular brand of compassionate honesty is breathtaking, every time. Jason looks just as unsettled when Cass turns to him, observes for a moment.

“Uh, hey. We haven’t- officially- met yet.” She cocks her head at him, and he shrinks down, white strands of hair falling in his face.

“I saw you shoot Nightwing. Two times. In his shoulder and his thigh. Not where you meant to hit him, I think.” Jason flinches, minutely, as her words sink in. She holds his gaze, steely, for a moment, but then her expression softens. “Is okay, too. You were angry then, and- not you. I don’t have words for it.”

Jason looks at her, open, like she’s a blessing, the way he looks at Tim, sometimes. “No. I don’t have words for it either.”

She smiles, like he gets it. “Dick says it is okay, anyway. He says you should’ve been my brother. Not your fault that this happened instead.”

Now it’s Jason who looks like he’s going to cry. If Dick had said that to his face Tim guarantees there would’ve been screaming, the anger deep and raw. But anger doesn’t seem to compute around Cass- there’s nothing false about her, no edges for rage to catch on. She emanates this calm, radiant truth, like nothing Tim’s ever known.

He clears his throat. “I really have missed you, y’know. I can make some hot chocolate and you can tell me what you’ve been up to?”

She grins, sunny. “Deal.”

He moves over to the kitchen area, pulling out a pan and hunting down some milk that probably hasn’t expired yet. Cass disappears: she likes to get the measure of new spaces, when possible, just in case. Every new detail he remembers makes his heart lighter. So much so he doesn’t hold it against Roy and Jason when they laugh at him balancing precariously on the stove to try and reach the cocoa powder on the top shelf, instead of helping like a good person would.

He’s trying to figure out the burner controls when Jason appears at his side, starts breaking a chocolate bar into pieces to melt into the milk, just the way Cass likes it. He figures that’s enough of an apology for now. Okay, he hasn’t strictly ever done this for himself- he’s always been very skilled at pushing the right buttons on a babysitter or butler or boyfriend to make food happen- but he’s not going to embarrass himself making hot chocolate. He’s not.

Two minutes later he gets distracted when Cass re-enters the room, out of uniform, tiny in Jason’s patrol jacket (it’s actually just a regular jacket, but shh). He only notices she’s laughing at him when Jason swears and pushes him out of the way at the sharp hiss of boiled-over milk, and he’s officially banished back to the couch. Cass sits with him, though, in comfortable silence, and Roy pulls out a board game Tim didn’t know they owned. He’s reading out the rules when Jason comes over with four mugs of hot chocolate, and Cass interrupts him.

“Sorry. Forgot to ask. Your chest- is good?”

They stare at her blankly for a second, then Tim remembers why Roy’s stuck on house arrest with them and isn’t out somewhere disappointing his parental figure.

“Holy shit. You were there when Roy got cut up? He hasn’t told us what happened.”

Roy buries his head in his hands. There’s a twinkle in Cass’s eye.

“Was worried. Patrolling when scanner said dealers, gunfight, co-ordinates not far from mine. By the time I got there he’d mostly cleared up. I dropped in to help. He gaped, got himself stabbed.”

Jason looks like he’s struggling to control himself. She adds, helpfully, “like an idiot.”

Roy makes a dragged-out groaning noise. Tim forces down his grin, says, “I’ve been reliably informed he’s not at the top of his game, Cass.”

“Yes,” she says, eyes wide, like they’re not getting it. “That is why I was worried.”

Roy looks at her, his freckles obscured by the red staining his cheeks. “I'm fine, kid. I’ve been coming down. It ain’t pretty.”

“Oh. I see- I didn’t know- I usually can tell.” She looks a little flustered.

“No biggie. Come on guys, pick a colour.”

“I want to be red,” say Tim and Jason simultaneously, then both try grabbing for it and end up falling over each other.

Cass looks at Roy and says, quietly, “Arsenal is red too, yes?” He nods and discreetly takes it. Cass appears to trust that this makes up for her previous misstep, and Tim and Jason pick themselves up and choose green and white, respectively. She picks the yellow one, after a moment’s careful consideration.

“Okay,” Roy says, looking like he’s regretting this course of action more and more every minute. “Now spin the spinner- I’ll start, actually- and one of you has to read me a question that’s the colour I landed on.”

“I will read,” Cass says, solemnly. Roy spins and lands on pink. “Entertainment: Actress best known for Princess Leia in Star Wars. Died in 2016.” Tim flips the timer.

“Uhh, what’s-her-fucking, man I know this! I love her- Carrie Fisher!!”

Cass gives him a little cheer, even though Tim’s willing to bet she’s never seen a single Star Wars.

On Tim’s right, Jason makes an awful, wounded noise. “Carrie Fisher died? Three years ago?”

“Oh, shit,” says Roy. Tim winces.

“Oh my God what the fuck. I must’ve still been training with the League- what the fuck?!” Tim feels the irrational urge to cover Cass’s ears. He takes a gulp of hot chocolate.

“Buddy, it’ll be okay,” Roy is saying. “We got through it!”

“Carrie Fisher? You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure, Jaybird. Come on, you spin.” Still shaking his head, eyes wide, Jason does. It’s purple.

“Arts and Literature,” recites Cass, faithfully. “Which famous modernist novel begins with the line ‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed’?”

“’Ulysses’, right? Not like I could fuckin’ forget it. James Joyce can meet me in the pit.” Cass pushes the white counter a place forward, to join the red one.

From behind them, a familiar Gotham drawl says, “Wow, you really were the nerd Robin, weren’t you?” Tim twists to grin at her, vindicated.

Jason scrubs a hand over his eyes. “How do you keep getting in here?”

Steph smiles prettily. “I got bored of waitin’ for Cass, sue me.” She turns to Tim. “We were together when you texted,” she says, like it’s in any way an adequate explanation.

“Together… on the roof of this apartment?” clarifies Roy.

“Please, I'm a bat. It’s what we do. Ooh, I wanna be the purple counter.”

“It’s eggplant,” Tim says, face straight.

“Damn straight.”

She settles down, kneeling on a cushion opposite Tim, like they were never without her. As they play, Cassandra keeps her word. She’s not a big fan of exposition, as a rule, but she’s drinking Tim’s (Jason’s) hot chocolate and so she must fulfil her side of the bargain. In the year Tim’s been out of the loop she’s been all over- Hong Kong, Europe, undercover in Moscow for a stretch. She’s even spent some time with the Team, which makes Tim ache with cold jealousy even as he knows it’s unwarranted. But Jason is a long line of heat curled around him, and he’s okay. Really and truly.

Jason who turns out to be spectacularly bad at trivia games, and also a nightmare to play with. Like:

“Dude, gay people have been able to marry here since, like, 2015. How did-”

“Oh I'm sorry, I was probably too busy being six feet underground!”

Or:

“You’re serious, Jaybird?”

“Adele is back? A-fucking-dele?  I didn’t fucking die for this.”

As a result, as the sun draws low in the sky, blood-red seeping over the horizon, the scores look like:

• Steph
• Tim
• Roy
• Jason
• Cass (mostly she just likes to read the questions)

Secure in her victory, Steph stretches, catlike. “Anyone have one of B’s credit cards? I could really go for a Chinese before I finish thrashing you all.” Tim scowls at her.

A new voice replies, “I do.”

As one, they all turn to the doorway. Damian is leaning there, thoroughly unimpressed.

Jason looks skyward, as if praying for divine intervention. “Red Hood’s home for wayward vigilantes. Please, at least wipe your shoes on the mat. How are you people even getting in?”

Not unpredictably, his plea goes unanswered. Tim personally thinks it’s got something to do with the vents.

Damian takes his shoes off entirely, padding over to sit next to Cass, who pulls him close. He takes a black plastic debit card with the Wayne Industries logo on it out of his pocket and hands it to Stephanie. She grins at it in a slightly manic way.

“Thanks, baby bat. The old man never trusted me with one of these- wonder why? Hey, are those Batman socks?” Damian crosses his legs, tucking the offending socks away, scowling. “Okay, what do people want?” she asks, opening the notes page on her phone. Tim observes Damian as the orders come flooding in. He’s flushed and a little sulky, clearly uncomfortable with being the centre of attention in such a tight-knit gathering. Why are you here, then? Tim wants to ask, but doesn’t.

The kid’s in designer jeans and a plain black fleece- he’s come from the Manor, not patrol, then. Steph is in full Batgirl gear from the neck down, Cass swimming in Jay’s jacket. Roy’s in sweats, bandages peeking out from under his tee. Jason’s shirt is patterned with flowers and a little discoloured where blood hasn’t washed all the way out. What a fucking team they make. It gives Tim an idea.

After Steph’s called in their order, he says, “hey, does Dick still use his Snapchat?”

“Sure,” says Steph. “I have seen so many gym selfies. And also videos of dogs he sees on the street.”

Damian mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, “I like the dog videos.”

“Why, anyways?”

Tim flushes, self-conscious. “I thought maybe we should send a photo. Show him and Bruce what they’re missing?”

Jason stiffens behind him and Tim worries he’s said the wrong thing, but then he’s laughing, long and low. Steph’s grin widens, slowly.

“Ooh, you’re evil,” she says.

“If he turns up at our door crying, we’re throwing you out there and saving ourselves,” says Roy, and the others seem inclined to agree.

Steph takes the photo. It gives Cass some serious redeye, but she seems to like it, disregarding Steph’s offer to fix it. They’re huddled close, to fit everyone in, and it’s so domestic Tim finds himself needing to take a minute. Jason’s in the very centre, surrounded by family. All Tim can think is all this could be yours, if you’d just take it.

The photo’s sent just in time for the doorbell to ring for their takeout. There’s a buzz of excitement as the party disperses to grab plates and cutlery, or in Roy’s case, to just eat out of the box with his fingers. After attempting to wield chopsticks three separate times, Steph looks on the cusp of joining him. It leaves Tim and Jason alone on the sofa, curled around each other.

“Seriously, babybird,” asks Jason, low and sleepy. “Why’d you do it?”

Tim considers his words. “I figured… well, it’s a lot less destructive revenge plan than a car bomb. And you’re allowed to still be angry at them, even if I'm here now.”

Jason considers. “What, killing ‘em with kindness? Making them jealous?”

Tim smiles. “Something like that.”

What he doesn’t say, is: I love everybody in this apartment so much, and you already love them too, and Bruce and Dick love them and me and you, and surely, with so many people loving each other, there’ll be no room left for hurt.

He hopes Jay will figure it out, though.

After they’ve eaten, when they’re curled up talking, tired and sleepy, the board game forgotten, Steph remembers to open Dick’s reply.

It’s a selfie of him grinning- literally that’s all his snaps ever are. He’s in an office chair that must be in front of the Batcomputer, judging by the view of the rest of the cave. There’re heavy dark circles smudged under his eyes and he just looks so goddamn tender.

‘you all look so happy. jay really grew up, huh?’

Steph doesn’t reply; doesn’t show it to anyone, either.

-----

‘but I won't stop this, and you won't stop this.

it'll probably go further than either of us wanted.’

-----

It’s unreasonably early when Jason wakes up; dawn peeks her golden fingers of light through their thin curtains, taunting him. This schedule is a relic from his League days, and although exhaustion and teenage rebellion have mostly dragged him out of it, when he’s up: he’s up.

Snippets of conversations from last night drift through his mind, enough to overwhelm him, even now. It’s- it’s been a long time since he was a Bat in Gotham, and so much has changed, and yet. Surrounded by friends in the warm glow of the evening skyline, it was almost like he’d never left. Even though they aren’t his friends. Even though that’s a very, very dangerous way to think.

He abandons any hope of getting back to sleep, sits up. Tim makes a quiet, unhappy noise, and curls into the warmth he left behind. A soft feeling pervades Jason’s chest, diffusing even through the guilt of kept secrets, and it makes him think back to when this thing between them was tenuous and new, when they’d had lifetimes hidden from each other. It’d been this feeling, knife-edged, every time he’d gone to load bullets into a gun, since that first night. Like he’s got people to let down, now.

He’d thought it would be heavy, suffocating, like had been with Bruce. Instead it’s more like a beginning, like a pink sky delicate and shy with morning sunrays.

He very carefully gets up, pads out into the hall in socks and boxers and a worn-out t-shirt. He remembers to dodge the mattress there, holding Cass and Stephanie, this time. They’re curled up around each other tightly, but as he carefully steps over them, Cass gifts him with a single, sleepy smile. He contrasts it with the voiceless wrath of Batgirl and grins back. The soft feeling remains.

In the living area, Roy is dead to the world, sprawled, ungainly, on the long sofa he’s claimed as his own. Jason ruffles his hair in passing, safe in the knowledge he won’t feel it. Damian, for his part, is curled very small, tightly compacted in one of their armchairs. It can’t be comfortable, but Jason remembers his own training with the League, remembers being pushed so hard for so long that sleep anywhere was blessed, was a mercy. That’s stayed with him, the ability to drift off anywhere, and it looks like it’s stayed with Damian, too. Jason feels, unguarded, a wave of empathy, of pity for the kid, and it nearly bowls him over. This is ridiculous. He’s known the boy for all of evening.

But the softness in his chest doesn’t diminish. This- he wants this, wants a lifetime contained in that photograph from last night, pink-cheeked and safe and happy. Even thoughts of Dick in that life, of Bruce, can’t tamp down the softness, the wanting. It terrifies him.

There was someone he’d always found himself searching for, when he was scared, before. And amongst everything that was discussed last night there was- this. Her.

He hopes that his plan works.

Jason slips out onto the fire escape, and usually the muscle memory is enough to trigger his cravings, the tattered, ugly itch for a cigarette in the borders of his mind. But this time there’s a strange nothing, blank in the clean light of morning. Hand over hand, he uses the rusted metal to climb to the roof of the building, where, if he remembers right, there’s-

A security camera.

He swallows, in front of it, suddenly feeling ridiculous. It’s probably too late to turn back now.

“Hey,” he says. “Um. Sorry for not checking in earlier. I- I only found out you were doing this last night, actually.”

A whole lot of nothing. He thinks, dully, that the guys in the security room are probably laughing at him.

Ha. Like he pays enough rent for this building to have a security room.

The wind ruffles through his hair, messing it up even further, and he sighs, turns to climb back down, when his pocket vibrates. He pulls out his phone, and there’s a text from a number he doesn’t recognise.

Keep talking.

Hope stirs through him, dull and heady. This is crazy.

“I, uh,” he says, turning back around. “I genuinely thought you’d have done your mandatory physical therapy and gotten the hell outta the life. Y’know, picket fence a million miles from here, two and a half kids. Shoulda known you weren’t a quitter.”

Another number.

I guess we both made some bad assumptions.

He laughs. “Thinking I was dead wasn’t wrong or an assumption. It was just… true. And then it wasn’t.” A beat. “This is exactly as fuckin’ creepy as you think it is, by the way.”

He’s not entirely sure, but he hopes she’s grinning in front of a screen somewhere, the same grin he remembers.

Okay, I was just being nice. You were a dumbass. You still are.

“Naw,” he says, no heat behind it. “You’re just saying that ‘cause you miss me.”

We’ve all missed you, more than you could believe. Dick liked your picture, by the way.

He rolls his eyes, makes sure the camera gets it. “Of course you would intercept that.”

It did make him cry.

“Sure it did. He was just mad we didn’t invite him to game night.”

Maybe I was upset.

He winces. “I'm sorry. I didn’t think. Not about the game night, I mean. When I got back into Gotham I was focused on a million different things with the Bats who were in the picture. I never even thought to worry- shoulda known everytime Dickiebird asked Oracle the best way to kick my ass, he was talking to you.”

I didn’t know it was you, the next text reads. He supposes that’s meant as an apology for all the times she’s kicked his ass by proxy. “Right. When did you figure it out, anyway?”

About fifteen minutes after everybody else, apparently, when Dick texted me and told me. I'm sorry, too. I dropped the ball.

“Huh,” he smirks. “I was smart enough to evade the goddamn Oracle.”

In my defence, you were very far down my priority list.

“Hey!” he yelps. “I basically kidnapped the Wayne heir. And corrupted him.”

A couple of kids fucking around on a rooftop don’t set off any of my usual alarms. I don’t know how it happened, but I really had no idea. The idea of keeping tabs on Tim didn’t sit right- he was so strongly independent.

“Yeah. Hey, I wonder- would there have been enough left of him, subconsciously, to evade your usual, y’know. Haunts?”

I don’t haunt.

“Yeah, like I said before- this is still creepy as shit. We could’ve just got coffee.”

It’s an interesting idea. I haven’t studied psychology as intimately as a lot of other topics- I can rectify that. And you didn’t ask me for coffee.

“Right. Which of these disgustingly encrypted fake phone numbers should I have sent that text to?”

Point.

“I’ve… I’ve really missed you, Babs. More than I knew. You should come to the next game night.”

You’re already planning another one? Are you settling?

The question hits him like cold water, the soft ache in his chest condensing to something more rigid. He’s… he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know what he wants. He had been joking, but now everything just feels messy. Maybe he’s getting attached- falling once again for the family who want him for his smashed-up fragments of Jason Todd, age fifteen-and-three-quarters, nothing more.

Hey, Jay. Take a breath. Give me a date and time, and I’ll be there. Promise.

He does: breathes out long and low, shaky, and offers the camera a watery smile.

Somewhere, far across Gotham, Barbara Gordon returns it, tear-tracks staining her cheeks.

-----

It’s like his subconscious knows the second Jason is gone, clawing at Tim’s mind in a feeble tantrum. Tim manages a few more hours, alone in the bed, but has to give it up as a lost cause. This is not on brand. Timothy Drake, night-owl supreme, stumbles blearily out of bed at seven a.m. sharp.

The girls on the mattress are dead to the world, curse them, and Roy Harper is gently snoring as Tim gravitates to the coffee machine. He’s vaguely worried the soft bleeping will wake up one of them, but not worried enough to, y’know, not make coffee. As he reaches for his old Superman mug, he tries to put a positive spin on things- this is when he got up at before the accident, when he was full-time Red Robin as well as twenty other things. He can use this extra time for anything- he hasn’t hacked properly in ages, and he’s had his eye on the new database the US military is setting up.

His body seems to disagree, though, rearing with old, fraudulent pain. He pours his coffee and drinks it, gulping down half the cup and hating his life a little less. Not nearly as much as he’d hated months of his life, before Jason, so he’s not really complaining.

Speaking of Jason- he’s not worried. He really isn’t. Jason’s been leaving the apartment a little more, recently, although never so early, and never without telling Tim. But if he’s going to heal, to move on, this is probably an important step. Regaining trust in the city, or something. Man, Tim knows nothing about psychology. Next time they go to the library he’s picking up something on trauma, as subtly as he can.

He’s going to refill his mug- he doesn’t have a problem, shut up- when he becomes aware of a small sound behind him, a tiny, frantic, stifled series of breaths. He turns, not immediately observing anything wrong, puzzled. Red Robin instincts screaming, he moves slowly, silently to where the boys are sleeping. And sees it.

Damian’s entire frame is tensed, his muscles bunched, coiled in on himself. Still asleep, he’s biting viciously at his lip, unconsciously muffling his tiny, scared noises. It’s such a contrast to Damian as Tim has come to know him, all unruffled confidence and snobbery- or as Robin, steel-bright and immortal, the harsh cut of the city skyline as his backdrop. Asleep, terrified, he just looks like a boy. Tim doesn’t want to think about why his nightmares are so quiet; doesn’t want to think about how his grandfather would’ve reacted to finding him like this, a lifetime ago.

Acting on some unknowable, formerly buried brotherly instinct, Tim knees in front of him, reaches out. One hand goes to Damian’s shoulder, steadies his rocking. The other brushes his hair back from where his forehead is beading with sweat. He whispers soothing noises and watches Damian’s eyes open slowly, then all at once, guarded and very pale blue.

He squeezes the shoulder and retreats, wondering to what extent he’s fucked everything up.

“You’re okay,” he says, feeling increasingly stupid. Damian’s eyes are very big.

“I wasn’t scared, Drake,” he says, voice flat, as if all the emotion has been wrung out of it.

“Yeah, I know.”

“It’s not- usually I'm in my room. Nobody hears from there.” Oh. Tim’s heart does a little stutter. But pity isn’t what Damian wants.

“Well, it’s a small apartment. This way you didn’t have to deal with like, Roy. You’re welcome.” Roy snores at his left, and Tim sends him a silent thank-you for proving his point. He’s not sure he’s ever been this close to Damian for so long, not without violence. They’re in uncharted territory, here.

Damian makes a small, displeased noise. “I suppose.” Tim stands up, a little unsteady.

“We’ve got food, if you’re hungry, but, uh Jason isn’t around to cook it. You could take your chances with me..?”

Damian looks up at him, distinctly unimpressed. “Unfortunately, I value the lining of my stomach. You could get me some coffee.”

Ouch. Fair. The kid shouldn’t have coffee, but he thinks of him curled up, whimpering, and can’t say no. He bet Damian knows it, too, the bastard. Already he’s regained his composure, sits on the edge of the worn armchair like a king regarding his court. Tim gets him his damn coffee.

Cass and Steph come stumbling blearily towards the smell a few minutes later. They’d both borrowed Jason’s old stuff to sleep in, and he feels a ridiculous rush of affection for them, swallowed by shirts that must be six sizes too big. Steph looks toward the stove, hopefully.

Tim snorts. “You can try it. Jay’s out, and Damian’s already forbidden me from touching the thing.” Damian smirks, vindicated, seated on a barstool with his prized caffeine, feet dangling hilariously far from the floor. Steph makes a mournful noise, and Tim swears Cass makes her tummy rumble on command.

“You know,” says Steph, after a beat, “Roy can cook,”

“Mmrgh,” says Roy, six minutes later, half the Bats of Gotham looming around him, looking pathetic. “Okay, I'm up, I'm up. Jesus, what fuckin’ time is this?”

Steph shrugs, unrepentant. “It’s Monday. I have class in like thirty minutes. And I'm hungry.”

Roy stares at Tim, indignant, apparently chasing some form of justice. Tim, very corrupt, shrugs. “You aren’t paying rent, dude.”

Damian stiffens a little as Roy swears, sits up and heads for the stove, blearily. “I- I had forgotten it was Monday.”

A knock at the door. Which- okay. They don’t exactly get many visitors- visitors who use the door, Tim amends. “I’ll get it,” he says, because it’s blatantly obvious that nobody else is going to volunteer. Also, he’s the closest thing to the owner, although he doesn’t actually pay rent, either.

He’s just wondering how Jason does actually pay the rent when he swings the door open, and oh, okay, that’s Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne, not Batman, looking vaguely uncomfortable in the dingey corridor. Tim’s a little too much in shock to invite him in.

“Tim,” says Bruce, in a voice that’s just a little fragile. “I don’t mean to intrude. Dick told me Damian was over here. I'm just here to take him to school.”

Huh.

First off- oh yeah, Tim’d completely forgotten that Damian went to school. He doesn’t envy the poor teachers. It’s a stray thought in a mind that’s mostly just registering how long it’s been since he’s actually seen Bruce, face to face, how much of a miracle it is that the man’s stayed away for this long. He’s not even here to mess anything up- he’s here for Damian. What did Dick say to him?

“Dad,” he says, choked. He can’t help it. Then Bruce’s arms are coming up around him in a hug, and, oh. Oh, he really has missed this. He hadn’t realised.

“You, ah, you should probably come in. He’s just eating, I think.” He struggles to regain his composure, leads Bruce down the hall to the kitchen. Where he was probably expecting to find one of his runaway sons and maybe the other. Not, by the looks of it, his daughter, his sort-of-daughter, and Roy Harper.

“Ooh,” says Roy, gesturing with a spatula. “Look, kids, it’s The Man.”

Steph grins through a mouthful of toast. “Cass, say ‘fuck The Man’?”

“Fuck The Man,” parrots Cass, obediently.

“Okay, now say ‘eat the rich’-”

“Father,” says Damian, sounding a little guilty. “I'm sorry. I lost track of the time- I don’t have my things-”

“It’s okay, son. There’s your school bag and a change of clothes in the car.”

Damian nods. He is, Tim realises, hiding the mug of coffee behind his back.

“Want some eggs?” offers Roy.

Tim shakes his head, collapses into an armchair. Bruce starts when Roy looks at him expectantly. He’s incredibly out of place, his shiny shoes squeaking on the dirty tile, and it’s kind of hilarious.

“Oh, no thank you. Um. I'm really just here for Damian.”

It would sting, but Tim’s quite skilled at cutting through Bruce’s bullshit by now, and what he really means is: I really am on my very best behaviour and Alfred has probably bugged me to make sure I'm being polite and non-intrusive so I really really really cannot stay. He figures. There’s no other plausible explanation for how small Bruce looks, cowed, even taller than the rest of them as he is.

Idly, out of the corner of his eye, Tim watches Damian use the awkward standoff to chug the rest of his coffee, kick the empty mug behind his armchair.

“I'm ready.” Bruce gives another tiny, brittle nod, like he desperately wants to say something but can’t. He turns for the hallway, mechanical, Damian at his side.

Naturally, this is when a thunking noise reverberates through the apartment as Jason swings down onto their fire escape from above, climbs breezily through the window. The apartment goes very still. Tim has a bizarre sense of déjà vu.

“You guys are up? I thought Bats were supposed to be evening people, the fuck-”

He cuts himself off.

Tim watches Bruce’s presence register. Jason’s walls go right up; then slowly, painfully come down again, like he’s willing himself not to attack.

“Oh. Old man.”

It’s not a greeting, barely even a statement. Bruce is frozen, ever-so vulnerable. Roy’s bodily twisted, facing him, a defensive stance. Cass and Steph look like they’re watching a game of tennis, albeit one with unusually high emotional stakes.

“Jason,” Bruce says, thickly. “I was just- I needed to take Damian to school.”

“Bullshit,” says Jason, high and unnatural in his mouth, and Tim flinches. Jason’s been so stable recently, he’d almost forgotten the cold, heady anger beneath his surface. It has what he now recognises to be the green tinge of a Lazarus pit. “Bruce Wayne doesn’t do the school run. What, you just couldn’t resist yourself? Had to come see the freak show?”

Bruce is very pale. It is, after all, only the second time he’s seen his dead son, and Jason’s never been in the habit of making anything easy for him.

He half-closes his eyes. All of a sudden the man just looks tired and very, very human. “Sometimes I try and make time to drive Damian. Spending time with my sons is important to me.”

Jason’s head snaps up. Tim has no idea if Bruce has said the wrong thing, if it’s possible for him to say anything right.

“But- you are right. I wanted to see you. Both of you.”

There’s something dangerous in Jason’s smile, teeth flashing like cold steel. “We ain’t your fucking rich boy zoo, old man. Nobody invited you here.”

Cass speaks, and although she’s quiet, there’s a deadly seriousness to her tone that puts every eye in the room on her. “You did not invite me. Or Stephanie. Sometimes… I think family just happens.”

Jason’s teeth sink down on his lip, hard, and Tim can’t bear it. Can’t bear to see him standing there, hunched in on himself and alone, all hard lines of defence. He crosses the room and puts his hand over Jason’s. The pulse there beats weak and fast, like a frightened animal.

“I'm sorry,” says Bruce, no excuse, no justification, no nothing. Just I'm sorry. Dick’s influence, no doubt. “We’ll go now.”

He walks out of the room, quick and measured, like a man trying awfully hard not to fall apart. Damian hesitates for a moment, says something that might be a thank you, looks at Tim, eyes filled with something that might be gratitude. He can’t quite tell. When the door clicks shut behind them tension diffuses out of the room all at once, dry as dust.

Steph keeps eating her toast. Jason breathes out. Tim stands there, marvelling at his universe, still intact despite the world’s best efforts.

-----

Twelve hours later, Jason’s pulse has barely slowed.

 It’s the dead of fucking night and he’s on another fucking rooftop and he can’t fucking breathe. He’s not even entirely certain whereabouts he is in Gotham anymore, only that in the distance is the vague swish of oily water at the docks. He’s so predictable, so stupid, back to his old haunts within two weeks, and he’d be sinking his hands into his hair and ripping it out if it weren’t for this useless fucking helmet.

His phone buzzes. It’s another text from Roy, who never texts twice. Somewhere inside him is an all-consuming vortex of guilt at what he’s doing to his friends, what he’s doing to Tim, but when he closes his eyes all he can see is Bruce is his kitchen, his space, quiet and polite and unobtrusive, the way he’d forced himself to tear his gaze away from Jason, like he was something precious, something missing.

“I'm sorry,” he’d said; nothing more. Just that.

It’s not how Bruce is. The falsehood to it, the hope it imbues him with nonetheless, is tearing Jason apart from the inside.

He pulls off his helmet and buries his head in his hands. Sits there, folded up, and listens to the dirty water rise and fall.

Family just happens, says Cass. Happens when you turn up on the fire escape of a murderer and hope for the best, apparently. When two fucked up kids collide so hard it’s only the press of one’s body keeping the other from falling apart. When there’s a feral, hopeless tragedy of a boy loosening the tyres on your goddamn car, and you don’t take him to the police but into a home. Who the fuck does that, anyway? Jason scrunches his hands into fists and presses them against his eyes, watching red sunbursts appear at the pressure.

Family happens on a rooftop, when you come across a kid who means nothing to himself and everything to you, so goddamn lost he doesn’t even know who he is.

He hadn’t been able to stand the apartment for long after Bruce’d left, the residual good mood from his conversation with Babs dispelled entirely. He’s left the place before, when the walls press so hard down on him it’s hard to breathe, but if the texts on his phone are anything to go by, apparently this time is worrying, and he doesn’t know, maybe it is. There’re the beginnings of a fire licking up his spine, like he wants to start moving, maybe do something so stupid he forgets his own name, to exist only in chaos for a solitary, stark moment.

They say older siblings exist for a reason, and when he hears the familiar, vibrant footfall, there isn’t the surprise he expected, nor the nameless, scorching rage, backlit sickly green. He’s so tired all of a sudden. For an instant he doesn’t miss the bed in his apartment with Tim curled in it, but a larger room in a big house not far from here, walls lined with books that have a dead boy’s name written in them.

“Hey, Jaybird,” says Dick, wary and soft. “Those things got real bullets in them?”

Jason snorts. “Looking to find out?”

“Looking to see if it’s safe to get in range.”

“Coward.” He makes sure to face directly ahead so that Dick can’t see him smiling, just a little. It’s… been a while.

Dick drops, gracefully, to sit by him, legs kicking out over the edge of the roof. “Guess I’ll have to take my chances.”

“Guess you will.”

A beat.

“You’re alive,” Dick says, and swallows hard, as if the truth has been allowed to flow to him and recede again, as if there isn’t a square foot of bad blood and bullet scars between them even now.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”

Dick’s face is set like he has a piece to say, when Jason sneaks a look. “I used to think about it, you know, after enough time had passed that it didn’t hurt just to remember you.” He pauses. “Nothing’s ever clean cut in this business; everything’s messy. You figure death shouldn’t be any different. Maybe you’d really been snatched by ninjas, or you were secretly an immortal meta, or… whatever. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I’d picture you living it up a million miles away from this vigilante shit, exactly how it should be.”

“You never sleep at night.”

Dick smiles. “You got me there.”

“And then, lemme guess, you’d wake up the next day to go fight the Red Hood, just another day in the life, right?”

Dick sighs, digs his fingers in deep where they’re resting on his thighs. “Yeah. I was stupid. Bruce thinks so too, and he hates feeling stupid. It hasn’t been at all easy for him.”

Jason raises an eyebrow. He knows Dick can see because he isn’t actually wearing his domino tonight, because he’s an idiot. “It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park on my end, pal.”

“I figured. I just- he’s really, really trying, okay? You should know that.”

Jason scuffs the heels of his boots along the rough brick like a little kid. “What if I do know that? What if I don’t want him to try?”

“He’s your dad, Jay,” and to have it aloud, in absolute certainty, breaks something in Jason probably beyond repair. “All that means is that he’s never gonna stop trying.”

Jason swallows, thickly. “Not gonna lie, if I’d ever thought this would happen, I was picturing more yelling.”

“You didn’t want this to happen. You didn’t want us to know.” The words are neutral but there’s grief weighty in Dick’s tone.

There aren’t any stars out; never are in Gotham. Jason fixes his gaze on the murky yellow moon. “I don’t know how to be what any of you people want. I don’t even know what I want to be, yet. I think I thought I’d get out of this city, make something real out of myself, come back in some distant future where Bruce is grey and retired and married off, and one day I’d go to his funeral like he went to mine.”

“That’s a little morbid, kid,” Dick’s tone is teasing but his eyes are bright and understanding, and perhaps he’d pictured that future too.

“Yeah, well, I was going through a whole thing.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Am I murdering you right now? How does it look like it’s going, dickwad?”

Dick laughs, and Jason hasn’t heard that sound in four years now, or thereabouts, and he really hadn’t thought he’d missed it until today.

“It’s not too late for the yelling, don’t get smart.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I’d like to see you try.”

“None of that- what would the kids think?”

“Which ones? Has anyone told Bruce he has a problem yet?”

Dick sucks in a breath. “He’s good for Cass, she’s good for him. Steph doesn’t really consider him a dad, so she doesn’t count. Damian- well. He didn’t really get a choice with Damian.”

Jason badly wants to roll his eyes. “Yeah, and how do you think Damian feels about that? Jesus.”

Dick flinches. “Not like that,” he says, but there’s worry deep-rooted in his eyes (not wearing the domino either, they are all of them the stupidest family in Gotham tonight) that Jason didn’t put there. “I'm thinking you’d be a pretty good big brother, though.”

“I'm not-“ Jason starts, the old anger rising thick-blooded in his chest, but Dick is raising his hands, placating.

“You’re not,” he says. “I know, I know.”

There’s a pull in Jason’s chest like magnetism, inevitable. He nudges his shoulder against Dick’s and doesn’t pull away, just resting there, the pool of contact between their bodies like a black hole. He’s weightless for an instant, every bad thing in his body drawn away.

“Bruce misses you,” Dick says, simple, awful. “We all miss you, every day.”

Jason closes his eyes.

-----

‘it's reached the point in the night where I need to decide

whether I'm gonna fall asleep, or watch the sun rise.’

-----

He gets home to a mercifully empty apartment, for once. He’s taken his time, through the front door and up the stained, wobbly stairs like a normal goddamned person. When the door clicks open there are still dirty dishes in the sink and muddy footprints on the floor, but the only figure is Tim’s, slight and stark against the empty.

The dark circles under his eyes are more pronounced than usual, and it’s nearly three in the morning and Tim’s up just for him, just ‘cause he wasn’t here. The thought near crowds him out of his own mind with guilt and madness and love.

He takes a few steps forward then stops, biting his lip. He feels pinned in place by something awful and inevitable, maybe because it’s just the two of them after everything, maybe by the secrets that exist here even now.

Tim closes the gap. He’s pulled down into a kiss that’s searing, reverberating through his whole body, and his arms go up around Tim and bury in his hair, pull him closer, closer, until they’re a red-hot core of energy and the universe revolves just around them, for a change.

Tim pulls back slowly, like it hurts. “I love you,” he says, simple in the darkness. Jason’s world tilts ever-so-slightly on its axis.

“What,” he says, after a pause, instead of the thing that he should be saying. “Because I ran?”

Tim’s brow furrows. “No. Just now. Because you came back. You always come back.” A beat. “Although- I suppose it is your apartment.”

He knows already that Jason won’t say it back, and although his voice is casual, attempting humour, sharp tension crackles in the air around them. The silence stretches a moment too long.

Jason says, “I-” at the same time Tim says, “Jason.”

Then he finds he can’t say anything else.

“Jason. It’s alright.”

“It’s not.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I'm not. I-”

He can’t bring himself to say it. Tim breathes out all at once and turns for the doorway to their bedroom. He walks stiffly, like today’s been one of his bad days and Jason hasn’t even noticed. Guilt stabs through him like ice, and there’s blood roaring in his ears.

“I haven’t told you- there’s things you don’t know,” he says, desperate. Tim stops but doesn’t turn around.

“You never pretended to have told me everything,” he says, and Jason thinks that’s a patient smile in his voice, but not a happy one.

“I- before. You knew me before. You don’t get to say things like that, alright, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Just-”

“Jay,” Tim says again. “What?”

Jason squeezes his eyes shut. “This is so fucked up.”

“Jason.” That’s the Red Robin voice. Jason misses the cool enclosure of his helmet, the way it puts the world behind a screen.

“Before,” he says again, slowly, like it’s being dragged out of him. “Before what happened with the Joker- happened. Before we met on that rooftop- we’d already met, okay? You already knew who I was. And back when you had your memories you’d never’ve fucking touched me. So don’t say that. Please.”

At some point Tim has turned around. He’s biting down hard on his lip.

“That’s not right,” he says, not blinking. “I’d- I’d have told Bruce.”

Jason wants to shut his eyes again but he can’t seem to make the muscles work, the world flooding in against his will. “You figured it out yourself,” he says. “You approached me. I don’t know why you didn’t say anything. We were-” and he curses the way his voice breaks, curses the awful ache at his throat, like how it feels when someone wearing armoured gauntlets has their fist there and is squeezing. “We were getting to be friends. I thought.”

Tim looks at him some more.

“The point is,” he manages, strangled, “that you knew how I felt then and you would never have- you wouldn’t, okay? And I found you on that rooftop the first time and you were so new, and I thought I could do this but I can’t, okay? It isn’t what you want so can you just stop- just stop looking at me like that.”

Tim flinches; the pit in Jason’s stomach threatens to swallow him up whole.

“I need a second,” Tim says. “I- I love you, but I need a second.”

He steps back like Jason’s moving towards him but Jason’s just standing there. Tim’s biting his lip again, and Jason wants to put his thumb there and stop it, but he doesn’t get to have that, doesn’t deserve to have that anymore.

“I-” Tim says, shaky and overwhelmed, and then he straightens his back a little and says, “Conner. Kon-El. I need- can you-”

It barely registers what Tim’s asking for before the boy is there. He does look a little like Clark, but not nearly as much as Jason had expected. He’s in a leather jacket over pajama pants and his eyes are very wide open, like he’d forgotten what Tim looked like until right now. His presence punches a neat, tidy hole through Jason’s gut.

He casts a glance at Jason, wary. “D’you need to go?” he asks, voice crackly with the vestiges of sleep.

Tim nods but he’s looking at Jason when he does it, and he doesn’t look angry or betrayed but just sad, sad like Jason’s falling apart in front of him and he’s all ran out of spellthread to stitch him back together.

They go. The last Jason sees of Tim he’s wearing a smile that maybe says I will see you soon, I love you, or maybe Jason’s just exactly as fucking crazy as he’s always been.

The empty apartment is cruel and dark around him. Jason sinks blindly into a sofa, swallowing hard. There’s a pounding ache at his temples, and green embers behind the light of his eyes.

He really misses his dad.

-----

The Kents are decent people. Hard-working, kind, honest. This hypothesis is easily tested with the observable data at hand- Kon, who hasn’t heard anything off Tim in more than a year, now, dragged himself out of bed in the twilight hours because Tim might’ve been upset. He didn’t insist on conversation during the flight back, and, once they got back to the farmhouse, he tried to offer Tim his bed, his own clothes to sleep in. Not once did he say “I missed you,” or “where have you been?” or “what’s going on?”, or anything else that threatened to manifest the prickle at the corner of Tim’s eyes into real, actual tears.

He’d set Tim down, ever-so-gently, made him up a camp bed, took one look at his crumpled face and pulled him into a hug. Made sure Tim was the first one to let go. Then got into bed quietly and clicked off the light.

Tim doesn’t deserve Kon. This is the essential fact of their friendship. From the moment Kon was made Tim has been owing him. He doesn’t remember all that much still, but crystalline in his mind is a kryptonite ring, pollen-clouded eyes on a familiar-unfamiliar face.

And then there’s Ma, who didn’t blink twice at the sight of Tim at her breakfast table, awkward in yesterday’s clothes but chatting with Kon a little now, about nothing, in the way that Kon can just calm him right down, open him right up. Instead of coffee she’d given him a mug of something vanilla, hot and sweet and milky, and drinking it on the porch with his best friend put a whole lot of things into perspective.

Alternate hypothesis: the Kents are probably the best people he knows, actually. He’s continually dwarfed by the magnitude of their kindness. It makes every problem he’s ever faced feel petty and small.

“Things are messed up,” he tells Kon. It’s eleven in the morning and they’re finishing chores, checking soil pH and moisture levels and all of these farm things that are really just chemistry, so Tim should know about, yet he doesn’t have a clue. Ma Kent has set him to weeding. He hasn’t managed to fuck that up yet. That he remembers.

“Sounds that way,” Kon says, tactile telekinesis ripping apart the soil at his feet in lieu of a plough. “All anyone from your weirdo family would tell me was that you were off duty because of this Joker attack. It wasn’t until Cass joined us in San Francisco that we heard anything concrete. Bart and Cassie were out of their minds.” He splits a packet of seeds and floats them to rest in the furrow.

Tim feels the bizarre urge to apologise, but Kon wouldn’t appreciate that. “Things weren’t exactly opportune on my end either, dude. I lost everything- I was a blank slate for a while. Nobody told me I had been Robin, or that Bruce was Batman. I had to figure it out for myself again.” Kon is smirking at him. “What?”

His eyes flash with fondess. “Nah, nothing. Just- Tim Drake: had to figure out Batman’s identity twice while the rest of Gotham puzzled over if the butts matched.”

Tim elbows him, almost falls into the row of potatoes when the action drags a wave of psychosomatic pain up his legs. “Don’t even go there. You’re joking, but it was real for me. Anyways, uh, I was trying to figure out who I used to be, and I ran into Jason. And he helped me figure it out. And now we’re a thing? But-”

“Woah,” says Kon, raising his hands. “Jason? The Jason?”

“…Yes?”

“Tim, dude, he’s dead. I'm like ninety percent sure.”

“Oh, right.” Tim pauses. “Yeah, uh. He was? Just for a bit.”

Kon looks skyward, like he’s praying for patience. “Okay, yeah, sounds like things are pretty messed up. You’re right.”

“Oh, no. That’s not the messed-up part. Though it was pretty dramatic.”

“Tim, nothing has ever happened in Gotham without being dramatic. It’s like a legal prerequisite.”

“Oh, shut your small-town mouth.” Tim looks down, trying to vocalise what he’s feeling. “When I called you, it was because- look, he’d just told me that we’d known each other before I lost my memories. I never mentioned that to you?”

Kon pulls a sorry face, accompanied by the snip of shears as he clips away the diseased foliage.

“Yeah, didn’t think so. But he says that he’d- he’d wanted to be with me even back then-” he thrusts his face into his palms and groans. “This is so awkward, I'm sorry.”

“It’s what I'm here for. Also, you have mud on your, uh, everything.”

Tim takes a deep breath. “He’d wanted to be with me then, and I pretty firmly said no, which I don’t remember. And now he clearly thinks that he’s never going to be what I want, that he’s just a coping mechanism, and I don’t know what I think. If the real Tim felt one way, and I feel another, then who the hell am I? Fuck.”

Kon puts an arm around him, just traces of tactile telekinesis stroking soothing circles into Tim’s back. He wonders for the millionth time how he could ever have forgotten this, all the wonderful people he loves.

“I think,” Kon says, “that we should go in and have some lemonade. And you should shower. And you can take as long as you need to think about it, and in the meantime, we can go to the Tower and you can be with your friends again. That a plan?”

He’s been thinking it for the past eight hours, so he might as well express it. “You’re more than I deserve, Conner Kent.”

“Ah-ah.” Kon waves a finger. “No bat-melodrama on this farm. Not while there’s weeding to do.”

Tim grins at him, endlessly thankful, and hides his slightly watery eyes behind the leafy fronds of carrot-tops.

-----

All Jason sees is green on green on green.

There’s a cold, numbing hush cast over the sharp edges of his mind, and while you’d expect the chill to be welcoming, given the fire raging at his pulse points, it feels uglydirtywrong. He’s only vaguely aware of the set of his body, like his proprioception has been turned all the way down. He knows somewhere that he’s hungry, that he’s stiff, but his mind and body are trapped thick in the honey Lazarus-scent and he can’t-

He can’t.

Noises, the thudding sound of wood. Echoes in the corners of his hearing. Obscured by the roar of green flame.

Nothingness, for a while. You can have too much peace, like anything else, and his mind seeps away in the blankness.

Is this how it felt for Tim? Short dark pinprick, a whole new lifetime of empty.

It’s not an empty life for Jason, here and now, it’s an excess, a too-much too-great throbbing of knowledge beyond the cold places in his mind that are in thinking distance. Far, far too much life for a dead boy.

Sudden, flaring, awful. His unblinking vision is filled with light, crowded with silhouettes. A low rumble of sound, barely recognisable as human speech.

“-Jesus.”

A swallow. “Sweartogod I just found him like this. I was looking for Tim, but he’s not here.”

“I’ve never seen…”

“Nothing like this? Not even early on?”

“Less so then. As he calmed down he’d space out more, but Jesus, never…”

Choked, harsh, scaping. “His eyes are so green. That’s not natural.”

“No, it’s… no.”

“We need- we need Dick. Bruce.”

“He wouldn’t want-“

“What the fuck else are we supposed to do? Look at him!”

Swallow. “I’ll call. Should we move him?”

“I- fuck. I don’t know. Jesus, I have a class in twenty minutes.”

“You could call Tim?”

“His phone’s on the bench. Oh my god, what if something’s happened?”

“Jay will tell us. We just need- c’mon, buddy-”

Jason feels his body flinch at the contact, although his mind is still far away, in the cold green fire. The dial tone of a phone sounds, on speaker.

“Roy? Don’t hear from you much these days. Everything alright?”

“Dick. It’s Jason. He-”

Desperation, pain, a quick little intake of breath. “What’s happened? Is he okay?”

“Steph found him in the apartment. He’s spaced out, all the way gone- his eyes are glowing, Dick, bright green. Tim isn’t here. He needs medical care, but I couldn’t think of anything that would explain this to a hospital. I don’t know-”

“Can you get him here?”

“Where’s here? He’s not responding well to touch.” Jason senses hands around his ribs and hears himself groan, as if through a thick veil.

“The Cave. Under the manor. We’ve got just about a full hospital down here, minus the staff. We- we can look after him, please-”

“Relax. He won’t be happy, but it’s your call. I don’t know how to get him over- there’s only his bike here.”

A beat. “Alfred can pick you up. He says he’ll be over in ten. Bruce is in his study, I'm going to tell him what’s going on- don’t end the call, yeah?” The voice is wavery and frantic with worry.

“Not going anywhere.” Then, quieter, a murmur: Out of my hands now. A hand comes down on the top of Jason’s head, gentle, caressing, and this time his body doesn’t flinch away.

“You can make your class, if you want. I’ve got it from here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harper. I'm the one who found him like this, anyway.”

A grumble. “Yeah, I had a feeling you’d say that. You bats-”

“Please. I'm barely a bat.”

“Heh. That’s what Jason says.”

Awful, tense silence. Then:

“Roy,” icy, “if you know something about what’s happening, you really need to tell us. It could be important.”

Another weighty pause. Sigh. The image of a figure, tall in red, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

“If I had to guess? When he crawled out of that Lazarus Pit, he was spitting with rage. It kept him going- maybe it was why the resurrection worked. Now that anger is gone, and his emotions are everywhere- maybe it’s like withdrawal.”

The hand leaves his hair, and the coldness soaks in again.

“I don’t know what a Lazarus Pit is.”

“Bruce and Dick will. Look, I should go, these really aren’t my secrets to tell-”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Steph.” Hands up, placating. “He won’t forgive me for this. I can’t help anymore. I need to go.”

One of the figures- Roy, Jason thinks dimly, Roy, Roy, Roy- moves towards the fire exit. The other makes no move to stop him, and nobody says anything else for a good long time after that.

-----

‘but who's gonna push my wheelchair around when I get sick?

God forbid I ever stop feeling sorry for myself, for being selfish.’

-----

It’s early evening when Bart arrives.

There’s a pleasant, heady burn in Tim’s muscles that only comes from honest hard work, not artificial strain at the gym or the cruel ache of a night on Gotham’s rooftops. He almost never gets to feel like this- the evidence of his labours right in front of his eyes, not sinking deep into the cesspit of his city. They’re out on the porch again, Kon with physics homework spread out around him, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth with concentration.

“That’s six, not four,” he says, absentmindedly, feels Kon’s mock-irritated scowl burn a little hole in the back of his neck. He watches pink streak across the watery sunset, the light golden around them.

“I meant to ask- have you been thinking about what you want to do, outside Superboy? Just- I think this is the only schoolwork I’ve ever seen you do.”

Kon shrugs easily. “Not physics, that’s for sure.” He flashes a grin. “It doesn’t even apply to me. But, uh, I'm not sure. College sounds cool and all, parties and big cities, but,” he looks around him, fondness soft in his eyes, “I'm not certain I wouldn’t just end up right back here.”

Tim considers. “You’d do well at college. But realistically- you’re still, what, six? You aren’t supposed to want to be independent yet.”

Kon rolls his eyes. “This six-year-old has saved your life many times, so don’t give me that. And I'm not sure anybody else is seeing it like that. Ma- Ma wants me to go. Clark thinks it’s a good idea. And I- I don’t know, man.”

Tim takes a sip of the iced tea in front of him, so sweet it makes his teeth ache momentarily. “That’s alright. Hey, for all we know, you’re immortal, and you’ve got forever to make up your mind.”

Kon pulls a face. “Urgh, don’t remind me. Cassie went through this morbid thing where she wouldn’t stop lamenting about how we were going to outlive everybody we know. Well, nobody knows how Bart’s lifespan works, but, uh. You bats aren’t actually immortal, no matter how hard you act like it. We all got reminded of that pretty hard.”

Tim bites his lip, feels the usual surge of guilt. “You have no proof that I'm not immortal.”

“Oh, I’ll give you proof-” Tim dodges the first lunge and then the second, jumping up and swinging out of reach with the frieze beam, onto the roof. It’s hot to the touch, baked by the sun. Kon snorts and turns to his homework, although he could easily fly up. Tim goes back to watching the skyline, sees it streak with crackling orange lightning.

Familiar, crackling orange lightning. He smiles a little wider. Bart’s entrance whooshes backwards the rows of corn on either side of the pathway. Which, by the looks of it, probably hadn’t been a pathway before Bart.

Kon barely looks up. “Dude, I have a phone.”

“Do you know how awful phones are? The signal has to go all the way up to the satellite and then all the way back down again! That’s years!”

“Mm-hm,” says Kon, and Tim can hear the smile in his voice. “So what did you need to talk to me about?”

“Oh,” Bart says, ducking his head. “Well I just wanted to see if you would play videogames with me. But we can talk about Titans things!! Cassie says she’s worried I'm increasingly invested in my intellectual abilities because I was never able to develop an actual coping mechanism because I never had a childhood, but I'm pretty sure she just wants me to stop mentioning useful statistics when she’s trying to formulate a game plan.”

Kon says, “Right,”

Bart says, “But the University of Philadelphia did publish a relevant study about three years ago that I think could be used to refute that theory, because they say,” and it’s pretty unintelligible for about thirty seconds after that, and Tim is trained to speak Bart. Kon says ‘I understand’ and ‘mm-hmm’ at the appropriate moments, so he’s probably doing a better job.

“Butwhatdoyouthink?” Bart finishes.

“Me? I'm just the Smallville kid. I’ll let you know when I get more academic than this homework. But-” and his voice here is admirably even- “I reckon if Robin were here, he’d say that an unhealthy coping mechanism is still a coping mechanism, and while you do need to address any mental health issues that may be present, it’s also very important that you remain functional for the purpose of staying alive.”

Tim says “Really?” and curls his upper body down over the side of the roof. He can see the glimmer in Kon’s eye but Bart’s facing the other way, so he can’t gauge his reaction. “I think he’d say ‘who died and made Cassie boss?’”

Bart vibrates on the spot for a second, and Tim thinks the buzzing sound might be ‘holy shit holy shit’ over and over or possibly maniacal laughter, it’s always hard to tell. Then he’s spinning faster than Tim can follow and his forward momentum carries Tim off the roof, then both of them over the porch fence to collapse in the dirt a couple of feet below.

“Ow,” says Tim, belatedly, watches Bart zip up and down the steps, looking at Kon’s face and then Tim’s and then Kon’s again. Truth is, his psychosomatic pain isn’t bothering him at all, hasn’t been since he woke up this morning.

Bart comes to an abrupt halt in front of him. “Hi,” he says, an expression Tim can’t quite decipher. However long of a year it’s been for Tim, it’ll have been considerably longer for Bart. “I'm really really glad that you’re here and presumably at least remember Kon if not the rest of us, and that you’re not an invalid, and I really have missed you a lot,” and here Tim thinks the brief phantom pressure he feels may be a lingering hug, “but at the same time not having you around caused me to deal with a lot of the issues I have as a person, and I'm feeling a little disrupted, so I hope you won’t mind if I just take.” He swallows. “A minute.”

Whoosh.

Tim hauls himself back up the stairs. Kon is putting away his homework.

“He’ll be alright. He’s changed a bit.”

Tim closes his eyes. “You’ve changed a bit, too. So have I. Nothing’s going to be the same.”

Kon looks at him, evenly. “Where’d be the fun if it was?”

The pressure he feels now is a lot firmer and lasts for a lot longer. That’s a Kon hug- he really didn’t used to get many of those. He’s not sure if that’s ‘cause he’s different or ‘cause Kon’s different, but he’s not complaining either way.

When he pulls back and opens his eyes Bart is there. He looks different, somehow- hair a little wilder than usual, or maybe he’s been crying.

“Hey,” Tim says. “I really did miss you, too. I'm so glad I remember you now.”

Bart’s trembling, or maybe it’s just tiny, aborted movements.

“Do you have enough controllers for us to all play videogames?” he asks Kon, huge amber eyes still fixed on Tim.

“Yeah,” says Kon, “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

-----

It’s unsettling: how calm he feels waking up in the safety of the Batcave after all this time.

He groans, presses a hand to his forehead, the splitting pain there. A sort of hangover, as after any other excess.

It looks- it’s not dissimilar. The monitor is larger and sleeker, and the glass uniform cases are numerous- Bruce has a big family nowadays, as Jason has experienced firsthand. The location of the medbay hasn’t changed- a sheltered, hidden segment of cave, rock formations swirled into the ceiling above.

So. Tim, gone. Then his head, messy. Then Steph- Roy? He wonders dimly if his eyes are still glowing. Alfred coming in the Bentley- fuck, Alfred. Something like apathy, then the very opposite. Here and now. Bed. Bruce in a chair, by his bedside, looking at Jason with old eyes, wide and blue, like he’s the only colour in a black-and-white world.

“Fuck off,” mumbles Jason, feeling reasonably well caught up. He doesn’t have the strength to shut his eyes or turn his head to the side so he has to sit there and watch as Bruce’s walls slide up, as he tucks back into himself.

“Your vitals are fine,” he says, a little wobbly, but only detectable ‘cause Jason’s known him. “We’ve been rehydrating you- you have my word that’s all the needle is.”

Jason is going to rip it out anyway. Really, he is. Once he can move his arm and everything. Once he can summon back that green fire, that awful knife-blade smile.

The Pit isn’t supposed to desert him like this. The embers have all but burnt themselves out, leaving him cold; his dad won’t stop looking at him.

Then: over Bruce’s shoulder, two-o-clock. Alarm bells start ringing. Aw, shit, he has bigger problems.

“Master Jason,” Alfred says, steely. “So good to see you conscious. The fact you aren’t bioluminescent is also a marked improvement.”

Jason bites the inside of his cheek. “Alfie.”

Alfred’s eyes flash, something like rage, something like exhaustion. Nobody says anything for a tight second. Then, well: Jason’s never been so relieved to see his big brother before.

“Hey,” says Dick, making Bruce flinch a little. He mustn’t have slept for a while- it takes a lot to get the drop on Batman. “Why’re we crowding the invalid? Give the man some space. You doing okay, Jace?”

“Peachy,” Jason mutters. He thinks his panic must show on his face because Alfred steps away with a huff, and even Bruce moves back a little.

This is insane. More than that, it’s ridiculous. He- he’s the Red Hood. He’s nobody’s fucking son. Nobody gets to tuck him into bed and stick needles into him and keep a silent vigil at his bedside. That’s not- he isn’t-

“Hey, little wing,” says Dick, warm and sad. “Take a breath, yeah?”

He’s sick and twisted and pathetic ‘cause he does. Takes breath after shaky breath in time with Dick until his heartbeat’s regular and he feels halfway to a normal person for once. He uses the degree of movement he’s regained to drop his head into his hands.

That’s Dick’s hand, warm, on the back of his neck. Rubbing little circles against the sensitive vertebra there, pressure edging on pain but never quite crossing over. It’s how Tim does it. Jason wonders if they learnt from each other, if Dick’s hands have been tracing his spine, phantom, this whole time.

“Steph says,” he says, in a voice that’s waving every possible white flag- this is not an attack. “Steph says that Roy says, heh, it’s like middle school. He said that you’re like this because of a Lazarus Pit.”

The beginnings of a wildfire rise in his lungs, smoky. “That I'm like this?”

Dick hands come off his neck as he raises them in a guesture of surrender. “Comatose, dumbass. Or, y’know, alive. Either.”

He breathes out all at once and the embers die. Suddenly, the path of least resistance stands out in gold to him, oh, so appealing. “I- yeah. What’s wrong with me- that’s the Pit. ‘Least, the Pit is the bits that haven’t always been there. But it ain’t how I'm here.”

Bruce speaks in a scratchy hush. Jason honestly had forgotten he was there. “How are you here?”

Inhale, exhale. Steady. “What, gospel truth? You buried me about a couple of miles that way, right?” He points vaguely. “Made me up nice and pretty for the viewin’, but it didn’t fix any of that damage deep down, yeah? Wanna know how I know?”

“Jason,” says Bruce, and up until this week he’d have mistaken that for a warning, but it’s not, it’s a plea.

“Yeah, yeah, old man,” he says, the vindictive joy gone out of it. “It’s ‘cause a few months later I woke up down there and dug myself out. Lungs still filled with soot, caved-in skull and all. Anything I'm missing?”

Dick makes a little choked-up noise. Bruce is a silent, motionless, thing. The quiet stretches heavily around them.

“Fractured femurs,” Bruce says. “Ruptured spleen. Serious internal bleeding. Crushed Achilles’ tendons.”

Dick puts a hand on his arm and he stops. Jason wants to be sick.

“Right,” he says, so immutably tired. “So I wandered ‘round Gotham like a rabid dog until the League found me. Then I turned feral in a whole new way. Then they trained me to kill you, so I came to Gotham and put a bomb under your car, but, hey, it wasn’t as fun as I’d thought it’d be. And here we are.”

He hopes they can’t hear the way his voice is choked with tears. The pressure at his throat is almost insurmountable.

“Here we are,” says Bruce, so goddamn stiff. “You know- Jason.” There it is, again; he says Jason’s name like it’s everything in the whole world. “You know it doesn’t matter to us how you came back. I’ve missed- I always wanted to tell you that I'm so sorry-”

His voice breaks off. Jason stares. He can’t do this. He actually, physically, cannot do this. He hasn’t got the fire left.

Bruce must see the surrender in his face. “Go to sleep, Jay,” he says, awfully quiet, and Jason closes his eyes to save Bruce’s grief from an audience. To save himself from having to watch Bruce’s tears.

-----

Tim wakes missing the feel of Jason around him, his honey-smoke scent. When he opens his eyes Kon is still snoring, one arm hanging over the side of his bed, but Bart is sitting upright, dressed, amber eyes luminous.

“Morning,” says Tim, after a beat, still sleepy and slow.

“Morning,” says Bart.

“You look like you’ve been up for a while.”

“Almost, like, twenty minutes. It’s been really boring.”

“Yeah?”

“There were some wildfires west of here I was helping out with, but that took, like, no time. And then I did Mrs Kent’s weeding. And then cleaned the barns. And then-”

Tim grins at him, sleepily, and turns his head to bury his face back into the lumpy pillow. Jason’s been awful for his sleeping schedule- he used to manage on almost nothing, but now, well.

Jay’s pretty good motivation for staying in bed awhile.

He didn’t bring his suit with him or anything when he left, and he’s never left one at Kon’s, not even one of his old Robin uniforms.  He lets Kon fly him over to the tower in an old pair of scraggy joggers, an old Nirvana tee. Bart streaks by beneath them, the familiar orange lightning still mesmerising to watch, after all this time. When they’re almost all the way there, Kon stops dead, swears under his breath.

“Kon?”

“Cassie’s seen us. Brace.”

Tim knows he should be worried, but can’t prevent the bright grin that breaks over his face. Something streaks from the tower, glittering and all-powerful in the morning sun. She heads directly for Kon and Tim, not slowing down, and he’s just thinking maybe he should have braced a little when Kon tosses him forward, and the new figure slams into him, wrapping her arms around his chest. They tumble through the bright sky together, and it takes Tim a couple more seconds to work out that this is a hug, that they’re hugging.

Oh, Cassie. He belatedly brings his arms up around her and squeezes as hard as he can.

“Fuck you, Timothy Drake,” she says, muffled, into his shoulder. He makes a sympathetic face, although she won’t be able to see it.

“Hey, hey. You’re alright.”

“You won’t be alright ten seconds from now when you hit the pavement,” she says, viciously, and pulls away from him, but her eyes are crinkled and sparkly.

He considers. “Well, no, but-“

“For the record,” says Conner, floating next to them, lazily. “It’s her call. If she drops you, she drops you. I'm not catching you and landing myself on the couch.”

Tim makes big eyes at him, but he remains firm, arms folded. He turns to Cassie, whose cheeks are streaked a little with tears. She grins at him, watery.

“I suppose you can live. But if you think you’re here to go on a mission in your condition-“

“I’ve been training for months! I'm fine!”

“Patrolling?”

“Well, no, but-“

“Yeah, case closed, batboy. We’ll let you make us snacks if you wanna help out so bad,” Kon says, smirking like nobody’s business.

They begin drifting towards the tower as Tim’s eyes narrow, balefully. “I remember when we first met, and you’d piss yourself whenever I mentioned Batman. You used to be so intimidated.”

“Nah,” says Kon, nonchalant, “never happened.” Tim grinds his teeth.

As they glide toward the roof, there’s a fizz of yellow electricity, and Bart is standing there, waiting for them.

“Hey guys!! I'm really glad you didn’t decide to kill Tim. Also I heard someone say something about snacks, so I got snacks!” He thrusts a paper bag towards them. “The others have started without you. They said we might need a minute to hug it out but crime is still happening even if we’re having Emotions.”

Cassie mutters something unintelligible, setting Tim down. “Who needs ‘em anyway. We’ve got the core Young Justice right here!”

“Yeah, maybe” says Tim, “but you’re kidding yourself if you think Kon could still get away with that much leather.”

“Oh, I know he can,” says Cassie, eyes glittery. Kon turns bright red and buries his head in his hands.

He’s really, really missed his friends.

-----

Jason’s dying for a fucking smoke. Excuse his pun, except not really.

An ambiguous, shifting amount of time has passed- he really has no idea how long he’s been here, semi-conscious. He’d followed through on his promise and ripped out the cannula in his hand about an hour back, disgustingly reassured by the absence of blaring alarms, the muted freedom of self-destruction allowed to him. He’s been up, unsteady, ever since, exploring the cave: all the ways it’s changed and all the ways it has persisted, unyielding to time or tragedy.

It’s around three, prime Bat hours, and Bruce has left the computer logged on, so he amused himself for a while reading files, the defining tales of Babs and Tim and the brat. Old cases, mysteries when he went into the ground, now solved and done and over with. But then he makes the mistake of logging out to see if his old account info will still work. It doesn’t.

Jason wonders when that happened. The days following his death, a violent, angry, purge? The ugly depths of Bruce’s grief, maybe, or with the appearance of Tim and the signalling of a new life, new hope? Or maybe only weeks ago, when it was ground into Bruce’s mind, brutal and ugly, that the boy who was once a son is now only a threat, that emotion has always been a weakness and love has always been a mistake.

Except. He’s not a threat, is he? Bruce trusts him in the cave by himself, with his own children, even. There is his uniform, out on a counter by the medbay, for him to wear and escape into the night if so he chooses- he can only assume the exits would open for him, although every code he knows will be defunct.

Not his guns, though, because Bruce thinks the part of him that is ugly and twisted and violent can be isolated and removed so easily.

The spark doesn’t catch; the green fire remains dormant behind his eyelids. When he sees his reflection in the dark of the monitor screen, his eyes are only a wet blue, the eyes of a child. He’s scared of what that means. All it leaves him is tired.

Eventually he finds himself leaning up against the display case with his old uniform in it, a thousand bloody tears in it meticulously stitched. A week ago it would’ve made him want to burn the whole city down.

Now he wants a cigarette, and he wants to hear from Tim, and he wants Roy to be here. Roy’s not complicated, he wouldn’t make Jason talk about things he has no interest in voicing aloud. But it’s just him in the dark and quiet of the cave, and he’s not sure if he hasn’t been this lonely in a while, or if he’s just comprehending the loneliness for the first time.

Roy told his family about the Pit, knowledge he’d only entrusted to Tim.

But Tim wasn’t here.

Jason has no idea how this resurrection thing works, has been running on green fire and a promise as long as he can really remember. But the fire is- it’s out. Maybe his body shut down because what was keeping it alive ran its course. Does that mean he’s free, now, that there’s grace within him again, the capacity for confession, to be forgiven?

Does that mean he could be dead by now, if he hadn’t been found?

He misses Roy. The monitor in front of him flares into life, signalling an incoming call to the cave that’s presumably also headed to Bruce’s earpiece. It’s from Tim.

“Hey, B. Man, I, uh- I haven’t used this frequency in a while. I'm calling from Titans Tower, which you probably knew. Just to let you know that I'm headed back, that I’d like to stop by the manor, if that’s okay with you? I’ve missed you guys. Uh, Red Robin out.”

Jason stares ruefully up at the ceiling, where the bats hang and sway. Has Tim messaged him about coming home? Who knows; he doesn’t have his phone with him here. Maybe not. Maybe he’s scared Tim away for good this time and Tim will go home to the manor and never look back, never think about the cramped, shitty apartment ever again.

There’s no fire but instead an ancient, familiar throbbing behind his eyes. Here is how anger felt, before, then, here is how it broiled in the mind of a boy, not the killer he became. It’s cleansing, redemptive; he cannot stand to be in this space a second more. Doesn’t want to be here, waiting for Bruce to come back, or at home, waiting for Tim. He wants his bike, to breathe easy in the cold rushing air before he finds his way back to them, an inevitability.

He digs one of Tim’s old Red Robin bikes out of storage; the Cave exit peels open for him, as he’d known it would.

-----

‘let's keep it quiet, keep me honest, keep me true,

keep me in love, keep me believing it's with you.’

-----

Tim knows something is wrong before he steps into the apartment, before he’s turned his key in the lock, before he’s traversed the narrow hall or the treacherous staircase leading up to it. Dread settles cold in his gut before he makes it to the building. There’s a deadness to the air, this flat, blank feeling that could never exist within radius of Jason.

He’d cleared off already when Tim had stepped into the manor, at six in the morning, blooming with new light and hope and purpose. Alfred had been in bed- Tim gathered it had been a rough night- so he’d shown himself down to the cave, where Bruce had just returned to and was stripping out of the harsh lines of the suit, vulnerable in the soft, black underclothes.

They’d hugged like that, aching and bruised in the shallow light of the monitor. Then, while logging tonight’s missions (although he isn’t as great at multitasking as he’d like you to believe), Bruce had filled him in on what he’d missed in just a week away from this city. Jason’s seizure, Roy’s flight, the tired, tender way Jay had spoken, when he’d awoken, like all the fight had bled out. His simple, silent disappearance tonight. Tim had turned it over in his mind, made Bruce some coffee and left, unwilling to promise any return or compromise, although both will come, in time.

He’s got other things to worry about. His heart aches, unpoetically but in ways that make him tired, grouchy- he wants to see Jason again, can’t focus on much else. There’s unspoken apologies at his throat, belief in love he wants to kiss into reality. Tim has never finished with marvelling that he’s allowed to have this, and he isn’t about to let his tattered memory lose it for him when it’s how he found it in the first place. He feels altogether firmer in himself, refreshed by time spent with people who have always had exact confidence in who he is, even when they didn’t know his name. He’s going to put things right, between him and Jay, Jay and the family, hell, Roy and Bruce, if it takes that. He’s got to have faith that he is allowed all of it- Hood and family both.

The ugly, heavy dread follows him all the way up to their front door, to the sickly promise of smell that hangs around it. He opens it, robotically- Tim Drake has had a lot of practice with disaster, with hearing the bed news first. There’s no domino on his face but there’s Red Robin in his stance and already it’s on damage control mode, pushing any fear or grief downwards.

There are-

they’re everywhere.

The walls are sticky with blood and feathers. The smell is tangy and pungent. Tim feels his heart drop into the cavity where his spleen used to be, his eyes squeezing very tightly closed, for a single, cowardly second.

The apartment is strung with dead birds.

On the wall by the TV, in more blood, a crude cartoon. Tim does not allow himself the instinct of nausea- he can barely make it out without tears blurring his eyes.

A Robin-figure and a clown-figure, facing each other. The Robin says oh, Mr. J, how I’ve missed you.

The clown says me too, kid. Never fear! My aim will be better next time!

His phone is on the counter, where he left it a week ago. Except-

the lockscreen is Jason, crudely bound, seething at the camera with something beyond absolute loathing, something a little more like fear.

Tim makes it to the sink, just, before vomit rises in his throat. It splatters over the finch there, lying stiff in a pool of its own blood. It stares at him, dead and baleful.

He stands, mechanically, and picks up his phone again. Makes two calls, one of which goes to voicemail. Walks into the bedroom, swallowing down bile at the fresh death-scent, slides back the hidden panel in the cupboard where his uniform is. Red Robin leaves via the fire exit, doesn’t close the window behind him, lets the death seep out after him and over the whole city, let Joker know that he’s coming.

Steph finds him at the old carnival, doesn’t bother disguising her footsteps. He isn’t. He works his way across the dilapidated rides, the freak shows, the funhouses, and she works backwards and meets him in the middle. Cass is probably nearby- those two won’t approach serious missions without each other by choice. Occasionally he hears the soft whisper of her wings on the air, a flash of black in his peripheral vision. It’s almost a comfort. Babs probably known to send them to him before he’d finished speaking. He trusts her with all he has to be tearing the city apart right now, every camera and every piece of technology hers to command. Hunting down a motorbike or a flash of white hair or a cruel, cruel smile.

The next place on his list is the corner of Crime Alley where Jason Todd was found. But Tim’s worked his way around to the waterfront, and from here you can just see the low, looming silhouette of the line of warehouses he and Jay had danced across, lifetimes ago.

But that’s a memory of Hood, of course, not of Jason. Back when all the lines were simple and brutal and clear-cut, when Tim was the broken one. When it was the two of them holding each other together in a world that didn’t seem to care, as opposed to a world that cares far too much, Bruce and Dick and Steph and all of them, now, for this to end in anything other than tears. Joker doesn’t care much about the Red Hood- that’s evident from the scene at the apartment. Jason’s only a dead little bird to him.

But- here’s the thing-

(and here Tim’s heart stutters with the vile enormity of it all-)

the Joker has always rather liked Jason in a warehouse.

Biting back the rising nausea, Tim sprints to his bike like a wild thing, more bird than boy, perhaps. There’s the dim sounds of Steph and Cass behind him, noises of their confusion, but he doesn’t have the capacity to answer. Most of the training Bruce had not been able to turn into instinct is gone from his head, and as a result there is no voice in his mind reminding him to be calm, be prepared, be anything more than moving, through the night, as fast as he can.

He doesn’t aim inland, for the bridge over the murky bay, instead pitching his bike as fast as he can through the mouldering wooden barrier, towards the dark, slick water. The mechanisms he remembers building himself click into action, tires flipping sideways, the revealed motor powering him forwards, over water, towards where he needs to be.

There’s nothing but adrenaline in his veins and it powers through him, tearing away the obscuring mists in his brain with every heartbeat. Memories come over him like a flood, jumbled and terrifying and all-consuming. He is five and a poor boy’s parents are falling in the circus; falling down, down, down. He is eight and perched on a gargoyle with a camera in his hands, he is thirteen and Bruce Wayne is Batman and needs help, someone’s, anyone’s: his. Nightwing teaches him on a moving train, Kon is entranced by Poison Ivy in front of his eyes, behind his eyelids, with the sound of nothing but water pounding and blood rushing in his ears. He is speeding across the bay; he is in the Robin costume for the first time; he is staring, disbelieving at Damian from across the Batcave; he is woozy from a syringe the Joker has slipped into his neck.

Steph kisses him; Lady Shiva lunges; the Red Hood appears, across from him on a rooftop, and Tim thinks I know exactly who you are.

He is this-Tim and other-Tim, Timothy Jackson-Drake and Robin, red or otherwise, he is Caroline Hill and Alvin Draper and Mr. fucking Sarcastic.

His bike rears as he reaches the other side, the row of warehouses looming, and throws him into the air, over the barrier. He lands in a crouch; straightens, his cape falling around him.

In his memory, his last memory, the Joker’s scent pervades, sickly-sweet, and here it is in reality too. It emanates from the only lit warehouse. He doesn’t know how long it will take the others, but clicks the tracker on his thigh into life anyway, ever-hopeful. Grapples to the roof, kicks in a vent as quietly as he can, terrified of every noise and every wasted instant. Crawls until he finds a downwards-facing vent over the main space of the warehouse, heart in his throat.

He’s directly above them. Green and white and black. Jason is sagging, but still conscious. He’s in his uniform but unarmed. Joker is talking, like every bad dream Tim’s ever had.

“So, sweetling,” he says, like nails on chalkboard. “It’s up to you. My little bird. Y’see, your Uncle Joker- oh, don’t make that face, brat- your Uncle Joker really is a fan of poetry. Ooh, heard this one the other week- ‘there once was a man from Nantucket-‘ no?”

He whirls, unexpectedly, slaps Jason in the face. Tim watches blood ooze from the split lip.

“Ooh, birdie,” an awful, wheezing chuckle. “So, in the interests of poetry, I think it’s only fair to let you choose the next bit. What’s it gonna be, sport?” He holds something aloft, glass, sparkling in the soft light. “My own special formula? Or would you prefer we try the whole warehouse sketch again- take two?”

Tim’s struggling to take a breath. That’s- that’s a syringe. He knows how that routine goes, awfully, intimately well.

The sweet stink of death all around him, the blackened, rotting grin. You can take my special medicine, little bird, or we can paint the floor with your brains. Either way- none of you are ever going to poison my Bats with your family stink ever again, y’hear?

A strike to the left temple. To the mouth.

Y’hear?

Tim had been so scared.

He bets Jason’s scared now.

All Jason needs to do is choose death. Joker will clear out and Tim can come in and they’ll be gone before the dynamite ever catches, before anyone needs to get hurt. If he takes the other way out- there’s no way that Tim can move that fast, and then Jason won’t remember him, or Gotham, or anything at all. Tim doesn’t know how to watch that happen.

Below him, Jason is crying. Tim can’t-

can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like. Here, again, after all these years. Can’t picture what has been done to Jason, in the hours he’s been gone, for him to break down like this.

“Needle,” Jason says, barely audible. Tim can’t breathe. “Needle.”

The Joker cackles, raises the syringe again in triumph.  “You birds, you’re all the same, huh?”

There’s- there’s nothing Tim can do. He knows this instantaneously. Even if he jumps now- he can’t get there before the needle makes contact, there’s nothing he can do-

As he gets the last screw off of the vent, Joker plunges his hand down. He jumps and falls and he’s too late, too late, can only watch in crystal-clear definition as the needle arcs downwards, as Jason’s eyes close,

as glass shatters, liquid spills, the Joker pulls his hand back, cursing, as an arrow thuds into the opposite wall.

Oh, hello, Roy Harper. Guess that phone call got through after all.

Tim lands in a crouch, brings his bo staff around and sweeps Joker’s legs out from under him.

Roy meets his eyes. He’s been concealed behind crates of TNT, Joker’s own backup plan. “Red Robin. Should’ve known.”

Joker rises; his henchmen advance. The two of them flank Jason’s chair, one on either side, and fall, tiredly, into fight. Between them Jay groans, falls silent.

Tim tries to remember his blurry training, uses the staff, then elbows and knees and fists when he loses it. But he’s been out of this game for a very long time, and he’s up against a wall, surrounded, by the time Steph and Cass arrive. It’s easier after that, and when Bruce and Dick and Damian appear to mop up it becomes safe to abandon the conflict, move to untie Jason.

His eyelids are fluttering; his hair damp with sweat. Gaze flickering between Tim and Roy like they’re precious. Tim’s missed him enough to last lifetimes.

“You came back,” he says, raspy, talking to both of them but looking at Tim. He shakes with the effort of staying upright; Tim’s heart aches.

“Yeah,” Tim says, allows his forehead to drop onto Jason’s shoulder, just for a second, like he’s been wanting.

The air smells like blood and violence and he’s tired, tired in his bones, and he’s surrounded by most everyone he loves, and things will be alright.

“Yeah, we’re here. I'm here.”

Joker looms, leers, somehow separated from the conflict. A match sparks in his hand even as the Bat lunges: Tim is suddenly aware of the mountains of explosive surrounding them. He will not let this be done to Jason a second time.

Then there’s shouting, and fire, and they’re running, fleeing together, as a unit, capes flapping against the starless night. Behind them the warehouse is engulfed in a fireball, the heat and weight of it enormous, terrifying. But Tim’s family are around him and Jason’s safe by his side, if limping a little, this time.

Jay must be thinking this too. He squeezes Tim’s hand a little harder as the embers rain down.

I love you too, it says.

I love you, too.

-----

‘this is not the way I plan on living for the rest of my life,

but for right now, it gets me by.

it gets me by.’

-----