Chapter Text
“All you have to do,” Red Hood--Jason, Jason, Robin --said as he leaned over Tim’s body, “is admit that you shouldn’t be Robin.”
Tim grunted and swung on leg up to knock Jason in the balls. “Fuck off.”
It took Jason a solid minute to recover and by that time, Tim had regained his feet, even if one arm was broken, he was ready to fight back.
“Hey, our fighting is like, a brotherly thing, right?”
Dick looked up from his batburger--dealing with fear toxin always left both of them with a feeling of worn out hunger--. “Yeah, why?”
Tim shrugged, popping a fry into his mouth. “I’m an only child, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t reading things wrong. Sibling beat each other up and that’s normal?”
Dick made a face. “Yeah, pretty much. We just take it to the next level since we actually know what we’re doing.”
Tim nodded thoughtfully. That would explain a lot. An initiation or acceptance ritual would probably be more extreme than the typical scuffles too.
Dick went back to his burger. “Seriously, don’t let B get to you, he’s an only child you know. He doesn’t get it.”
Tim nodded sagely. “He’s never experienced the Cain Instinct.”
Dick swallowed down his next bite. “Percisely.”
Tim wasn’t entirely sure how to convey to Jason that he acknowledged his acceptance, so he went back to the basics. How had he first interacted with Dick?
Well, he had broken into Dick’s flat and tried to convince him to be Robin. Which… hadn’t worked very well, but had worked out amazing regardless. So maybe he could leave out the Robin bit and just break into Jason’s house?
But that meant figuring out where Jason lived.
He cracked his knuckles before opening his laptop up. He was benched for three days because Dick had sprained his wrist during a spar. Bruce had told him to get some sleep, but Tim had a better idea.
Jason was tired. He hadn’t thought about the long term consequences of setting himself up as a Crime Lord. Especially when he was still holding that responsibility, even after his plot with the Joker had failed.
Petty fucking squabbles about who owned which block were so fucking stupid and he had been tempted to shoot both of them in the knee caps and say the block belonged to neither of them. Needless to say, all he wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep for at least a solid six hours.
Instead, he opened the door to his safe house and found a sight he couldn’t have dreamed up in a million years.
Timothy motherfucking Drake was sitting at his kitchen counter, consuming a bowl of cereal. The kind he kept stocked for the days when he didn’t have the energy to make himself something to eat.
His replacement waved cheerfully at him and Jason aimed a gun at him. Safety on and finger off the trigger, he didn’t actually want to shoot the kid.
“What the actual fuck.”
His replacement grinned sheepishly at him. “I broke into your safe house. And then I realized I hadn’t actually figured out what I was going to do once you found me. I was bored and hungry, so I ate your cereal. I’m sorry, I’ll buy you some more.”
“Why the hell are you in my damn apartment, Replacement.”
The brat started. “Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that part. I’m kind of new to this whole brother thing and it’s not like I can ask B because he’s not my dad and he definitely doesn’t understand the Cain Instinct, he’s really weird about it actually. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, but I figured I’d break into your place. That’s how I met Dick.”
Jason continued to stare at him. Then he dropped the gun, slipping it back into the holster. “Why the fuck do you think we’re brothers? Did you get a concussion?” He closed the door behind him and took three steps closer to the kid, pulling out his flash light.
“What? No. I’m fine . The sprain is fine already, B’s just keeping me benched because he’s mad at me and Dick for fist fighting on patrol. But come on Jason, I know I’m an only child, but do you seriously think I don’t know how the Cain Instinct works? I wonder if B refused to tell me who you were because he was worried about the fighting spreading. Do you think that’s why?”
Jason breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, then he grabbed the kid’s chin with one gloved hand, holding his head in place so he could shine a flash light into the brat’s eyes with the other.
Tim jerked away and let out a protesting whine.
Jason frowned, the pupils were reacting normally, which meant the kid probably didn’t have a concussion. He took two rapid steps back from the kid. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Replacement?”
The brat pouted up at him. “I told you I don’t have a fucking concussion. For the record, Dick gives me cereal without getting all weird about it.”
Jason grit his teeth. “The difference is that I’m not your damn brother.”
Tim shrugged. “Sure, yeah, whatever you say. This, I’m not allowed to fight you right now, but I’ll be unbenched tomorrow. Next time we skirmish, I’ll beat your ass.”
With that the kid got to his feet, crossed to the window, and just-- left.
Jason was left staring after him, affronted.
The next day, he found a box of cereal in his cupboard.
Jason had moved safe houses the week after Tim broke in, which Tim did not in fact, see as a deterrent. This was a challenge and he did not intend to leave it unanswered.
He found out, the hard way, that Jason had started adding more security to his safe houses. But that was okay, because the jolt of electricity was clearly meant to stun and not kill.
Dick had started doing the same thing when he invited Tim over to his apartment on weekends. He’d explained it was training.
Tim was more careful after that. He dodged at minimum six traps that hadn’t been there when he’d visited Jason’s last safehouse.
The only one that was kind of dangerous was a trip wire in the doorway that would have sent a knife into Tim’s foot, which would have made Bruce sigh and pinch his nose, but really, wasn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. The knife was sharp enough that the cut would have been clean.
Tim woke up to a pillow being thrown at his face. He hadn’t realized he’d dozed off on Jason’s couch.
“Why are you here?” Jason demanded. “ Again .”
Tim sat up, rubbing the crust away from his eyes. “I wanted to talk about your ambush. It was good, you know. Too bad B broke it up before we could determine who won. Anyways, like I said, he’s really weird about the fighting, like constantly pissy about it weird. But he has to leave it alone when Dick and I throw down unless one of us gets seriously hurt because Dick agreed to stop using fighting as a greeting, which like, ehhhh…. But whatever, so just, next time you want to have a fight, maybe like, say hi first, so he doesn’t go back to bothering me about it all the time?”
Jason’s eyes were glowing green when he blinked. He took a deep breath, closed them again, and when he opened his eyes they were normal.
“Why are you like this?”
Tim shrugged. “I’m a robin. None of us are mentally stable or whatever. But I’m good at expressing the Cain Instinct because I’ve had training, duh. Anyways, I was thinking, next time use rubber bullets? B flipped his shit when he realized you were using actual ones, but I’m totally down to use weapons. Dick and I usually only fist fight. When Steph joins us sometimes we’ll throw a smoke bomb into the mix.”
Jason closed his eyes. “Get out.”
Tim pouted at him. “Rude.”
Jason’s eyes snapped open again and they were glowing again. “ Out !”
“Okay, okay, jeez. I’m going. I'm going” Tim stepped over the knife trip wire and paused in the doorway. “Remember, rubber bullets!”
If Jason bought rubber bullets it had to do with him moving away from lethal measures and nothing to do with Tim. At least, that’s what he told Tim, Tim didn’t believe him.
Jason walked into his fifth safe house of the month to find dinner half made in his kitchen, abandoned. At least the brat had the foresight to turn the heat off.
He found Tim in the bathroom, fighting with a roll of gauze.
He propped himself in the doorway and waited for the kid to notice him. It took him almost thirty seconds. He’d seen Jason in the mirror and jumped half a foot in the air.
Jason sighed, pushing into the bathroom and crowding the kid against the vanity. “What in the damned hells do you think you’re doing?”
The brat scowled at him. “Gauze is dumb.”
“ Why do you need gauze?”
The kid hesitated. “Promise not to tell B?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he drawled, “but the Old Man and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment.”
The kid shrugged, clearly deciding that was good enough for him. He held out his hand to show Jason a deep gash in his pointer finger. “Alfred said he was worried you weren’t eating enough home cooked meals. I thought I could make you one. But I might have cut my finger.”
Jason took his hand with a long suffering sigh. “I see that. Did no one teach you how to cut shit without cutting your damn fingers off?”
“No, my parents said I could figure food out on my own, so I did.”
“Right, well, fuck.” He grabbed the gauze. “If I bandage you up and show you how not to cut your ass, do you promise to leave after dinner and not break in for the next week?”
Tim beamed at him. “Sure!”
Jason really fucking hated himself.
The kid was so damn annoying about it that he decided he might as well play along with the brother thing because fighting it was getting to be too much.
The problem was, Tim seemed down right upset when Jason stopped attacking him on patrol and he was annoying enough about it that Jason started carrying a rubber knife around so he could use a weapon without incurring the wrath of a protective Batman.
It was only when he came across one of Tim and Dick’s skirmishes that he realized why Tim was convinced that Jason thought they were just magically brothers.
He made nice with Dick just so the three of them could start having three way fights.
Which inevitably meant befriending Spoiler and meant having another annoying ass teenager breaking into his house. But at least she asked him for help with her English homework instead of just hacking the school to fix her grades.
Cough. Cough. Tim.
He should have shot the brat the first time he broke into Jason’s house, but by the time he realized that, it was almost three months too late.