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When Jason gets back to his safe house after a boring but long night of patrolling the Alley, he immediately spots the signs of someone being there when they shouldn't be. He narrows his eyes behind the helmet and his hand inches towards his holsters, debating if he should pull out a gun or a knife, but, at a closer look, it becomes clear that the signs were purposefully left visible, to let Jason know his privacy has been invaded.
Only a handful of people know where Jason's hidey holes are, fewer have the means to find them if they don't, fewer still would bother to make their presence known as a courtesy to Jason. (The fact that he has like 90% of the hero community in Gotham blocked across all possible channels of communication and doesn't answer the phone most of the time to the remaining 10% makes letting him know someone is coming over kind of hard, so he truly does appreciate the gesture of leaving clues behind.)
His hand relaxes as he heaves a sigh and proceeds to enter the apartment.
The bathroom door is only halfway closed and from it spills yellow light into the darkened hallway, the only source of illumination once Jason lets the front door snap shut behind him. He can hear things clattering against the cracked porcelain of this apartment's bathroom sink and the shuffling of fabric before the creaky tap gets turned on and water starts flowing down the drain. Jason's fingers find the latches on his helmet on muscle memory alone and he's shaking his head with a grimace at the feeling of sweaty curls plastered against his forehead and nape while he blindly dumps the red bucket on the hallstand. The boots come off next, shoved on the shoe rack without care, before Jason shrugs off his leather jacket and hangs it up as well. The domino mask he wears underneath the helmet gets peeled off on his way to the kitchen, thrown haphazardly in the direction of the raggedy coffee table in the living room, and then he's too busy chugging orange juice straight from the carton to care much about anything else.
Once his thirst has been quenched – and the headache he's been nursing for the past two hours seems to lessen as soon as he gets a type of fluid in his system – Jason pads over to the bathroom, nearly empty carton of OJ in hand, and nudges the door open all the way with his toes.
“Oh, hey, Jay.”
Tim's domino-covered face meets Jason's in the dirty mirror, lenses retracted to allow the ocean blue of his eyes to lock with Jason's sea-foam ones, then his gaze falls back down to where he's scrubbing blood off his forearms in Jason's sink.
“What part of my safe house isn't clear? This is the fifth time, Timothy,” Jason grumbles, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed.
Tim shrugs, unrepentant, and flicks his eyes towards the mirror to look back at Jason for a second before he lets them fall.
“Your place was closer. And I ran out of disinfectant.”
Jason rolls his eyes as he twists the cap off his OJ and takes a swallow.
“I don't run a free clinic, you know? And one of these days I'll actually shank you because you'll take me by surprise or catch me at a bad time and I refuse to feel bad about it when it happens.”
“I'll venmo you, jeez,” Tim shoots back with an eye roll, “and I would give you a heads-up if you actually gave me your real phone number and not the contact information of a random Red Robin from California. Be thankful I bother to leave clues when I break in.”
“I feel like me not giving you extra pockets is something you should be thankful for, but whatever,” Jason retorts with an eye roll of his own before he drains the last of his juice and crumples up the carton. He wanders back into the kitchen for a moment, dumping the container in the trash, then he goes back to his vigil in the bathroom doorway. “And the thought of you texting a restaurant you share your vigilante name with instead of me is too hilarious. The fact that you fell for it four times before you started getting suspicious doesn't instill a lot of confidence in that big detective brain of yours.”
The glare Tim levels at him could probably crumble mountains if he was, like, Superman or something, but as it is, it only makes Jason's smirk widen.
“Not my fault I chose to trust your word,” Tim grumbles while Jason cackles evilly from the doorway.
He watches in silence as Tim finishes rinsing off and starts packing up Jason's first aid kit, dumping it back under the sink, nestled between half empty cleaning supplies and a random mop head he stashed there as back-up. The Red Robin suit, which had been awkwardly bunched around Tim's torso, gets zipped back up and set to rights, rolled sleeves coming back down, and, at last, Tim taps his domino and makes the lenses snap back into place. And just like that, Timmy-boy disappears to let Red Robin stand in the shitty light of Jason's crappy bathroom instead.
“Leavin’ so soon?”
Tim stops patting himself to look up at Jason through the long bangs hanging in his eyes with a confused pout on his lips. Against his will, Jason finds the expression oddly adorable. What does it say about him that he feels the most affectionate towards the kid he attacked on several occasions for no real reason out of the whole fucked up group he, sometimes, calls a family?
“Don't want to overstay my welcome,” Tim answers, a wry twist to his lips. And sure, Jason grumbles, loudly, every time the kid breaks in or accosts him on patrol to pass off intel about overlapping cases between their territories, but surely Tim knows he doesn't actually mind his presence. Right?
“Can't overstay what you never had,” is what he ends up saying, instead of any of the things he could or should have, because he kinda hit his quota for the month on emotional vulnerability when he yelled at Bruce the other week, but he softens the sting of the words by ruffling the kid's hair and adding, “at least help me finish the leftover lasagna sitting in my fridge before you go.” It's not what he should say, the reassurance he wants to give the kid and the declaration of brotherly affection Tim probably deserves, but it's the best Jason can do at the moment. Considering Tim keeps showing up and being nice to Jason, in his own annoying way, he thinks that maybe the kid does get the message hidden behind the snark and threatening posturing. Either that or he has the worst survival instincts he's ever seen in a person.
Tim squawks and tries to duck Jason's hand but fails as he has to choose between bumping his injured side into the sink in order to escape or suffer the indignity of being treated like a little brother. Self preservation wins – an unusual occurrence – and so Tim grumbles under Jason's assault then pushes the hand away rudely after a few seconds.
Jason doesn't stay to see Tim's reaction to his offer. He walks out of the bathroom and disappears, once again, into the kitchen, where he opens the fridge and pulls out the lasagna dish before portioning it off for two people. There's nothing but silence from the bathroom while Jason plates up the food and puts the first dish in the microwave, but as he's starting to wash the dishes there comes a set of light footsteps, almost inaudible with how hesitant they are.
“Forks are in the top drawer on the left. I heard you're particular about cutlery so I'm letting you choose,” he calls out over his shoulder as he scrubs at a particularly stubborn spot.
A figure whispers past Jason's back before the drawer is pulled open with a noisy clatter and Tim starts sorting through Jason's forks.
“Thanks,” the boy says quietly.
Jason hums but doesn't get to think of anything more to say as the microwave starts beeping its announcement that the food is done heating. He looks down at his wet, soapy hands and the lasagna dish he still has to rinse off, then back at Tim.
“Could you…?”
“Oh! Uh, yes. Yeah. Here, let me-”
Tim drops his bundle of forks back in the drawer and opens the microwave, cradling the steaming plate of lasagna without issue in his gloved hands as he carefully maneuvers his way to the table so he can place it there gently. Without Jason's prompting, he then picks up the other plate and puts it in, shutting the door firmly.
“Time?”
“Two minutes should do it.”
Tim nods before selecting the correct time, then he goes back to rifling through forks.
Jason, meanwhile, has finished the dishes, so he turns off the water and dries his hands off.
“You have really shitty forks,” Tim comments eventually, breaking the slightly awkward silence with a displeased hum. “I mean, look at this! What's with the prongs? And this one? That handle is way too wide!”
Jason snorts as he hangs up the dish towel and moves past Tim in preparation of the second plate of food being done.
“I didn't stock this safe house with autistic bitches in mind, sorry.”
Tim looks up at Jason to shoot him a disgruntled glare which really isn't helping him think of the idiot kid in a less affectionate manner because he looks just like a grumpy, ruffled kitten. The lenses have been retracted once more, though the Red Robin suit is fully covering the boy, which gives Jason full access to the power of that glare. Mr. Freeze's best freeze gun has nothing on Tim Drake's annoyed glare, that's for damn sure. Maybe they should work on a way to weaponise it. The Rogues would be dead in a week if they did.
“One, that's bigoted. You're being so bigoted right now,” Tim accuses in a flat tone, pointing an equally accusing finger at Jason. “And two, autistic or not, you cannot tell me that you actually use this fork or enjoy using it when you have no other option.” He thrusts one of the forks aggressively in Jason's face, shaking it around to emphasise his point, and Jason would rather die again than admit that he always avoids using the abnormally long pronged, short handled monstrosity in Tim's hand, to the point where he will go out of his way to eat with his hands or even just wash one of the used forks in the sink if he really can't work around the issue.
The beeping of the microwave saves him yet again, but Tim's knowing scoff tells him that no reply is necessary.
“That's what I thought,” he mutters, vindicated, and Jason valiantly doesn't stick his tongue out at the little shit on his way to the kitchen table.
Finally, Tim seems to find a fork that won't give him hives and approaches the table, laying his own down as he takes a seat and pushing a second one towards Jason. Jason takes it, noting that it's nearly as good as the one Tim chose and not getting fond, mushy feelings about that fact, and sits down to start eating.
They're both too ravenous to talk much as they eat. Jason feels something pleased and proud stir in his chest at the sounds of clear appreciation that escape Tim while he eats and he can't quite stop himself from preening when the kid nearly licks the plate clean and looks disappointed that there isn't any more. On an unrelated note, he should make lasagna again soon. Maybe make a regular thing out of it, once a month, around the times he knows Tim is in Gotham for sure and is more likely to drop by? Something to think about, for sure.
“Do you want me to wash the dishes? Some people are particular about stuff like that and I never know what the expectation is so I just learned to ask,” Tim pipes up, explaining himself before Jason can even ask, and it doesn't take a genius to understand that the kid has also learned to just preemptively explain things to avoid back-and-forths. It sort of makes him want to throttle everyone who's ever made Tim feel like he has to do shit like this and he doesn't really know what to do with that feeling. So he pushes it way back into a corner of his mind and resolves to think about it never.
“You don't have to,” Jason waves off, leaning back in his chair and groaning at the slightly too-full feeling after filling up his stomach. “I'll do them later.”
“Okay,” Tim nods but still gets up to collect the plates and dump them in the sink before retaking his seat, perching on the edge of it. “Thank you, that was really good.”
Jason finds himself smiling in response and doesn't even bother hiding it. What the hell, he just fed the kid, that's practically adoption in his book. There's no need to keep up the nonchalant act.
“When's the last time you had a home cooked meal, Timbo?”
Tim scrunches his nose and furrows his brows as he thinks, then just ends up shrugging.
“Kon made me slightly burned eggs last week when I was with the Titans, if that counts.”
Jason shakes his head with a snort. “Nope, not even close.” He smirks in the face of Tim's eye roll and kicks him lightly in the shins. Kid's eyes'll get stuck like that if he keeps rolling them around so much. “And you're welcome, by the way. For the food. I, uhm, tend to make more food than I actually eat, old habit from when I was cooking for me and mom. So you're always welcome to come by and eat some… if you feel like it… and shit.”
Tim's eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, visible even with the domino on, and it doesn't really ease the discomfort in Jason at his offer and the small bit of vulnerability hidden in it, but it kind of makes it worth it. Just a little.
“Thanks. I'll take you up on that,” he replies simply and then, like the most white person to ever white person in the history of ever, slaps his thighs and sighs before getting to his feet again. “Well, I'd better get going. You look dead on your feet and I promised the gang I'd get a decent amount of sleep tonight and it's already past my bedtime.”
Jason stares at him in disbelief at the ridiculous gesture for a moment before shaking his head and deciding that it's not worth commenting on.
“Sleep tight, weirdo. Oh, and bring your own fork next time, since mine are all so shitty.”
Tim smirks on his way to the living room window, touching his temple with his index and middle fingers in a cheeky salute before he opens the latch and starts slipping through the opening.
“Will do. See ya, Jason.”
“See ya, Timmy,” Jason calls out softly, long after Tim's disappeared down the fire escape and he's left alone in his semi-decent safe house with only the groaning pipes and the breeze wafting in through the open window for company.
“And don't forget about that essay on The Handmaid's Tale, everyone! I want to hear your thoughts on it the next time we meet.”
The odd group of twenty something people of varying ages chorus their acknowledgement as the cacophony of chairs scraping cheap linoleum floors starts bouncing off the walls of the small classroom their class is tucked away in. Jason packs up his things, shoving it all into a ratty backpack he uses to carry food around the Alley in on the weekends, and waves at Mrs. Molina with a polite, tight-lipped smile before he loses himself in the crowd and slips out the doors, spilling outside onto the sidewalk with the rest of his classmates. He takes a deep breath of the cool night air, fixes the straps of the backpack hanging off his shoulder, then disappears into an alleyway and starts walking towards his safe house.
He really shouldn't be that surprised when a pair of boots thuds softly next to him and starts walking side by side.
“What are you doing in my territory, kid?” Jason asks flatly, not even bothering to turn to look at Tim. Red Robin is the only vigilante the Red Hood allows in the Alley – the rest of the Bat brood having learned that lesson the hard way after his warning shots eventually stopped being a warning – but that doesn't mean that Jason makes a habit of letting the kid wander around the place at his leisure.
“Finally tracked down that cache of heroin we've been looking for, thought you'd wanna join me in blowing it up,” Tim answers without missing a beat. He's not too phased by Jason's aggression, not that he ever was, even when Jason hated him and wanted to break every bone in his body, but Tim's been especially unbothered by Jason ever since their little bonding moment over lasagna a week ago. On the one hand, it makes Jason happy; he dislikes being treated like a ticking time bomb or a monster, so it's nice to see Tim acting so nonchalant around him, like Jason isn't just a crazy murderer who'll shoot out his kneecaps if he breathes wrong.
On the other hand, it's made the kid very annoying to be around since he's decided the Red Hood truly is friend-shaped and so all caution can be thrown out the window.
Still, Jason grunts his agreement as he keeps walking, Red Robin easily keeping pace with the stupid bo staff draped over his shoulders, arms lazily hanging off of the ends of it.
“Gotta get home and change first.”
“Sure. I'll send you the address and we can meet there.”
But instead of Tim collapsing his staff and pulling out his grapple to swing up and away, the kid keeps walking next to Jason as they round a corner and slip into another alleyway.
“You got anything else to say?” Jason eventually prods, when the silence keeps stretching and he can practically hear the cogs in Tim's brain squeaking as they turn around and around on a loop.
“Uhhh kinda? Not sure if it's rude to ask, though.”
Jason rolls his eyes. “Just spit it out, Red. If anyone has earned the right to ask me rude questions, it's gotta be you, c’mon.”
“Okay, fair enough,” Tim acquiesces easily after he lets out a short, thoughtful hum. “So, uhm. What were you doing in that building? Don't wanna assume or anything but I checked and the only thing that happens there on Thursdays at that exact hour is-”
“Night classes, yeah,” Jason finishes, interrupting Tim before he has a chance to complete his thought. “I'm going to night classes.”
“Oh!” Tim exclaims and when Jason looks at him out of the corner of his eye, he almost laughs at the flustered look on the kid's face. It's even more hilarious to see on the usually stoic and downright scary Red Robin that most goons and even some of the Rogues have learned to fear. “That's great! I mean-”
“Yeah yeah, I know what you mean.”
“When did you…”
Jason hums, hiking the backpack straps a bit higher on his shoulder when they start slipping.
“Half a year ago? Something like that. Can't exactly resurrect Jason Todd, not without inviting all that Wayne mess back into my life that would go with it, so I'm using an alias. But… I don't know,” he trails off hesitantly, feeling oddly self-conscious about it now that he's spilling it all to Tim.
“Well, I'm happy for you,” the kid declares, and when Jason sneaks a peek in his direction, he finds a small, happy little smile dancing on the boy's lips. “I know you really enjoyed going to school so I'm glad you're getting your education back.”
A swell of fondness, a warmth he hasn't felt around anyone other than the Outlaws in a long time, overcomes Jason and he has the insane urge to grab Tim and squeeze him in his arms until he squeaks. Obviously, he doesn't do that, but he does make sure to bump their shoulders together gently in response.
“Yeah? And what about you? Any plans to go back to school?”
Tim scrunches his eyebrows at that and the expression is so hilariously affronted that Jason can't even feel indignant about someone reacting like that to the mere mention of school.
“No offense but I'd rather lose a second organ and give it to Ra's gift-wrapped than ever go back to high school.”
“C'mon, it can't have been that bad,” Jason cajoles with a grin.
“No, no. It was worse,” Tim retorts, voice high-pitched as he attempts to suppress laughter. “Besides, I can just sign myself up for online classes and give myself a pass on all the useless subjects I hate in the backend whenever I want. I just don't particularly need a diploma for what I'm doing right now.” He shrugs.
Jason shakes his head in disbelief, chuckling.
“You're something else, Red. I swear.”
Tim grins back at him and does a spinny little twirl around him as he collapses his bo staff and puts it away.
“And don't you forget it!”
He pulls out his grapple now that he's addressed what he's, no doubt, been dying to talk to Jason about ever since he discovered Jason's ‘secret’, then swings away in the direction of Robbinsville after reminding Jason to check his burner phone – whose number he has finally given to the kid for real this time – for the location of the drugs they're going to blow up tonight.
As he walks, Jason thinks about the subject Tim only tentatively opened up. He feels a bit raw inside, as he always does when personal subjects get touched on, and he frowns to himself while his mind wanders away. School has always been a deeply personal thing to him and a bit of an exposed wire in conversation. Most people don't really understand why, have never been able to grasp just how important school is to Jason and why. Not even the Crime Alley kids he used to run around or cross paths with when he was a street kid himself.
To them, school was something useless: none of the things they taught there were useful to a kid who had three starving siblings waiting at home or an addict relative wasting away on the living room couch. It didn't give them a roof over their heads if they were runaways, didn't put food in their bellies when they had to rummage through leaky, smelly garbage, and it sure as shit didn't keep them safe from traffickers or sleaze-bags who saw easy prey in the starving children of the streets and thought they'd get lucky for the night.
As for everyone else – like Bruce and Alfred, or Dick, or especially the snooty rich people of Gotham's so-called high society – school was such a mundane privilege. An annoyance, at most. An obligation. A fact of life that they had to put up with because that's what society dictates children should do until they're at least 18, but nothing special in and of itself, nothing to think about for more than a minute or two.
But to Jason? To Jason school has always meant so much more. It's meant an escape, at one point or another, from the dreary reality he lived with at home, where his dad did dangerous things for an even more dangerous man, where his mom was sick – and it was a sickness, and he maintains that till the day he dies, because, to Jason, it makes no difference if Catherine was bed-ridden because of all the drugs in her system that she took to cope with the state of her life or because a physical illness struck her down instead – and being at home was the last place Jason wanted to be.
More than that, school meant that Jason could be more than society thought he would amount to. It was a symbol, some kind of proof, that just because Jason was born in the gutter, and raised in the gutter, it didn't mean that he had to stay there and die in the gutter as well. He could be something worth looking at. Someone to be respected. And he could come back to the place that raised him, armed with the knowledge of the privileged, and help the people who needed clean water and warm clothes over books and equations, so that they, too, might be armed similarly to Jason one day in the future, when living was more than just surviving.
He thought he lost that when he died. Fifteen, killed in a warehouse in the middle of a foreign country because of his own naivety, returned to life like a vengeful spirit hellbent on revenge… Jason came back, true, but not as the savior he always imagined himself as. Rather, he became just another Crime Alley thug, toting guns around and laying down the law the way he saw fit. And sure, it works. Controlling crime is easier and safer than completely stopping it, not that such a thing is even possible, and he's made a lot of improvements in the Alley since he took over. He personally sees to the well-being of children and at-risk individuals and has made himself a part of his community, a protector, instead of its ruler hidden in an ivory tower somewhere above the peasants.
But a part of Jason couldn't help feeling like a failure nonetheless. A failure to himself and the hopes he once harboured as a child.
So he decided to go back to school. Attend night classes weekly right here in the heart of the Alley, get his education, finish it, and then maybe put it to good use for the benefit of his people.
(And maybe a small part of it is simply for himself. For that kid who loved literature with all his heart, who signed up for the school play every time he had the chance, who hated missing even a day of school due to injuries or illness, who did his homework as soon as he got home from school, who, at the end of the day, cared more about his report card than anything that had to do with Robin. Maybe he is allowed to be a little selfish and want things for himself. Maybe he's earned it.)
He's proud of it, of himself, in a way that is hard to explain. Tim bringing this up has struck a nerve, but the genuine happiness displayed and the obviously careful way in which Tim talked about it and didn't press… It's not so bad. Maybe Tim doesn't truly get it either, richie privileged kid that he is, but… maybe he doesn't have to understand it in the same way Jason does. Maybe he can just appreciate that it matters to Jason and that can be enough.
It's something to think about more, at the very least. For now, Jason shrugs the thoughts away as he climbs the stairs to the apartment Tim patched himself up in the week before and starts suiting up as soon as the door closes behind him and his backpack has been dumped next to the shoe rack. Jason might use his education for good once he finishes it, but for now, he's still the Red Hood. And the Red Hood has a territory to patrol, assholes to maim, and a fuckton of drugs to blow sky high with the most annoying gremlin he's ever had the pleasure to spend time with.
He puts the red helmet securely on his head and turns on the comms as he slips out the window and starts grappling away.
“I'm on my way, RR. ETA ten minutes.”
“Copy, Hood. I'm stopping an attempted robbery close by, I'll meet you on the rooftop across the street from the warehouse.”
“See you there, kid,” Jason confirms, then lets a happy grin take over his face, safely hidden behind his helmet, as he swings from building to building and feels the swooping sensation in his stomach that he's only ever been able to feel while soaring through the Gotham skyline.
The roaring fire of the dilapidated warehouse full of heroin is casting an orange film over the world and making the shadows on Tim's face look more severe than usual. Him and Jason are a few rooftops over, safely outside of the GCPD's view, but still close enough to keep an eye out until the authorities actually arrive – also close enough to feel the scorching heat of the flames when the wind blows just right.
Jason laughs when Tim almost falls on his ass trying to evade a plume of black smoke that's coming right for his face. The younger boy shoots him what is probably a filthy glare but it has no effect on Jason with the white lenses protecting the kid's eyes in the way.
He pulls out his pack and lights up a cigarette.
“So,” he draws out the word on the inhale, letting silence ring behind it while he lets the smoke linger in his lungs before blowing it out. “Why'd you really invite me along? Don't get me wrong, I love blowing shit up, especially drugs from rival gangs who lace it with fucking chalk or whatever the hell they were putting in this, but you've taken care of shit like this on your own before just fine.”
Tim spins around to face Jason, rocking back on his heels slightly and letting those beautiful wings on his back settle around his shoulders like a cape, and the face tilted up towards Jason's towering figure is nothing short of earnest. Seriously, he doesn't know what he did to earn this kind of treatment from the kid. Feed a gremlin once and earn his eternal loyalty, apparently.
“I just wanted to cheer you up, that's all.”
Jason raises a dubious eyebrow in response.
“And why would I need cheering up?” he asks with a lethal amount of suspicion in his voice as he thinks he might be close to guessing why.
“Well,” Tim says, wringing his fingers in a way that looks self-soothing as well as nervous, “I heard you ran into B recently. I don't know what happened or anything but Batman's been broodier than usual, which I heard about without even being in Gotham at the time, and you haven't wandered outside of your territory since, not even when doing so would have let you solve this case sooner. Sooo… cheering you up it was.”
Jason lets the cigarette in his hand burn itself out, ash accumulating until it falls under the weight of its own mass, and just stares, speechless, at the nervous but quietly hopeful teenager in front of him who Jason truly doesn't fucking deserve. Jesus Christ. Last time they crossed paths before Tim fucked off out of Gotham on his Bruce quest, Jason nearly killed him. Yet now, here the kid is, looking up at him with an uncertain but sincere smile. Doing something kind, meeting Jason where he is, simply because he heard he got into a spat with the old man and decided to do something about it in his own, dorky way.
Dear Lord, he might just have to keep this idiot in his life. There's no way he can go back to beating his ass after this and the lasagna thing.
“Did it work?” Tim prods hopefully, undeterred by the prolonged silence from Jason.
He throws his cigarette over the ledge and wipes his hand on his pants, clearing his throat.
“Yeah, Timmers. It did. Thanks,” he replies and if his voice is a bit gruff, it's only because of the smoke. Yeah, totally. No other reason.
“Great!” And Tim, honest to God, beams. At Jason. Because of course he does. God, no wonder Dick is so annoying about his younger siblings. Jason's only had Tim for a day but if anything happened to him he'd kill everyone in this God forsaken city and then himself.
Fuck, he needs to pull a Bruce and put a tracker on this kid ASAP. No way his heart could take it if something happened to Tim and he didn't know about it.
“Honestly, it was either this or beating the Joker to death, so I'm really glad this worked. I didn't really feel like breaking that guy out of Arkham tonight,” Tim continues in the same chirpy voice, as if he's not discussing being an accessory to literal murder just to make Jason feel better.
Yup, this one's definitely his. Dickhead can keep the murder mittens brat and whatever other strays Bruce has been collecting since Jason bit the dust, but Timmers is his.
“You were gonna kill the Joker for me?”
Even without the blue eyes on display, Jason can tell Tim is rolling his eyes at him. It's in the vibes the kid is exuding.
“Did I say that? Obviously not. I don't kill. Well, except for that one time I blew up a bunch of League bases but I gave ample time for the assassins to evacuate and I don't know if there were casualties for sure so I'm choosing to treat this as Schrodinger's Assassins type of thing where they are all both alive and dead because I really need to get some sleep and anything else would keep me up at night. And also not counting the time I did that whole thing about baiting Captain Boomerang into committing crimes so he could die at the end as revenge for killing my father. In my defense, I stopped that one before he could die. So technically, I'm not a killer. My hands are clean.”
Jason's eyebrows have been steadily climbing towards his hairline as Tim spoke and he's sure he's wearing the most idiotic, dumbfounded expression a human can wear but it's really not every day that a man hears that the goody-two-shoes kid he thought had replaced him and did a better job as Robin is actually a chaotic menace who hasn't grown up to be a villain only by accident more than anything else (but who also was, admittedly, a better Robin than Jason, something he can admit now without wanting to throttle Tim for it).
“But yeah, no, I wasn't going to kill the Joker. Just facilitate his escape and deliver him at a secure location where you… could… perhaps… therapeutically… relieve some stress. And deal with a major trigger that causes you distress whenever he escapes! A rather brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. But so tedious,” Tim finishes with a groan. “So I'm really glad this worked! That way I don't have to deal with all that. Maybe next time.”
Jason stares at him some more. He really doesn't know what to make of this boy, who can be so mission-focused and serious one moment and then act like the most morally-gray cackling goblin the next. It's honestly a wonder that Dick didn't immediately send out a Justice League search party when Tim bailed on him and disappeared into the sunset after proclaiming that the father he buried wasn't actually dead. Jason would have assumed that that was finally the moment Tim cracked and went full supervillain and would have wisely tried to contain the threat.
He's also very glad that Tim decided to rehabilitate Jason like a feral street cat with rabies instead of, rightfully, getting revenge for all those times he picked fights and left Tim bleeding and/or broken. The hell this kid could unleash upon Jason without actually breaking the law or B's rule… He shudders to think about it.
“Well… thanks for the help, Red. This definitely put me in a good mood,” he eventually settles on saying and the shy, pleased curl to Tim's lips when Jason lays a gentle hand on his shoulder in thanks makes Jason vow to raze cities to the ground if anyone touches a hair on his brother's head in the future. “Now let's get the hell out of here before we suffocate on heroin smoke. Let's swing by Bat Burger on the way to your territory, I'm paying.”
“Only if you get me the Jokerized Fries,” Tim quips, shit-eating grin in place, and Jason just has to gently smack the twerp's head – them's the rules.
“Obviously, I'm not a heathen,” he raises his voice to be heard over Tim's indignant spluttering and smirks to himself, pleased and a lot fond, as he pulls out his grapple and swings off the rooftop, heading towards the Bowery with Red Robin close on his tail, loudly complaining over comms about good deeds not going unpunished and ungrateful older brothers before rattling off a mile-long fast food order and making sure to emphasise the importance of specifying that the pickles should be packaged separately to the burger. Jason doesn't even kick up a fuss about it, he's just glad to have the kid chattering in his ear and flying by his side.
The problem is, though, that Tim's words can't seem to leave Jason's head over the next few days.
He packs up his stuff and changes safe houses, spending most of his free time, which isn't a lot because being a crime lord who cares about his community takes up a surprisingly big chunk of his time, re-reading The Handmaid's Tale and jotting down his thoughts and ideas so he can organise them into a proper essay before next week's class.
He cooks too much food for one person and gives most of it up to the street kids around his base of operations, only saving three helpings in the fridge for later – one for himself, one to leave on Tim's kitchen counter when the kid is asleep at his computer with Red Dead Redemption 2 paused on the curved monitor in front of him, and one for Mr. Kang, who broke his leg a week ago hanging up laundry and can't stand up for too long to cook for himself, so Jason has taken to bringing him meals every two days or so until the old man gets back to his usually spry self again.
But throughout it all – reading and crime lording and cooking – Jason's thoughts always go back to that night and Tim's words and the wonderful idea that the kid has put into his head.
It's not something novel. Jason himself orchestrated that entire convoluted scheme to get the Joker out of Arkham for a plan that ended up backfiring spectacularly and leaving Jason with a broken heart and a bleeding throat. But, he supposes, the disappointment (understatement of the century) of that failure put him off the idea so thoroughly that he hasn't thought about it since. Just… doing it himself. If Bruce won't kill the clown – for his own reasons, for Jason, for the billion other kids he's collected who are at risk of being killed or worse every day that the clown keeps breathing, for the good of the city even – then what's stopping Jason from doing it?
Every time the monster escapes Arkham, a cold sweat runs down his spine at the thought of running into him unexpectedly or finding out that one of his siblings has been nabbed and blown up just like him. He can't rest until the Joker is back in custody. Even days later, he often goes without sleep or food or peace of mind, and tends to stray outside of his territory more often, just for a chance to glimpse one of the others, to check on them and make sure they're okay.
He doesn't want them in his life. Dick is a whole bag of issues wrapped in bitter feelings and old, unresolved tension that Jason doesn't feel ready to unravel and try to sort through, no matter how much Dick obviously yearns to fix things. Damian is just a kid, but one that Jason doesn't really like all that much, if he's being honest, and a source of simmering jealousy and bitterness on account of being Bruce's biological kid – if Tim simply wearing his suit after his death was enough to fuck him up six ways to Sunday, then Bruce getting himself a ‘real’ son nearly made him go ballistic, and it still fucks with him some days if he thinks about his non-existent relationship with his adoptive father too much. The rest of the Bat brood, Jason doesn't really know all that well and isn't too interested in changing that any time soon.
But for all of that, they're still his siblings. He may not wanna see them or talk to them or acknowledge their existence beyond knowing that they're there and alive, but he doesn't want them dead. He doesn't want anyone to follow in his footsteps. He certainly doesn't want them to become victims of the Joker of all people.
And especially now that he's gotten attached to Tim, he can't stomach the idea that the Joker could escape when Jason isn't around to watch the kid's back and he'd be coming back to Gotham to news about Red Robin being dead or permanently fucked up at the clown's hands. The thought of Tim dead or seriously hurt like that makes Jason so sick he could puke.
So maybe… maybe it's time that Jason fixed this little problem and made sure that he won't spend any more sleepless nights hunting down the clown when he escapes or worrying about the Bat kids’ safety the rest of the time.
So, a little less than a week after his bonding session with Tim, Jason finds himself taking care of a little Joker-sized problem in his life.
Finding the Joker in Arkham is easy. Disabling security and bribing the guards to turn a blind eye is even easier. He takes the fucker to Amusement Mile, thinking the location poetic for the clown's last hurrah among the living, and then he goes to town.
Jason takes his time. Slow. Methodical. Calculating. He makes sure to inflict maximum pain while keeping the Joker alive for the longest possible time. The clown laughs and taunts and cackles for a long while, longer than most people would, but eventually, like the human being he is underneath all the craziness and the sadism and the makeup, he breaks. They all do.
The joy Jason takes from making his killer and torturer flinch and cry and writhe and bleed cannot be put into words. Maybe he is the monster people keep seeing when they look at him and can't find the little boy they're looking for. Just a little bit. But Jason couldn't care less in that moment as he takes all the pain and grief and fear he felt that day in that warehouse and all the pain and grief and fear he's been struggling with since he came back out on the very same person who inflicted it on him all those years ago. And when he's done, when he's inflicted as much deliberate pain on the Joker as he could manage, Jason takes a piece of rusted rebar, left lying around from the last time this piece of shit blew shit up around here, no doubt, and starts swinging and doesn't stop until the Joker's face is an unrecognisable mess and the rest of his body is an amalgamation of oddly twisted limbs and caved in bones.
Jason stands there, panting, looking down at the personification of his and a lot of other people's nightmares for what feels like an eternity. When he feels in control again, he lets the rebar fall to the ground, uncaring of the way it clatters noisily against the concrete, and pulls out his main phone, dialing a number.
“How did you get this number?” the voice growls menacingly. It would probably be scarier if Jason hadn't also seen the owner of said voice drooling on himself after falling asleep with a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth just two nights ago.
“It's me, Timbo, relax.”
On the other end of the line, Tim blows out a loud, relieved breath.
“Jason. It's you. Wait, is this your real number? Like, not a burner?”
A fond smile tugs at Jason's lips without his permission but he lets it unfurl, finding it fitting to be smiling so easily because of his little brother after he just relieved himself of a huge burden he's been carrying since he was fifteen.
“Yup. Make sure you save it. But that's not why I called.”
“Oh?” Some shuffling can be heard in the background and Jason wonders if he caught the kid at a bad time. “Anything I can do for you?”
“Yes, actually. What's the most effective way to get rid of a body and ensure it cannot be revived, put back together, or cloned? Asking for a friend.”
There's a beat of silence from Tim's end for a long moment before the answer comes, “Fluoroantimonic acid. Probably. But there's always good old fashioned cremation, grinding up the bones, collecting it all, then dumping it to the bottom of the ocean where no one will think to check. Do I wanna know why you're asking?”
Jason hums as he looks down at the mangled corpse on the ground and gives it a kick for shits and giggles.
“Depends. How comfortable are you with helping out a friend?”
“Depends. Who is the friend trying to get rid of?” Tim shoots back.
“Tall, red lipstick, green hair, liked to blow Robins up. Ring any bells?”
A sharp intake of breath, then static, then a frantic flurry of movement.
“Yeah, I'm in. I'll get the supplies. Where am I meeting you?”
“Amusement Mile. I'll drop you the pin when you're close.”
“On my way.”
Jason locks his phone screen after Tim hangs up and lets it fall back in the pocket of his pants. He looks down at the Joker for a moment, feeling full to bursting with satisfaction and a sense of peace he's only ever dreamed of, then pulls out the rickety, rusted chair he unearthed from one of the condemned buildings still standing and falls into it with a sigh.
He can't believe he's done it.
The Joker's dead.
He killed him.
War is over.
Laughter bubbles out of his throat and bursts out of his lips before he can contain it. It's not deranged, like some might expect, but rather a pure sound, full of joy and relief and the knowledge that so many people are safe now because of one, brutal act committed tonight. Jason's head falls back with the force of his laughter and, as it slowly dies down until only the occasional giggle simmers and pops to the surface, he gazes up at the stars, bright and twinkling in this place where the smog and pollution of the city doesn't quite reach as aggressively.
Tonight, Gotham sleeps under a sky blanketing a Joker-less world for the first time. All thanks to Jason.
It's a heady feeling.
Tim arrives an hour later. He's got a bunch of shit with him that Jason doesn't even try to wrap his head around, but the important thing is that they get Joker's body to disappear, leaving as little of a trace behind as scientifically possible. Jason isn't taking any chances here and Tim seems to share the sentiment.
They work in silence. Tim doesn't prod and he doesn't carry an air of disapproval and judgement that Jason would be expecting from literally anyone else that he could have called – aside from Roy, probably, though the redhead might have at least bitched extensively about being dragged out into the middle of nowhere, Gotham, in the middle of the night, to help Jason dispose of a body – and that alone would have been enough to place him firmly in the ‘favourite family member’ category if he wasn't already there. When they're done and Jason can truly breathe freely for the first time in years now that his mind has been put at ease on the ‘resurrect or clone the Joker’ front, he turns around to face Tim, a bright smile on his face that might be making him look a bit deranged, and hugs his little brother properly for the first time in his life.
No hair ruffles, shoulder checks, arms thrown over shoulders. Jason gathers the younger boy in his arms, circling that thin but deceptively strong body with his tree-trunk arms, and squeezes tightly while lifting Tim off his feet at the same time. Tim squeaks, like a toy, but immediately after he processes what's going on, he seems to melt into Jason's hold and lifts his arms to place them on Jason's back to reciprocate.
“Thank you,” he murmurs into Tim's soft hair, not even bothered by the lavender scent assaulting his nostrils courtesy of the kid's shampoo.
“Any time,” the kid answers without missing a beat, and they both know that this is about more than just helping Jason get rid of a body.
Tim's eyes are sparkling when they pull back and Jason has to avert his own with a smidgen of embarrassment at his overt display of emotions, but that's okay. Tim's used to him by now. And he might poke fun at Jason for getting flustered over this at some point in the future, but he'll never mock him for being emotional or berate him for it in any way.
“C'mon. It's late and I bet you haven't eaten anything since lunch,” he says gruffly, throwing his arm over Tim's shoulders and drawing him away while the kid drags his feet just to be a nuisance.
“I'll have you know I ate one entire banana. And a handful of pretzels.”
“Together?”
“Uh-huh. It's surprisingly good, you should try it.”
“I think I might have to call the cops on you for this one, kid. And you know how much I hate the pigs.”
“You're just jealous your mind is so limited that you can't comprehend the level of my genius.”
“I will throw you in the Harbor next time we're at the docks, Timbo, don't test me.”
“You wouldn't,” Tim calls his bluff, all smug and self-assured, and Jason doesn't really have a comeback for that because they both know it's true. Instead, he settles for shoving the little shit, hard, and cackles like a hyena when Tim falls on his ass and pouts up at him with the saddest look of betrayal human kind has ever witnessed.
The sound of their bickering drifts up and away, swirling in the air and filling up the dark night, and if it weren't for the smudged, faint remnants of blood on the ground behind them, you wouldn't be able to tell that a murder took place tonight. The two of them walk side by side, laughing and teasing and squawking indignantly, and when Tim laces his gloved fingers with Jason's blood stained ones and squeezes once, Jason exhales softly and smiles, knowing that he might not have a family anymore, at least not in anything other than name, but he still has a little brother, something he never had before but finally feels ready to accept.
And, frankly, that's more than a resurrected ghost walking could have hoped for. It's enough. The rest will come later or it won't, but in the meantime, Jason is happy and that's all that matters. Everything else is just noise.