Work Text:
Five days.
Tim spent five days in the Court’s maze.
He hadn’t known how long he spent in there until he got out. Time didn’t really exist in the maze. No clocks. No sun. The level of light fluctuated—bright as high noon, dark as a moonless night, every stage in between—but it seemed wholly unconnected to any kind of actual time. The few times he was able to find a dark, relatively safe corner to curl up for a brief rest, he would wake with no way to tell if he’d been asleep five minutes or five hours.
The worst, though, was when he’d think he was alone in those awful, endless hallways until he felt the sudden sting of a needle in the back of his neck. Within seconds, everything would go strange and suffocating—a world only half-seen through dark and murky water; long stretches of unawareness punctuated by flashes of white porcelain masks staring down at him and hands touching his helpless body. He’d wake up back on that stone altar with no clue how long it had been, and only a collection of new aches and bruises and cuts to give him any sense of what had been done to him. The first time it happened, he’d broken down in tears. By the sixth time, he was too numb to do anything but lay on the altar and stare at the blank grey ceiling above him.
The water bottle clipped to his utility belt had only lasted… a day? More? Less? After it ran out, Tim went maybe a few hours, maybe most of a day just trying as hard as he could to get out before his need for water got dire. Then it did get dire, and he was no closer to getting out than the moment he first arrived. Tim caved and started collecting the small amounts of probably-drugged, definitely-unsanitary water he found in puddles on the ground or dripping from the ceiling. The water might’ve killed him. Dehydration definitely would’ve killed him. He chose the might and prayed the filter in his water bottle would clear out the worst of the nasties.
But even once Tim gave in and started collecting the weird gross drug water, it still wasn’t enough. He figured out pretty quickly that the amount of water he could reliably collect would delay his death from organ failure by an extra day or two, but it wouldn’t keep him alive indefinitely.
And it certainly wouldn’t keep him alive without consequence.
The physical symptoms were worse than he’d expected. He got slow. Dizzy. Sluggish. Reaction times dulled, right when he really needed them to not do that. His head was throbbing with the worst headache he’d ever had in his life. His bones ached. The worst moment was when his legs gave out and he fell convulsing to the ground, limbs out of his control and brain going haywire. The thrashing stopped a minute or two later. Tim laid with his cheek pressed into the cold stone floor and thought with a detached, near-clinical curiosity, Oh. That was a seizure. I just had a seizure. I’ve never had one of those before.
But as bad as the physical impacts were, the mental impacts were almost worse.
The drugs that the Court pumped into the air had ensured he was hallucinating from the first moment he woke up. As Tim’s mind faltered and fractured and broke, the hallucinations got, somehow, against all odds, even more horrible. Bloodier. Scarier. More real.
Bruce, dead from bloody impact wounds that looked too much like the blunt blows of a bo staff.
Alfred, eyes wide and face frozen in terror, pinned to the wall like Langstrom has been.
Babs, face mauled nearly beyond recognition, lower half crushed under a section of collapsed ceiling.
Dick, blue eyes dull and blank, jaw cracked open to accommodate the sword shoved down his throat.
Ra’s, a charred, smoking corpse stalking Tim through the dark halls.
And Jason. Slumped on the ground—sometimes a tiny thing in his Robin suit, sometimes a 6’6 hunk in his Red Hood uniform—dead from the bloody claw marks that had torn his entire torso to shreds.
When Tim first started working with Bruce three years ago, he’d agreed to the no kill rule without question and without hesitation. It seemed so obvious at the time. Of course they wouldn’t kill. They were the good guys. They didn’t do that.
But when Tim stumbled out of the maze and found himself face-to-face with a masked Court member, his first thought was, I want to kill her.
He tried to keep that thought shoved down. We don’t kill became his mantra the last few hours he remained in the facility; something he thought and muttered and screamed to himself to ensure he wouldn’t break their most holy rule.
After the dark of the maze, the neon lights of Gotham City and the full moon above the skyscrapers felt nearly blinding. Tim knew he needed to—to move. To get far, far, far away from anyone who was still in there who might be coming after him. If nothing else, he needed to call for help.
Instead, he just sat down with a loud thunk and stared blankly at the city.
His comm burst to life a second later. “Robin!” Alfred said, a level of panic to his voice that Tim couldn’t recall ever hearing. “Can you read me?”
Tim swallowed and managed to get out, “Roger.” His voice was so hoarse the word was barely audible, even to him.
Alfred, at least, seemed to have heard it. “Oh, thank God. I see your location—” a quiet click as Alfred switched which line they were on, “—Red Hood, we have contact from Robin. I’m routing you to his location now.”
“Robin, holy shit,” Jason said. “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve scoured the entire city at least ten times over.” Tim tried to respond, but nothing else came out. “Robin? Are you still there?”
“Mm—mm-hm.”
“Okay. Hang tight. 300 meters away. I’m coming for you, Robin.”
“I’ve alerted Batgirl and Nightwing,” Alfred said. “They’re both in Southside at present, but they’re en route to Robin’s location now in case you need backup.”
“Roger. 150 meters.”
Tim didn’t look up when Jason landed next to him. “Robin,” Jason said, voice low, urgent. Tim didn’t respond. He knelt beside Tim and repeated, “Robin.” Tim stared at the city. Jason glanced around and quietly said, “Tim.”
Tim broke his gaze from the cityscape and turned to look at Jason. His helmet was sitting on the ground next to him, and he looked at Tim with an unprecedented level of concern visible on his masked face. Tim tried to speak and dissolved into a dry, spasming coughing fit instead. Jason handed Tim his water bottle. “Small sips. Don’t chug. Belfry, medical report incoming.” Tim obediently let Jason manipulate his body to examine him. After the past several days, having his body manhandled by someone familiar to him was almost a relief. “Severe dehydration—gonna need IV fluids, for sure. Multiple lacerations, contusions, and puncture wounds. I think he’s been drugged. Robin, have you eaten since you went missing?” Tim managed a small shake of his head. “Five days without food, and I’d guess he’s lost… Christ, ten or fifteen pounds? Maybe a little more? Belfry, I think we need to take him to the hospital—”
“No!” Tim gasped—quiet still, but so much louder than anything he’d said so far that Jason actually jumped back a little. “Please, I just—I just wanna go home. Please, Jason.”
Jason worried his bottom lip and looked Tim over again. “Belfry?”
“Bring the lad home, Red Hood. I’ll call our doctor friend.”
Tim wondered if he was imagining the relief on Jason’s face. “Alright. Okay.” Jason lifted Tim up like it was effortless. For him, it probably was. He’d been able to pick Tim up with ease even before Tim lost 10% of his bodyweight. Every time Jay had ever picked him up, Tim had made a big show of protesting and demanding to be put down. He didn’t have any energy to pretend now. He just rested his face in the crook of Jason’s neck and inhaled the familiar scent of his cheap aftershave.
“C’mon, Robin,” Jason muttered in his ear. “Let’s get you home.”
Tim spent an agonizing ten days benched.
The first three, he was on bed rest being pumped a constant, heady stream of IV drugs, and the drugs and sleep deprivation in tandem left him asleep most of the time whether he wanted to be or not.
The next seven days, he was allowed to move around the Belfry and do some work at the Batcomputer, which at least made being benched slightly less agonizing. But he wasn’t on the heavy painkillers anymore, and his paranoia was setting in, and every night when he tried to make himself sleep all he could think was What if I wake up back on that altar?
So he stopped sleeping. He’d already proven he could go five days with a bare amount of rest and be—well, not fine, but alive. There was too much to do, anyway. The Court. The League. Batman wouldn’t have slept until Gotham City was safe. Robin couldn’t let himself sleep, either.
It was Jason who found him again. Jason who (annoyingly) locked Tim out of the Batcomputer to force him to stop working for the night. Jason who took Tim outside to look at the stars and put his leather jacket around Tim’s shoulders when the wind made him shiver. And it was Jason who listened to Tim’s fears and then marched him back inside and into his bedroom, Jason who volunteered to stay up all night and keep guard over Tim to allow him some peaceful rest. Jason, who—even with everything going on, even when Dick and Babs were too focused on the mission to notice anything else—noticed Tim.
For the first few days after Tim was unbenched, he was allowed to go on patrol only with another Knight accompanying him, which was somehow humiliating and comforting at the same time. Then, finally, he was cleared to return to duty on his own.
On Tim’s fifth night out by himself, he was feeling pretty good. He’d been sleeping okay the past few nights, so he was decently rested. The few combat encounters he’d had so far were already making his body ache in a comfortingly familiar way. And, most importantly, he was doing things again. Helping. Contributing to the cause. Proving that he wasn’t useless.
He’d just finished breaking up an arms deal in Bowery when Red Hood’s voice crackled over the comms, “Backup—backup, please, fuck, shit—”
Tim’s hand flew to his mask and switched his comm on. “Red Hood? What’s going on?” He activated Jason’s marker in his AR. Wayne Tower. East side. “En route. 449 meters.”
As Tim grappled from roof to roof, Jason said, “I’m—dammit!—I’m injured, uh—” Jason groaned, and there was a dull thump like he’d just collapsed against something. “Talons. Six—six or seven? I got—got six of them down. Might be—” He groaned. “Might be a seventh.”
“300 meters.”
Tim grappled in silence for several long, tense moments. Then Jason quietly said, “Robin?”
“What?”
“There’s a seventh.”
Jason’s comm line went dead.
When Tim landed in the alleyway, Jason was crumpled up against the wall. Through his helmet, Tim couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed.
But Tim could see the deep, awful claw marks that had torn Jason’s torso to shreds.
And he could see the feral Talon still hunched over him, preparing another strike.
Tim jumped on the Talon’s back and tackled it to the ground. It took several hits for him to realize he’d tossed his bo staff somewhere and was just beating the thing with his fists. It keened out pathetic, strangled, whining noises, each one weaker than the last. Tim hit it harder. Its flailing limbs slowed and fell weakly to the ground. Tim didn’t stop.
“Robin,” Jason said weakly. Tim barely heard him. “Robin.”
Right fist. Left fist. Right fist. Left fist. Each punch to the thing’s face jerked its head in one direction and then the other. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Rhythmic. Nearly meditative. Like the ticking of a clock. Like the drip of water on grey cement floor.
Strong hands caught Tim’s fists. “Tim,” Jason said in his ear, voice low and rough and ragged. “Tim. Stop. You’re gonna kill them.”
“What if I don’t care?” Tim spat out. He hadn’t been aware that his entire body was trembling until he felt Jason’s strong, steady hands gripping his wrists. “Jason—” He began, an attempt to justify himself, to explain, but no words came to his mouth. He just repeated, more desperate, “Jason.”
“I know.” Jason dropped his grip on Tim’s wrists and wrapped his arms around Tim instead. He pressed Tim’s back to his chest. “Trust me. I know.”
“It could have killed you.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t. C’mon.” Jason rested his head in the crook of Tim’s neck. His breathing was ragged and hot against Tim’s skin, the hint of pain fraying the edges of every noise he made. “I just… just wanna go home, Tim.”
The tension slowly left Tim’s body. He climbed off the Talon with clumsy, jerky movements and spun around to look Jason over. His hands fumbled desperately at the clasp of Jason’s helmet, and he very nearly had enough presence of mind to be surprised when Jason let him pull it off and drop it to the ground. Jason’s handsome face stared back at him, a little beat up, but still him, still alive. He stayed obediently still while Tim examined him. Long slash wounds on the chest, but not as deep as they’d originally seemed. The rest of the claw marks marring his body were relatively shallow, if unfortunately bloody. Tim cupped Jason’s face and gently ran his thumb over the dark, angry bruise forming on his cheekbone. There’d probably been one of those big hulking Talons, if Jay had been hit hard enough to bruise so badly even through his helmet.
Before he could stop himself or even really think about what he was doing, Tim pressed a gentle kiss to the bruise. When he pulled back, Jason’s face was red. Tim exhaled and hoarsely whispered, “Let’s go home.”
Tim refused to leave Jason’s side the entire time Alfred was patching him up.
After the hubbub had dissipated—Jason’s wounds had been stitched, the Belfry was dark and still, and even Dick had been convinced to stop hovering and go to bed—Tim still lingered. He fussed with the blankets again. With Jason’s height and girth, finding hospital gowns that covered him adequately was a constant challenge, and the old quilt Dick had draped over him bared quite a lot every time it rode up. Jason gave Tim a wide grin, just a little loopy from the pain meds in his IV drip. “Y’know, normally before I let a guy see me with my ass out in bed, I make him buy me dinner first.”
Tim laughed softly and fussed just a little more. “Okay, fine. Once you’re on your feet again, I’ll take you out somewhere. Alright?”
“It’s a date.”
Tim’s hands stilled. He looked at Jason. Jason just grinned back at him. Tim tried and fail to hold back his own smile. “Where? Your pick.”
“Luigi’s. The one in the Cauldron.”
“That’s got a worse health department rating than the one in the Financial District, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, man, that’s how you know it’s legit. All the best pizza places have a few rats.”
“I… don’t think that’s true.”
Jason snorted. “Whatever, Bristol boy.” Tim rolled his eyes. Jason’s smile faltered as he slowly said, “We should probably sleep, huh?”
“Oh. Yeah. Probably.” Tim hesitated. “Do you… want me to stay, Jason? I could watch out for you. Protect you. Like you’ve been doing for me.”
“Kid, you’ve barely recovered from the maze. You can’t afford a night with no sleep.”
“But I want—” Tim began to argue. The words I want to be with you nearly tumbled gracelessly out of his mouth. I want to be with you, I want to stay with you, I want to be the person who’s allowed to sit beside your hospital bed. He swallowed his words and only said, “I want to make sure you’re okay.”
Jason gave him a stare—long and lingering, like he knew what Tim had really meant. Slowly, Jason scooted as far to one side as he could. He looked at the empty spot next to him in the hospital bed. Then he looked back up at Tim with a questioning expression that was also, endearingly, just a little bit nervous.
Despite the constant chill of the Belfry, Tim suddenly felt very hot. Hot like he was going to catch on fire, like he was burning from the inside out; hot like something had been lit in his chest and all he wanted was to let it consume him. He toed his shoes off. The floor of the Belfry was almost painfully cold on his feet. Jason stared as Tim slowly climbed into bed beside him.
They got the largest hospital beds they could, but Jason was still broad enough to leave very little room beside him even pressed against the railing. They were going to be pressed up against each other regardless. Jason tugged the quilt around both of them. Tim allowed himself to lay his head on Jason’s chest and relax into him. Jason wrapped a thick, strong arm around Tim’s narrow shoulders and pulled him close.
Jason’s hospital gown was bunching up weirdly again. Tim tried to ignore how exposed Jason probably was under their shared blanket and instead focused on his chest. Tim had accidentally tugged the gown down a bit when he was laying against Jason, and now the top of Jason’s autopsy scar peeked out from under the edge of the gown. Tim thought his staring was discreet until Jason awkwardly said, “I can cover it back up. If it makes you uncomfortable.”
“No! No, Jason, that’s not—no. I’m not uncomfortable. I was just… admiring it.”
“Admiring it?” Jason echoed flatly.
Tim fumbled. “Well, yeah, I mean I—I like all of your scars. I’ve always been really into guys with scars. Is that weird? It’s probably weird. Just… makes you look tough, I guess. It’s handsome.” Jason didn’t respond. Tim started reaching for the scar, but pulled his hand back. Jason took Tim’s hand and gently placed it on top of the scar. Tim rubbed the pads of two fingers along the rough, raised lines. “Do they hurt?”
“A little. I’m supposed to lotion them regularly, but I… don’t.”
“Why not? Is it… hard for you to touch them like that?”
“God, I wish that was the reason. That’s way cooler.”
“What’s the reason?”
“I can’t stand the feeling of lotion on my hands.”
Tim laughed softly. “Okay. Uh—wait here a sec? I mean, I guess you can’t really… um, I’ll be right back.”
“Okay?”
A few minutes later, Tim returned from his room with a small bottle of lotion in his hands. “Wasn’t sure if I still had this or not. Do you—do you want me to…?”
Judging by the shade of vermillion Jason’s face turned, Tim wasn’t the only one feeling flushed. Jason nodded. Tim climbed back into bed beside him. He grasped the neckline of Jason’s gown and looked to him for approval. Jason nodded. Tim slowly pulled it down. He’d seen Jason barechested before—he’d seen Jason outright naked before. Tim had patched up wounds on nearly every inch of Jason’s body. All four of them had changed in front of each other more times than Tim could count. Tim had thought he’d thoroughly trained himself into viewing his teammates’ naked bodies in a strictly non-sexual light.
But as Tim pulled the gown down to bunch haphazardly around Jason’s waist, his gaze lingered hungrily over every inch of bare skin he revealed. He glanced up. Jason stared at him.
Jason’s autopsy scars were rough and raised under Tim’s hands. Tim gently massaged the lotion onto the thick lines that traced along Jason’s collarbones. Then Tim went down, following the straight scar that had once cut Jason’s torso clean open. “I saw you dead,” Tim said. He’d meant to speak louder, but his voice seemed only capable of coming out in a hush. “I thought I did. It wasn’t—I was hallucinating. I did that a lot in the maze. I saw your body. I thought it was real first, then I realized it was fake. It was all fake. But then my mind started… I was falling apart in there. I forgot again. I think I spent a solid day or two convinced you were dead.”
Jason grabbed Tim’s chin and made Tim look up at his face. His other hand grabbed one of Tim’s hands and placed it on top of his heart. Tim slowly splayed his fingers out and pressed his palm into Jason’s skin. The revenant’s heart was beating strong beneath his autopsy scar. “Not dead,” Jason said. Then, with a shit-eating grin, he added, “Anymore.”
That got a small, humorless laugh from Tim. “Jason… Jason, when I was in there, I wanted—I wanted to kill them. The Talons. The Court members. All of them.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’ve been out of there for weeks, and I still… I still don’t know what was real in there. It’s only gotten more confusing.”
Jason was silent for a moment. “When you went missing,” he finally said, “When we figured out who took you. All that I wanted to do was pull out my old guns and mow down every fucking Owl in the city until I found you. I haven’t been so scared since the night Bruce died.”
“Did you?”
“Did I…?”
Tim choked out, “Kill.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“I—I might have. Jason, I really don’t remember.”
“Killing’s hard to forget,” Jason said evenly. “And you’re not really the type, Tim. I know you’ve been freaked out, but that’s not… you’re not the killing type.”
“But I barely felt like me in there,” Tim pressed. “I barely felt alive. And there’s so many stretches of time I don’t remember at all, especially when—when they…”
Something in Jason’s expression turned dangerous. “When they what?”
When they drugged me, Tim wanted to say. When they touched me. When someone’s hands were on me and the only way to stop myself from going insane was to pretend they were yours.
His mouth didn’t form a single word.
His mouth just slammed against Jason’s.
Jason made a surprised noise, but he wrapped his arms around Tim and held him close against his chest as he kissed Tim back. Jason’s muscular arms encircled Tim’s waist and held him tight to reality; his body was hot and firm and real beneath Tim. Real. Alive. Both of them, real. Both of them, alive. Tim didn’t realize he was crying until Jason kissed the tears off his face.
Tim let out a ragged sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp and shifted until he was straddling Jason’s hips. Jason watched him with equal parts arousal and wariness. Tim had the passing thought that it was the most quintessentially Knights expression he’d ever seen, and he had to shove down a hysterical laugh as he shoved his hands down towards Jason’s pelvis.
Jason caught Tim’s wrists. “What are you doing?”
“I need—” Tim choked out, “I need…”
A beat passed in stillness. “I don’t think,” Jason said hoarsely, “That this is what you need.”
Tim collapsed forward and buried his face in Jason’s neck. He tried to stop himself from hyperventilating. “Is it me?” he asked desperately. “Do you not wanna touch me? Do you not want me to touch you?”
Jason rubbed his hands up and down Tim’s arms. “I wanna touch you,” he said, his voice thick with need and tight with self-control. “But not like this.”
Silence rang heavy through the cavernous Belfry. “But I need you,” Tim whispered.
“You have me. Whatever happens tonight, you have me.” Jason held Tim. Tim closed his eyes and inhaled. Jason’s aftershave. Jason’s deodorant. Jason’s sweat. Jason. Tim felt a little weird for smelling him, but then he realized Jason was sniffing his hair and he didn’t feel weird at all.
“I never want to go back there. I don’t want any of us to. It’s—Jason, it’s like Hell in there. That’s really what it feels like; like they killed you and now you’re trapped in Hell with them.”
“They’re never going to take you again.” Jason brought Tim’s hand up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Tim relaxed against him. Jason gently grabbed Tim’s chin and tilted his face up, but he didn’t move from there—he remained perfectly still, waiting to see what Tim would do.
Tim slammed his mouth into Jason’s again. Jason moaned.Tim dug his nails into Jason’s back and pulled him as close as he physically could.
They parted several minutes later, a string of spit connecting their mouths as they rested their foreheads together. “We’re gonna win,” Jason panted. “We’re gonna take the bastards down. We’re gonna live. And we’re gonna do it together.”
Tim closed his eyes and gripped Jason’s shoulder. “Together.”