Chapter Text
“There are many types of monsters in this world. Monsters who will not show themselves and who cause trouble. Monsters who abduct children. Monsters who devour dreams. Monsters who suck blood. And monsters who always tell lies. Lying monsters are a real nuisance. They are much more cunning than other monsters. They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart. They eat even though they've never experienced hunger. They study even though they have no interest in academics. They seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it. Because in truth, I am that monster-”
Death Note Relight 2: L’s Successors (2008)
His leg is caught in a bear trap.
This is unnerving for three reasons. One: he’s in a bear trap. That fucking hurts. Two: He’s in Titan’s Tower. A building. There are no bear traps in buildings.
Three (and arguably the most important): The Replacement is looking at Jason like he’s some sort of uninteresting science experiment.
Jason likes to think that he knows all there is to know about Timothy Jackson Drake. Robin III. Replacement. Rich, privileged, rotten, green, green, green-
Anyway.
He has been stalking the little fucker for weeks. Taken in every morsel of information there was on him. Was planning to show the wannabe hero what happens to little birdies that don’t stay where they belong.
He hadn’t accounted for the bear traps. Reasonable, considering nobody should really own a fucking bear trap anyway.
“That worked better than I expected.”
Jason doesn’t try to stop the growl that leaves him drowning in a haze of green. Little shit -
“Following in the steps of your namesake I suppose. Isn’t that right, Red Hood ?”
The shock thereafter washes away the green.
“What,” he seethes through gritted teeth, “Did you just say.”
The Replacement raises an unimpressed eyebrow, and it grates as much as it unnerves him.
“Well,” he drawls, “Coming here to torture a Robin with a smile on your face. What clown does that remind you of?”
Shut up, Shut up, Shut up-
Jason attempts to lunge, but can only scream as another bear trap trips open, clamping down on his arm now.
The Replacement tilts his head, barely blinking, and this is wrong, wrong, wrong -
Then.
Then, Tim Drake smiles.
Here’s the thing about smiles. Jason has seen many of them. He’s seen sadists and madmen and druggies and aliens grin in ways he doesn’t like to think about. And after…well after , he hated most of them on principle. The only smiles he could stand were the civilians who knew nothing and the kids who he hoped knew even less.
Despite all of that, Jason has never seen a smile quite like Tim Drake’s.
His bird-like features still surrounded by baby fat make him seem young. Theoretically, a smile should make him seem even younger -
(As young as Jason was when he-)
In reality, the smile makes him look like something else all together.
Jason didn’t realize it before (hadn’t looked, hadn’t seen, hadn’t noticed, covered in green as he was), but though Tim’s eyes are as blue as anyone else’s, his pupils are blown so wide they might as well be black. Like someone on a high or suffering from some head injury, except Tim’s eyes are like that all the time and-
There’s nothing there.
Jason looks and looks and looks but can see nothing behind those dead fish eyes. Coupled with how pale and still he is, it’s like the kid is a porcelain doll.
Meanwhile, the smile is all kinds of wrong . It’s like someone tried to sculpt a grin on a block of ice. It’s not menacing or crazed. It just is . If a blackhole could smile, he thinks it would smile like that.
“Hey Jason,” Tim says, that fucking smile still on his face, “You want to know a secret?”
He doesn’t realize he’s failed to breath for a full minute until that moment.
“What.” Jason croaks.
The Replacement leans in close, not within grabbing distance, but close enough to hear a whisper.
“I killed the Joker.”
-
Jason knew that the Joker was dead. The thing is, nobody really knows how he died. Superficially, the illegally obtained autopsy report listed the cause of death as a point blank gunshot wound to the head. There was no sign of the gun or the shooter anywhere near the surrounding area.
(Not that anyone really put that much effort into looking because, you know, the Joker .)
But the big question, again, is less of who or why and more how . How could the Joker be so easily put down? How did nobody see anything? How did the biggest tree in Gotham fall without making a sound?
Jason had searched with an obsessiveness belying his status as the former son of The World’s Greatest Detective and came up empty. Meanwhile, Gotham residents had taken to calling the Joker’s murder an act of God (as much as any Gothamite could believe in God anyway), and couldn’t care less about the intricacies.
Truthfully, Jason didn’t know how to feel about it. He still doesn’t, but looking up into the eyes of his replacement, he finds it poetic that that smile may have been the last thing the Joker ever saw-
This. Might be a problem.
As if Tim can read his thoughts, the current Robin’s smile grows impossibly wider, and Jason once again finds himself unable to breathe.
“Don’t look so nervous,” Tim soothes, “You and I are gonna get along just fine.”
-
“Does Bru-Batman know?”
They’re at the kitchen table, Tim lazily munching on a convenience store brownie while Jason sits rigidly, hand and leg expertly wrapped and back ramrod straight.
The kid blinks. “Batman would never approve.”
Jason tries not to fidget. “Then how did you get away with it?”
Tim raises an eyebrow before smirking, and while it’s not as creepy as his smile, there’s a crooked edge to it that sets off an alarm in Jason’s head.
He even sounds amused when he says, “Batman hasn’t been on his A-game for a while. Too busy trying to kill himself over you.”
Jason goes still. A million thoughts circle through his head filled with green and Talia and Bru-Batman and warm smiles and hair ruffles and-
“You’re lying,” he growls, green bleeding at the edge of his eyes, “You’re trying to manipulate me, you little shit.”
Tim rolls his eyes. “Please,” he says, “If I were manipulating you, you wouldn’t know it, and even then, I wouldn’t need to put in that much effort-”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean-
“-I mean, you believed someone in the League of Assassins . God knows what they did to fuck with your head, but come on- ”
How did he-
“-Let me guess,” Tim continues, and then he pitches his voice higher, tone mocking, “Bruce replaced you Jason, he doesn’t love you Jason, he didn’t even wait for your body to go cold Jason. He didn’t kill the Joker Jason! Don’t you want revenge , Jason?”
It’s terrifying, how easy it is to picture Talia saying those exact words, and the look in her eyes that Jason is only now realizing was as calculating and as it was cold.
And the realization must show on his face as Tim’s smirk grows wider, a glint in his eyes.
The boy leans forward. “You played right into their hands,” he whispers, “When you could have simply gone home .”
The table creaks underneath Jason’s grip, and though the green lingers, it’s hard to feel angry when his pain is being pulled to the surface by the child who seems to have avenged him.
It’s silent for a moment.
Then, “What did you mean about Bruce?” Jason asks quietly.
Tim, finished with his brownie, crumples the wrapper and throws it in the direction of the trashcan without turning. It falls in gracefully.
“He was angry,” Tim explains, sounding bored, “And he was grieving, and he couldn’t kill the Joker-couldn’t kill at all- because morals and symbols blah, blah, blah. And we all know the man would eat glass before going to therapy. So he took it out on the criminals of Gotham, instead.
Every night he’d go out and work himself to the bone, leaving a trail of broken bones and bleeding bodies in his wake. Even the small-time thieves weren’t safe. Even worse, he didn’t bother patching himself, and the injuries were multiplying on both sides. Citizens were on edge, and he didn’t seem to care.”
Tim pauses then, and for the first time since Jason met him, a hint of something other than cold amusement flashes across his face.
(It looks a lot like disgust.)
“It was pathetic,” he doesn’t quite snarl, too controlled for that, but it’s close enough to have Jason twitch, “He was going to get killed and take Gotham down with him.”
He looks off to the side, and though the unidentified emotion from before has disappeared, there’s a faraway look in his eyes that unnerves Jason all the same.
“I am…fond of Gotham Jason,” Tim Drake says slowly, his voice a crawling, dark thing reminiscent of the city itself, “I respect Batman and Robin’s place in keeping it intact.”
He turns his head to face Jason then, dead stare suffocating.
“I am fond of very few things,” he states, “They aren’t allowed to die. At least, not until I want them to.”
Jason has given up on regulating his breathing. His head aches, and the green is no longer whispering so loudly. He’s confused and for the first time since Talia guided him to his new path, Jason doesn’t know what he wants.
He wanted the Joker dead. The Joker is dead. He wanted to make his dad sorry. It turns out he was worse than sorry. He wanted to hurt his replacement-
But you can’t hurt something that doesn’t seem to feel pain to begin with.
Jason doesn’t know how long he ponders these thoughts with his eyes trained on his knees before a throat clears. He snaps his head up.
Tim looks bored again. “Are you planning to stay here?” he asks, voice devoid of any evidence that he actually cares what the answer is.
All at once, the weight of the day comes crashing down. Jason jerks up from the table, ignoring the pain that shoots through him. He shakes his head.
Tim shrugs. He looks relaxed, Jason thinks, as if this entire meeting meant nothing to him. Jason should be angry. He should be seething at being dismissed so easily by the boy who replaced him.
But.
“ I killed the Joker.”
“Too busy trying to kill himself over you.”
“You could have just gone home .”
He should be angry. But, looking at the boy with the dead eyes, Jason just feels numb.