Work Text:
Sometimes Jason wishes he hadn’t agreed to any of this shit –
He ducks under Robin’s swing, his katana glinting dangerously sharp in the light, and misses the follow up attack from Nightwing. Electricity surges from his escrima where it connects against the small of his back and he grits his teeth, arching involuntarily. It takes effort to grab the stick and yank it away from the vigilante – his only saving grace being the leather of his gloves, but even then, sparks crackle across his knuckles and up his wrist, makes his fingers go numb and staticky.
He takes the escrima from Nightwing and throws it over the side of the building into the alley below where he knows a dumpster is. Nightwing bares his teeth. No quippy remarks, no light-hearted banter. Even at their worst, back in the day, Dick still had time for banter, for genuine smiles.
Now though –
Damian snarls, hits a button on the hilt of his sword. It lights up with its own electricity and, ah fuck, that’s not fair. He presses in close, and Jason throws up his arm, catching the blade on a notch in his armor and twisting so it slides across his jacket instead of biting into the meat of his forearm.
“Father was right about you, Todd,” Damian hisses – it’s the first time he’s spoken to Jason since, since – Jason flinches, he can’t help it. Furious tears make Damian’s eyes bright, shining in the light of the city. His expression is an expanse of cold, desperate fury and a muted, longing hope that maybe – . “You are irredeemable. A monster.”
You didn’t even like him, Jason wants to say, you hated him – except that’s not true. It was never true, and they haven’t pretended it was true for a long, long time. Now Jason is the most hated person in the family, and he knows he deserves it, he just wishes he could, he could explain.
Dick takes advantage of the distraction, and he comes in with a kick. Jason could dodge this easily. Instead, he whirls around, bending out of the way of Damian’s next swing, and takes the kick in the side. He exhales a sharp breath and continues under, under, tucking into a roll and coming back up.
Robin and Nightwing stand in front of him, their weapons ready. Jason stands across, his fists up and bloody from something earlier in the day. There’s so much rage in their stances, in their expressions.
A click in the comms – one he’s not supposed to hear. “On my way,” Spoiler says, and her voice is low and cold.
Jason isn’t stupid. He knows it’s not just Spoiler on her way, and he knows when to make a strategic retreat. He takes out his grapple, eyeing his used-to-be brothers. Rose is never going to let him hear the end of his – of all the vigilantes, he can’t take out the ones he grew up with, the ones he trained with. He can tell when Dick registers that what he took out isn’t a gun, the vigilante lurches with a shout, but Jason’s already throwing himself off the rooftop, shooting his grapple for across the street.
He doesn’t falter, doesn’t scream, as a burning line of pain slices up his leg. He hits the rooftop with a stumble into a roll, launching to his feet to run, run, run. The sounds of a chase follows him, but he drops down a fire escape, pulls up a window, and slides into an empty apartment just in time as seconds later, shadows flit to the alley below. Missing him by the span of a blink.
The voices of his once-family drift up from where he presses against the wall just under the window, panting wheezing breathes, eyes squeezed shut as he waits for them to leave.
—
Jason grits his teeth and determinedly doesn’t limp. The dark color of his pants hides the spreading stain of crimson and he’d like to keep it that way – hidden. Civilians pass him on the streets, avoiding eye contact. They don’t know who he is, but that doesn’t make a difference. He excludes danger and violence and a cold arrogance in his casual walk alone. They don’t need to know who he is to know they need to stay away.
His side throbs, his head aches. His entire right leg burns. Jason isn’t looking forward to seeing what it looks like. His heel squelches every time he takes a step – fuck, he’s gonna have to get rid of these boots now, isn’t he? Damn, he liked this pair. He sighs and shoves up his sunglasses to scrub at his dry, burning eyes. The smog is too thick to bother with sunglasses, he only has them on to cover the shot of blood through his sclera from a bad hit. The mottled bruising to match looks days old instead of hours.
And, yeah, rubbing his eyes hurt like a bitch.
The streets of Grand Avenue are as lively as ever. Nothing can keep them down, not even a city-wide man hunt for any Masked that’s slowly migrating to other cities. Jason lets himself smile here. People bump his shoulder and don’t apologize, too caught up in their laughter and excitement. Someone pops a handful of confetti in his face and doesn’t care that he flinches – they smile apologetically, hands him a popper, and practically sashays away.
He drops the popper in the hands of the next kid that he passes and continues on his way to his apartment, steps getting worse, his straight line starting to waver. His vision speckles black on the edges, but he keeps walking in that dogged, determined pace. He still doesn’t limp. He lets his shoulders slump, though, and his head drop – only for a moment. Just a moment. Then his head comes back up, his shoulders straighten, looking just as unruffled and resting bitch face as usual. He can feel eyes on watching him from the shadows and he studiously ignores it.
His apartment is on the fourth floor, and he’d rather take the fire escape – but he’s pretty sure that counts as off limits. So, he fumbles with his key and enters the lobby. Craig greets him with a smile and Jason manages one back. By the furrow of the old man’s brows, though, he didn’t quite manage it. He brushes off the concern and turns away from the broken elevator to the stairs.
Jason hesitates at the bottom, staring up to the next floor’s landing with something like dread. Fucking hell. He takes a deep breath, grabs the railing, and heaves himself up one step at a time.
By the time he makes it two floors, his shirt is drenched in sweat, his side has surpassed all definitions of pain, and, and he can’t feel his leg. He leans against the railing, panting, clutching his shirt over his heart so tightly his knuckles pale. His eyes close on their own volition and it takes effort to open them again – he can make it. He always does. Just – almost there.
He falls against his door, resting his forehead on the cheap wood. It feels strangely good against his overheated skin, but he doesn’t want to think too much about it. With clumsy fingers he manages to unlock his door. He pauses to unhook one of his traps then stumbles the rest of the way inside. His alarm beeps – the sound sends a sharp spike of pain in his head – it beeps in warning, and he turns to disarm that too.
The whole world sways when he turns. He barely catches himself on the side table. It tetters under his weight as he leans on it, sucking in sharp breaths, willing the world to reorient itself. His alarm beeps again and he turns it off just in time with shaky fingers. Bending like that is agonizing – he groans as he rights himself up.
In the privacy of his apartment, knowing he’s not going to be called in for at least a day, he lets a few tears slide down his cheeks. He staggers towards his bathroom, shedding his civies jacket and his shirt as he goes. His boots get dropped off in the hallway, his belt thrown somewhere towards his couch. He leaves bloody footprints the exact outline of his heel as he limps, limps, limps his way into the ratty bathroom.
His reflection is a horror show – Jason’s too damn pale even for a Gothamite, sickly under his natural tan, wane and worn in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. The bruise on his face makes him look like a discount Two-Face, the red staining the white of his eye makes the blue stand out into an unnatural color. He shifts and there’s a flash of green and he has to look away. His chest has a mottling of more bruises, deep blues and purples splashed across his sternum and wrapping around to his side until it ends on his hipbone.
He hiss between his teeth as he bends to grab his hit from under the sink, his ribs jostling. Jason closes his eyes as he sets it on the counter, breathing slowly through the pain.
Carefully, he slips off his pants – and, yep, just as expected. His slapdash bandaging from in the alleyway outside headquarters is soaked so thoroughly he can’t even tell it used to be white. His leg is streaked red, already creating a small puddle under his heel. Looks like he’s trashing the pants too. He rummages around with bloody hands until he finds everything, he needs to take care of this, snagging a towel for good measure, and gets to work.
Jason bites the inside of his lip as peels the bandage off. Some of the blood had already dried and now sticks to him like glue. He breathes in through his nose then out through his mouth, carefully, carefully pulling it off until his wound – an impressive seven-inch slice on his calf – is revealed. Fresh blood spills out, disturbingly warm, and he feels a little woozy.
Not at the sight of blood. Of course not. He’s been in the business too long to be fainting at the sight of blood. It’s just – it’s so much. Any deeper and he’d be incapacitated. Any deeper and if he’d gotten away like he did now, he would’ve bled out almost instantly. Damian would’ve – he really would’ve – He presses the towel to it, applying pressure, and leans over to turn on the shower, unhooking the head so it dangles. He swings his legs over the edge and uses his good one to keep the pressure up as he moves his supplies closer.
Jason doesn’t bother keeping his swears quiet – doesn’t bother keeping the tears at bay as he washes the wound and starts stitching it up. He has no anesthetic, or even over-the-counter shit. All that stuff for people like him is regulated to hell and back, he’s not supposed to be doing his own first aid.
He hunches over himself, tries to keep his stitching steady. And fails miserably. His hands are shaking too much, his vision blurring and darkening. But what’s one more scar? What’s one more bit of proof of how much of a fuck up he is?
The black stitches are grotesque against his skin, the edges inflamed. After he rinses off the worst of the blood, he smears a salve he snatched from the Batcave ages ago over it and wraps it up in neater, cleaner lines than when he was trying to hide it from prying eyes.
The tub is streaked red, his linoleum floor ruined. Practically everything in the bathroom is covered in blood. He sits there, exhausted, and just stares at it for a long, long time.
Nope. Not today.
Jason should get up, head to the bedroom. Actually lay on a relatively nice, horizontal surface. He tries to stand, but his knees knock together, his hand slides on the counter. So, he sits on the toilet seat, leans against the sink counter. He breathes through his nose until he can’t because he’s – he’s just going to pretend he’s not crying. Silent, relentless tears. He presses his forehead to the counter, his shoulders shaking.
He just can’t get the look on Damian’s face out of his head.
No – No. He can’t just. He stands, gripping the counter tightly, and flicks the switch, plunging the little room into darkness. Painstakingly, he limps out of the bathroom towards his bedroom. He pulls on a shirt, debates pants, then collapses onto the bed with just the shirt and the boxers. Sleep beckons him and he should really get up, clean his leg better so he doesn’t ruin his sheets too, and maybe drink some water at least. But it’s been a long day.
Hell, it’s – it’s been a long few months.
Maybe a long few years.
Jason lets his eyes flutter close and pretends he doesn’t hear the alarm on his fire escape go off.
—
He wakes up to his television on and the sound of dishes in his living room. Jason groans, muttering a quiet “son of a bitch” into his pillow before he heaves himself up. the comforter he definitely didn’t wrap around himself falls from his shoulders. There’s sealed water bottle on his side table that he snatches up and downs half of it before his next breath. Next to it is a set of folded sweats one size too big and definitely not something he owns.
A crutch, also not his, leans innocently against the table. He sighs.
Jason hobbles out of the bedroom, clenching his jaw hard enough it aches. He heads towards the bathroom, not even glancing in the direction of the living room. Inside is pristine and he wonders how long he’s been sleeping. His kit is all packed up, probably restocked, and under his sink, there are no bloody towels or ruined clothes anywhere to be seen. He takes care of business and splashes water on his face.
He rests against the sink, gripping the edges tightly. His head hangs so water drips off the tip of his nose and from his overgrown bangs. Already his legs are shaking from pain and blood loss. He jams the crutch under his arm again, then reluctantly leaves the room.
Tim stares at him from the couch, shadows under his eyes, a pallor to his skin that’s reminiscent of the time when Bruce was lost in the time stream. His eyes wander over Jason as if checking for more injuries. When he doesn’t see them, though his brows furrow, he pops the spoon out of his mouth and gestures to the food laid out on the coffee table.
“Help yourself,” he says, tone subdued.
“Not hungry,” Jason grunts. He limps over to collapse into his second-hand recliner, unable to stop the whimper when he hits his bruises.
Tim hums. “At least drink something.”
Jason closes his eyes and tilts his head back. “Too tired.”
He stays quiet for all of a minute before there’s a shuffling noise like he’s getting closer. “What happened?” he asks softly in that tone Jason fucking despises. The worried one. The sympathetic one. The one he uses on victims and traumatized civilians.
He’s not a victim. He chose this. He fucking chose this.
Jason doesn’t answer. Doesn’t open his eyes. A cold hand grabs his, flipping it over. Tim uncurls his fingers and places something in his palm. He cracks open an eye then sighs at the sight of medication – antibiotics, anti-inflammatory, pain relief, the works. He curls his fingers back, around the pills, and doesn’t take them.
“Nightwing and Robin,” he finally says, and Tim sucks in a breath. “Yeah. Damian got me in the leg when I retreated. Reinforcements were on their way.”
Later tonight, Tim will rewatch the cowl footage and listen to the comm recording from a hacked backdoor. But now, even though he knows Tim already saw it when he pulled his comforter up, hands clutch at his ankle and slides up his pant leg. He pokes around delicately, pressing the pads of his fingers through the bandage along the hot line of stitching in his calf. Jason can’t bite back the gasp of pain, foot jerking reflexively.
Tim lets go like he’s been burned.
“Barely managed to hide it from Ravager,” he continues with a little sardonic tilt to his lips. “The Magistrate didn’t even notice.” At least, he’s pretty sure they didn’t notice. They would’ve never allowed him back to his apartment if they’d noticed.
Jason’s been very lucky to not get horrifically injured on the job so far – he’s heard the rumors about what happens to the Hunters that get sent to their med bay. He’s barely dodging physicals as it is. They don’t care about their actual health beyond what makes a Hunter able to go out on the streets. But Jason knows that once they look at his blood, once they find the Pit in there, he may never walk out of Magistrate again.
He hasn’t told Bruce that yet – about the danger they pose to Jason. To Jason, metas and supers are more at risk than he is. If he tells Bruce then Jason is done for and he can’t allow that to happen, not when he’s been so goddamn useful.
“This isn’t fair,” Tim says, not for the first time.
“Life’s not fair, Timbit.” Not for you.
Tim tugs down his pant leg with rough care and stands. Jason peeks from under his lashes to watch him pour a cup of orange juice from a pitcher, shoving a straw in it with a scowl. His eyes are blazing when he turns back to Jason, his grip too deliberately steady to not be on purpose. It’s a rare form for Tim, to get this mad.
He takes the offered juice without protest and downs the pills before he starts sipping it. Tim steps around the coffee table and paces. He waits for Tim to say something, to start venting or whatever, but he doesn’t. His fingers are pressed to his mouth like he’s trapping the words there, his pacing frantic and fast. Jason gets even more tired just from watching.
“What are you doing here, Tim?” he finally asks, letting the true level of his exhaustion seep into his voice. It freezes Tim in his tracks and the younger man turns to face him, expression a conflicting mess of anger and concern and fear – and what is he so afraid of? Jason wonders. What could possibly put that on his face? “You’re supposed to be in San Fran, that was the deal.”
His mouth twists. “I am in San Fran.” Jason raises an eyebrow, and he rolls his eyes. He sits on the couch closer to Jason, staring at the food he’d spread out. “Bruce thinks I’m in San Fran. I laid out the breadcrumbs and everything. There’s no reason for him to think I’m anywhere, but there.”
“Oracle.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think she’s looking anymore,” he admits. Jason looks down at his half-finished drink, his stomach turning. “I just – I couldn’t convince myself to leave you here. No alone. Not like this.”
Jason’s throat closes up and he closes his eyes against the sting. Tim rests his hand on Jason’s ankle again, a comforting weight even if it is just a slight one.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Tim says bitterly, angrily. “This isn’t fair. We’d just gotten better. We were a family. And then he had to go and ask this.”
“I agreed,” Jason offers weakly. Tim glares at the smear of blood dried through his sweatpants. “I knew what I was getting into when Bruce asked me.”
“Did you?” Tim challenges. “Did you really, Jason? Because this,” he gestures at Jason’s battered form then to the apartment at large that is missing all the personal touches his place used to have. “This is not okay. Damian could’ve killed you.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not!” Tim shouts so suddenly Jason flinches, orange juice sloshing out of the cup. They both stare at the spot on his sweatshirt until Tim deflates. He scrubs at his eyes. “You’re going to kill yourself,” he whispers.
Jason snorts. “Bet they would just love that.” He freezes when Tim lets out a crackling sniff that’s so close to a sob his heart breaks. “Tim…”
He tangles his fingers in his sweatpants, clinging to Jason like that’s going to keep him there. “Don’t joke about that,” he grits out. “Christ, Jay.”
“Sorry,” he says in a pathetically small voice.
His churning stomach keeps him from his juice. Tim stays silent, head bowed so his bangs shadow his face. His hand is shaking from where it’s tangled in his sweatpants. Jason looks at him, really looks at him, and isn’t as disappointed in what he sees as he had expected. He’s still too thin for Jason’s tastes, but he hasn’t lost weight. He’s pale, yeah, but not of the sickly sort. His cheeks are at their normal fullness. His hair has been washed recently. His clothes are clean.
Tim Drake looks healthy for a dead man.
Jason will never forget the broken moan that punched out from Dick at the sight of Red Hood running Red Robin through with Damian’s own sword. Stephanie’s shrieking rage almost drowned it out, but Jason will forever hear both in his nightmares for years and years – along with the sickening squelch of the blade through Tim’s chest, the stain of blood down his chin, the little smile he gave Jason as he let his little brother fallfallfall.
It had been staged. So beautifully, beautifully staged. But only so as far as Jason killing Tim.
Everyone else’s reactions were completely authentic. And every attempt on Jason’s life in the name of vengeance since then, also completely authentic. The Code apparently doesn’t apply in this type of situation, huh?
Jason reaches out, his own hand shaking, and he wraps it around Tim’s wrist, pressing his thumb to his pulse point and taking undeserved comfort in the heartbeat he feels.
If everyone had just taken at face value that Jason turned on them – that he took up the opportunity to hunt down the Bats & Co. with government backing, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. He guesses he should be grateful that even after their rocky start, his family and friends still believed the good in him – until he crossed the line, of course.
“The longer,” Jason croaks out. He pauses, clears his throat. Tim lifts his head to look at him with haunted eyes. “The longer you stay here in Gotham, the harder this is going to be. You need to go to San Fran. Where have you been staying?”
It’s been a month, yet it doesn’t look it.
Tim shrugs and doesn’t dislodge Jason’s grip. “Here and there. I have a few nests still set up that Babs never managed to track down. I can stick around for a few more months, though. I’m not going to San Fran.”
“This isn’t going to be over in a few months.”
“I’m not leaving you here with Bruce as your only ally,” Tim argues. “He can’t watch you like I can.”
Jason grits his teeth. “I don’t need watching. Go to San Francisco, Tim.”
“No,” he says with all the stubbornness he has.
And it’s fucking good amount. Between Robin and the Drake name, the Wayne name and being a teenage CEO, Ra’s manipulation and Batman’s inability to act like a human being, Tim’s had a lot of practice with being stubborn. Jason just really doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with it right now – or ever.
His eyes start stinging again and he closes them, feeling the tears catch on his lashes. He’s so goddamn tired. The meds aren’t dulling the edges of pain well enough. Jason barely notices Tim taking the mostly empty glass of orange juice from his hand. He presses his fingers to his eye sockets then remembers the bruises around one of them and – he presses a little harder on that side until he sees stars, until the pain spreads across his face and makes his breath shaky and gasping.
Cold hands wrap around his wrists and pulls his hands away. They don’t let go. Jason refuses to look, he lets his head hang low as his breaths go beyond shaky and into shuddering. His exhales sound more like sobs than anything else. He feels Tim perch on the arm of his chair, feels him wrap an arm around Jason’s shoulders. His exhales no longer sound like sobs and are, instead, full out sobs.
Tim doesn’t say anything as Jason cries as quietly as possible. He’s just a comforting weight around his shoulders, one hand still wrapped around Jason’s wrist with his thumb on his pulse point in a reflection of what Jason had been doing to him earlier.
“I made my choice too,” Tim says eventually after Jason’s tears have slowed. “I agreed to let you “kill me,” but I didn’t agree to leaving the city, no matter what you think. I’m going to keep an eye on you, okay? Not because I don’t trust you. But because you’re my brother.” Jason sniffs, uses his free hand to wipe at his cheeks. “And because I don’t trust Bruce.”
“He didn’t – .”
“The hell he didn’t,” Tim says, tone caught somewhere between a growl and a snarl. The last time Jason heard that from him was when Dick took Robin from him and gave it to Damian. “He knew you wouldn’t be able to say no.”
“I could’ve.”
Tim shakes his head. “Jay, c’mon. You really couldn’t have.” And yeah, okay, but he doesn’t have to sound so sure about it. Let him have his fantasy.
He rubs a soothing thumb across Jason’s shoulder before he reluctantly pulls away. He doesn’t let go of his wrist as he sits on the couch again, instead he lets their arms stretch across the space between furniture.
The conversation is over for now. Jason’s too wrung out, in too much pain to make a better argument for Tim to leave the city. He accepts the now cold toast Tim hands him and nibbles on it as the younger man pulls up a streaming app Jason doesn’t remember downloading. There’s a little Red Robin icon in the bottom corner and he realizes it’s not an app, but a drive downloaded with movies hooked up to his television.
Jason’s pretty sure he’s not going to make it through the first five minutes. He swallows thickly. “You can’t stay here,” he murmurs.
“I know,” Tim says without looking. “I’m gonna leave before the sun’s up.”
The knowledge settles something in Jason’s chest even though it should do the opposite. Tim needs to leave and never come back. Who knows how much surveillance is on this place? Despite their best efforts, despite Tim's sacrifice, the Magistrate still doesn’t fully trust him. He never truly expected them to. They may not know Red Hood's identity - one of the perks of this jobs. They dont care. But Tim is at risk just hanging around outside the building, let alone inside and in his apartment.
But there’s a certain comfort in knowing that he’s not alone, that at least one person in his family doesn’t hate him. That even after all the shit they’ve been through, Tim is still here, still willing to be his brother. He won’t stay for long, but he’ll stay for now.
And Jason’s pretty sure that’s all he’s allowed to ask for.