Chapter Text
It's not like he did it on purpose.
For all his faults, Jason is not stupid. He used to read way above his grade level, even back in the Alley, and he was a straight-A student up until he got murdered. Even as screwed up as his brain is, he likes to think that, even now, he isn’t an absolute moron, and that’s why he can tell it wouldn’t help his case, and that’s why he didn’t do it on purpose.
For all he’s screamed at Bruce about revenge, Jason understands that two wrongs don’t make a right, and fucking himself up is never going to undo the hurt he’s caused. It sucks, because it’s not like Jason ever had much else to give but his violence and his life, and if shooting a bullet through his head could spare Tim that deer-in-headlights expression he gets whenever Jason looks at him, he would do it in a heartbeat. But the kid is a hero, and a kid, and for all the bad blood between them he knows he’d feel guilty for his suicide or something equally as asinine. There wouldn’t be anything to gain from it, just pain and anger and Jason swore he wouldn’t kill anymore -he doesn’t want his last action on earth to be breaking his promise. And besides, there’s Roy -Roy, who loves it when their patrols overlap and burrows his face in the crook of his neck when the cravings get too much and told him he loved him last night in the afterglow. Roy, who needs him about as much as Jason needs him.
So, as easy as it would be, Jason doesn’t lay his life down to make it up to his fractured family. Left with nothing but his body to give, he tries to put it to better use, protects the children of Crime Alley, shadow the bats on their patrols, assist in their missions. When the Bat notifies him about a takedown or demands his assistance on a case, he complies; when Oracle requests backup, he runs. It’s not enough, and it will never be enough. But goddamn, it’s all he has.
So of course, when Red Hood and Red Robin are just finished evacuating the hostages out of a rigged building, when Jason hears the countdown ticking down and he’s almost at the door but he knows (God, he knows) Tim won’t make it in time -of course Jason doesn’t hesitate. Of course he runs back in, drags the boy as fast as he can until they’re halfway out -of course he curls up around him, like he did all these years ago, prays that this time he'll make a difference. It has to be, because Jason is different. He’s bigger now, he has the resistance and the healing factor of the pit, he’s holding Tim down on the pavement outside of the building. It has to be enough. Even if he doesn’t make it through, Jason is confident that his body will hold and spare Tim the worst of it, and Red Robin will make it out alive, and his debt will finally be paid.
“Tell Roy I say sorry”, he whispers, and the noise and visions flash through his mind so fast the green can’t protect him, the warehouse and the countdown and that chilling, shrill laughter and Tim -Tim screams.
****
He wakes up in Dick’s arms a few streets away from the warehouse, which is better than waking up in the cave, but not as good as not waking up at all. Turns out, he must have underestimated how much more resilient the Lazarus Pit made him -that, or that bomb simply didn’t compare. He keeps his eyes resolutely shut, takes inventory of the damage in his body: bruises fucking everywhere, burns over his back, one or two cracked ribs (none broken, thank fuck), the headache to end all headaches -probably linked to the blood trickling down his face. A headwound, then -not ideal, but judging by how clear his mind is despite the pain, it shouldn’t be too bad. Those tend to bleed a lot. So, overall, he’s fine -well, not as good as he’d be had there been no bomb, but much better than the time he tried to bait Batman into killing the joker. (And definitely better than the time he died.) By his standards, that was a pretty lame explosion, 4 out of 10, barely even made the top 3.
He chuckles at his own joke, and Dick nearly drops him to the ground.
“Holy fuck, he’s awake! Hood, Hood, can you hear me?”
“Shouting… ‘m literally right there, Dickhead.”
“Right, right, okay, how many fingers am I holding up?” The idiot sounds so panicked, which is like, unprofessional, as he waves two fingers in front of his face.
“Twice as many as me”, he grunts, and contorts himself to point the middle finger at Nightwing.
“Hah, you scared me, you fucker.” He’s laid to sit against a wall, and blinks to see a whole cauldron of bats crouching around him, all fussing and talking at ounce and making so much noise he wants to shoot himself just to make it stop.
“…What?”
The bats go very quiet, and Dick’s posture turns rigid.
“The fuck did you just say, Jay?”
“Names, Nightwing.”
“Yeah sure,” Steph spits, “Let’s all focus about nicknames, and not about the callous suicide jokes.”
“And how about the reckless running back into a building seconds before it explodes?” oh wow, Timmy’s pissed. “Are you actually insane?”
He… what?
But, he thought for sure he’d done something good this time. Didn’t he just save Timmy’s life? Why were they all screaming at him again? Fuck, his head hurt so bad…
“Yeah, what the fuck was that, Hood?”
“Do you have any idea what could have happened?”
“I thought we agreed to stop being reckless! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Do you have any idea how scared I was?”
Oh.
He really fucked up, didn’t he? Because Tim might be shouting, his fists might be clenched tight, but there’s this look in his eyes like he can’t shake a vision, like he’s a deer trapped in headlights and-of course he’s terrified. He was stuck in that warehouse with Jason, Jason didn’t disarm the bomb, almost didn’t get him out in time, almost got him killed -and what it must have felt like, to be grabbed by Jason, to be shoved onto the pavement and feel the large, heavy weight of his body crushing him, there’s gravel on his cheek from where he pressed him down and he must have been terrified…
Jason thinks of a warehouse in Ethiopia, of a crowbar and cruel laughter that shrills in tune with the ringing in his ear. How would he feel, if he was forced to cooperate with him on a mission, if he was alone in a building about to explode with him again, if he grabbed him and pushed his face in the gravel and pressed against him… Jason’s fight or flight was fucked even before the Lazarus Pit, and he can’t be in his vicinity without trying to kill him because it feels like he’s going to die if he doesn’t kill the monster first, but Tim? Tim isn’t fucked up like him. Tim is sane, as sane as a Robin can be, Tim is still a kid and he’s kind and he hasn’t learnt to bite back like a rabid dog but he’s so scared, he’s frozen and he’s so afraid and he knows fear, because Jason put it there, because Jason is Tim’s monster and God, he's just as bad as him.
“I’m so sorry.” He breathes the words out, barely audible, like a whimper. Dick’s gaze melts into something like pity, and like guilt.
“You can’t keep going on like this, Jay. This has got to stop.”
Dick’s voice is soft. Why is Dick’s voice so soft, when he’s saying something so cruel? Is he hoping that Jason will come quietly, this time around, that he can convince him? He should, God knows he deserves it, but Jason is a coward, and he can’t go to Arkham. Not while he’s in there, not when he can’t fight, not with the laughter ringing in his ears trapped in a cell where even the green can’t help him.
“I’m sorry”, he says again, and shoots his grapple at a building. By the time he looks back, he’s halfway to Crime Alley, and none of them are following. He tells himself they lost his trail. He tells himself not to think about how he doesn’t remember the chase.
*****
Tim finds him on a roof, because of course he does. Jason simply sighs, lays back on the roof, too tired to put up a fight.
“You’re on my turf, kid.”
“That would be because I was looking for you, yeah.”
“Huh. The other bats are gonna come out of hiding or what? No need to ambush me or nothing. I know when I’m beat.”
“I came alone.”
“Very funny.”
“…”
“Wait, for real?”
“I was hoping to talk to you in private.”
“Well fuck me kid, I can’t decide if you’re cocky or just way too trusting. You know I could fuck you up, right Timmy?”
Tim just sighs, lays on his back over the rooftop next to him. Sitting there like this, with their feet dangling over the void, they make a peaceful image -vigilante partners, relaxing after patrol, gazing at the stars. Like friends; like brothers. There are no stars in Gotham.
“You could.”
“I did.”
“You did. Would you do it again?”
“Of course not!” his voice rises, before cutting himself short, because Jason has no right. “I wouldn’t. I swear, Tim, I wouldn’t.”
Tim just hums, like he knew it all along, but there’s an underlayer of doubt there, stuck in Jason’s throat, that obstructs his breathing.
“You shouldn’t gamble with your safety, Timbit.”
“That’s fucking rich, coming for you.” A pause. “You know, I expected you to be angry, about earlier. Watching you go all angsty and depressed like that, it’s… Disconcerting.”
“I’m not surprised.” Of course he’d expect him to be angry. Jason can never be anything but angry. Jason can never be angry again.
“You never said sorry. For that time, in Titan Tower.”
Jason startles so bad he almost topples off the roof, and Tim’s hand latches onto his jacket to keep him from falling. Jason flinches at the touch. He hates himself for flinching at the touch.
“I…. I didn’t know how to say it in a way that mattered.” He forces himself to stare at Tim’s face, at his frown crumpling the domino-mask, wonders what kind of mess it covers. What emotions he’d find swirling in those wide blue eyes; if he could even read them right. “I still don’t know how to make it right.”
“And tonight was the better option? That’s not fair. You don’t get to decide what matters and what doesn’t! Isn’t that my prerogative? That, at least, should be mine!”
“You’re right, I- of course, you’re right. That shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry Tim, for tonight, and for, uh, the tower. And for making you ask for an apology”, he tackles, as an afterthought, because that wasn’t fair either, was it? Jason is so rarely fair when it comes to Tim Drake. The words are so sort, stilted, and yet they feel so light and easy. They don’t release an of the pressure in his chest, of the tension in Tim’s posture. They don’t fix anything.
Jason stares at the scar on Tim’s neck, where he slit his throat, watched the blood spill over the tiles. His own scar burns like it is still bleeding.
The third Robin doesn’t say anything, but he sits up, curls his knees up against his chest, latches tightly onto his own legs. His shoulders shake, but he doesn’t make a sound, and it takes a moment for Jason to realize he’s crying.
“Uh, Tim… Timbit? Are you alright?”
“I could have made it out”, he whispers, voice wet and shaky and wavering. “You could have been unharmed… We would have made it out faster, if you didn’t come back for me.”
Jason disagrees, but Tim sounds so sure of that, and Tim is almost never wrong -kid’s a genius, so he’s probably right. He miscalculated and put Red Robin in danger -another fuck up in his long list of fucks ups, and once again, the bats pay the price. What else is new.
“I was so scared… You were my Robin! Did you know, that you were my Robin? Dick may have been the first, but you were the one I grew up with, the one I looked up to. I worshipped you! When you died, I would have given anything for you to come back -and then you came back with the rage and everything, and then you beat me up and slit my throat, and Red Hood doesn’t hurt kids but you hurt me and now you fight by our side and there was a bomb and we could have gotten out and you went back in! Do you have any idea how I felt?”
“I’m so sorry, Tim. You didn’t deserve any of my shit.”
That only makes the kid sob harder, so he takes a deep breath, tries to remember how he talks to the hurt children he rescues in Crime Alley, wonders what Dick would do in that situation. Slowly, as non-threatening as he can get, he reaches -maybe not for a hug, but at least to pat the kid’s back, to offer some comfort. Tim flinches so bad it breaks through his sobbing, raises an arm against his face, opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything. And then he’s gone, as quietly as he came, jumping over to a nearby building and grappling across the city.
Tim doesn’t say “I don’t forgive you”, because Tim is too kind, and won’t say it out loud. Jason watches his silhouette disappear into Gotham and says it in his stead.
On the way home, it starts to rain.