Chapter Text
The Zeta tube flashed, and Tim shoved the door open, landing on his hands and knees on the floor in front of the device. He needed to calm down. Regroup. Make a plan.
Tim couldn’t hear anything over his own harsh panting. His back and thighs stung terribly, and his feet ached from running the mile between his house and the cave barefoot.
Was his face bleeding? His cheeks were wet.
He hadn’t run that far. A mile was nothing. He was Robin. Why couldn’t he catch his breath?
Get it together, Robin. Tim Drake. Titans Tower. 8:42pm. Not in uniform. Most pressing matter at hand: Compromised identity. A wave of nausea rolled over him at the thought and he shook his head, trying to get above it. No, no, not right now, I can't deal with that right now. Compartmentalize, Robin. Fix it. Most pressing...injury? His face and neck ached horribly, and his back burned. But...his feet. The gravel had sliced up the soles of his feet. He needed his feet to walk. Ergo: a problem that needs solving. There you go. Now fix it.
Crawling through the tower, sore and sniffling, was absolutely miserable. Chest heaving, he lay on his side on the floor of the elevator as it slowly took him up. Don't think about Dad. Don’t think about Bruce. Get to the infirmary. Fix your feet. That’s step one. Thank god the tower was empty.
Through careful, undignified maneuvering, Tim managed to scrape the gravel off of his bloodied soles, disinfect them, and wrap them in thick bandages. Carefully, carefully, he rolled to a standing position, hissing, wincing, but remaining upright.
He took a few teetering steps. It wasn’t graceful, and it didn’t feel good, per se, but at least he wasn’t on his hands and knees.
Tim tottered unsteadily out of the infirmary, trying not to think about anything.
There, in the hallway between the infirmary and the living quarters, no alarms went off. No alert sounded. But every light in the hallway cut out, and the automatic door behind Tim slid shut with an ominous click. The emergency lights flickered on, casting everything in a sickly greenish glow. Somewhere in the Tower, a single gunshot rang out.
Tim’s heart leapt to his throat. He could feel his heartbeat in the bruises on his face, in the wounds on his back, in the bottoms of his feet.
It wasn’t possible. There was no way he had been followed here. The tower was secure against civilian access. The zeta codes had specific locks so unauthorized personnel couldn’t get through.
His father had said he was going to get his gun.
Footsteps. In the stairwell. Someone was coming up.
His dad had come for him.
Tim didn’t have a plan for this.
But he wasn’t Robin for nothing.
An investigation of the wall access tablet revealed the computers were down. Comms too. Fantastic. He checked the furniture in the recreation hall, rooting through drawers for something, anything, he could use.
Tim would kill for a taser right about now. He made a mental note to start stocking concealable weapons in the halls, and resolutely did not think about how very, very numbered his days as Robin probably were. How unlikely it was that he’d be a Teen Titan at all this time tomorrow. He wasn’t thinking about it.
The footsteps were louder now. Closer.
He was out of time.
Tim took off down the hall, limping as fast as he could. He didn't bother watching his— his pursuer (don’t think of him as your dad. It won’t help right now. Don't think about it DON'T—) crest the stairs. Better not risk losing his nerve. Instead, he kept his eyes peeled for...there.
Adjusting his momentum on a dime, he collided with a seemingly unremarkable section of paneling and only barely kept his balance. He ran his fingers along the edges, pressing, seeking the manual release latch. The false wall gave, he had just enough space to slip into the secret room. It slid back into place just as a heavy body impacted the other side.
The room was as unremarkable as the panel concealing it. Barely more than a broom closet. But it would suit his needs well enough.
Fists slammed against the panel, and then a shoulder, to no avail. It would take more than that to—
A gun cocked behind the door.
Tim took a deep breath and started moving. He had all the time he needed. Scrambling up the shelves awkwardly, he reached his goal: A vent with a loose grate. He worked the screws out of the ceiling with his fingernails (ow) and carefully, quietly raised himself up. The deafening assault of gunfire on the hidden door ended with a destructive clatter as the hinges were blown in.
The intruder saw his feet disappear into the vent. Tim knew because he made sure of it.
With no way to pinpoint his location beyond physically combing the vents, in which his—the intruder—could not fit, they'd have no choice but to use the internal security cameras.
Which would of course require turning the power back on.
Which would also, coincidentally, give power back to the emergency exit that would take him directly to the garage.
And his motorcycle.
And out of this building.
Tim just had to get there without making any sound. Before the systems came back online and he got cooked (or frozen) inside the vents. Or murdered by his dad.
Easy-peasy.
The building began to hum around him as he crawled, and Tim trembled with relief. It was working. He was going to get out of here.
Tiny cameras began to blink on and turn toward his direction. Tim didn’t let it bother him; whatever security breach had let his (furious, violent, trying-to-kill-him) dad into the tower, he wouldn’t know about the hatch. Titans, and only Titans, even knew what to look for.
He reached the small hatch and after a moment of hesitation, input his code and tugged on the handle.
It didn’t budge.
Tim tried again. Nothing.
In the distance, he heard footsteps.
Panicked, Tim tried to crawl back the way he’d come, but in his rush, he wasn’t as quiet. He bit back a shout when a bullet blew through the ceiling and vent. It missed him by less than a foot. He scrambled away noisily, deafened by the blast.
So Tim didn’t hear the musty scraping of chunks of ceiling being knocked loose, and Tim didn’t hear the clang of metal impacting the vent he was sitting in.
But he saw the crowbar hook into the sheet of metal he was sprawled across just before he fell through the ceiling.
Jason jogged a little ways away and hurled the crowbar down the opposite hall with a little more force than necessary. He didn’t need it anymore. He didn’t want to hold it anymore. Whatever.
Little Timothy Drake knelt on the floor, wincing amidst a cloud of debris. He wore a grimy tank top and shorts, and looked like he’d rolled out of bed and then kept rolling and rolled right off a cliff.
To his credit, Replacement seemed to be getting his bearings pretty quickly. He rose from his little nest of ceiling material, staggered over to the wall, and leaned on it for support. Very intimidating.
The kid turned a steely expression towards Jason’s approach. There was tension in every line of his body.
Jason strolled casually back to the scene of the crime, spinning a pistol on his left hand like a gunslinger. Nothing wrong with a little flourish. After all, it’s not like he was in any hurry. The kid’s gaze immediately trained on the gun for several moments before sliding to methodically catalogue the rest of him. Looking from the gun to the helmet to the armor and again, and again, before slumping against the wall.
“Oh, thank god.” Tim gave a gaspy little laugh, his voice hoarse. “Was it you, firing off shots down there?” He put his hands on his knees, dropping completely out of any sort of defensible position and then snickered. At Jason. “Great show. You really had me going. God, I can’t believe...I think I’m losing it. Sorry. It’s been a hell of a day.”
Jason stopped spinning his gun. What the hell?
“Okay, so, I’m,”—The kid blanched, fingers brushing his face where his mask wasn't before soldiering on—,“nobody important. How can I...help you?” The little bastard squinted at him. “Wait. Who even are you?”
Not exactly the reaction Jason was going for. Whatever, he could salvage this. “More interesting, I think, is who you are. Having fun playing Robin, Timothy Drake?”
The kid blinked in surprise. Not fear, mind you. Not even shock. Just mild curiosity, like he'd gotten an unexpected package in the mail. He had to be doing this on purpose. “What? How’d you...Wait. You’re the Red Hood, from Gotham, right? What are you doing here? Aren’t you some kind of crime lord?” He paused, taking in Jason’s appearance again. His armory. He sighed. “Is this some big...thing you’re doing?”
The kid pushed off the wall into a loose not-quite-fighting stance, visibly exhausted but keeping Jason in his line of sight. Smart.
“Listen. Mr. Hood. I appreciate what you’re doing here, I do. But is there any way I could convince you to reschedule this…” He gestured vaguely. “Whatever this is?” Not smart.
Jason closed the distance between the two of them in less than a second, hauling the kid upright and slamming him back against the wall. Replacement let out a strangled scream. Jason pressed a forearm against his throat. “Why don’t you take a guess, smartass? What the fuck do you think this is?” He bore down on the kid's windpipe.
Fucking rich kid. No sense of danger. No understanding of the stakes. Just some fucking punk rich kid making a joke out of the position Jason Todd had died for.
“Well, I think I can rule out wanting to audition for the Titans,” Tim coughed weakly, both hands clutching at Jason’s arm. More fucking jokes.
Jason’s vision flared a vicious green, and he reared back a fist, something screaming in his mind. “Smart-mouthed little—” No. Not yet.
He changed track at the last second, disengaged the latch on his helmet and rips it off in a single, fluid, furious motion, grinning with too many teeth as he crowded the little brat against the wall.
Finally, finally, Tim paled and jerked back. “J-Jason?” he gasped. “You’re...you’re alive? How?” Replacement’s breath hitched, and he...sounded kind of choked up? “Oh my god, are you okay?”
Jason was thrown off. He felt himself rapidly losing control of the situation. He tightens his grip on the brat's wrists until he hears a few pops and the kid shuts up, his expression wavering uncertainly.
"You wanna know how I am?" Jason sneered. "I died in Daddy's precious little war, beaten to death by a maniac who got away scott-free. I was cursed back to life, only to find that Dear Old Bruce had already prettied up a new lamb to slaughter. Another goddamn preteen, dressed like a traffic light, just waiting to be sacrificed for a worthy cause."
Tim was frozen absolutely still. Jason couldn't even feel him breathing. Good.
"So, you know what, Tim? I've honestly been better." He slammed the kid against the wall again, just to hear him squeal. "Maybe he didn't learn his lesson the first time. Or maybe he just didn't give a shit, about you or me." He caught the kid's skinny wrists with one hand and used the other to pull out a wicked-looking switchblade. Tim's eyes tracked it desperately. Jason smiled.
"Either way, I intend to make it painfully clear to him that Robin," Jason flicked the blade free, "Will no longer be an option."
An audible mechanical hum sang through the grim silence that followed Jason's words. Beyond that, you could have heard a pin drop.
Jason lifted his knife to the kids face, tracing idly over the skin. Would it be appropriate, he thought, to cut him a new smile? Remind Bruce every day what kind of threat he was throwing children up against? He pressed the blade down, just barely breaking skin—
The lights flickered sharply overhead, then glowed bright, caught by the reboot Jason had half-completed before realizing what the little shit was up to.
Jason actually lowered his knife in surprise.
Replacement’s face was thrown into sharp relief, and any attempt to hide was easily aborted by Jason’s iron grip on the kid.
Hand shaped bruises. All over his neck, painted on his arms and face.
Oh, that was rich. “That looks a little too heavy-handed to be from a tussle. Isn't Robin supposed to be quick? How’d you get caught, Replacement?”
Tim jerked in his grip, averting his eyes, “It was a fight, I just got in a fight.” The kid raised his chin, adjusting his tone. “You really killed your momentum. I was pretty intimidated there for a second. Are you this distractible with all the children you mutilate, or are you having an off night?”
Lying, obviously. And trying his damndest to change the subject. Not so friendly now.
Jason got in his face, real close, before continuing. His tone dripped with false sympathy. “Don’t be like that, little bird. What happened? The old man smack you around?”
Replacement flinched. He actually flinched.
Jason was just trying to antagonize the brat, but he seems to have accidentally hit a nerve.
Good. Get to him. Make him cry. Make him pay. Make him suffer.
“Daddy-Bats taking a rough hand with the new brood?” Jason barked out an unkind laugh and ignored the curdling sensation in his stomach. “Makes sense. If he keeps running through them so fast, there won’t be any orphans left in Gotham. Better use a firm hand to keep his little soldiers in line.” Ignored how sick the words coming out of his mouth made him feel. “You’re not a person to him, you know. You’re a tool, designed to keep your mouth shut and follow orders and be discarded the moment you’re not useful anymore.”
Tim fought against him, trying to squirm out of Jason's grip. “—Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up—”
Jason leans in closer, whispering now. A parody of empathy. “I mean, you're a smart kid.” Debatable. “Do you really think he’d hit you like that if you mattered to him at all?”
Whatever the brat's response would have been was interrupted by the cheery tones of an incoming call. Tim immediately froze, protests forgotten.
“Give me the phone.” Jason said. Tim hesitated. “Give me the phone or I’ll take it, Replacement. C’mon, this one’s easy.” Tim’s hands shook as he passed it over.
He planned to just smash the thing until he saw the Caller ID.
“Dad”. Well, he’d wanted to send Bruce a message.
Jason turned the screen so that Tim could see, enjoying the way the kid immediately paled. “Let’s see what the old man has to say for himself, 'ey Robin?” Jason winked and answered the call on speakerphone.
“J-Jason, don’t, please—”Tim gasped, “It’s not—”
"Lesson didn’t stick, you ungrateful little brat?”
That. That was not Bruce. Jason...might have miscalculated.
"You’re really not as clever as you think you are. Do you think I’m gonna let you get away with this? That I'm going to allow this level of disrespect to go unpunished?”
Tim choked out a hesitant, watery, “Dad, I—”
"Keep your mouth shut while I’m speaking to you. And quit with the waterworks. We both know you're just doing it for attention. You think this little tantrum of yours is cute, huh?”
Jason stared at Tim. Tim avoided looking at either Jason or the phone.
“Well?”
Tim cleared his throat. “No, sir.”
“No, sir, what?"
Tim squeezed his eyes shut, his cheeks red with humiliation. “No, my tantrum isn’t cute. Sir.”
“Stop sniveling. You’re not a child. You have no clue what real suffering is. I should have dealt with you a long time ago. Then maybe you would have been smart enough to do as you’re told. We’ll be making up for that, Tim.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve fed and clothed you your entire damn life. You’ve never wanted for a damn thing. Do you have any idea how much money I’ve wasted on you? And this is how you repay me? I’ll fix you up good, boy. You’ll thank me for it later.”
“Yes, sir.”
"I didn't hear that."
“Thank you, sir,” Tim whispered stonily.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen: you’re going to come home right now. You're going to get what’s coming to you. And then you’re going to behave like the Drake heir, and stop acting like a little retard—”
Jason crushed the phone to pieces in his armored fist, ending the call. Tim was frozen, tears running down his cheeks.
Before Jason can think, he's shoved the kid away and stumbled back several steps. Get some distance. Get his bearings.
Tim, off-balance, landed on his hands and knees facing away from Jason and didn’t move after that. And continued to not move.
And Jason gets a good look at Tim for the first time since he broke into the tower.
There were dark red stains spotting Replacement’s clothing, sprinkled from his lower back down to his thighs. His feet were covered in thick bandages, likely the reason he hadn’t tried to run after Jason pulled him out of the vents. His stupid, flimsy shirt stuck to his skin in some places and folded wetly in others, with striped bruising visible even through the fabric. The kid winced and shuddered. Didn’t make any sort of move to get up. His teeth were gritted and his eyes were squeezed shut. He was trembling. It didn't look like he was breathing.
And this.
This should have been it. Exactly what Jason came here for. The kid, defeated. Kneeling before him, crying like a child and sorry he’d ever heard of Batman. And Jason had barely had to lift a finger. It should have felt good.
Jason just felt nauseous.
This...This feels wrong. I shouldn't be here.
And with that singular thought, Jason was swamped in a sickening wave of clarity.
What was going on here? He became the Red Hood to help people that other capes refused to care about.
Wailing on a fourteen year old who was crying because his dad was mean wasn’t the kind of thing the Red Hood did. It wasn’t something Jason Todd particularly wanted to do either.
What the fuck was he doing here?
Jason was monumentally, spectacularly in over his head.
Jason. Stop. Compartmentalize.
Think: What was the most pressing matter at hand?
Kid. Not breathing. Okay.
Jason approached Tim slowly, walking around to kneel in front of him.
“Hey, uh, kid? Kiddo?” Tim didn’t so much as flinch. God, this was awkward.
Kid was totally out of it. Probably having some sort of panic attack, and try as he might, Jason couldn't get him to snap out of it.
Slapping had proven ineffective and yelling just made the kid tremble like a wet chihuahua.
Sighing, Jason lifted the new Robin into the air by his armpits and gave him a hearty shake. “Listen," he implored. "You gotta start breathing, kid."
Nothing.
Jason shook him again. “Hey, I’m sorry about being a dick before, okay? I was just, uh…” Really mad at you for no reason? Consumed by supernatural bloodlust? No good way to end that sentence.
Time to change tracks. "If you don't get it together, I'm gonna tell Batman you let slip your identity to the Penguin."
Low blow, to be sure, but Tim twitched in his arms and let out a sharp gasp that quickly turned to hyperventilating.
“Yes!" Jason cheered, lowering Tim to the floor and bracing him. "That's it, deep breaths now, in and out, c’mon…”
Once Tim had regained some control, he glared weakly at Jason and hissed, “You’re such an asshole.”
Jason deserved that.
And, okay. Kid was alive and breathing, and clearly embroiled in some mess that was none of Jason’s business, covered in injuries Jason hadn’t even given him. Jason could technically leave right now and not be guilty of anything beyond some light bullying.
This didn’t have to be his problem.
It didn't.
Jason sighed and started hauling the limp, wheezing kid towards the infirmary. He keyed in the code for the medbay door and tossed the kid on the closest cot, moving to dig through the supplies for ice packs and antiseptics.
There was a whistling sound, and Jason only barely dodged the projectile launched at his head from behind.
He didn’t dodge the second; a 2lb hand-weight clips his ear painfully. “Ow!” He whirled around to see Tim scrambling for any throwable item within reach to hurl in Jason’s direction; thanks to Bruce’s training, his aim was impeccable. Juggling medical supplies, Jason swore as he ducked a maneki-neko paperweight that smashed to bits against the wall behind him. “What the fuck, I’m trying to help you!”
“Oh, like you were helping me before, stalking me through the tower, and threatening to kill me, and answering a call from my fucking dad?” the kid shrieked, apparently having caught his breath on the hike to the infirmary. Joy. “And now you want to, what, play nursemaid? What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Wait, wait! I can explain.” He threw his hands up, ice pack be damned, and box of plastic gloves nailed him right in the nose. “Ow. Shit. I’m sick, or something. I don’t know. It’s like a fugue state. Side effect of the mumbo-jumbo that brought me back, I think. It’s over now.”
Tim considered him for a long moment, and asked, “Is it going to happen again tonight?”
Jason answered as truthfully as he could. “Probably not with you.”
“Good enough. I’m holding you to that.”Tim slumped over, exhausted, and mumbled, “You’re still an asshole.”
Well, he wasn't wrong. Jason shrugged, gathered his supplies, and began checking out Tim’s injuries.
“So...not an orphan, huh?”
Silence.
He tugged up the back of the kid’s shirt and let out a low whistle.
“Christ, kid, what happened?”
Tim gritted his teeth. Shivered. Picked at the sheets. Jason didn’t say anything, choosing to wait him out while applying first aid in the meantime.
“My dad found out about Robin tonight.” Tim swallowed. “He was rooting through my room while I was in the shower. He found the suit. He wasn’t happy. Dragged me to my bedroom and...you know.”
“Okay." Jason kept his tone even. "Can you tell me about the bruises on your face and back?”
Tim still wasn't looking at him. “He smacked me around a little, but I guess that wasn’t...enough, so he held me down. By the back of my neck. Took off his belt and, um. You can see it.”
Jason could see it. Dark, ugly welts covered the Tim from lower back to mid thigh. Several spots were bleeding sluggishly. The coverage was horrific; it looked like the bastard had taken his time. It looked like it hurt to move.
Tim's voice had sounded strange, when he’d first spoken to Jason. Hoarse from screaming.
Christ.
Tim kept talking. “By the time he quit, it was dark outside. He locked me in my room and said he was going to get his gun.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to stick around. So I grabbed some clothes and went out the window. I ran for the Cave. I didn’t have shoes, and I kept away from the road, so my feet got kind of messed up. From the Cave I came here.”
“Why here?” Jason asked, mouth suddenly dry.
“I came to the tower because I thought it was safe.” Tim met his gaze evenly. “And you knew that. You were betting on it.”
Jason didn’t answer. It hadn’t been a question.
"Has anything like this ever happened before?" Jason asked.
“Well, he's never uncovered my secret identity before, Jason, so no.”
"Okay,” He said easily. “How often do you feel unsafe around your dad?"
“Fuck off, Jason. I’m not doing the victim checklist with you."
Jason finished cleaning Tim's injuries and began applying bandages. "You're not going back, you know."
"What?" Tim's voice cracked.
"Your old man on the phone told you to come back and face the consequences. And I'm telling you that's not happening. I'm not letting it happen, and when Bruce finds out he sure as hell isn't either."
Tim was looking away again.
They were both quiet for a while after that, Jason fingerpainting medicinal cream on the kids mottled back and Tim cycling through breathing exercises.
When Jason took the kid to his bedroom, intending to drop him off for the night, he was met with resistance. Of course.
“You can’t even make it down the stairs.” Fucking elevator was still offline.
Tim scowled and shot back, “If you go without me, I’ll just follow you. And If I fall down the stairs and break my neck because you didn’t feel like helping me out, it'd probably put a damper on whatever weird—self-righteous? avenging?—bullshit you’re running on right now.”
This fucking kid. “Fine. Fucking fine.” Tim changed into some warm, clean sweats, but they couldn’t fit sneakers over the bandages on his feet, so they settled for a pair of thick socks.
Once the kid was situated sturdily on Jason's back, ready to go, Jason said, "Okay. Just so you know the score: I'm probably gonna kill your dad."
Tim's arms around his neck tightened for a moment before going slack. He sighed. "Please don't do that. Please don't kill Bruce or my dad."
"Why the fuck not?"
Tim shrugged. "That's what I'm supposed to say, I guess." He paused, "And be careful. I think he’s got a gun."
Jason stopped walking and craned his head around to look at Tim.
Tim yawned. "No, yeah, I heard it as soon as it came out of my mouth." He tugged himself so he was talking in Jason's ear. "Can you, just, wait to kill anyone about this until I feel well enough to present my argument?"
"Sure, kid. Whatever you say."
"I feel like you're not taking me seriously."
"Oh no, really?"
“Where are we going, you miserable douchebag?” Tim asked snidely.
Jason ignored the jibe. “We’re gonna go to the Batcave.”
Miracle of miracles, the kid actually shut up for a few seconds before responding.
"You, uh...you sure you’re good to do that?” Tim sounded careful. Like he was actually trying to consider Jason’s feelings.
“Probably won’t kill me,” Jason said flippantly.
Tim flinched a little.
Not Jason’s problem. If you can’t take a little gallows humor, don't hang out with zombies.
“Bruce is probably gonna freak out.”
“I think I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.”
“He really misses you, Jason. When you died—”
Jason was starting to feel sick again. “Shut up. Talk about something else.”
Instead, Tim gave up on talking all together, and leaned against Jason’s back for the trip down to the Zeta Tubes.
Jason keyed in the code for the Bat Cave, and steeled himself.
This wasn’t how he’d pictured coming back.
The world swirled around him and just like that, Jason was there. Standing in the Cave.
Like he’d never left.
The computer chimed out ::Designation Robin-02:: as Jason stepped out of the tube with Tim on his back, blinking in the bright light.
Suddenly, Tim yelped and clutched at Jason so tightly it would have bruised if he hadn't been wearing body armor.
In the middle of the cave stood Bruce, staring at him with undisguised shock.
Oops. Forgot the helmet.
Beside him stood a man who was pointing a gun directly at Bruce’s head.
Jason unholstered his pistol. “Good Evening, Mr. Drake. I got your call.”