Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Please note before submitting this form that no applications will be considered until the start of the winter session.

"What the fuck ?" Jason stared at the screen. Form 23-C looked back at him, uncaringly flinging it’s devastating clauses in his face.

He sat back on his creaky desk chair and ran his fingers through his hair, groaning. They wouldn’t let you change roommates until the Folly? That was December; three months from now. What the fuck kind of policy was that?

Maybe he should rethink this college thing. But shit, he'd already paid tuition ( himself thankyouverymuchNOT Bruce), he'd already attended a week's worth of orientation classes and he'd loved every second. 

He fucking liked college, okay? Baby Jay, that naive, spitfire, hell raising kid-that-was had dreamed of this back in the Bowery. He'd be the first Todd in history to go to college, get a fancy degree and a well paying job, buy his mom a house far away from dealers and pimps, the whole impossible works. 

Shit went hella sideways after that, but Jason had been astonished to realize that a kernel of that innocent fantasy had survived all the cataclysmic shit that had happened to him. When Steph first bought up her college applications, Jason had at first felt really old; then a little worm of curiosity had burrowed under his skin. A planted ID and a couple of months research about the limits of the GI Bill later and here he was.

And it was fucking great.

Except for one thing.

The bed on the opposite side of the room let out a thunderous snore, followed by a congested gark gark gark.

Jason sent the mound of blankets a look that would have hardened mafiosos pissing their pants.

Oh, it wasn't the snoring that got under his skin. Jaxxon Drake in the waking world was such a terminal fucking asshole that Jaxxon Drake asleep was downright charm city. Even now Drake's half of the room was a complete fucking wreck. There hadn't been a day this week he hadn’t staggered in shitfaced from some frat party where he was begging for a pledge. He drove a state of the art, brand new Range Rover, flashed his three grand Omega watch, six grand pretentious gold jewellery, ten grand designer wardrobe and twenty grand caps in ways that made Jason itch to remove the latter with a Bowery style dental plan.

And when he was awake? The fucking dudebro would not stop fucking talking. Shit he'd seen on his Gap Decade, condescending little lectures on life hacks, ignorant shit talking about the scourge of social welfare for the poor and, because lately he'd been try to fuck an heiress with a social conscience, anti-war bullshit conspiracy theories. Or he was complaining about rough cotton sheets, or getting up for classes before 3pm or how ‘no one has a sense of humour around here’ when girls reported him for being a chauvinist pig when he was harassing them throughout the quad. Jason also doubted he'd been to a single class, which pissed Jason’s hopeful, deprived inner child right off.

He was a whiny, entitled child of privilege that had everything and still thought the world owed him shit. Jason had bunked with guys that would have killed him in his sleep, and if any one of 'em could take Jaxxon Drake’s place this minute Jason would praise the heavens and give them a fucking freebie shot at taking him out.

Speak of the fratbro… the mound yelped and squirmed, disgorging, among other, more unsavory things, a dishevelled girl in her underwear, swearing like a sailor. "Fucking hell, Drake! I told you to fucking wake me, you ass. I’m not gonna have time to get eats before class." Her accent was straight out of the Bowery.

“Wassamatter?” Drake mumbled. “Fucking hell, keep it down Lucy, my head’s killing me.”

“My name’s Katerin, you fucking moron,” she scowled. “Don’t bother to remember it and forget my number too.”

“Was a joookke,” Drake smirked, which he probably thought made him look Bond-suave and not like a complete prick. “Katty’s got her claws out.”

“And they’re all longer than your dick, asshole,” Katerin showed excellent if late-appearing good sense, yanking on her jeans and digging out her coat while Drake sputtered and went red.

“I don’t take size comparisons from a slag from the slums,” Drake eventually rallied.

“Of course you do, honey,” Katerin said sweetly. “Who else but a sexually free woman could even find it?”

Jason bit back a bark of laughter as Drake went purple. There was one good thing about Drake; he was such a sheltered, pampered failson that he was hilariously bad about responding to actual criticism. 

“Hey,” Jason got her attention. She looked him over warily, which, fair, because he was six foot two and built like a brick shithouse. “Here,” he handed her a coupon from his orientation packet. “I got a couple of spares in mine. Free protein bars at the health section.”

“ Awesome ,” she beamed. “Finally, an actual gentleman. If you’re ever in the business management section look me up, hot stuff.” She winked at him and then left, not even looking back at the flabbergasted Drake.

“Bitch,” he muttered after the door closed. “Needy, whiny, cunt. Why’d you do that anyway?” Drake whinged to Jason. “She just a fucking whore. Pro tip, Peters, you don’t actually have to buy a girl breakfast. They’re all about independence and making their own money, we shouldn’t have to spend it on ‘em anymore.”

“Yeah, but bro, it pisses you off,” Jason flashed him a nasty grin. “And that’s fucking fun.”

Drake tried to stare him down. He lasted about five nanoseconds against Jason’s deadly green gaze. “Whatever, loser,” he dropped his gaze and shuffled into their shared bathroom.

Jason sighed. He hadn’t intended to actually live in residence for his entire college career. Given his actual job as the Red Hood, that would have been insane. But he’d wanted to have at least a little taste of the normal college experience, something a young him had dreamed about. Older Jay had had doubts - it was really fucking inconvenient to shift territories even with cooperation from the Bats - but Alfred had convinced him to try it. 

He’d decided to do a year in the dorms, then he would ‘find an apartment’ - ie, a safehouse - where he could come and go as he pleased without the extra hassle of curious college kids mixing with Red Hood. He figured he could do a little work in Chinatown and the Upper West Side while he lived at the U, before going back to his turf in the Bowery and living with the commute. 

A year. A ‘touchstone for normalcy’, Alfred had called it. A reminder that Jason, despite all the shit that had happened to him, could have normal things still. It was a pretty heady concept, Jason could admit that.

Meeting his roommate had made him reconsider his timeline in about eight seconds flat. 

Drake eventually emerged from the shower, looking less hungover. He glowered at Jason but took no further action. Whatever else you could say about Drake, he was, at least, fit. He had a six pack and some guns going. Looked at objectively and with his mouth closed, you could say that Drake was handsome and not get any arguments. He was tall and broad, though not quite as much as Jason; more in proportion with Dick. Vivid blue eyes, sandy brown hair; interbreeding had been unexpectedly kind to him externally. 

And he wasn’t - quite - stupid. He wasn’t dumb enough to try to physically challenge Jason. He’d earned his muscles at a four-figure gym; Jason had clearly earned his through actual use. He was smart enough to know Jason could pound him flat without breaking a sweat and since Jason’s accent was pure mean streets, Drake had to know he wouldn’t even hesitate to get violent.

Drake was probably banking on being the alpha dog of the dorms. Jason must have been an unpleasant surprise, which made Jason smile. Still, Jason looked forlornly at the application form. Three more months of this? He’d hate to break his no-kill streak for such an asswipe.

Drake was mumbling to himself and frowning and he swiped through his phone, texting to himself. “Stupid little bitch, where is he?” he muttered to himself. He jabbed his fingers onto the screen, sending more texts. “He’s fucking good for nothing, useless lump of parts. Useless little faggot….”

“Hey,” Jason didn’t look up from his laptop screen where he was reviewing coursework. “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

Drake opened his mouth, looked up at Jason’s hulking figure, clearly had a painful moment of thinking about what to say, then said. “Whatevs. Are you actually doing coursework? You really are a brainwashed little tin soldier, aren’t you? Dude, you don’t have to fucking work that hard; you’re doing literature, not medicine. Who cares? They give prizes just for showing up to that shit.”

Jason gripped the edges of the desk until it creaked, repeating in his once brainwashed brain, no-kill rule, three months, no-kill rule, three months.

Drake was distracted by another tweet, oblivious to the tension in Jason’s back. 

Fuck this; he might be stuck with Drake at nights, but he didn’t have to be here right now. He snapped the laptop closed, shoved it into his bag and made for the door. He heard the light footfalls of someone just outside of it; one of Drake’s fratbro posse, no doubt. Well, they’d just have to get out of Jason’s fucking way.

He yanked open the door just as the person on the other side had raised their hand to knock.

Jason nearly dropped his bag.

The guy on the other side had practically walked straight out of Jason’s dreams.

Chapter Text

The great thing about being trained by the world's greatest detective and subsequently the League of Assassins was that you could assess a body in the blink of an eye.

Small, slender little body. Dark hair, porcelain skin, brilliant spinel blue eyes, perfect pink lips. Jason's tastes weren’t complicated when it came to attraction, but he admitted he leaned towards certain types over others. The guy standing in front of him looked like he’d been made in Jason’s personal wish generator.

The look of faint annoyance on his face melted into pure astonishment as he faced the wall of muscle that was Jason. His mobile mouth parted in surprise and his eyebrows climbed high on his forehead. A pink flush spread across his cheekbones when he clearly realized he’d been staring at Jason a few beats too long. “Uh... sorry. I think I might be in the wrong place?”

“I don’t think so,” Jason purred, putting on his most winning smile. Fuck you Dick, Jason Todd could be perfectly charming when he set his mind to it.

Perfect Stranger flushed harder. “Um… I’m looked for-”

“Spare! There you are,” Jaxxon announced, completely breaking the moment into pieces. “What the fuck, dude. I texted you twenty minutes ago!”

The perfect sweetness on that face dissolved into something about fifty shades bitchier. “What do you want , Junior?” he sidled politely past Jason with a sheepish nod. The detective in Jason noticed he was carrying, of all things, a leg prosthetic. 

“Hey, the name’s Jaxxon!”

“That’s not what it says on your birth certificate,” the stranger snarked impatiently. “What is it? I’ve got to get to work.”

“Chillllaaaax, Spare,” Jaxxon grinned at him. “You’re in college. No one’s on time in college. What’s with the leg? Does the Spare need spares?” he sniggered at his own dazzling wit.

Stranger closed his eyes and looked like he was praying for patience. Jason stayed slouched against the door frame. Perfect Stranger had lost quite a few attraction points for appearing to hang out in Jaxxon’s little bunch of cronies, but he was inching back up the scoreboard with his display of complete and total disdain for Jaxxon’s existence.

“None of your business,” the guy snapped. “You might have nothing better to do, but I do. So if I’m just here as your test audience for your stand up routine, a) you could use more work in just about everything and b) goodbye.”

“Wait, wait, Jesus,” Jaxxon sat up from where he’d lounged on the bed. “Seriously, doesn’t anyone have a fucking sense of humour around here? You’re all tighter than a virgin accountant, fuck. Look, I just need a loan, okay? Just, like, a thousand bucks to get me through to the end of the month. You know I’m good for it,” Jaxxon did his best to be both wheedling and authoritative, neither strategy of which landed.

Jason was amused to watch the little guys mouth drop open.

“ What ? That’s what you called me over here for? That’s the big emergency? I’m on. A damn. Scholarship ! Where the hell would I get a thousand dollars from? I can’t even scrape together a hundred to get the textbooks I need!” He ran his long fingers through his shoulder length, fine hair. “I can’t believe this. Why did I even think for a second that you actually needed something important. What am I even doing here?”

“Hey, you can spare it,” Jaxxon looked dangerously close to whining. “You get stipends and shit, right?”

“No!”

“Not even five hundred?”

“Ask your damn parental units!” slinky guy was almost yelling. “It’s not like they don’t have it or wouldn’t… oh,” an evil smirk crossed his face as Jaxxon started to scowl. “I get it. They cut you off.”

“They didn’t ‘cut me off’!” Jaxxon snapped, red faced. “I still got an allowance. But it’s pledge week, man. Pledge week! I had to curry a little favour with the boys, you know. Supply entertainment and whatnot,” he grumbled. “I’m broke until the end of the month if I don’t get any cash.”

“You got a meal plan, right?”

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

“Then you won’t starve,” stranger said ruthlessly. “And if I had a penny to give I sure wouldn’t waste it on you.”

“But the boys have a kegger this weekend,” Jaxxon was full on whining now, his face red like a toddler who doesn’t understand why he can’t have ice cream. “I already said I’d supply the booze. What’m I supposed to do? You’re supposed to help me,” he added accusingly.

“All of that, Junior?” the stranger waved his hands, prosthetic and all. “That sounds like a you problem. Good luck.” Then he turned and stalked out, leaving Jason with the riotous image of Drake nearly having an apoplexy.

Then he shook himself and chased after the stranger. He had far better things to do than to watch his asshole roommate’s head explode. “Hey, um… hey! Wait up!”

Stranger jumped and turned, surprised. He saw it was Jason following him and turned an adorable shade of pink. “Um… yes?” Contrary to his blazing confidence facing down Drake, this came out sweet and shy. “S-sorry about, you know,” he trailed off lamely, waving his arm back towards the room.

“Shit, don’t feel bad; that was fucking funny,” Jason grinned at him. He thrust out a hand. “Jason Peters. 19th Century Literature, English and History.”

“Oh, uh. Hi. Jason Peters, o-of course,” he nodded like that made sense, pinking up even more. “I’m T-Tim. Yep, Tim, that’s me. Systems Engineering,” he blurted. “Minor in social work and film studies.”

He was just about the most adorable thing Jason had ever seen. “Nice to meet you Tim.”

There was a moment of awkward fumbling when Tim tried to mirror the handshake only to thrust out the hand that was holding the prosthetic, and nearly kicked himself in the face hurriedly switching hands. 

Jason laughed. “I gotta ask. What’s with the leg?”

Tim, still red faced, looked at it sheepishly. “It belongs to my roommate,” he admitted. “He’s a veteran. Nice guy. I put out a lost alert on the campus message board and someone got back to me.” Since he was clearly on the clock he started walking with Jason diligently following along. “He got stampeded by a bunch of stupid fratboys getting back from the dining hall last night and his leg came loose. One of them snatched it and ran.” 

“Seriously?” Jason gaped as they paced up the stairwell. “That’s pretty fucking low.”

“Val reckons they were so drunk they probably didn’t even realize. Um,” he went a bit pink again. “This is me.” 

Timmy had scored a room at the end of a corridor, right near a window and a fire escape. Jason wistfully sighed - he’d kinda been hoping for a room like that. It would’ve made entry and exit as Red Hood a fucking breeze. He’d seeded a disused maintenance shed with his gear on the campus grounds, which was fine but it was a fucking hassle forever moving stuff to and from it.

Tim knocked on the door. “Val? It’s me.”

“Come on in!” a voice hollered back. 

Valerin ‘Val’ Thomas was a lean but tall, svelte figure of a man with strong shoulders and fine African cheekbones. His eyes were dark but warm. Jason recognised the way he kept his back to walls and kept his bunk regulation neat with hospital corners. A soldier; one who’d seen a fair share of combat. Val met Jason’s green eyes and nodded, one haunted man to another.

Then his face split into a grin. “Hey, you found it! Thank god I don’t have to wear my shower leg all day!” he eagerly reached for his missing limb.

“Let me know if it needs fixing,” Tim told him firmly. “I can help if you need it.”

“No worries m’man, thanks,” Val grinned. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Jason,” Tim beamed. “I, um, I met him this morning.”

“Jason Peters,” he gave the one legged man a firm handshake. “Pleasure.”

Val looked at him over the handshake. “GI Bill?”

Jason nodded.

“You’re a bit young, ain’t cha? What are you, twenty?”

“I might have fudged my age on some of the recruitment forms,” Jason winked. “I was pretty mature at sixteen. It was three squares a day, health care and blankets,” Jason shrugged. “That was a pretty good deal compared to where I was at the time.”

Tim looked so wounded to hear that that Jason kind of wanted to hug him.

“Street recruit,” Val nodded knowingly. “Met a few of them in the service. Iraq? Afghanistan?”

“Iraq, Afghanistan,” Jason shrugged. “Bhutan. Kahndaq. Santa Prisca. There ain’t many places I haven’t set a bomb off in somewhere.”

For some reason that made Tim snort with laughter.

“Shit, kid, you musta had some talent,” Val shook his head. “Where’d you wander off to, anyway Tim? I thought you were just picking up the leg? Were you the one that found it?” he asked Jason.

“Not me. Tim came to talk to my roommate about something.”

“Yeah,” Tim’s face fell. “His roommate’s my brother.”

Chapter Text

Jason jogged back through the light sprinkling of rain through the quad, heading for his residence hall. The Red Hood had been out since midnight, tracking down some low level thugs for intel on a drug case he was working. He hadn’t got everything he’d wanted but he did have some solid leads to follow so it hadn’t been a wasted night.

He’d ditched his gear back in the storage bunker he’d set up, but he’d have to stop by late in the afternoon after his Regency Lit lecture to properly clean and check it before tonight’s patrol. The constant juggling act of coursework and being a vigilante turned out to be less of a disaster than he feared, though he had been forced to grudgingly acknowledge that Bruce’s lessons in absorbing and remembering information quickly and in great detail had proven extremely useful for his college stuff. Turns out Jason could do weekly readings while surveilling bad guys and churn out essays with remarkable speed. Not a skill he’d ever thought would come in handy for anything but case reports.

He kept a steady lope around the hall, dressed in a tracksuit and runners, his presence in the pre-dawn quad explained away as a former soldier on his daily run. He’d spotted a few early go-getters while he was coming in and the grounds were expansive enough to explain why no one had seen him set out for a run. Jaxxon might wonder why Jason had left at eleven last night to ‘go run’ but that fucker was either out partying or sleeping like the dead at that hour.

Jason chanced to glance up at the windows of the residence hall as he came past and saw, through a window lit yellow from the indoor lights, the figure of Tim Drake coming out of his room at the end of his corridor, another campus early riser. 

Jason grimaced. He couldn’t deny Tim Drake had been on his mind.

He had seemed so perfect when Jason first saw him. Diligent, smart, sweet, all wrapped up in a pretty little package. Jason had felt his ardour cool when he’d heard Tim’s pedigree, though. He knew it was arbitrary and judgemental but it just really stuck in his craw when a rich kid got a scholarship. Considering what an absolute fucking mouthbreather his brother was, Jason could only assume the Drakes had been very generous towards the endowment fund. 

Honestly, it was none of Jason’s business. The world was shitty and corrupt and weighted towards the rich, he knew this. There were a bunch of students like Tim Drake wandering around campus with ‘scholarships’ bought and paid for. Hell, it probably wasn’t even the kid’s fault; it’s not like a scholarship was something that you turned down. 

Still… Jason had backed right off, politely but coolly, after that. Tim had been taken aback by his sudden withdrawal. And hurt, it looked like to Jason. Jason didn’t have many deal breakers; hell, he’d fucked people that had literally tried to kill him. But unearned privilege? The street kid that he was and the quasi-social worker that he is couldn’t abide that, not knowing how many deserving hopefuls got told to pound sand while others well able to pay their way never flipped a dime.

Jason, realising he paused to stare at the retreating figure of Tim Drake through the window, shook himself and continued on. A brief pit stop at his room - his roommate nowhere to be found, thank the gods - Jason took a shower, got his case files updated and did some reading before heading down to the dining hall at a more reasonable hour.

He ended up setting up shop next to a familiar face. “Hey blondie, what’s shakin’?”

“Shitty yakuza bullshit,” Staphanie grunted, typing away on her phone. “I was tracking assholes down until two am.”

“Louder, I don’t think the guys just walking in heard you, BG,” Jason snorted dryly.

“Please,” Stephanie gulped her coffee. “We could walk in here armoured up and these poor under-caffeinated souls wouldn’t notice unless we smashed the coffee machine.”

Jason’s gaze flicked around the room. Steph wasn’t wrong. There were a bunch of exhausted teens, weary TA’s and a handful of peppy groups chattering away. No one was paying them any attention. Jason shrugged and dug into his breakfast. Breaking thug fingers was hungry work.

“Hey, can you take a swing shift down Chinatown Thursday?” Steph said absently. “I got a date.”

“Shit, that fast?” Jason raised his eyebrows.

“We’re in college,” Steph raised one right back at him. “It’s the lightspeed hookup highway around here. Relax, it’s not like I’m looking for marriage material, just someone to hang out with and see if I like him.”

“Just like that?”

Stephanie shrugged. “It’s normal. Whatever else I do out there , here, on campus? I’m gonna be normal. I fucking miss normal. Wasn’t that why you came here?”

Jason couldn’t deny she had a point. “A casual hook up might be worth trying, you think?” he mused.

Steph was eyeing him shrewdly. “Got a candidate?”

That question from Dick or any of the others would have had Jason spouting fuck-off’s and fuck-you’s to the high heavens, but Steph tended to get a pass from him since he had kinda sorta tried to kill her a couple of times before the crazy burned out. “No. Well, sort of. Maybe?” Jason’s face scrunched up. “Fuck knows, I’m out of practice with fucking civilians.”

Steph laughed at him, compassionate soul that she was. “It’s not fucking rocket science, you dork. You like someone, ask ‘em for coffee. They say no, no harm, no foul, no more effort required. They say yes, then go for it. Hell, there might at the very least be some stress relief in it for you and you ,” she poked him. “Need to destress. You’re too serious.”

“You sound like Dick.”

“Bite your fucking tongue, asshole,” Steph said amicably. “So, you have a possible. She… he?” She raised an eyebrow at Jason’s nod. “He show any interest back?”

“Yeah,” Jason admitted slowly. “He did, if I’m reading the blushing right.”

“Great! He in any of your classes?”

Jason shook his head. “Nah. He’s in some fancy engineering degree,” and social work his mind whispered, which was what? To look good on the society pages maybe? “He’s got some social work stuff going on. And film studies.”

“Holy shit , you’re eyeing up Tim ?”

Jason’s head whipped around. “You know him?”

“Sure. Engineering, Social Work, Film Studies,” Stephanie nodded. “It was such an odd combo it stuck in my mind. We share a media class.” Steph was getting a degree in business management with public relations as a minor. 

“I don’t think I could ask him out,” Jason muttered.

“What’s wrong with Tim? He’s a great guy.”

“He’s a scholarship kid,” Jason grunted. “I got nothing against scholarship kids but this kid’s a Drake . I hate rich kids who can afford college getting in for free. It fucking bugs me. Smart street kids who slip through the cracks usually wind up the worst kind of criminals and then we have to deal with that shit.”

“Okay, fair,” Steph nodded. “But have you ever considered there might be more to the story than ‘rich kid wins the privilege lottery’?” She eyed him archly, eyes travelling from him to the cafeteria service area.

“Like?”

“Well correct me if I’m wrong but scholarships don’t cover the yearly meal plan,” Steph pointed out. “Everyone pays their way to eat.”

Yeah, Jason knew that. There’d been a stink kicked up about Gotham U privatising the catering a couple of years back. “So?”

“So a rich kid,” Steph grabbed his chin and swivelled it around. “Wouldn’t need to be on the campus Work For Meals program.”

Jason saw where she was aiming and felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. There, indeed, was Tim Drake in an apron and a hair net, replacing hot trays at the counter before taking over the till.

Jason scowled. “What the fuck?”

That was the moment Tim spotted them staring. He went red under their combined gaze and shifted uncomfortably, before his mouth thinned and he turned away to take care of something in the back.

“Yeah, I was thinking that too,” Steph muttered. 

Chapter Text

It was only because he wanted to drop his Criminology 101 class, Jason told himself. He’d taken it as an elective with the understanding that he could probably nap through most of it and he wouldn’t miss anything he didn’t already know. However, the professor had turned out to be such an egregious asshole that was operating on such out-of-date information that Jason was having a hard time not getting his blood up and schooling the moron in front of the class. Honestly, Damian could teach a better course.

That, he told himself, was how he found himself sitting in on Introduction To Film. 

He’d positioned himself at the back of the lecture hall. He hadn’t meant to get a sightline of Tim Drake from his position but, well, here they were. Tim didn’t seem aware of his gaze and Jason didn’t look at him the whole time. The lecture was okay, kind of interesting. It might not be the worst elective in the world, he supposed. Somewhere in the midst of it Tim did become aware of him; Jason could tell by the flicker of his moving head in the corner of his eye. Jason kept his eyes forward, mostly.

Once the session was over Jason was hoping that he could snag Tim as he made his way out but the crush of chattering students made it impossible for Jason to complete that mission. Plus, Tim was slippery; he timed his exit to coincide with a loose knot of friends, using them as a buffer between him and Jason.

Jason had tracked fucking ninjas. He could take on a challenge. 

He moved through the mass of students in the hall corridor like a shark amongst the minnows. Something about the way he moved made people move aside for him without thinking. Tim was a hunched little figure hurrying out of the doors and into the chilly fall air of the cloisters. 

Jason’s longer legs ate up the distance between them. “Hey, Tim!” he called. “ Tim! ”

Tim couldn’t outdistance him at these speeds without flat out running away. The younger man flinched at the volume, but apparently decided an open-air confrontation was better than trying to escape. “Yeah?” he asked warily.

“Glad I caught you, man, I wanted to talk to you,” Jason beamed at him, clapping him on the shoulder, ostensibly as a friendly gesture but mostly to keep him from rabbiting. 

“You didn’t seem very eager last time,” Tim said the words to his feet. He was trying for anger, but all he seemed to convey was upset.

“Yeah, about that…”

“Look, I know Junior’s a douche, okay?” Tim burst out. “It’s not my fault! I didn’t make him that way. Whatever pull you think I have with him you can forget it. He’s not going to listen to me, ever. So, you know, you can go on judging me by association, I guess, and leave me alone.”

Oooh, there was some venom in that sting, but Jason could read his face. Tim looked on the edge of tears. 

Suddenly, Jason felt like an ass. Tim didn’t get to pick his family any more than Jason had picked his own. “Look, uh,” he tried. “You wanna go grab a coffee?”

Tim’s head whipped up to look at him. “What?” he said in a strangled voice.

Jason cursed inside his head. Smooth, Todd . But, shit, he was committed now. “Coffee. You and me. You free now?”

Tim went red. “I, um, don’t really have any money.”

Yeah, that was the other mystery that was driving Jason nuts. “I’ll pay. You can catch me up on anything I missed from the first week of Film 101. I’m thinking of switching. My criminology prof’s a real dickhead.”

“Oh,” Tim shuffled. “I guess?”

That was good enough to get Jason into the nearest coffee shop with a baffled Tim giving him the downlow on film studies over a magnificently large grande. The campus coffee shop knew it’s clientele very well. 

“You really like this stuff, huh?” Jason commented. It had taken a little bit of time but once Tim had relaxed he warmed to his subject, speaking with wild hand gestures and seething passion that was a joy to watch.

“I used to climb all over Gotham taking pictures,” Tim confessed, blushing sweetly. “I was a wierd, lonely kid. I don’t know if I’ll ever make a career out of it but it’s interesting to get into the guts of how films and documentaries are made. I’m an engineer by nature; I like taking stuff apart.”

“I like words,” Jason replied to this. “Like, language, expression. We’re always conveying so much more information than we think when we talk. That’s why I’m doing Literature. History is just to keep my deduction skills sharp. I doubt I’ll make a career outta either of ‘em.”

“You don’t see yourself getting a PhD, maybe? You could teach,” Tim suggested.

“Naw. I’m a soldier,” Jason traced the lip of his mug. “Been a soldier most of my life. The rest of the time, I was a survivor. Seems pointless to argue with fate now.”

Tim looked saddened by that. He reached out a patted Jason’s hand. “Don’t sell yourself short. You can be a soldier and other things too. It’s the age of the multitasker, after all. Everyone has six different careers before breakfast.”

Jason barked out a laugh. “I’ll keep it in mind. Hey, um,” Jason rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry for, uh, freezing you out before. It was kinda uncalled for and… well, I was kind of a dick.”

Tim shrugged uncomfortably. “Junior has that effect on people,” he mumbled.

“Full disclosure,” Jason admitted. “It wasn’t really about that asshole. You said you had a scholarship and, like, then you said you were that rich moron’s brother and… look, I’m a street kid, born and raised. I clawed my way up and out. Hell, most people who know me would say I clawed up and along , but, um, Idreamedaboutgoingtocollege,” he blurted. “As a kid. Only my chances were, like, so fucking small they weren’t even laughable. No kid from the Bowery has much of a chance.”

“Oh,” Tim blinked. “ Oh , you thought I was one of the rich kids on a ‘scholarship’,” he made sarcastic air quotes. “That wealthy donors usually get.”

“Well, yeah. Kinda.”

Tim’s perfect pink lips pursed. “I can see why you might think that, I guess. Would it help if I told you that I haven’t been legally a Drake - one of those Drakes - for about seven years?”

Jason frowned. “The fuck now?”

“Jack and Janet Drake disowned me and made me a ward of the state when I was ten.”

“The fuck now?” Jason’s jaw dropped open. “They gave you up? When you were ten ? Fuck me, why ?”

“Why not,” Tim murmured, before realizing he said that out loud and going red. “Uh, well,” he hastily covered. “Among the many, many, many, many, many tales my brother has no doubt spun for you about his amazing life in the last few weeks…”

“So, so many."

“... one of them would probably have been a sob story about being a childhood cancer survivor.” Tim took a fortifying sip of coffee.

“Yep, heard that one,” Jason nodded. “I honestly thought it was part of his shitty play to get girls.”

“Oh it is, I imagine,” Tim snorted. “But it’s also true. He was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia when he was five. That’s where I came in. They conceived me via IVF and a surrogate because Junior needed blood and stem cells as a part of his treatment. I was his living donor.”

Jason’s face screwed up. “People actually do that?”

“Savior siblings,” Tim nodded. “It’s a thing. Junior - he was born Jackson Jr, by the way - is my parents heir. Their perfect, golden child. They’d have done a lot worse things to save his life. Conceiving a donor child isn’t illegal, it isn’t even considered unethical by most people.”

The whole thing sounded fucked up to Jason. Then again, he’d never had a kid. If his kid was sick, he might see himself doing some fucked up shit to save them. “So you were his organ bank and then what?”

Tim shrugged. “Junior got all better. There wasn’t any need to keep spending money on the upkeep of the organ bank anymore.”

Jason stared at him, open mouthed.

“They just called social services one day,” Tim explained with the serenity that came through repetition. “Signed some papers. There was probably a court date and a bunch of interviews where they had to prove they were psychologically incapable of caring for a second child. You can buy any amount of expert testimony in Gotham. I never saw any of it. I was in a group home by then.”

When Jason spoke next it was the low, guttural growl of the Red Hood. “What. The. Fuck? What the actual fuck ? Who the fuck fucking does that?”

Tim was both taken aback and warmed by Jason’s seething fury on his behalf. “Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as you’re thinking. Gotham social services is not like it was fifteen, twenty years ago, where most of the group homes were just gang and thief academies. Sister Desiderata took pretty good care of me. We were kind of crammed in, but we had enough to eat and got to go to school and stuff.”

“What? I mean… well, fuck , Tim,” Jason tried to reason his way past the green veil descending over his eyes. Hello rage, his old friend. “You talk a good game but fuck , don’t you dare try to tell me that didn’t leave ya just a little bit fucked up!”

“Oh, it did,” Tim assured him ruefully. “That was a pretty big apocalypse for a ten year old who’d been fed a steady diet of ‘your purpose in life is to serve your brother’. The story I’d told myself to cope with it in my head was something along the lines of being chosen for a glorious purpose; to serve the golden child. That’s how they always made it sound. Losing my pseudo Chosen One status messed me up pretty badly. Well that and,” Tim ducked his head. “Um… someone I… knew…. Well, I didn’t know him, really, but I admired him a lot,” his gaze darted to Jason and then darted away just as fast. “Um… he died. I was cut up about that too. Worse, I think than all the rest. Between one thing and another I didn’t speak a word for two whole years. I was in hospital for a while. It was all kind of nasty.”

Jason felt something in his chest crimp inwards. “Shit, Tim, I’m fucking sorry.” He took a hold of the smaller hand and squeezed it.

“It’s okay,” Tim smiled at him. “I got, like, a massive amount of therapy and I got a lot better. And besides,” he squeezed back. “It was kind of the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Jason was gobsmacked. He couldn’t have heard that right. “Okay, you’re gonna have to walk me through that one. Use tiny words,” Jason pinched his thumb and forefinger together.

Tim laughed. “Come on, you’ve met Junior, right? I mean, look at him! Orientation was the first time I’d seen him in seven years. He’s twenty three and he’s starting college the same year I am. Okay, I skipped a bunch of grades, but still, he’s older than some of the veterans here, he’s that far behind. The first thing I thought when I saw him was he hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I’d seen him. He was sixteen then. Is seven years with not one sign of any personal growth whatsoever an accomplishment worth envying? Seems to me,” Tim sipped his coffee. “That being ignored by our parents was a lot healthier than having all their attention in the long run. Jack and Janet did everything for him. Junior’s been all around the world, he was homeschooled by the best private tutors, they gave him everything of the best and even after all those experiences he’s still mentally fifteen and emotionally about four. He’s never had to solve his own problems. He barely knows how to function without a staff of people doing all the hard bits for him. I can’t hate him. I feel too sorry for him for that.”

“Well, shit,” Jason turned that over in his head. “You might be onto something there.”

“Jack and Janet seem to have finally realised they might need to pull the reins a bit,” Tim snorted into his cup. “If his money troubles are anything to go by.”

“That’s why he asked you for money,” Jason nodded.

“He’s so steeped in ignorance he probably thought I have a trust fund,” Tim shook his head. “As if the Drake’s ever set aside anything for a walking organ bank.” He laughed. 

Jason could feel his teeth grinding. The belief in his own worthlessness that painted the edges of Tim’s joke grated. “He’s got some fucking nerve, asking you to spot him after not seeing you in seven years,” he growled.

“That’s just Junior,” Tim shrugged. “He was fed a steady diet of ‘this boy was made to serve you’. He doesn’t know any better. That’s why he didn’t understand why I wouldn’t give it to him. It must have seemed like his own left arm was arguing with him.”

“That’s fucked up,” Jason shook his head.

“Yeah, but it’s more fucked up for him than me,” Tim pointed out. “I got everything I knew ripped out from under me and taken away, and don’t get me wrong, it was awful. But I got better and I worked at it and I adapted. I got here on my own merit and sweat, just like you. I earned it. And because I earned it, I’m free to enjoy it in ways that Junior can’t even comprehend. That’s a pretty good revenge if I wanted one, even if he’ll never understand it.”

“You,” Jason grinned. “Are disgustingly well adjusted.”

“Yeah well,” Tim replied. “My therapist was a nun who was a former prostitute who was a former man. If anyone understood adjustment, it was her.”

Jason burst out laughing. 

He was pretty sure he could survive a Drake, as long as he got this Drake.

Chapter Text

The school year marched cheerfully into fall. By the time first semester mid-terms loomed on the horizon, Jason had found a pretty good balance between his crimefighting and coursework. He’d also, much to his own surprise, began to make connections amongst his fellow students.

There were the hardscrabble, twelve hour day ‘work scholarship’ kids, who exhausted themselves with free labour for the university just so they could have meals provided. Jason had already kicked up a stink with various committees when he found out half of them were living off scraps and leftovers and sometimes less than three squares a day. He had a lot of fucking opinions about that and wasn’t afraid to share them or threaten to get the fourth estate involved. Jason wasn’t sure how, but he was pretty sure he was their Den Mother now.  

There was the film dorks, a lively and creative bunch of zealots who would argue to the end of the earth about the artistic merits of some of the most embarrassing schlock ever committed to celluloid. Jason was starting to like film, especially because he could argue until he was blue in the face about various Austen adaptations and no one thought it was weird that a manifest Tough Guy Veteran could play six degrees of separation between Pride and Prejudice and literally every rom-com ever made, citing sources and showing his work like a damn motherfucker. The film school was fifteen kinds of fun.

There was the engineering brigade - absentminded, caffeine fuelled obsessives who ran around campus testing new gadgetry with expressions alarmingly close to what Jason saw on the Rogues. Jason made it his business, after coming back from his ‘morning jog’, to check the labs and make sure he didn’t have to scrape a twitchy, overcaffeinated Tim off the floor. The kid thought overwork was some kind of mythical, extinct beast.

He’d gotten to know Tim pretty well over the last few weeks. Seeking him out had become his number one occupation on campus, and finding out everything he could about him his most pressing case. Jason hoarded each new bit of information he got like a precious treasure, greedy for more.

He knew Tim was whip smart and passionate, quirky, dry witted, confident and shy by turns, depending on the context. Jason followed him throughout classes and study groups, walked him back to the doors after shifts, argued and bantered over every topic under the sun and then some. 

He knew Tim was an actual genius, skipping grades like they were nothing, an inventor and an innovator. Hell, Tim had won his scholarship for designing a system that would allow people in the most poverty stricken areas to get fast, reliable internet access. A year ago a bunch of boxes on poles had begun springing up on buildings all over the Bowery, every last one installed cheaply and easily by a sixteen year old inventor and a cadre of community volunteers. The boxes gave them direct access to satellite systems and gave them free wifi with excellent speeds - typically very poor in the Bowery due to lack of towers - and were stuffed with algorithms and programs that smoothed out service buffering, acted as a free virus checkers and connected up with emergency broadcast systems so people there would know about Rogue attacks and shelter-in-place orders. It saved lives, helped people find jobs, stay in touch with loved ones, helped kids keep up with school, all of it. It was maintained by the community, people on disability and shut ins, who cleaned up the data feed and checked for viral incursions daily. There were noises being made about putting in gaming cafes and other high tech infrastructure. Things that would bring in money and jobs. Things that might start changing those crime riddled areas for the better in ways twenty years of the Bat punching bad guys never would.

It was hard not to like Tim. It was harder not to love him. Even though Jason had never sought that level of entanglement, something about Tim had a way of drawing unexpected things to the surface. His presence was everywhere Jason looked, everywhere he wanted to be.

Even when he was out and about as Red Hood, he thought about Tim. Not in any way that made him lose focus on the work, he was too much a ground-in professional to let that happen, but with the advent of his new, post-Tim life, he was beginning to feel out a border in his world view that he had never had to contend with before.

He was drawing a line between Jason Todd and Red Hood .

It hadn’t been like that for him, not like it was for the others. Like Bruce, where Batman and Brucie were so sharply delineated that he practically had a split personality. Not like Dick either. Dick’s line between himself and Nightwing was far less stark than the one between Bruce and Batman, but Nightwing was Dick Grayson on steroids and cocaine; the dials turned up to a maximum wattage that Dick couldn’t possibly maintain out of the mask. Barbara put on a mask like other people put on workboots. She did it merely to focus a lens, she didn’t want or need to maintain separate personas. Damian probably wished he could be all Robin all the time, in or out of the mask, but time had caused the Damian part to expand and strengthen into its own little niche from living at the Manor. Cass was much the same as Damian, except her expansion into a fully rounded civilian life was far less grudging than the demon brat’s. Steph was the only of them with a nominally healthy work/life balance, but she still had people in her civilian life, like her mother, who could be there for her, which was quite frankly as telling as fuck about the rest of them.

But Jason? Jason was Red Hood. He was Red Hood 24/7/365. Jason was Red Hood sleeping, he was Red Hood sitting at home watching TV, he was Red Hood shopping and cooking and all those mundane workaday things. Red Hood didn’t dial down or transmute when the helmet came off. 

At least, he hadn’t. Until now.

Red Hood didn’t argue passionately about safe spaces, but Jason Todd did. Red Hood didn’t agonise over correct citations in an essay, but Jason Todd did. Red Hood did care about the plight of hungry, disenfranchised and exploited scholarship kids, but his solution would usually involve bullets and blackmail, not outraged petitions to the board. He’d done it because Tim had looked at him with eyes shining in gratitude after, and Red Hood wasn’t the kind of person who got thanked very much.

Jason The Red Hood was beset by the disorientating sensation that Jason Todd had a life . Not just a current mission or a seething purpose. A life he could fill with things. Like History and Lit and Film and Poetry and… Tim. Red Hood ruthlessly stripped back any distractions, but Jason revelled in Regency era prose precisely because it served no purpose in his mask life.

It was weird, this normalcy thing. Good, but weird.

“Yo, Peters! Wait up!”

Jason turned carefully. Some punk had gotten a lucky shot across his shoulder with a crowbar last night and he’d been living with both low level aches and low level professional embarrassment all day. Fucking crowbars, man. He had a bad history with them.

Val was jogging up behind him. “Heading for 18th Century Poetry?”

“Sure am,” Jason nodded amicably. He’d gotten to know Val pretty well over the last month. Afghanistan, three years, commspec radioman before a landmine levelled his fortunes with a chainsaw. He had an uncle in construction so he was doing civil engineering, hoping for surveyor work. He was a great friend and a good roommate to Tim.

All the people Jason had gotten to know over the last months were, to a greater or lesser degree, because of their relation to Tim. 

“Awesome, mind if I tag along?” Val asked cheerfully. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Translation: he was beset by screaming nightmares all night. Tim was the world’s best roommate; he never complained and had no problem sitting up with Val when he had a bad night. Jason may have planted a bug in Tim’s room so that when Val had a bad night he could get back from patrol early and tap on their door, using ‘his own bad night’ as an excuse to settle into their room and shoot the shit until they could all sleep again.

“Sucks man,” Jason said sympathetically. “You call it in?”

“Nah, but that’s just ‘cause I got group this afternoon. I’ll bitch about my swanky new trauma with the guys at the VA,” Val snorted while Jason chuckled. “You in for the orphans Thanksgiving?”

“Maybe,” Jason mused. “I might have some place to be this year.” It had become a dilemma looming on the horizon. Alfred himself had asked Jason to come to the Manor this year, which was a big deal. On the other hand, Tim had said he wouldn’t be going back to the group home for Thanksgiving, just Christmas, so he’d be in with the University orphans this year. Jason was torn on blowing off Alfie for Tim. “I kinda do wanna just chill around here though,” he added. “My family is… really fucking complicated. I mean, I love ‘em and all but everything just turns into a fucking drama at the drop of a hat around ‘em.”

“Man, just invite Tim to your thing,” Val rolled his eyes. “Shit, watching you two dorks not-date around campus is getting really old.”

Jason gave him the side eye. “Watch your fucking mouth, Sergeant.”

“As if you ever made it further than Specialist,” Val retorted. “Seriously man, ask him out . You can get freaky in the dorms. We can institute a tie policy, it’ll be fine. I got no idea what the fuck you’re waiting for. Trust me, I live with the dude. He’s into you. He’s got it bad, man.”

Jason sighed. The small town nature of the average college dorm was really fucking annoying. It was worse amongst the capes; he wasn’t talking to Steph at the moment because she’d let slip about his (alleged) crush to Babs, who of course had told Dick who was now on a mission to get Jason to introduce his ‘new beau’ and Dick was a stubborn son of a bitch. It would be a matter of time before someone (rhymes with moose, goose and obtuse ) would be compiling a dossier on Tim Drake that would make the CIA weep.

Honestly, sometimes the biggest mystery Jason dealt with is how the fuck any cape managed to keep a fucking secret. Washerwomen would call them gossipy busybodies. Straight up washerwomen.

In his honest moments, Jason admitted he wanted to ask Tim out properly. They’d been doing a shit tonne of faux-dating, friend-dating, and just plain old hanging out. It wouldn’t be that big of a leap at this point to start making out. But this normal thing was so new for Jason. He wasn’t sure he could maintain it in any sort of stable state long term. As it was, he’d make a shit boyfriend; he had absences from class and make up papers a-plenty because of insane vigilante problems. He was running across the age old problem everyone who wore a mask faced; how in the fuck do you explain your priorities to a potential lover when you can’t explain what the priority is ?

That was mask-normalcy right there and quite frankly something Jason could have done without.

“Shit, uh,” Val looked ahead. “Maybe we should go around to the cloisters.”

Jason refocused. “What the fuck?”

There was some sort of rally going on in the quad. Frankly, there was always a rally, or a sermon, or a protest or something going on there. College was full to the brim of passionate kids with something to say and demanding an audience. Jason, younger than some in body but about a century older in experiences, had never seen the point in shouting in people’s faces to make a point unless he was holding a gun (his relations with Bruce were, for the purposes of this standard, exempt), and tuned out most of it.

Anti-war, it looked like, going by all the No More Sanctions and Out Of The Middle East signs. There was one girl raucously and passionately arguing against the military-industrial complex and the fate of starving children across the world into a microphone hooked to a big bass speaker while others cheered and egged her on.

“Don’t forgive the soldiers!” she was yelling. “Don’t give them a pass because they just ‘do as they were ordered to do’! Nobody ordered them to sign up! Nobody forced them into the uniform! And sure as HELL no one told them to shoot defenceless schoolgirls and unarmed civilians BECAUSE THEY FELT LIKE IT! If they serve, what they are serving is a bunch of private interests! Not the world good!”

“Jeeesus,” Jason sighed. He wasn’t going to stand there and defend all the shitty things the US military had done overseas because there had been some egregiously fucked up shit happening and they definitely weren’t as pure as snow, but taking it out on the cog-level recruit who signed up to get away from drugs, pimps and poverty wasn’t exactly useful. There was a reason the only truly successful employment agency in the Bowery was the army recruiting office. To some of those kids the army was the golden ticket out of getting shot by either the gangs or the police, one as likely as the other. Jason had never actually joined but he’d lived the life, he got the attraction.

He squared his shoulders. “Freedom of speech and all that shit,” he said to Val. “We got a right to be here too.” He’d be damned if he was going to be intimidated by a bunch of kids who thought going without their phone for a day was the same as actual fucking torture.

Really, Jason was too stubborn for his own good. He and Val didn’t do anything that would have drawn any attention as they crossed the quad, but when they skirted the crowd, they kind of stuck out - Jason especially, given his physique.

“There they are!” the girl roared from her soapbox. “Baby killers! Murderers! Brainwashed slaves to the arms dealers and drugs peddlers!”

“I’m a baby killer killer,” Jason murmured to Val. “Does that count?”

“Fuck man, who knows,” Val sighed. “I mostly don’t want trouble. Trouble gets me shot at.”

“How does it feel, huh? How did it feel to have the blood of innocent civilians on your hands while you further the interests of the rich gun makers!” she screamed at them while the crowd, whipped into a frenzy, closed in.

Jason squinted at her. Oh, he recognised her now. Diamond Holt-Latrelle, the heiress his useless roommate was trying to angle into a fuck, and maybe a marriage, the poor thing. Her father owned some international petrochemical concern. The idea of her objecting to serving the interests of the wealthy made him snigger. That was some cognitive dissonance she had there.

“Look! Look at him laugh about it!” she announced to the crowd. “There are the sociopaths our tax dollars pay for! No more soldiers! No more war! No more soldiers! No more war!”

“Dude, really?” Val groaned. “Not helping.” As the crowd took up the chant, swinging signs.

“Hey, don’t tell me you didn’t find miss six-figure Amex’s scathing indictment of the rich a little bit ironic,” Jason snorted.

“Of course it’s funny ,” Val agreed. “It’s hilarious. But we don’t generally get away with laughing at white folks, man.”

“Hey! What are you two-” that was as far as she got before she got a bit overeager in her righteousness, strode forward, knocked the huge bass speaker off the makeshift stage. There was a crashing boom and a deafening squeal of feedback.

Val’s face melted. His eyes blew wide, his books dropped from his rigid hands and he was suddenly skittering backwards, looking for a wall, looking for cover .

“Ah, fuck,” Jason ditched his bag and scrambled after him. Yeah, loud noises made him tense too, but it wasn’t one of his big triggers. Couldn’t be, considering his night job. “Val! Thomas! Come on man, you’re safe.”

Val had backed up against a bench and folded himself under it, blowing hard. He spat words in Arabic, no doubt learned under hard circumstances.

The merry band of peace children were not helping. Diamond herself was laughing raucously. “Look at him! The few, the proud!” Some of her cronies joined in the jeering but a lot of the crowd was starting to shuffle awkwardly. Pure principles were one thing, but most of them didn’t have the stomach to shout them to the point of actual harm.

“Shut the fuck up!” Jason growled, baring his teeth at them. They wisely stepped back behind the invisible line. Jason had crouched down to check Val over and he shifted his weight as he stared at them. Even squatting, he looked nothing but pure predator. “You’ve made your point now feel free to fuck the fuck off!”

Even the rock-hard arrogance of the Latrelle’s faltered slightly, but Diamond wasn’t known for her common sense. She stuck her chin out. “Ooooh, big man threatening a woman! You learn that overseas killing children, big man? Huh? I’m not scared of you!”

She expected a scowl or bluster; that’s what men usually did around someone from her lofty origins. What she got was a devastatingly handsome smirk that was, somehow, all wrong around the edges. Diamond Latrelle, who’d always gotten exactly what she wanted out of any man, felt a frisson of unease crawl up her spine. 

“You’re right,” a cold voice cut across their staring contest. “You shouldn’t be scared of him . If I were you, I’d be a lot more worried about the EPA.”

Tim moved through the crowd like a knife through water, voice as smooth and sharp as a silk wrapped razor blade. His face was flushed pink, his blue eyes blazing with rage. 

He was, Jason thought, absolutely magnificent.

Tim’s voice rang across the quad. “After all, while you screech like a tin whistle for the sake of poor brown people you’ll never deign to meet, daddy dearest is trying to explain how he dumped tonnes upon tonnes of toxic waste illegally into the Newtown water reservoir all the way to the Sprang, condemning poor brown people and poor people of every other colour to twenty years of heavy metal poisoning for the crime of trying to drink their own damn tap water!” 

Diamond was caught off guard, open mouthed at this sudden turnaround. 

Tim stalked forward and rammed a finger into her chest, seething. “You go after a poor man for legally learning to fire a gun and going off to fight terrorists, while you lived in a precious, perfumed eco-friendly bubble and your barely-legally-human sperm donor paid for it by slowly mass murdering a bunch of innocent people living in your fucking back yard! Before you get back on your pulpit, princess, maybe you should check your high and mighty privilege at the door! After all,” Tim spat. “A bullet can only kill once . Arsenic is forever ! Now if you want to claim these guys are murderers then you better get ready to cite statistics and sources because I’ve got a shit tonne of those for Holt-Latrelle Holdings ready to go! So let’s do this, shall we?”

He stared her down.

Diamond had gone red, then white, then a sulphurous green. Her eyes were darting around but she was savvy enough to spot she’d lost the crowd entirely. Some at the edges were nonchalantly wandering off, nothing to see here.

Lips pressed together in a thin, enraged line, she sniffed and flounced off, abandoning her cronies to clean up the equipment without her.

Steph, who had trailed silently behind Tim as a bemused cohort, burst out laughing. “That was literally the best thing I’ve ever seen.” When Tim spun around and ran for Val, her humour dropped sharply. “Except for that bit.”

“Val?” Tim got down on his knees next to Jason. “Val? It’s Tim, Val. It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Val was curled up like a dying spider, panting and wheezing like he was choking to death.

“I think he’s having an asthma attack,” Tim told Jason. “His lungs are really bad. Does anyone see an inhaler?” he called around.

Steph sorted through Val’s dropped possession rapidly. “Nothing here,” she reported. “Is it in his pocket maybe?”

“Fuck, come on, man,” Jason carefully reached in to the traumatised man’s safe space. “We can’t have you dying here soldier. Sergeant, report!” he barked sharply. “The perimeter is clear.”

Val unclenched slightly. He was fumbling with the pocket of his jeans clumsily.

“I got it, I got it,” Jason assured Tim who was reached for it. Val was a big guy, Jason wanted to be sure he wouldn’t lash out mindlessly. Jason had been where he was now, he knew how the trauma madness dance worked. “There we go, soldier,” he gently extracted the inhaler.

“It’ll be better if he’s sitting up,” Tim said grimly.

Jason nodded and handed him the inhaler. “Val? I’m gonna lift you up now, buddy. I gotcha, soldier, you're safe here. You’re safe,” he swiftly and with minimum jerky movements grabbed Val and hauled him from under the bench, pulling him upright and getting him propped up against it and hunkering down next to him. Val made a violent seizing motion but otherwise stayed calm.

“Val, it’s Tim,” Tim shuffled closer, holding up the inhaler. “You’ve got to take you medicine now, okay? I’ll hold it up for you.” He deftly gave Val a couple of doses from the inhaler, repeating over and over that Val needed to breathe, just breathe.

“Ambulance?” Stephanie asked, her phone already out.

Tim shook his head. “I think he’s getting better.” He rattled off a different number. “Can you call that instead? It’s his veteran support therapist.”

“No sweat.”

Jason kept a solid supporting arm around the other man as his breath rate got back down to normal. “Head between your knees, man,” he advised as the shakes started taking him over. “Baby, can you grab my pack? I got a water bottle in there.”

Tim retrieved the pack and dug out the bottle. Val fisted it with one shaking hand.

“Bottoms up, soldier,” Jason nudged the bottle towards him. “Nice and slow. You know the drill.”

“Here,” Steph held out her phone. “I explained to Dr. Manowitz what happened. He wants to talk to you if you feel up to it.”

“S-sure,” Val nodded and took the phone. “Are you h-happy to wait around? I can use mine…”

“Don’t sweat it, honey. Talk to your doctor, I’ll hold the bottle.”

Val sent an embarrassed look at them all. 

“Right, everybody needs to take a good twenty steps away,” Tim waved his hands at the two of them. “Therapy is confidential, shoo, shoo!”

“Hey Steph,” Jason asked sotto voce while Tim grasped Val’s shoulder comfortingly and left his things on a neat stack on the bench. “Go find out what those fuckwits deal is, will you? I don’t wanna have to deal with this shit if I can avoid it and they ain’t gonna talk to me. Not dressed like this, anyway.”

Steph looked over the disassembling crowd and a bunch of demoralised organisers who were steadfastly ignoring them while they packed up. “Sure thing. If nothing else we can start a trolling campaign against them.”

Jason snorted. That’s why he liked Steph. She wasn’t ashamed to be petty.

“Hey, your boy was pretty spectacular,” Steph added.

“He ain’t my boy,” Jason muttered.

“You called him baby , Todd,” Steph patted his head. “You’re adorably in denial.” She strode off.

Jason sighed. The worst part was it wasn’t even denial. Watching him rip that moronic heiress to itty bitty shreds had been just about the hottest thing Jason had ever seen. He was gone on Tim and he wasn’t fighting it. He didn’t want to.

“Hey,” Tim came up to him, looking concerned. “Are you okay? It’s okay if you’re upset too. You should be. I mean,” he ruffled up indignantly again. “Can you believe that idiot? College should be a safe space for everyone, not just people the elite deem worthy and my god, the idea that she’s any judge of who’s wor-mmmhfm!”

Jason kissed him. Tim had a fractured second of pure surprise before melting into it with enthusiasm.

“Yes! Pay up, loser!”

“Oh, fuck you sideways, soldier boy, it’s not noon yet, that doesn’t count!”

Jason and Tim ignored Steph and Val (and no doubt Val’s amused therapist) through sheer force of will. 

“Uh,” Jason eventually pulled back, breathing hard. “I’m a shit boyfriend. Like seriously, I got a shitty schedule, I work nights, I’m probably gonna run out of half the dates and I sometimes go out of town for weeks and you won’t be able to contact me and my family is just completely fucking nuts, okay and they will not ever, ever not be crazy. I got… secrets. So fucking many of ‘em, you have no idea and-”

Tim kissed him. As a drug to deal with Jason’s rising panic, it was pretty damn effective.

“Hey Jason,” Tim asked, red faced and shy. “You want to go out sometime. On like, a date?”

Jason beamed. “I’d love to, baby.”

Chapter Text

A month later, Jason was laying fully clothed on one of the delightfully narrow dorm beds, which meant he could press up against Tim’s body and twine their legs together. In theory they were here to cram for the film studies exam, but in practice they’d been chattering about anything and everything and making out in between.

What a month it had been. Jason still got the biggest rush about getting to come home and kiss his boyfriend senseless and walk him to work at breakfast. He got to hang out in coffee shops and scout out restaurants and got to the movies. His schedule was still shit, but Tim was, like, the world’s most perfect boyfriend and also had a pretty fucking crazy life himself. Instead of weakening their connection the constant struggle for ‘them time’ seemed to distill it, the yearning making the meeting sweeter. Every time they met there was some new deeper layer to find, the low frisson of heat kept on constant simmer. Jason had never before seen the attraction for making out wildly amongst the stacks in the library but he’d gained a certain appreciation for it, especially when sweet, shy Tim had flagged the camera blind spots and dropped to his knees.

Jason had never had anything like this before. Normal relationships were like some other country that Jason had never had a visa for, that he’d known in his bones he’d never really visit. Tim Drake was the best kind of knock-down surprise he’d ever gotten. He was just plain good in ways Jason hadn’t thought still existed.

Tim didn’t know it, of course, but his stroke of genius with his patented system had done far more good that he realised. The Bowery was becoming the best possible place to hack cameras. Even Barbara had commented on the genius in the algorithms that meant any hacker trying to use it for nefarious purposes was shit out of luck. She used the system itself to boost her own computing power, which kept them safe and in turn Gotham safe.

It filled Jason with pride that he got to say this incredible, amazing boy was his boyfriend. Tim Drake was going to change Gotham. If he wasn’t on Lucius Fox’s hiring radar, Jason would eat his rocket launcher. 

Jason was stunned by the changes that having Tim had wrought in him. He felt… alive in a way he’d never really felt for years. It was heady, addictive in all the right ways. Almost without him noticing, the Jason part of him had risen and spread, demanding a stake, demanding a space. A space he wanted Tim to share. 

That brought a whole new set of considerations and problems that haunted him doggedly. Jason had never been asked to share himself like this before. He knew it was way too soon in this to bring up the whole Red Hood situation. It may never be safe enough to do so. But Jason found, for the first time, that a part of him really wanted that reveal.

He couldn’t. All he could do in the meantime was stencil little Hood bats on the system boxes so everyone knew not to mess with them. 

Final exams were coming up and then it would be December, which was a mini-semester between the fall semester and the spring semester, affectionately known as the Folly. Jason was looking forward to it because he could finally ditch Jaxxon Drake. He wistfully wished he could make Tim his roommate, but that would mean foisting Val on that douchenozzle and Val was a nice guy who hadn’t done anything to deserve that.

“So you’re going to do a credit project for the Folly?” Jason idly skimmed a hand down Tim’s back comfortingly.

“I thought about doing an internship at an R&D lab,” Tim admitted. “Wayne Enterprises have a good program. But I’m going to have to start doubling down in the next school year; some of my support payments will end when I’m eighteen and I’m officially aged out of foster care. I’ll have to look pretty hard at paid internships during the summer, doing all the boring scutwork stuff. This might be my last chance to just, you know, have fun with it. Professor Landis said we could shoot a short film over the Folly and present it for a tonne of extra credits. I want to do that.”

Jason ‘hmmmed’ idly as he rubbed Tim’s back, doing some internal mental gymnastics about the logistics of providing for Tim. Jason had money; he had more money that he’d ever spend. The trick would be to get Tim to accept it because he might not cop to it but he had that Drake arrogance in spades where charity was concerned. Jason couldn’t buy more than a coffee for this stubborn, adorable idiot. “What kind of film?”

“A documentary,” Tim mumbled.

Jason raised an eyebrow. “About?” Tim was blushing so this ought to be good.

Tim mumbled something.

“What?”

Tim squirmed. “You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t! I swear.”

Tim wouldn’t look him in the eye. “On the Bats.”

Jason’s brow wrinkled. “On bats?”

“On the Bats,” Tim went redder. “You know…”

The penny dropped. Jason burst out laughing. Tim scowled and grabbed a pillow to hit him over the head with. “Shut up, you jerk!”

“Ow, ow, okay, okay!” Jason fended him off, wiping tears from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he kissed the tip of Tim’s nose contritely. “What are you going to do? Fire up the signal and ask the Batman himself for an interview?” he asked, still chuckling away. 

“No,” Tim snorted. “That would be ridiculous and they’d never do it. Their radio silence policy with the media is pretty rigid. No, I meant, I could find people they’ve saved, or people whose lives they affected in some way. There are thousands of those in Gotham. I bet I could get hundreds of hours of interviews. There are people who still think they’re a menace and the press is always so hard on them,” Tim scowled. “I think Gotham deserves to hear about all the good they’ve done. Not just the lives they’ve saved but the people they’ve inspired, like the Neon Knights or the Robin Scouts. All the good stuff, you know?”

Jason smiled softly. “That sounds great, baby. I’d watch it.”

Tim kissed him. It was sweet and hot and just what Jason liked in a kiss. He took the opportunity to nibble and suckle his way down Tim’s elegant neck because a) it made Tim make the most enthralled, choked off noises that Jason loved and b) it certain respects Jason was a goddamn caveman. He loved leaving marks, he loved the idea that everyone would look and Tim and know that he was Jason’s.

They would if they knew what was good for them, at least.

“Hey, baby,” Jason purred in Tim’s ear. “I heard your roommate’s not gonna be back for a few hours.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Tim snorted with laughter, face flushed and pretty. “You’re such a dork,” he informed Jason solemnly before dragging Jason’s heavy frame on top of him with wiry strength. “You’re my dork, though,” he admitted softly. 

“Hey,” Jason smiled at him, nose to nose.

“Um, hey,” Tim ran his fingers across the plains of Jason’s face. When he shifted, Jason could definitely feel some, ahem, interest rising below. “Um, if we’re going to… I mean, this isn’t really a casual relationship for me so um,” Tim started to get even more flustered. “Before we go any further there’s, um, something you should probably know. Like it’s important you know it because it will affect you know… us.”

Jason blinked. “Okay? Look, if you’re uncomfortable with-” Jason began to shimmy off, worried he’d pushed to go too fast.

“No!” Tim steadied him. “No, very much no. That’s not it. But, um, I think I’d be an asshole if I went any further with you before telling you. I have this… secret. Um, it’s kinda in relation to you, actually…” Tim started to look awkward. “I’m trying to think of a way to explain it that doesn’t make me seem like an asshole or a lunatic… Um, hang on.”

Jason was staring at him. “A secret, huh?” This felt like dangerous territory. “Are you a serial killer? You work for some shady assholes? You owe ‘em money? If you’re a Joker stan that’s kinda a dealbreaker for me.” Jason tried desperately to laugh this off. He didn’t want this whole thing to turn to shit so quickly. Secrets had a tendency to ravage his life and he didn’t want Tim to be the one inflicting the damage. For once, Jason wanted to love someone who wouldn’t fucking turn on him.

“No, no, no,” Tim’s face wrinkled in disgust. “And hell no. That laughing asshole can suck Satan's dick while he gets sodomised by eleven rusty chainsaws in hell for all I care.”

“Fuck, I love you.”

“Yeah, well,” Tim grimaced. “He killed someone I… knew. I’ll hate him until I die.” The scowl dropped as Tim appeared to gather his courage. He took a breath. “Um, speaking of that, that’s kind of tangential to-”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Tim jumped, or tried to. Jason was a pretty effective paperweight.

Jason went completely still, tilting his head ever so slightly towards the door, parsing out the perps weight and height. Heavy breathing, shuffling feet, tall, but heavier than Val.

“Spare! Come on, I need to talk to you! You in there?”

Tim and Jason both blinked at each other, nose to nose. “ Junior? ”

Jaxxon pounded on the door again.

Tim’s sexy flushed face dissolved into an infuriated scowl. “I’m going to kill him!” he declared, wriggling to get out from under Jason.

Jason reluctantly let him up. “No problem, baby. Just remember to lure him into the bathroom first otherwise cleanup will be a bitch.”

“Noted,” Tim stalked towards the door, whipped it open and nearly got conked on the forehead by Jaxxon as he went to knock again. He shot such a poisonous glare at the taller Drake that it penetrated even Jaxxon’s usually bulletproof self assurance. “ What?”

Jaxxon was taken aback but his arrogance was quick to make him rally. “I need a loan.”

“Oh, this again!” Tim rolled his eyes. “You’ve been asking for money for weeks. I don’t have it, Junior!”

“I know you don’t want to but I really need it!” Jaxxon said plaintively. “The guys and I threw a little soiree down at the Basin, right, and Alpha Gamma Theta were all there and, like, it got a little out of control….”

“Were you the assholes that set Widow Willard’s yacht on fire?” Jason asked idly. “Asking for a friend.”

Jaxxon did a double take. “What the fuck are you doing here, Peters?”

Jason raised an eyebrow as he lounged on the rumpled bed while Tim with his freshly made hickeys turned around to give Jaxxon a stare of pure disbelief. 

“Studying for our oral exam,” Jason deadpanned.

Tim choked on a laugh.

Every implication of that flew right over Jaxxon’s head. “Right, well, okay. Look, Spare, you know I’m good for it. I’ll pay you back in, like, a year, tops.”

“It doesn’t matter… wait, what?” Tim frowned. “A year? How much were you looking to borrow, exactly?”

“Not much,” Jaxxon instant defensiveness was suspect. “Like, not too much. Maybe, like, thirty large,” he muttered quietly at the end.

Tim’s jaw dropped open. “Thirty thousand dollars? You get five thousand a month just for petty cash! What the hell have you been doing ?”

“Just… stuff,” Jaxxon replied sullenly. “It doesn’t matter. But I need the money by, like, next week.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed. Jaxxon was sweating bullets. He didn’t look like he’d been sleeping well and Jason knew for a fact there was someone whose calls he was trying to avoid. “Who’d you borrow from? Or is this some crooked card game shit?”

Jaxxon looked at him in panic. “How did you…?”

Tim groaned. “Oh my god, you’re kidding me. You actually went to a loan shark? In Gotham?”

Jaxxon flushed. “I needed the money, it was pledge week! You wouldn’t give me any! This is your fault!”

“My fault?” Tim spluttered. “For not giving you money I didn’t have after not seeing you for seven straight years, not even a birthday or a Christmas card?”

“Well, you know, we’re family,” Jaxxon wheedled. “Family looks out for one another.” He added pompously.

“The courts decided I wasn’t your family seven years ago!” Tim said hotly. “I can show you the papers if you like! I can show you the photos of the overcrowded, cockroach infested group home where I wound up while you were dining at five star restaurants and being whisked around the world on a whim!”

Jaxxon gaped. “But… but…”

“I don’t have a trust fund, you stupid moron!” Tim nearly yelled, before visibly getting a grip. “Listen to me very carefully. I. Don’t. Have. Money. Most weeks I have twenty bucks to my name, if I’m lucky. As it stands I’m abusing my cafeteria privileges - you know, that place where I work six hours every day to pay for my damn meals - just to keep me in coffee. I didn’t have the money then, I don’t have it now and I won’t in the future! Buzz off! Go and see someone you know has money, like, I don’t know, your loving parents, maybe?”

“But if they find out they’ll cut me off entirely!” Jaxxon complained. “For good this time!”

Tim held up a hand. “Not my circus, not my monkeys. In other words, not my problem. I can’t give you the money. I don’t have it to give!”

Jaxxon was red faced. “That’s a fucking lie! You do have the money!” He insisted shrilly, digging around in his pockets. “Those Verticomm people offered you, like, a hundred grand for that… thingy you made!” He pulled out a much abused piece of paper and held it up like a trump card. “See?”

Tim took the paper, scowling. “How the hell did you get this? This is addressed to me.”

Jaxxon looked shifty. “I sorta lost my mailbox key, so when I asked the Rez-Assist for the spare they gave me one marked ‘Drake’, only they didn’t know there were two Drakes, so…”

“Naturally you thought it perfectly fine to start pawing through my mail,” Tim spat, infuriated.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Jaxxon snapped. “Point is, you have the money! It’s all there in the letter! So you gotta help me out, Spare!”

Tim took a deep breath for patience. “Junior, Vericomm made an offer for my system. They’ve made me lots of offers. So have others. I didn’t accept any of them. I didn’t sign any agreements and I sure didn’t take their money!”

“What?!” Jaxxon goggled. “Why not ? That’s, like, a hundred large! You just said you’re broke.”

“Yes,” Tim hissed out. “But broke or not I am not interested in selling the patents on my system. I made that system to assist people below the poverty line, I don’t want some conglomerate boxing it up and sticking a price tag on it. Not that any of this is any of your business!” He shoved the letter back at Jaxxon.

Jaxxon fish mouthed at him, at a loss for words. “You… you didn’t take the deal? You’ve gotta take the deal!”

“Show me where that law is written and I’ll consider it!” Tim threw up his hands.”In the meantime I’ll do as I damn well please!”

“But you don’t understand, you gotta,” Jaxxon whinged. “I’m in real trouble here! Take the deal, you’ll still have most of the money and I said I’d pay you back.”

“No,” Tim retorted and grabbed the door. “Get lost. Solve your own damn problems, for once.”

“Just take the fucking deal, Spare!” Jaxxon yelled, red faced. “You’re supposed to help me! This is all your fault! You OWE me.”

The temperature dropped about a hundred degrees.

Jason was on his feet in a heartbeat but Tim’s bloodless face was fixed on Jaxxon. “I owe you?” Tim repeated, ice on every letter. Jaxxon’s mouth closed. “I owe you?” Tim repeated, his volume slowly rising. “I owe you for sitting alone in a basement cell getting homeschooled while you got to go off and have fun? I owe you for being left alone to fend for myself when Jack and Janet took their darling dying son off on adventures in every location around the world? I owe you for being forced onto a shitty diet, no treats, no enjoyment, just so my body would be ready for surgery whenever they felt like it? I owe you for hundreds of needles digging into my bone marrow without anaesthetic?” Tim got right up in Jaxxon’s face. “You took my entire blood volume ten times over, part of my liver and MY GODDAMN KIDNEY AND I OWE YOU?! ” Tim roared at the top of his voice.

Jaxxon backed up so fast he practically had a reversing alarm. “But… but…” his face was slack with terror. “But that wasn’t me, really, it was our parents…” he mumbled lamely.

“Right,” Tim’s lips pressed into a line. “And do you think they would have hesitated, even for a second, if they’d been told you needed a heart, not a kidney?” 

Jaxxon opened his mouth, then closed it again. 

The silence bloomed out, stretching longer and longer.

“Yeah,” Tim nodded. “That’s what I thought. Goodbye, Jackson.” And firmly shut the door behind him.

Jason distantly heard Jaxxon’s footfalls tread unsteadily into the distance but he only had eyes for Tim, who was pressed back against the closed door, shaking like mad. “Tim?” he said softly.

“I really don’t know, you know?” Tim croaked. “I really don’t know what they would have done.” Then he burst into tears.

“Oh, baby,” Jason felt his heart break. He gathered Tim up in his arms. “It doesn’t matter. Everyone who came after them wouldn’t. That’s the most important thing.”

Tim cried and cried.

Chapter Text

Red Hood sheltered in the lea of a building from the ever-present Gotham drizzle, with only the sound of the rain and the almost muted background chatter of the comm line for company. It had been a so-so night in terms of crimefighting; he’d managed to confirm a theory about a drug running method in Chinatown and had placed surveillance where it might prove fruitful, but other than that it was penny-ante street crime that filled his roster tonight, which was mostly uncomplicated and offered no respite from the swirling thoughts in his head. He would usually use the quiet to replay his college readings on the audio system of the helmet (thank you Babs for the text-to-talk software), but he knew he wasn’t in the right headspace to absorb it. He was too busy thinking about Tim.

For once, the Jason side of his life was taking up Red Hood’s attention. 

Jason had held on to Tim through the shaking wreck of his mini-breakdown in the dorms, but the whole act hadn’t brought Tim much catharsis. After the storm had passed, Jason had stayed in and tried his best to comfort his boyfriend, feeling clumsy and inadequate while doing so. 

The worst part was that Tim had to grapple with his guilt for not helping Jaxxon. He couldn’t help it. Ten straight years of being told his only purpose in life was to serve his elder brothers every need and every whim was hard conditioning to break, even with the bulwark of years of therapy undoing it. Tim admitted morosely that there was still a part of him - a small part, getting more infinitesimal every day - that wanted the Drake’s approval more than anything else, to get some part of the love he saw them bestow on Jaxxon. He’d starved for it throughout childhood. His one persistent fantasy throughout was simply to be included in their wonderful lives.

The whole situation was just so egregiously fucked up. Tim knew, he actually said it to Jason, he knew that the Drake’s were, every last one of them, selfish assholes. He knew they’d never ever be able to fulfill the need Tim had yearned so desperately for. They’d never seen Tim as a whole person, deserving of love or attention. But Tim had always had the carrot dangled in front of him, telling him that if he did what they asked then maybe he’d be one of them. Tim knew it was stupid to keep running around the track - the carrot wasn’t even there anymore - but it was so ingrained he couldn’t stop. The futility of it made him feel bad, knowing he was doing anyway made him feel worse. It had spiralled him into a major depressive episode once and fed into his low self-worth and anxiety now.

Jason tried his best to convey that, as far as Jason was concerned, the Drake’s weren’t worthy to kiss Tim’s feet. Tim was the most amazing person he knew - Jason had said it and absolutely meant it, despite his array of fairly amazing acquaintances. But he knew how erratically such assurances landed. No matter how much Jason knew Bruce loved him, there never would be not now a small part of him that waited for B to turn on him. That was how conditioning worked. They twisted you up and made the twists a part of how you functioned. You couldn’t just disprove them and move on.

He wondered if he could slide a couple more murders under the no-kill truce. The Drakes wouldn’t be his most challenging target to date. It wouldn’t fix Tim’s problems, he knew, but it would make Jason feel a fuck tonne better.

“Hey Hood.”

“Still not talking to you, blondie,” Hood grunted at the soft voice that had shadowed up to his sheltered spot.

“Hey, I said I was sorry!” Batgirl grimaced. “How was I supposed to know O would run off and blab to N?”

"In my defence, I wasn’t aware any of this was in confidence,” Oracle broke in over the radio chatter like the eerie omniscient creeper that she was. “You didn’t exactly conduct your affairs in private, either. Your first kiss was pretty well documented.”

Hood grunted. He allowed that he’d never kept it a secret, exactly, but that didn’t mean he liked the family getting all up in his face about shit that literally had nothing to do with them. “What the fuck ever,” he snapped. “It’s still none of your business who I’m with or why. And it certainly,” he sent a narrow eyed look at Batgirl. “Wasn’t anyone’s right to spread it around.”

“Okay, you’re right,” Batgirl conceded with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have gossiped. But you’re really into T… uh, T. I thought you’d, you know, invite him Thanksgiving and stuff. I didn’t see the problem with anyone in the family knowing you’re happy!”

“Me either.”

Red Hood almost screamed in frustration. They didn’t get it. “You really want me to spell this out?” Jason felt his voice drop into pure street patios like it always did when he was upset but he was so angry over Tim’s situation and so annoyed by the family’s interference that he was past caring. “I got nothing under the mask, you feel me? Fucking nothing. You all got lives out there, outside your masks, fucking whoop-de-do, but I don’t and I never have! The last five months have been literally the only time in the last five fucking years since I died that I’ve had things that are just mine and not fucking Red Hood’s. It’s fucking alien to me, okay, and it’s hard for me to trust it, it’s hard to get a grip on it because I’ve never had it and I have no fucking idea what it’s supposed to look like. I’m still trying to work it out for myself, which is fucking hard enough without a parade of noisy morons poking and prodding and not letting it be! What the fuck, people, do you really think so little of me that I’m not allowed to keep something , fucking anything for my fucking self?!” Hood felt harsh angry breaths blow out through his filters, and his helmet started to ping, warning his vitals had gone excessively high. “You know what? You were the ones all ragging on me to find my normal. Agent A, the Bat, O, all you fuckers, and I fucking did that. Now you suddenly need to know everything about my shit? Apparently I can taste normal but I can’t be trusted to have it without supervision, huh?” He concluded bitterly.

Batgirl gaped at him. “Hood, I-”

“You’re all a bunch of fucking hypocrites.”

There was a stunned silence over the line; Hood idly wondered just how many of the Bats were on the frequency.

“Hood, that’s not-” Batgirl didn’t get very far in before Oracle interrupted, her voice preternaturally flat.

“Be advised we have armed assailants and a possible kidnapping,” Oracle said rapidly. “Gotham University grounds.”

Red Hood felt his stomach drop. “Location?”

“Student residence hall.”

Batgirl and Red Hood looked at each other in disbelief, then reached for their grapples. 

Hood’s bike was closer, so they rode together, breaking every known road law getting from Chinatown to the U. Batgirl kept a steady stream of updates from Oracle as Red Hood focused on the road and tried to keep the fear he felt from engulfing him.

They didn’t have any information yet, he reasoned. There were plenty of rich kids and kids with shady parents that were ripe kidnapping targets. There was no proof that Tim was even involved in any way. 

But fuck, his hindbrain was screaming at him. Tim wasn’t the type to back down. He didn’t blink, he didn’t falter, if he thought what he was doing was right. What if he’d gotten in the way? What if he’d tried to interfere?

What if he’d gotten hurt? Or worse?

Jason no longer knew what a good life looked like without Tim in it. Tim was his signpost into normal, he’d made Jason’s life richer and fuller and better just by being there. Judging from the way Jason had just pinned the family’s ears back for their to-be-expected curiosity, he was in way deeper than he expected, way deeper than he’d ever thought he’d ever have the capacity or strength left to go. 

Jason had a… normal life. One that he found himself unexpectedly and fiercely protective of. One that centred, for better or for worse, around Tim Drake.

Red Hood would go on without him. Red Hood’s only mission was to grimly march towards whatever crazy death life would no doubt deal out for him, given the shit he got involved with. Jason Todd, though? He didn't think Jason Todd would survive losing Tim.

They blitzed straight into the U, eschewed the parking lot, drove straight up the main stairs, through the cloisters, past a crowd of astonished evacuees and were off the bike before it even stopped moving. 

Police, ambulances, crying kids; Red Hood took a breath and let his detective come to the fore. 

The kids were scared, not hurt. There was someone being loaded onto a stretcher and Red Hood had a heart attack for every second prior to realising the occupant was the elderly custodian. He’d been nailed in the shoulder but it didn’t look too bad.

One brave, or foolhardy, campus security worker approached them sternly. “Hey! You can’t be here!”

Batgirl wisely intercepted him as Red Hood’s fists bunched, nowhere near the right frame of mind to listen to someone tell him no.

“This is connected to a case we’re on. Call the Commissioner if you have a problem,” she stated firmly. “If not, tell us what happened here.”

This was way too far above the security guy’s paygrade. He folded. “Three or four guys gained access to the residence hall. They were armed with assault rifles. The custodian tried to trigger the fire alarm and got shot for his troubles. We’re still trying to figure out what happened inside. A lot of kids panicked and evacuated and we’re still trying to do a headcount.”

“They said it was a possible kidnapping,” Batgirl prompted while Red Hood loomed behind her.

“Maybe,” security guy scratched his forehead. “We’ve had some reports from kids saying they saw a couple of people being dragged into a blue van in the parking lot. Some others are saying they saw some students being pulled at gunpoint out of the dorm. Eye witness statements are all over the place.”

Sound went away. Red Hood peeled away from them, went to the now unlocked residence hall door - usually locked down with key card access this late - through the lobby and up the stairs to a room he’d gotten to know very well indeed.

He reached the end of the corridor and nearly sank to his knees. 

The door was kicked in. The room was a mess.

Tim and Val were nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Text

Red Hood didn’t know how long he stood there, the only thing keeping him in place was his crime scene protocol lessons that Batman had etched into his bones a lifetime ago. A crime scene is a machine of many moving parts. Take it apart piece by piece.

He could see where Tim had been at his disaster of a work desk, soldering away. He could see where Val had been propped up in bed, reading. He could see by the abandoned soldering iron leaving a smoking trail on the carpet and the abandoned leg prosthetic how they’d both been surprised by the door being kicked down. They guys that had taken them hadn’t bothered shouting or ordering; they’d come in, blitzed them and dragged them out without a word.

Efficient and professional.

Hood’s teeth ground.

“Hood? Hood, wake up, damn you!” Batgirl took her life in her hands giving his shoulder a shake. “Snap out of it!”

Hood shook loose from her grasp but also shook loose of his fugue. He shivered into professional mode, shoulders squared. “These guys were pros.”

“Okay, fine,” Batgirl nodded. “I’m with you there. So guess what, you’re now a witness as well as a detective. So you tell me, did Tim mention anything to you about any trouble he was in?”

Hood spun on her. “What the fuck?”

“Hey, we can’t be sentimental right now,” Batgirl snapped. “How many times have we heard family members chorus about how such-and-such would ‘never do such a thing’? No one is ever exactly who they appear. You know this Hood.”

Red Hood resented her implication but he had to grudgingly concede. “No, he didn’t tell me anything.” He was going to, though, Hood added inside his screaming head. “He was trying to tell me something a couple of days ago. His brother came by and fucked him up so I never followed up.”

Batgirl nodded sadly. “Is it possible he got mixed up in something bad? I mean, he’s brilliant and he’s poor; that makes him a pretty ripe recruit for the criminal element. He may not have meant to but making what he makes takes money to build. That’s usually how they get their hooks in. I’ll have O check his financials.”

No one is who they say they are.

Red Hood felt a sharp pain in his chest. Could he really have nothing to himself without some shitty catch? He should have stayed in the fucking Bowery. Sure it was shitty but at least it didn’t fucking tear his heart from his chest.

But Jason , the newly reborn part of himself surged up in protest, filled with absolute certainty that went beyond cold logic. “No,” the word came out etched in stone. “No, you’re wrong. This has nothing to do with Tim.”

“You know him, Hood,” Batgirl said gently. “You like him. So do I. We’re too close to this to make an objective assessment. I don’t want to believe it either but if we’re going to find him fast we need to-”

“No, you're fucking wrong,” Red Hood insisted. “And it’s because I know him that I know this isn’t about him. Think about it. Yes, he might be desperate enough to go to a shark or a shady dealer, yes, he might do it to get his system working, but shit, the Tim Drake I know would never be stupid enough to get caught . He’s a fucking engineer, and a fucking genius! I once saw him take down a child porno ring trying to use his goddamn system to broadcast. He cracked their encryptions in two minutes flat and referred the whole fucking parade to INTERPOL . Anonymously . No way even a high level banker would be able to get a bead on him; he’s too smart to ever meet them in person and they’d never be able to track him electronically. Hell, Tim’s good enough that he could’ve just fucking stolen the money himself. No,” Red Hood shook his head. “I guarantee you, this has nothing to do with Tim.”

Batgirl stared at him and then slowly nodded. Yes, she could absolutely see the point of his argument and had plenty of her own experiences to check against. “Maybe it was Val?”

Red Hood blew out a breath. “Possibly, though to my knowledge he hasn’t got any issues. The GI Bill’s paying for his schooling and he’s got no money woes that I know of. Check. He’s tight with his family, his uncle’s in construction; there might be something there.” He could see Val doing something less than sensible if his family were in trouble.

“Got it,” Batgirl nodded.

Red Hood ran his fingers over Tim’s desk but left the scene as it was. There wasn’t much more information to be gleaned from it. He doubted the police would find anything.

Heart feeling like it was beating out of his chest, he stalked away and down the stairs to the ground floor, scanning for any more clues, any more signs that would lead him to Tim. Stranger kidnappings had a fucking short countdown. He was trying not to think about it too much. He didn’t expect to find much as he scanned. It was mostly an exercise in keeping the boiling rage contained until he could unleash it on the assholes who’d taken Tim. They didn’t know it yet but that was going to be the worst and last mistake they’d ever fucking make.

“Hey, Red Hood!”

Hood snapped out of his grim focus at the sound of an unfamiliar voice.

A vaguely familiar young woman, her features flat with Bowery-induced toughness in the face of violence was walking up to him, hands out because in the Bowery you don’t act threatening unless you intend to follow through. Hood did his best to relax his shoulders and not look quite so forbidding.

Another girl, white to the lips, red eyed and sweating was nonetheless bravely trying to call her back. “Sweet Jesus, Kat, get back here! That’s the Red Hood!”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Kat snorted. “An’ if you lived in the Bowery you’d know this fucker’s a goddamn hero, Lingy. Just hang back a sec, okay? I gotta talk to him.”

Oh, he recognised her now. Katerin, the poor unfortunate who’d had a tryst with his asshole roommate months ago and had shown enough taste to not come back. “Yeah?”

“Look, this might not have anything to do with anything,” she prefaced. “But, um, I might know who let them into the building.”

That was a lead. Red Hood gave her his full attention. “Name, description?”

“There’s this guy, Jaxxon Drake,” Katerin shook her head. “He’s a complete tool. I saw him waiting outside the hall doors when I came in at about ten. He was tryin’ not to act suspicious, which immediately made me flag him. I didn’t see what happened afterwards and I didn’t see him let anyone in, but he was acting seriously fucking wack.”

Hood could barely hear past the ringing in his ears. He forced himself to be exact; he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Katerin was just being petty after Drake had been such an asshole to her. “What was he doing made you think so?”

“Dude, it’s like forty degrees outside and he was sweating bullets,” Katerin snorted. “The idiot was standing out there in a t-shirt, shivering. And also, I haven’t been able to get within twenty feet of him this year without him sneering and trying to grab my ass or call me a filthy whore. We walked right by him like he didn’t even see us.”

“That's true,” her hovering roommate piped up. “We thought he’d be trouble and he just…” she waved her hands but shuffled back a little when Red Hood looked at her.

Hood could feel his heart thundering against his ribs. “You didn’t see him after?”

“No, but the shooting started about twenty minutes after that,” Katerin reported succinctly. “I grabbed Lings and hauled ass to the maintenance closet. Honestly,” she grumbled. “Everyone was fucking panicking and running for the main entrance. You’d think they’d never been in a shooting before.”

Red Hood barked a laugh. “Not everyone gets the Bowery bootcamp, honey. You know where Drake is now?”

“That asshole?” Katerin noted. “He’d love to be a tough guy but he’s a fucking pussy. If he hasn’t already rabbited, he’s probably still hiding under his bed, pissing himself.”

Red Hood nodded. “Stay in your room until the campus cops come to get you and tell ‘em everything you told me. Write it down, okay? And also? Thanks.”

Katerin nodded. “My mom’s pimp messed her face up but good. Best day of our lives was when he went to the hospital, two blown kneecaps and no teeth. I owe you a lot more than the truth but fuck, that’s all I got for now.”

Red Hood nodded and jerked his chin, indicating they should get back to shelter. When they’d fled, he tilted his head up towards the top of the stairs, where Batgirl was coming down. “You get all that?”

She nodded grimly. “Oracle is pinging his phone now.”

“Yank his texts too.” Red Hood was already heading for, funnily enough, his own room.

“Please, we’re not fucking amateurs,” Batgirl snorted. “And Hood? Dead people don’t talk. We need him alive.”

“Please,” Red Hood felt the first smile of the night stretching his lips maniacally. “I’m not a fucking amateur either.”

Red Hood knocked on the door, seething with absolute… calm. He clicked off his voice modulator and announced. “Campus security! We need to evacuate? Anyone in there?”

“Seriously?” Batgirl whispered through the comms, hanging back out of the line of sight.

“Trust me, he’s a bona fide idiot.”

Sure enough, there was the sound of a door lock turning and light spilling around the crack of a door. Jaxxon wasn’t even facing them, he was looking at his phone. “Dude, can I just pack some AAAAARG!” His voice dissolved into a shriek of pain as Red Hood’s fist hit him square in the middle of his face. His nose exploded with blood like it was a packed charge, and he staggered back and fell to the floor, dropping his phone.

Even though he’d had to pull his punch to keep under the bone-breaking barrier, that was still so damn satisfying that Hood promised himself a chance to do it again before he left. “Hey there! We’re a part of the campus allied security and we have some questions about what happened tonight. Mind if I take a seat? Thanks so much, man!” His happy, jovial tone was appropriately terrifying through the voice modulator.

Jaxxon went grey, flailing backward on the floor, one hand pressed to his face and painted with sticky strings. “Oh my god, oh my god! You’re the Red Hood! Please don’t kill me! I told Al I’d get him the money!”

“Number one, I’m not a fucking enforcer,” Red Hood snapped. “People work for me, sonny boy, not the other way around. Two, your continued good health depends on how fast you answer my questions. Let’s say we set a rate of one broken bone per five second delay. Does that sound good?”

Jaxxon gaped at him, mute with terror.

“FIVE , ” Red Hood bellowed. “FOUR! THREE! TWO!”

“YES, YES, OKAY!” Jaxxon shouted, going even paler. “Whatever you want, man!”

“Good,” Red Hood settled back, perfectly at ease. “First question; who the fuck is Al ?”

Jaxxon hesitated but Jason saw him glance at the clock. Good; he thought they had terms. “G-Gualberto Pedrinho? He works out of the Sansablanco Bar in the lower west? Only he told me to call him Al. One of my buddies told me he’d give me a payday at very good rates and I needed some cash fast. I mean, I can pay him back, I got money from my folks and…”

While Jaxxon rambled out his life story, Red Hood checked his mental rolodex. That name wasn’t on it, though he didn’t work the lower west usually. His helmet’s internal system pinged. 

“Small fry street banker, sometimes drug runner. Connected to some of the Latin American cartels,” Oracle filled in. “Kidnapping is not his ballpark . His main boss is Bento Vargas, that’s more his thing.”

Jaxxon had trailed off and was watching him in terrified silence.

“Bento Vargas,” Red Hood rumbled. “You know him?”

Jaxxon looked perplexed. “Who?”

Red Hood loomed forward without getting off his chair. “You wouldn’t be lyin’ to me, would you?” he purred.

“I’m not! I swear!” Jaxxon yelped, cowering. “I never heard of any Bento Vargas! I mean, Al would talk to a Benny on the phone but I never met the dude!”

“He’s telling the truth,” Batgirl was scrolling through her field phone. “Lots of texts back and forth from an ‘Al’. Nothing from any variation of Bento.”

“How do you know that?” Jaxxon bleated. “Did you hack my phone?”

He yowled as Red Hood clipped him sharply across the face. “I’m gonna tell you once and I ain’t gonna remind you, fuckwit. We ask, you answer. You wait too long, snap . You lie, two snaps. Capiche?”

Jaxxon cowered back. “I...I…”

“Do you understand? ”

“Yes! Yes! Fuck! Just leave me alone, please!” Jaxxon started to cry with terror, wet, bloody snot and tears laminating his face.

Red Hood forced himself to stay still. As enraged as he was right now, if this moron swooned from his hysteria he’d be, unbelievably, even more useless. “There’s only one thing I wanna know right now, asshole. Why did you let those fuckers into the dorm ?”

Jaxxon’s face clouded, his eyes darted wildly. He licked his lips and tried “I didn’t-”

Red Hood moved like a snake. In one fractured second he had his hand on Jaxxon’s wrist and the next…

Jaxxon screamed in pain. Red Hood hadn’t even had the mercy in him to break his little and ring fingers; his index and middle fingers were now bent at off angles, snapped like twigs. He moaned and cradled his hand, grey-blue in the face. “What the f-f-uck, what the-”

“I warned you,” Red Hood intoned with perfect calm. “Two snaps for a lie.”

Jaxxon trained teary eyes on Batgirl, who was standing back, stone faced. “P-please help me,” he sobbed. “Please! He’s going to kill me, please, please!”

Batgirl’s lips thinned. “Oh, he won’t kill you, I’ll make sure of that. As to anything else? You let a bunch of armed criminals into a dorm full of defenceless kids. I’m not fixing to be real helpful to you right now. As far as I’m concerned you’re getting off light with a few broken bones. We have credible eyewitnesses stating they saw you between ten and ten-thirty, loitering outside the dorms, not dressed for the cold and looking stressed out. I bet if we accessed the security cams over the door they’d tell an epic story. So how about you stop pretending to be clever and tell us what we need to know.”

Jaxxon's whole body shrivelled up. “There are cameras?” he croaked, like a little kid who just got told there wasn’t a Santa. A criminal mastermind Jaxxon Drake was most assuredly not.

Red Hood got to his feet and fucking loomed. “Why did you let them in the dorms? Why did they take Tim Drake? Tick tock asshole, before I break something else.”

Jaxxon whimpered. “I never meant for this to happen!” He burst out. “I didn’t! Al said he needed the money back! I… I overspent a little and my folks found out about a credit card I wasn’t meant to have so they reduced my allowance! I g-got expectations, I can’t let my boys down, I just can’t! But I didn’t have the money but Spare… Tim! Tim!” he squealed when Red Hood stepped up in his space and glared at him. “Tim, my brother, he’s really smart and he made some… thingy, like, a computer system and he had it patented and… like, people offered him a lot of money for it! I saw some of the letters, right, because there was a mix up with our mailboxes and… a-a-anyway! I-I-I showed Al the letter because it’s, like, collateral, right, there was money in the can; only Sp-Tim! Tim wouldn’t take the deal! I asked him and he said no! So I-I- went to A-Al and I told him Tim wouldn’t take the deal and A-Al said that maybe he didn’t understand how business worked because he’s just an engineer and maybe he could have his pal Benny talk to him, because Benny’s a really successful b-businessman. Like, help him understand that he can make a lot of money, you know, and I told him Tim didn’t like me very much so he wouldn’t come to the bar to talk to Benny and Al just said ‘no worries, Benny can come talk to him at the dorm’. They were just supposed to come and talk to him, like a business deal! My dad does it all the time! Wining and dining and stuff!”

Red Hood forced himself to breathe. If he’d had a gun in his hands in this very moment, Jaxxon Drake would have been shit outta luck. “So what you’re tellin’ me here is,” he snarled. “That you sold out your kin to pay your fucking penny-ante debts that you only racked up because you’re a useless shit stain of a human being. Is that about right?”

“There weren’t supposed to be any guns,” Jaxxon sounded more petulant than plaintive. “Al said they’d just talk to him, make him an offer or something.”

“And you believed that?” Batgirl asked contemptuously while Hood struggled not to just start punching without stopping. “You actually believed a bunch of shady criminals would keep their word? Honey, you’re too dumb to fucking live! I’m amazed you passed pre-school!”

Having a pretty woman deliver such a scathing set down punctured whatever was left of Jaxxon’s arrogance. He slumped down, still cradling his hand, sobbing impotently. “It’s not my fault!” he wailed. “That’s what they said!” 

Red Hood and Batgirl looked at each other in disgust. It was times like this Red Hood really understood Tim’s point about Jaxxon not being equipped for adulthood. He was a spoiled little kid with a little kid’s self centred worldview, one that could barely comprehend things like cause and effect, or consequences. Honestly, Hood had met toddlers in the Bowery with a better grip on the realities of the world than this spineless manchild. 

But that wasn’t to say Red Hood was growing a perverse sense of sympathy for Jaxxon; not at all. This moron was fucking older than him. He damn well knew right from wrong, he just didn’t care if it didn’t service his needs.

And he’d sold out Tim. Red Hood had painted walls red for things a lot less personal.

“Come in, Hood, Batgirl,” Oracle’s voice cut in. “We have a lead. Bento Vargas’ car service dropped him off at Sansablanco half an hour ago. The bar is closed but CCTV has shown figures going in at random for the last hour and a blue van was dumped two blocks north.”

Right. Vargas was on a ticking clock too. His boys hadn’t been discreet. He had to squeeze whatever the hell he wanted out of Tim fast. Red Hood felt the knots in his chest loosen; this, at least, was familiar. His sort of normalcy.

He hauled a screaming Jaxxon up by his ear and got right in his bloody, mucusy, swollen face. “You better spend the rest of tonight fucking praying that Tim Drake gets out of this alive and in once piece and you never get within a fucking mile of him ever again. Otherwise,” Red Hood got his helmet and terrifying glowing eyes so close he could see himself reflected in Jaxxon’s pinpricked pupils. “I will be back.”

There was a dripping, dribbling noise from down south as the last of Jaxxon Drake’s dignity let go at the same moment as his bladder. He gave a squeaking little noise of terror. Hood took that as an agreement and dropped him into the mess he’d made, where he curled up in a shaking, crying, incoherent ball.

Red Hood wrote him out of the universe and turned to a grim faced Batgirl. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

The Sansablanco was a middle of the range joint hanging on by it’s fingernails in the slowly gentrifying area it sat in. Not quite a dive, but certainly not a family friendly environment either, it was one of those places where working men on the lower end of the spectrum came to get drunk and maybe catch some adult entertainment on a Friday night. The aesthetic was blazing and brightly coloured, latin in it’s flavours.

For now, it was quiet and cold. There was, ostensibly, a cleaning truck parked outside to give nosy neighbours a reason to dismiss the clearly closed bar’s lights being on, but the illusion got suspiciously hinkier with the addition of a couple of pricey town cars, a handful of high end muscle cars and one very expensive limo idling in the tiny lot.

“I’ve got confirmation on the blue van, ” Oracle told them as they worked in the seething, icy Gotham rain. “It’s definitely the one used earlier tonight at the University.”

“What’s with the shiny car show happening in the parking lot?” Batgirl asked. “That’s a lot of entourage for one bad guy.”

“Unclear,” Oracle responded. “The cars are almost all exclusively used by one car service but they cater to a lot of different cartels.”

“Fuck,” Red Hood grunted as he plugged a cord into a maintenance socket on the roof they’d chosen. “Sounds like a fundraiser.”

“That’d be my guess ,” Oracle agreed grimly.

“A fundraiser?” Batgirl blinked.

“Tim’s system is high end, none of these guys can crack it,” Red Hood snarled. “But now they have the skeleton key in their possession, it’s just a bidding war about who gets to use it. Vargas is a fucking small-fry with a big-fish attitude, if I’m reading his sheet right. Him having sole access is a big fucking jump into the big leagues, if he can get the rest of the small fish to swim along. Oracle, we ready?”

“Ready to record,” Oracle confirmed. “Back up ETA is ten minutes. Don’t get impatient.”

“Fuck you. It depends on what I hear,” Red Hood aimed the top of the range directional microphone at the windows. He’d usually only take this level of passive intelligence gathering when he was trying to use low level dipshits to lead him to high level dipshits. Even then, Jason was mostly an old fashioned walk-and-talk detective. But this was Tim’s life; Red Hood wasn’t going in guns blazing until he knew exactly who and where the players were. The odds were too high on stray bullets.

He waited impatiently while the sound of the rain and other distortions were cleaned off the feed and then…. “... -mothy, Timothy, Timothy, this is a more than fair offer. Think of the things you could do with that kind of money!”

“No.”

“Now let’s not be hasty, here. Others have made offers, why is this any different?”

“Really?” Tim’s reply was scathing. “Really.”

On the one hand, the amount of withering disdain on those two syllables was kind of enthralling to hear. Hood couldn’t hear a single quaver in Tim’s voice, no sign at all that Vargas was anything more to him than something to be scraped off his shoe. Hood was kind of mesmerised by the sheer nerve of it.

On the other hand… “Fuck, baby, you and me gotta talk about appropriate responses to bad guys.”

Batgirl sent him a weird look. “We’re experts on that?”

“Ah, yes, your somewhat unorthodox invitation. There’s no need to be angry, we are a passionate people. We get a little over enthusiastic at times. You will be returned unharmed. You have my word. But I need your help here, my friend. My associates here are very interested in your system, they wish to know more about it. Don’t you want to help me? After all, I guaranteed your safety.”

Okay, Vargas was still in avuncular mode. It was a shitty tactic to give a frightened hostage hope that they would get out if they just did as they were told. If they sold it well enough, the poor sap would follow along even when the fangs came out. 

This was good and bad, Hood decided. Good because avuncular mode tended to rely on no one getting hurt; bad because eventually those fangs would come out. “Position?”

“Hang on, sonar mapping is running,” Batgirl tapped away at her computer. “There’s a lot of big guys shuffling around in there. It’s hard to get a clear picture.”

Fuck, not good. But they could work with this. If Vargas was still trying to charm Tim, that gave the Bats more time. 

Tim, however, may not have gotten the memo about stalling. “ You really are a D-Lister aren’t you ?” he spoke with cold, ringing clarity, contempt on every syllable.

“I beg your pardon?”

“A D-Lister ,” Tim replied archly. “A bottom feeding, low rung, low threat D-List villain. I mean, I can sort of see the aesthetic you’re going for; ringlets and dyed eyebrows and gold teeth. You’re probably getting your boys to call you the Conquistador or something lame like that, the last scion of the old pirate kings or whatever. Do you actually think a two-bit drug runner whose cartel runs by committee vote is going to make a mark on this city? Please,” Tim sneered. “This is Gotham. We’re the themed villain generator for the East Coast! We’ve got two Riddler-themed for every Joker-themed, three animal themed for every one genuinely deformed, the mad scientist ratio is 0.27 per capita per square mile and nauticals? We were the smugglers mecca from the founding fathers all the way to the rise of Batman. We’re up to our eyeballs in nauticals, generations of them. And they’re all fucking geniuses! They have actual charisma oozing from every pore, unlike the Axe body spray you’re using to cover your unfortunate little IBS issue. Any A-Lister will smell the egocentric, sweaty desperation to be great on you, among other unfortunate things, and laugh in your face if you try to muscle in on their turf. I’d focus on your personal problems first if I were you. Dude, seriously, you need to lay off the spicy food, I’m telling you this as a concerned citizen-”

There was the crack of flesh hitting flesh. Every single muscle in Hood’s body went taunt at a violin string.

There was a ring of dark laughter. “Listen to this mouthy little mouse! Do you think you can bravado your way out of this, mouse? These men here, they will shoot you dead. You should pay attention. I’m trying to help you. I see myself as magnanimous to those that are useful to me. Please, be useful.”

“That’s the thing asshole,"  Tim’s voice was slightly slurred. “You see yourself as a lot of things. You don’t think it. All the A-Listers that you want desperately to be like and can’t quite figure out why you don’t inspire the level of respect - Scarecrow, Mr Freeze, Penguin? That’s what they have that you don’t. They wouldn’t have tried to charm me. They’re fucking smart, and they know I’m fucking smart. They know they’re already great. They absolutely believe it, which is why they absolutely sell it. You? You want to be great, but you don’t really believe that you are. You think my system is the golden goose, yes? IT infrastructure, untraceable, untrackable, already in place, already maintained remotely. These days it’s less about the people you know but how fast you can transfer the money, right? The A-Listers know they need to cultivate people who are smarter than they are, they do their research into their target, know their moral code. They wouldn’t insult me with such obvious lies the way you’ve been doing all night. You’re a spineless, egotistical little worm with an inferiority complex. No way you get the keys to the kingdom and let me walk away. My exit interview will be a bullet to the head, because you can’t have an engineer that smart, smarter than you, with his sticky little fingers all over your system, right? Don’t look so shocked. Genius, remember?”

“And you’re a fucking idiot,”  Tim continued, pitch not budging one iota. “Really, just the lowest of the lowest of the low. You should check your childhood home for lead pipes, I’m worried about you. You actually think a genius living in poverty and being exposed to all the pimps and criminals and dealers like yourself wouldn’t have a plan for this? The instant I die, I’ve got a thousand airtight contingencies to get that system into the hands of Waynetech; which is as good as giving it free to the police as far as you're concerned. And Vargas? All those times your penny-ante hackers tried to get into my system? We kicked them out but, and this is the thing I want you to think about, we saved every fucking IP you worked from . Every single one. We cloned your systems, we hacked you right back. It’s an extensive data map of every inch of your operations and the operations of all your associates here. Now, in the hands of the poor and the downtrodden, it doesn’t mean much. No one listens to us. But when a heavyweight like Waynetech comes in swinging… hoo boy, I hope you know how to duck.”

“And yeah, a lot of it isn’t legally actionable; warrants and due process and the like and so on, but you’ll have to go quiet, won’t you? You’ll have to be a good boy and behave for the cameras and the IRS and the beatwalker who’ll be doing new patrols in your area and by the time you can safely stick your heads up from under that spotlight fifty other ambitious little outfits will have taken over your routes and your assets and your customers and that’ll be that, Mr Pirate King because Gotham doesn’t wait for anyone to catch up. You’ll be shit out of stock, shit out of clients, shit out of connections and shit out of luck and it will. Be. My. Pleasure.”

Silence. 

The sound of shuffling feet. 

Red Hood felt his jaw drop.

They were fucking blinking.

Hood and Batgirl slowly looked at each other. Batgirl couldn’t see it, but Red Hood had the dopiest, most lovestruck grin on his face that the world had ever seen. Holy shit, Jason was so in love right now. In love and turned on.

“Now where the hell is Val ?” Tim demanded angrily over the wire.

There was a seething silence before Bento spat out something in Portuguese. The background noises were choppy but they picked up some scuffling sounds as a wave of different voices started complaining in rapid succession to Vargas.

“We might have a position,” Batgirl reported softly. “Satellite thermals and the sonar map put Tim on the dance floor, ten feet from the bar.”

“So he’s near the skylight,” Red Hood grabbed his grapple.

“Wait, Hood, the other Bats will be here in two minutes,” Batgirl hissed. “The more Bats per bad guy the more Tim’s odds go up! Just wait!”

Fretting impatiently, Hood kept his guns at the ready.

“Val! ” Tim’s cry through the audio cut through his tension. “Val, are you okay? ”

“Peachykeen,” Val’s dry voice was out of breath. “You ?”

“Well isn’t this nice?” Vargas oozed into the reunion. “Two compadres meeting again. But I’m afraid you’re not being very helpful, Timothy and I just can’t let disrespect like that stand. You’re right, this is Gotham. And in Gotham those so-called A-Listers tend to leave a lot lying around. Like this.”

“What is that? A syringe?” Val sounded perplexed.

“That’s Scarecrow’s mark,” Tim said, his voice flattened. “That’s Fear.”

“Excellent! Such a smart boy! But not too smart, as we know, not too smart. Now it just so happens I only have enough for one. But I’m told it’s a particularly potent strain. Makes people violent. You know there’s a church not far from here? We could shoot one of you up and strap a gun to your hands and just drop you off. Then, we watch the chaos unfold as you shoot at everything that moves. A smart boy or a former soldier? The boys might take bets on which of you would be a better shot before this lovely stuff makes your heart beat so fast it explodes. Maybe we take you to an apartment complex. Or a mall. So busy for the festive season, all the little children running around, getting to stay up late, special treat! Oh, it’s terrible that something had to happen to them because you weren’t helpful Timothy.”

Red Hood got to his feet. “Fuck the Bats, we’re going in now.”

“Hood!”

“But since I’m still magnanimous, I’ll let you pick which one I give it to. The other can have a quick death, how about that? You pick.”

“Fuck man, give it to the kid.”

“Val!”

“Dude, black man with a gun? I’m dead either way,” Val gave a huff of resigned laughter. “Just do this for me kid, okay? ”

“No one is doing anything,”  Tim yelled at the top of his voice. “They’re fucking idiots! They have no idea what’s coming for them! It was over the minute they showed up! ”

“Why Timothy, whatever do you mean?”

“Haven’t you heard? You’re in the Red Hood’s territory now.”

Red Hood picked that moment to crash through the skylight to general shouts and chaos. 

“And he,” Tim finished, grinning fiercely. “Doesn’t like D-Listers.”

Chapter Text

Jesus Christ on a fucking cracker, Jason could absolutely see what Tim meant about a wannabe nautical themer. The photo Oracle had sent them had been a mugshot several years old; in the ensuing years since his escape, Vargas had cultivated a luscious, long waterfall of shiny black hair. He had the kind of goatee and mutton chop combo you only get at a three-figure salon. He wore an expensive suit which suggested Regency naval officer but Tim had been right; you could tell he lacked the unswerving fuck-you-all confidence the average Gotham Rogue had in spades that allowed them to get into their hilariously goofy togs and really let their freak flags fly.

Tim was spot on, Hood hated D-Listers. The Rogues were fucking lunatics, but they committed to it. Rogues were at least interesting. D-Listers were a wastes of space, fists, bullets and time. Every last one. 

The semi-automatic Vargas had clipped to his wide belt was solidly practical though, and so was the syringe of shit he was about to jab into Tim. Rage descended in a haze of green; though Hood was never so far gone as to start firing. Tim was just behind Vargas relative to where Hood had landed and he was tied to a chair. Rubber bullets fucking stung at close range, even ricochets. Hood didn’t want to risk it. 

Time to help Vargas with his theme-anxiety then. 

Hood lunged fast as a shocked Vargas had a moment of confusion as to whether to raise the gun or the syringe. It would be poetic to say the sight of a furiously intent Red Hood bearing down on him made him rethink his life choices, but Hood moved too fast for that. One gloved hand wrenched the gun up and out of Vargas’ grip even as the slowpoke managed to squeeze the trigger and the other hand went for a straight up, street-taught eye gouge.

Vargas shrieked in pain. Hood may have jabbed in a little too hard, judging by the blood. Hood didn’t care. He had to swing around the bloodied Vargas fast as Vargas dropped to the floor writhing, grab Tim and hold on tight because Vargas’ guests all started opening fire.

Slugs flatted against Hood's armor as he bulled Tim and his chair back towards the bar, drawing his own pistol and firing blindly behind him. When you’re surrounded by nothing but enemies, you can’t miss. There were yells of pain and swearing in a variety of colourful languages as everyone was suddenly scrambling for cover.

Val had been closer to the bar, dragged in and subsequently propped up by a couple of meaty thugs, one pant leg draping emptily. When the fighting started, the combat veteren in him showed itself; he disabled one guy with a swift, efficient jab and used his unbalanced reel backwards from the force to plow into the other guy, dragging him along as his sinewy body hopped at high speed in a kind of delayed fall. He managed to slam the guys midriff into the bar, fist a hand into the guys hair and ram his head into the wood, once, twice, three times, before letting him drop.

“Not bad,” Red Hood grinned madly. 

“Army Rangers, son,” Val declared through gritted white teeth. 

“Over the bar with you, soldier,” Red Hood obligingly grabbed him and half helped, half hauled him over the bar to shelter. “You too,” he smiled at Tim, though Tim couldn’t see it.

“Yeah, I figured,” Tim panted. He wriggled in his bonds a bit. “Uh, could you…?”

A shot pinged into the back of Hood’s shoulder. “Sorry, no time!” The chair went over the bar and into Val’s waiting arms. They both toppled onto the floor in an ungainly heap. Tim let out a disgruntled “Ow!” But they were safe for the minute.

Hood turned back to the fight, squeezing off cover fire and holding his position in front of the bar. Hood was a damn fine shot but there were a dozen other guys in here and they had a much wider range of angles. The bad guys were all shouting at one another, trying to get a glory shot at the famous Red Hood. Hood wasn’t really inclined to let them have their day.

“Hood, get behind the bar!” Tim pleaded. 

“No worries, b-, uh, kid! For once I ain’t working alone,” Red Hood smirked.

The front window shattered. Batgirl, expertly calculating her swing to within an inch of the ground, had crashed the party.

Suddenly the bad guys were fighting on two fronts. Batgirl was hoving into them from behind, Red Hood firing on them from the front. A dozen guys, trapped in a two person pincer movement with only tables and booths to give them cover. In the confusion Red Hood stalked forward, still firing. Each guy he took out decreased their enemy’s odds by significant chunks. He was so intent on ferreting out the ones trying to get a bead on Batgirl he didn’t realise that Vargas, his face half a bloody ruin, had managed to rise up from rolling around on the floor and weave towards the bar with vengeance in mind. 

Turned out he didn’t have to pump the asshole full of bullets. When he spun around to see Vargas bending over the bar and no doubt trying to grab himself a hostage, Hood was surprised and pleased to see Tim rise up with a gallon bottle of Jose Cuervo and bring it down with a satisfying smash on Vargas’ ugly, curly head. 

Between his driving them back and Batgirl chucking them out of the shattered window, it didn’t take very long before the few still conscious decided to cut their losses. Whoever was left ran for their lives, possibly into the waiting arms of the incoming Bats judging by the distant screams of terror he could hear. Red Hood didn’t care. He only cared about one thing in this stinking dive.

He hauled Vargas’ unconscious body off from the bar he was slumped over and let him drop contemptuously to the floor. He’d probably be pleased he’d need an eyepatch to complete his damn theme, the fucking D-Lister.

He looked over the bar. Neither Tim nor Val were anywhere to be seen. The chair Tim’s had been tied to was there, but empty, the cable tie binding sliced through. There was a door round the other end of the bar which probably led to the kitchens or a storeroom. They’d likely dragged themselves to better cover after the Vargas scare

“Hood, get to the alley round back. We’ve got a problem,” Oracle’s voice cut in firmly.

“On my way,” Red Hood vaulted the bar and headed for the door. Whatever emergency was happening out there, he could stop in and check over Tim on the way out. 

His gut turned over, however, when he reached the store room. It was filled with haphazardly stacked cartons of booze and probably had other things lurking in there too, knowing the kind of criminal Vargas was. What it didn’t have was Tim or Val. 

The door to the back alley was open, icy November Gotham rain sheeting in. 

There, in the middle of the doorway, was a syringe. It was empty. There was fresh blood on the needle.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Red Hood drew his guns. “Oracle, sitrep!” he barked as he cautiously made his way out of the door.

“Unclear,” Oracle sounded frustrated. “Camera angles are bad. I saw one figure dragging another towards the end of the alley before I lost view." 

“Others?” Red Hood stepped out into the rain, pressed against the walls so as not to show his outline against the shitty safety light over the door.

“Bagging and tagging bad guys,” Oracle reported briskly. “They’re closing on your position . I’ve got a drone hovering if you need light.”

“Be advised, we might have Fear in play ,” Red Hood growled and then clicked off his comm.

There was harsh panting coming from the end of the alley, a pitch blackness shrouded in rain. Red Hood breathed past the knots in his throat and stepped forward. “Hey? Anyone back there?”

“Stay back! Stay the fuck back!” the shriek was high and stressed, scared as fuck. 

It also wasn’t Tim.

“Val? Hey man, it’s okay,” Red Hood said softly, wishing he could risk taking his modulator off. 

“Stay back or I’ll fucking kill him, you hear! I’ll kill him!”

“Oracle,” Red Hood tensed up. “Lights.”

The drone, almost silent against the endless pouring rain, lit up a bright spotlight and revealed the back of the alley.

Jason’s heart leapt into Red Hood’s throat.

Val, pupils blown wide, face twisted with terror, held Tim like a human shield, arms clamped around his torso and kitchen knife jammed up against his neck. Val was a soldier; he knew where to find vital points. His whole body shook in the icy rain but his highly trained hands were rock steady.

“Val,” Tim choked out gamely. “It’s me Val. It’s Tim. Sorry,” he whispered to Red Hood. “Vargas got him while he was untying me.”

“Shut UP!” Val screamed. “Get away! Get AWAY!” Val’s white rimmed eyes flickered wildly. Who knew what demons were dancing in front of his eyes. The knife was pressed so hard against Tim’s neck that Red Hood flinched.

Tim - his Tim - was dressed in a t-shirt now soaked to his skin, long hair that Jason loved to run his fingers through plastered over his face in sticky strings. He was clearly trying to keep his cool but only halfway succeeding. His slender body was taunt as a bridge cable in Val’s hold. Red Hood pointed his gun but, fuck, even accounting for the difference in their sizes it was by no means a clean shot. Both hostage and hostage taker were shaking, either due to the cold or adrenaline. 

“Fuck man,” Red Hood said through clenched teeth. “Fuck Val, don’t make me fucking shoot you, okay? Let him go.”

Val tightened his grip, his eyes too far past the sanity event horizon to heed Red Hood’s command. There was a faint line of pink staining the front of Tim’s shirt.

No , Red Hood screamed inside. He looked at Tim’s face in terror…

… only to see his beautiful, brilliant, brave boyfriend blinking rapidly in Morse code. 

...r…o...n...e...d...r...o...p...d...r..o...n...e…

“Hood,” Batman reported through the comms, his tone all business. “I’m in position behind. Can you get the knife away from his throat ?”

Behind the terrified Val, Red Hood saw the shadows move. How the fuck B had managed to get there without anyone spotting him was anybodys guess, but fuck, Hood would take it.

He clicked his helmet control on his wrist. “Oracle, hover the drone right over their heads and then cut power. On my mark.”

Red Hood holstered his gun and stepped into the alley proper, crouching down and holding up his hands. “Hey, man, stay cool.”

The noise and movement got Val’s full attention. “Get AWAY! I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM, I SWEAR!”

“Now!”

The light illuminating the scene vanished.

An inert drone, pretty lightweight, bounced off Val’s head. He was so startled by it he automatically loosened his hold on Tim and swung his knife up and over his head wildly, looking for the threat.

Hood moved. Batman moved.

Hood wrenched the knife out of Val’s clenched fist and punched him across the jaw as Batman rose up from behind like a damn vampire and got the man into a choke hold. Hood took that opportunity to wrench Tim free of his captors grip. Val was screaming in terror, flailing wildly, any hope of rational thought lost.

As Red Hood picked Tim up in his arms the rest of the family rappelled into the alleyway. Robin had gotten the anti-Fear field kit from the Batmobile and was unrolling the row of syringes on the ground as Batman and Nightwing wrestled the shrieking and now wheezing Val to the ground.

“Go! Take him! We got this!” Batgirl told him as she ran past to help subdue.

Red Hood didn’t need to be told twice. He held Tim tight and ran for the main thoroughfare, looking for shelter and light, somewhere he could check Tim over. He was so still in Hood’s arms and when the drone’s light went out Hood hadn’t been able to tell if Val had taken the knife off Tim’s vulnerable skin or slid the blade along it.

There, an empty bus stop with a tiny light and a shade. Red Hood pelted for it and set Tim down on the bench, pawing frantically at his boyfriend’s t-shirt. He nearly ripped it away to get a good look at Tim’s throat…

… and nearly passed out from relief. There was definitely a serious cut but there was no gushing blood, no arterial spray. It oozed sluggishly on the pale, glistening skin, so translucent under the lights that Hood could see that precious pulse still going strong.

“Is it bad?” Tim choked out in a terrified whisper.

All Red Hood wanted to do was hold him, but was forced to clench his hands and say. “It’s fine. You’re fine, kid, I promise. Maybe a couple of little tiny stitches. He didn’t hit anything vital, I promise.”

“Okay,” Tim croaked. “Okay.” He fumbled around to his side and Red Hood gently helped get him upright. He was shaking like a leaf, huddled under the yellow sodium light. He stayed still and silent as Hood dug around in his field kit and slapped a temporary bandage on the wound. 

“Is Val okay?” he whispered.

Red Hood clicked into the comm chatter briefly. “He’s okay. They managed to sedate him before he could go into cardiac arrest. He’ll probably just sleep it off.”

Tim nodded and didn’t move to add anything else. He sat and he shivered, wide eyes looking at his feet. He was so quiet that Hood legitimately started to worry. None of Tim’s previous, biting commentary or hypercompetence under pressure was extant in the wan, shaking figure sitting here.

“Hey, um,” Red Hood crouched down, dearly wishing he could push the hair out of his boyfriends eyes, kiss him and tell him it was all okay. For the first time he could remember he flat out hated the Hood, hated the sudden borderline in his life that kept any bit of him separated from Tim. “Are you okay? Do you want me to call someone?”

Tim looked up at him and then his face crumpled. Fat tears began sliding down his face. “I want to talk to Jason,” Tim cried hoarsely. “I want to talk to Jason now, please.” He started to sob.

Red Hood was struck mute, frantically thinking through the logistics of patching a call through to himself. “Um… I can get you a phone…”

“No!” Tim reached for him, Red Hood. “I want to talk to Jason-you, not Red Hood. Please? Please? I want to talk to Jason now.” Tim looked desperate, tears dripping off his chin.

For a minute it literally doesn’t compute what Tim was saying. It was a muddled mess Hood couldn’t make sense of. He was worried that Tim was deeper in shock than he thought.

“I tried to tell you before,” Tim sobbed. “But then Junior s-showed and ruined it! I tried to tell you, Jason!”

The penny dropped.

Someone I knew died. Well, I didn’t know him, but I admired him a lot…

I have this secret. It kinda has to do with you...

The Joker killed someone I knew. I’ll hate him until I die…

It’s kind of tangential to… you.

It felt like a nuclear reactor was hitting critical mass inside Jason’s chest. 

Slowly, scarcely believing he was doing it, he hit the release code on his helmet and yanked it off when it unlocked with a hiss. He stripped off his domino with clumsy fingers, casting it aside. “Tim?”

Tim gave him a watery smile, his ice cold fingers sliding down Jason’s face worshipfully. Then he dissolved into sobs again, clutching at Jason’s armour and burying his head in the crook of Jason’s neck, just about the only warm skin he could get at. “S-sorry,” he mumbled while hot tears began soaking Jason’s bodysuit. “I was just really scared.”

“Oh baby, I know,” Jason gathered him up in his arms, rocking him. “I know. Shhh, I’m here. I'm right here. You knew I’d come for you.”

As the rest of the Bats converged on their little tableau, Jason reflected the borderline between Red Hood and himself was now obliterated entirely.

He was pretty sure he had no idea what normal was anymore.

Chapter Text

The whole cavalcade ended up back at the Cave. It wasn’t completely unheard of to cart a civilian there. There was a special, sealed off quarantine bay with all possible identifying marks stripped from any and all equipment, kept mostly because minutes could mean the difference between life and death when some bystander got hit with whatever the Rogue special-of-the-day was. They were always carted in unconscious and left the same way.

This was where Val ended up, stretchered in for bloodwork and monitoring. His skinny chest moved frantically, even heavily sedated as he was, but for someone shot up to his eyeballs in Fear he was doing okay. A combination of antitoxin and sedation would see him to rights.

Tim, however, got the rare privilege of going into the main bay. From beyond the glass walls he could catch tantalising glimpses of the Cave itself, Aladdin’s treasure trove to a brilliant engineer. He didn’t seem interested in taking a survey of the place though. The night's events had wrung the last dregs of his energy. What little he had to spare had been spent getting changed and warm and patiently holding still while Alfred put a neat, deft row of stitches on his neck wound, squeezing Jason’s hand the whole time.

Jason hovered and fussed over him as he settled into an infirmary bed, shooting glares at the rest of the family while he did so. Batman had fucked off somewhere almost as soon they’d gotten Val settled in, but the rest of them were all shamelessly hanging around the infirmary, trying to got a good look at Jason’s boyfriend. Batgirl didn’t need to, but she was shamelessly encouraging the lookie-looing.

Assholes. Every last one of them.

Jason was purely and supremely vindicated, though, when Batgirl brought in hot chocolates for Tim and Tim said “Thanks Steph,” with perfect equanimity. Seeing her jaw drop to the floor was a moment Jason dearly wished he had a camera for.

“How?” she demanded, stripped off her mask. “I mean, how?”

Tim sighed. “It’s kind of a long story…” he started sheepishly.

“You will tell us all you know,” Robin growled threateningly. “And the names of anyone you told if you ever want to leave this place again.”

“Robin!” Nightwing scolded. “That’s Jason’s boyfriend! He’s not our prisoner!”

“He won’t be if he reveals how much of a security risk he is for us, Nightwing!” Robin rolled his eyes. He glared and Tim and fingered his katana menacingly.

“Just try it, demon brat,” Red Hood growled.

The little gremlin growled back.

“Okay!” Nightwing held up his hands and got between them. “How about we just try asking before moving on to threats, okay? So, Tim,” Nightwing beamed at him winningly, good cop to his bones. “Tell us a bit about ourselves. What’s your secret secret-revealer?”

Tim grinned. “Funny you should say that, because it actually started with you, Dick.”

Dick backpedalled in surprise, even as Robin warily grabbed his katana again. 

“What do you mean, peasant?” he snapped.

“I mean there’s only one family who ever managed a quadruple somersault from a standing start,” Tim smirked. “And their name was Grayson. The Flying Graysons. And unfortunately there’s only one of those left,” His eyes darted to an open mouthed Dick. “So when I saw Robin do a quadruple somersault when I was eight, it wasn’t such a big leap to work it all out from there.”

“Holy shit!” Jason crowed. “You worked all this out when you were eight? You’re so smart, baby.”

Tim flushed and smiled. “I don’t know about that. I think it had more to do with the fact that I had nothing to do except kind of be there. Besides, I hate to tell you all this, but it’s really hard to hide the Batmobile when it’s roaring down the empty streets of Bristol in the middle of the night. Drake Estate is only about ten miles west of here. If you’re an insomniac kid laying awake half the week it’s coming and goings are pretty easy to keep track of.”

Dick frowned as he perched on the foot of the bed like a friendly gargoyle. “We only used the west tunnel when we confirmed the Drakes weren’t home. We checked. No one was ever there, normally.”

“Yeah,” Tim sighed. “I was no one.” Jason squeezed his hand. “The Drakes didn’t take me to galas or show me off to the media. I lived in the basement. I didn’t go to school, I was homeschooled. I didn’t really have any friends or anything. I’m pretty sure almost no one knows they had a second kid. As soon as I was competent enough to feed myself and not burn the house down, my parents would be off travelling and they’d take my brother with them. I was on my own. Watching for the Batmobile was kind of one of my hobbies.”

“The other,” Bruce announced from the doorway where he’d ghosted up. “Was photography.” He had in his arms an old tin dispatch box, dented but carefully preserved.

“You still have it,” Tim breathed, eyes fixed on the box.

Steph raised a hand. “Is anyone else totally confused? Yes? It’s not just me then.”

“Tim, you know Bruce?” Jason narrowed his eyes at the old man, who was handing the dispatch box to Tim with every sign of respect.

“Not really,” Tim wrenched the box open. “We only met once and I don’t think he saw me clearly.”

“I didn’t,” Bruce rumbled, taking a seat on a cabinet top. “I looked for you, though.”

Tim huffed out a breath. “Bet that didn’t last long.” He wasn’t looking at Bruce.

“I never stopped, actually,” Bruce corrected. “It was an open case always running in the background.”

“Father, what are you talking about?” Robin sounded bewildered. “Who is this person? What is he to us?”

“He saved my life, son,” Bruce told him gently. “And my soul.”

“I don’t know if I can claim that, exactly,” Tim flushed.

“Hold on!” Dick held up his hands. “Hold on, can somebody please just… start from the beginning, please?”

“Seconded!” Steph said.

“Thirded,” came over the PA system.

Jason blinked. Even Oracle didn’t know what was going on?

Bruce looked at Tim and raised his eyebrows. 

Tim took a breath. “The beginning. Well, I guess,” he dug around in the dispatch box. It was, Jason realised as he peered over, filled to the brim with photos. “This was the beginning. Here,” he handed it to an astonished Dick. Jason caught a flash of it as it went by him; a tiny, pale, chubby cheeked boy with very familiar spinel blue eyes, being held by an equally familiar, unstoppably grinning older boy in an acrobats costume. There was a date on the back; one everyone in the family knew by heart. “I don’t suppose you remember me, Dick, after everything that happened that day. You gave me a hug and told me you’d do a special quadruple flip…”

“... just for you,” Dick finished softly, running his long fingers over the photo. “I do remember. You were a cute kid. I couldn’t understand what such a cute kid was doing wandering around the circus grounds by himself. I thought you were lost or something.”

“I guess I was, in a way,” Tim shrugged. “Your mother was going to go get the ringmaster to do a lost child announcement when my parents and my brother showed up. I think Junior threw a tantrum; he usually did.”

“I remember that too,” Dick shook his head. “I ended up plopping you in front of the photo booth while they calmed him down because I thought you might get upset too.”

Tim shrugged. “Unlikely. In any case, that was the watershed event. That was literally the best thing I could ever remember happening to me. Someone had picked me over Junior.” Tim mimed an explosion at his temples. “That was the first, and for a long while the last, time that had ever happened.” 

The rest of the family absorbed that while Tim wistfully unpacked photo after photo, like they were old, treasured friends. Jason picked up a few as Tim spread them out on the bed and the rest of the family came forward to look. They were all Gotham, all Batman, all Robin.

All them.

Tim quirked a soft smile at a flabbergasted Jason. “I told you, I was a weird and lonely kid. I needed… something, some proof I mattered to someone, anyone. Naturally I came to the conclusion that Batman would care. He saves everyone, including strangers and especially kids. He would care, Robin would care. So it seemed logical to six year old me that I should care back, however I could. Even if it was just… being a fan, keeping a scrapbook. I started to search for photos and news articles. When I ran out of those, I stole one of my brother’s cameras - I don’t know if it was stealing, though, because he genuinely never noticed - and starting taking pictures myself. One night I saw the flip,” Tim shrugged. “And then it all made sense. It felt like I’d been chosen, you know. That I’d had this great responsibility revealed to me. I was the Batman’s secret keeper,” Tim snorted with laughter. “I was secretly a very melodramatic eight-year-old.”

“Holy lost boy, Batman,” Dick sorted through the scattered shots of what were clearly the early days of him in his Robin costume. “You were wandering Gotham at night that young?”

Tim shrugged. “I planned a bunch, sometimes I’d camp out on a likely rooftop during the day and go back home in the mornings. No one was going to miss me, so I guess that made me a bit reckless with my safety. Honestly, I was probably born under some kind of lucky star; when I looked back on it it was kind of a miracle I wasn’t just swallowed up by Gotham.”

Jason… had many opinions about that. He would give them full yelling treatment later. For now he surveyed Tim’s childhood legacy. It was a surreal feeling, looking at all those images, looking at the kid in them, smiling unstoppably.

“They’re good, aren’t they?” Tim smiled hopefully as Jason continued to leaf through them. “I took my best shots in your Robin era. I’d practiced a lot by then.”

Jason could see it. Dick’s Robin photos were okay, but you could see the photographer had started out as a rank amateur. He’d gotten a lot better by the time the changeover happened and, judging by the sheer volume of himself Jason saw, a hell of a lot more prolific. The scenes depicted were achingly familiar. “I remember this,” he mumbled. “I remember more than I thought I did.” Even though he said the words, they still surprised the hell out of him. Because he did remember. He just hadn’t known it until now.

“I’m glad,” Tim murmured quietly. “Going up on those rooftops, watching Batman and Robin fight bad guys and banter and be a family? Those were some of the happiest times I can remember. I used to live for those nights, it felt like. It was better than living on tenterhooks in my room, waiting for them to announce which organ I’d lose for the good of the Drakes next.”

Jason looked up at him. “Then I died.”

“Then you died,” Tim nodded. “You died and almost the same day the Drake’s decided I was surplus to requirements. I lost everything that gave my life meaning and purpose in one fell swoop. Even getting to save my brother’s life was a purpose, even if it was a shitty one. The whole mess triggered a massive depressive episode and I ended up in a juvenile psych ward. I didn’t speak a word for two years, three months and sixteen days.”

“Holy shit, Tim,” Jason said hoarsely, reaching for his hand again. This was too much to bear. Jason couldn’t stand it.

“I got better,” Tim smiled wanly and squeezed back.

Damian broke in, because he was a Wayne and had never met a moment he couldn’t destroy through sheer obliviousness. “I do not understand,” he frowned. “If these photos were Drake’s, how did Batman get them?”

Tim looked over at Bruce and raised his eyebrows.

So did everyone else.

Bruce sighed. “After Jason’s death I was not coping well at all. I became withdrawn, reckless with my health. I suffered tremendous guilt for not being able to save my… my son,” his eyes darted to Jason briefly. “I still had the Mission, of course, and I still went out but my methods became brutal. I pushed everyone away,” he looked at Dick apologetically. “Quite cruelly in some cases. I did not acknowledge it, to myself or anyone else, but I was self destructing. I no longer cared whether I lived or died. I was fast reaching the point where I didn’t care if anyone else did either.”

Jason felt himself staring. He’d never heard this part of their fucked up story before. He was blindsided, then surprised at himself for being blindsided, and then guilty for being surprised. Bruce and he had a fundamental schism but they’d managed to build something back out of the ruins over the intervening years. It shouldn’t be news to Jason that Bruce had cared so much or loved him so deeply that he’d nearly jumped off the deep end. 

But fuck, it caught him off guard to hear Bruce admit it so readily and publicly; he who never paraded his faults to the world at large. He could tell by the stunned silence that no one else had been ready to hear that either.

“But the photos,” Damian looked even more confused. “How did you acquire them?”

“After I got out of the hospital and was put into a group home, I finally got actual therapy instead of just sedation,” Tim took up the thread. “The people that looked after me all said I had to let go of my past and not live there. I couldn’t keep these with me anymore,” Tim fingered the photos regretfully. “It hurt too much. I started hearing all about how the Batman had gone dark, how people were getting scared of him….” Tim shook his head. “I thought I had to do something. For the sake of my Robin, if nothing else. So I dusted off my old Bat-tracking abilities for one last time and took my tin box up onto the rooftops and waited for him. One dark, foggy night I found him. You looked really bad,” Tim observed to Bruce. “You’d just come off a fight, you were all beat to hell, bruises on bruises on bruises, you had a ratty beard growing and you were too thin. It was awful,” a strained silence descended. “I didn’t know what to do! You looked so out of it I was worried you might attack me, so I stayed in the shadows and pushed the box over to you and said-”

“‘I miss him too’,” Bruce murmured. “‘Please don’t give up’.”

“Those were the first words I’d spoken in 839 days,” Tim nodded. “Then I ran. Just doing that had taken all the mental strength I’d built up. I never knew if it even did any good. I only found the courage to go back weeks later; then all I knew was the photos were gone.”

“Oh it did,” Bruce said firmly. “All the good in the world. You can’t imagine how it felt opening up that box and seeing all of… those moments. I’d tried to forget them for two years but the instant I saw those photos I realized I couldn’t bury my happiness with my grief. They were the shock to the system I needed to… to wake up again. I’m grateful to have been entrusted with them and even more grateful that I finally get to meet you, Tim. I finally,” Bruce smiled. “ Finally get to say thank you.”

Tim beamed, tears rolling down his face. “You’re welcome.”

Chapter Text

Okay, there may not have been a dry eye in the room after that. It was all a bit overwhelming, so Jason shooed, chivvied and outright threatened everyone out of the room so that Tim could get some space and Jason could talk to this… this amazing, indescribable boy who had apparently loved him from afar year after year after year.

By the time he’d slammed the door and activated the smart glass (and hit the frequency jammer in his pocket because fucking Bats) Tim had worked himself into a state of what Jason liked to call maximum fret, his hands sliding across the photos as he packed them back away in the box. “I uh,” Tim swallowed. “I didn’t plan any of this.” His voice was very small.

Jason blinked. “Yeah, I didn’t think kidnapping was pencilled into your schedule today, baby.” He went to sit back down and gently undo whatever catastrophizing tangle Tim had knotted his thoughts into.

“No, I mean,” Tim twitched miserably. “I didn’t plan this. Like, I didn’t set up meeting you or anything. I didn’t even know you were going to college, I swear!”

Jason blinked some more. “It never once occurred to me that you did, baby. Why the hell would I think that?” he asked, genuinely bewildered.

Tim went red. “Because it kind of looks bad,” he ran his fingers over the photos. “I was running all over Gotham taking photos of you like some… some creepy paparazzi. That’s why it was so hard to tell you. I thought this whole thing might come off as me being some kind of obsessed fanboy, like I’d might have orchestrated everything. I didn’t! But I admit the optics aren’t that great.”

“Bad optics, hell,” Jason said roughly. “If anyone has to worry about optics it’s me. I was Robin, a lifetime ago. I’m Red Hood now. And Red Hood’s done a lot of sketchy shit, baby. I’ve killed people, I’ve blown shit up, I’ve… I’m not a very good person. Not anymore.”

“I ended up in the psych ward because I got kicked out of a family that I didn’t even like very much. You were murdered, Jay,” Tim looked at him. “You were murdered and you came back and… that’s a lot to digest for anyone , let alone a fifteen year old kid. You don’t… Jay, there’s no way you could have come back from that the same person you were before. That would be impossible . Besides, I lived in a group home near to the Bowery and Crime Alley. You ask anyone on the street there and they’ll tell you Red Hood is a hero, their hero. They live with monsters there. Sometimes you really do need to know the monster is dead. You do that without taking out innocent bystanders. It’s a lot better there now, thanks to you. And maybe you have done things, inexcusable things, but you’re not doing them now . You try to stop horrible things from happening to the most vulnerable. What better restitution could you offer, if any is owed at all?” Tim shrugged. “If Gotham is a playing field between good and evil, then I don’t see how redemption can’t be a part of it. You’re trying to be good. Trying to be good is the same as being good.”

Jason was struck mute. “You really believe that, don’t you? Holy shit,” he choked on whatever feeling was rising up his throat, happiness and shame and fear and love. “You actually, really believe it.”

“Oh, Jay,” Tim smiled at him, running fingers over Jason’s face. “Of course. For my own sake, if nothing else. I was… Fourteen? I think. Fourteen, when they finally got footage of you fighting as Red Hood and when I saw it… I cried. There was only one person I knew who fought the way you fought, moved the way you moved. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” Jason sighed at the hazy memory of his Pit-crazed days. “I bet that was a nas-”

“I was so happy.”

“… what?” 

“I mean, it was kind of awful too,” Tim’s eyes looked suspiciously watery. “I could see how messed up you were. But even past all that, I was so happy you were alive. Still am,” Tim dashed at his eyes. “So happy.”

What the fuck was Jason supposed to do with that? 

He leaned in and wrapped up Tim in his arms, nuzzling down in his soft hair. “Me too, baby,” he rumbled. “Me too.” Some faint part of himself, almost lost and gone, clicked back into place. Jason Todd was happy to be alive. Saying it out loud changed something, even though Jason wasn’t sure what.

“You can’t imagine what went through my head when I went to that dorm room and saw you standing there,” Tim gave a little laugh. “The door swung open and there you were like you’d stepped out of my wildest dreams and it was like ‘oh god, it’s happened. The medicine has worn off, I’ve finally broken with reality’.”

Jason burst out laughing. Looking back on it, yeah, that would have been a pretty big bluescreen of death for Tim Drake.

“I never in a million years thought I’d actually meet you in person,” Tim shook his head. “And then you didn’t like me, which was bad. And then you did , which was worse. I never in a trillion years thought that would ever happen.”

“Oh, baby,” Jason cuddled him closer. “You’re beautiful and funny and fucking smart. You rip inflated egos to little bitty shreds, which is hot, let me tell you. You’re good,” Jason thumbed across Tim’s lips and cheeks. “I never had a lotta good in my life. Definitely not lately. Why wouldn’t I love you?”

Mission accomplished. Tim flushed up all pink and pretty and looked happy again. Jason took the opportunity to crawl onto the infirmary bed with him, wriggling underneath him so Tim could be the little spoon, tucked on his chest and seated between his legs. 

“So, I got a question for you, baby,” Jason started when they were comfortably settled. “Are you absolutely sure you weren’t a little bit obsessed? Because I can’t help noticing there are a lot of ass and thigh shots here.”

His cheek was pressed against Tim’s and he smirked when he felt the heat of Tim’s fiery blush rise off it. “No! It wasn’t-” Tim hesitated, faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. “Well, okay, maybe a little bit. Like, later on. I was kind of a late bloomer where hormones were concerned so if I was doing it… I probably wasn’t very conscious of why I was doing it. Shut up!” He flushed harder as Jason laughed at him.

“Baby, you can admit I made you horny, it’s fine.” Jason kissed him behind the ear. 

“You probably made half of Gotham horny, running around pantless with thighs like that,” Tim pointed out grumpily, still flushed. “Honestly, what the hell was Batman thinking? That was in no way adequate protection!”

“Don’t look at me,” Jason chuckled. “I inherited the costume from Dick Grayson, a man whose fashion sense is criminal on a good day.”

“Discowing,” Tim muttered darkly while Jason laughed some more. Tim patted the photographs wistfully. “It wasn’t like that, really, though. I took photos of Dick because he was the kind of brother I wanted to have. I used to dream about having Dick as my big brother, you know? Someone who would play with me and teach me things and tell me secrets. A brother like I saw on TV. I used to imagine how nice being in Batman’s family would be,” Tim’s voice held a note of yearning. “He was always looking out for you two and he always seemed like he wanted you around him, wanted to listen to what you had to say and… it just seemed like a fairytale compared to what I had.”

Jason kissed the side of Tim’s head, wishing there was some way he could go back in time and tell the Robin-that-was to go and rescue the poor, lonely kid next door. 

“I thought if I could somehow become a part of your family,” Tim continued. “Then I’d be a complete person. By myself, I mean. Not just there for somebody else. Especially somebody who didn’t even want to be a brother to me.”

Jason felt an uncomfortable stone lodge in his gut. “Tim,” he began softly. “About Junior…”

“‘S’okay,” Tim looked down at his hands. “I know. Who else would have showed Vargas and his cronies the offer letter? The saddest part is I’m not even surprised,” he sighed. “Junior’s always been taught I’m just an extension of his magnificence. He’s not likely to have a come-to-Jesus moment this late in the game. Plus he’s kind of an idiot. He’s never had to actually use his brains before. He probably thought it would all work out fine somehow, because it always does for him.”

“That doesn’t make it fucking right,” Jason growled. “He’s a grown-ass adult, no matter his being wrapped in the warm bubblewrap of privilege.”

Tim shrugged, yawning. “It hardly matters now. Once word gets out about this, Junior won’t last five seconds on campus. He’s not popular as it is and his skin is way too thin to take the media storm that’s about to rain down from on high.”

“I doubt he’s even there now,” Jason rumbled. “Red Hood might have had a little word with him.”

Tim winced. “How bad?”

“Let’s just say I don’t think he’ll be getting the security deposit back.” Jason smirked. “For soilage.”

Tim snorted a laugh. “Oh, gross! Can we ask them to steam clean it, or something?”

“I’m pretty much going to demand it.”

“Good,” Tim settled back, blinking sleepily. “I’ll submit a 23-D after Thanksgiving. You wanna be my roommate, Jay?” Tim slurred, rapidly losing altitude.

Jason kissed him. “I’d love to, darlin’.”

Chapter Text

The Residence Assistant clearly hadn’t had enough coffee to deal with this, but she begrudgingly looked over the papers. Tim had been extremely thorough in the ‘Reasons’ section of the forms, probably way more detailed than a tired Rez-Assist wanted to deal with first thing on a cold morning.

The form header text was writ large on the pages; Form 23-D. Application To Switch Assigned Rooms.

She looked over the three of them. Jason and Tim who were clearly holding hands and playing footsie and Val, waiting her out with polite patience.

“You’re absolutely sure about this?” she asked Jason and Val. “You can’t change again until the new school year starts. There haven’t been any problems that we’re aware of.”

“As outlined,” Tim said smoothly. “Val finds stairs a bit challenging.”

“It’s true,” Val nodded solemnly. “And the elevators are about as far from my current room as they can be. My man Peters room is on the ground floor; much easier for me to access.”

“And I got bad memories of that room,” Jason deadpanned. “Because of my last roommate.”

Even the unflappable Rez-Assist made a face at the mention of the notorious Jaxxon Drake, who’d fled from Gotham U in the middle of the night in a car service and hadn’t returned for any of his things. Tim was pretty sure the parental units had whisked him out of the country somewhere. He was now in parts unknown-and-who-cares. 

She looked over the three of them archly. “And you’re both happy with this arrangement? Not many people would give up a single, you know,” she added to Jason.

“Ma’am, I ain’t slept without company since Basic,” Jason smiled winningly, which drew an unexpected blush from her.

She sighed. “Alright then. Your new accommodations are approved. Keys?” They handed them over, she retagged them, stamped the forms, updated the records and sent them on their merry way.

“Okay,” Val said cheerfully. “Whose moving whose stuff first?”

They moved Val’s stuff first, mostly because he had more stuff to lug down to Jason’s former room. Tim had talked it over very carefully with Val, because they were great friends and Tim had been worried about essentially abandoning him, knowing that he still had bad nights sometimes. Val and been quick to assure him he’d be absolutely fine on his own and he’d be unlikely to be living in the dorms for his second year anyway. His Uncle Doug and Aunt Elaine had a standing invitation for Val to go live with them in readiness for when Val would join Doug’s construction and land surveyance business. He was thinking about taking them up on it. Living amongst a bunch of teenagers, he said, was more exhausting than combat. Plus it would let him keep an eye on his little cousin, Duke.

“Jesus, Val,” Jason huffed another box of textbooks down onto the desk. “Does the term e-reader mean anything to you?”

“Screw you, I like paper and ink,” Val snorted. Where’s your stuff, man?” he looked around the pristine (and deep cleaned) room.

“Got it!” Tim cheerfully rolled up a single wheeled suitcase. Jason already had a duffel bag (the contents of which would probably get him expelled, quite frankly).

“I travel light,” Jason shrugged to Val’s look. “ E-Readers. Remember the word.”

“He’s such a luddite,” Tim sighed sadly at Val.

“Man you two lovebirds get lost,” Val shooed them out. “Study group at two?”

“We’ll be there!” Tim called over his shoulder as they raced back up the stairs.

“Home sweet home,” Jason tossed his shit onto his new work desk, beaming. This college thing was a breeze.

He turned just as Tim leapt, and ended up getting a delicious armful of tiny boyfriend, who wrapped his spindly legs around his hips tightly enough to drive Jason a little bit crazy in the best ways.

“Hey handsome,” Tim purred. “So you’re my new roommate. You wanna give the room a proper christening? Maybe push the beds together?”

Jason smirked. “It’s like you’re reading my damn mind, baby.” And pulled him up for a searing kiss.

Oh, there’d be planning and logistics and other shit for Jason to sort out vis a vis Red Hood… later. For now he was just going to be a normal, average, horny college kid.

Normal was the best thing ever.