Chapter Text
The door groaned as it opened—thick steel grinding against reinforced hinges, a sound Jason Todd would never forget, even when he was old and long past this city.
If he made it that far.
He stepped forward slowly, boots thudding against cracked linoleum tiles. Arkham’s exit hall smelled like bleach, despair, and time gone stale. No guards said goodbye. No doctors came to shake his hand or offer sterile sympathy. They’d done their part. He’d done his time. That was it.
The clothes he wore weren’t his. Standard discharge: black jeans a size too big, a faded grey hoodie with the asylum’s property tag still half-attached, and combat boots they claimed were his—scuffed and dried with mud, though he didn’t remember ever wearing them.
The last door loomed at the end of the corridor, flanked by buzzers and bulletproof glass. Past that: open air, polluted city wind, and the skyline that once raised him and razed him in the same breath.
Jason didn’t rush. His body remembered too well what rushing had cost him. The pit in his stomach throbbed like a phantom limb—rage, hunger, heat. He curled his fingers into fists. Counted to five.
They’d told him he was “stable.” They said he’d shown “progress.”
He said nothing. Not to them. Not to the therapist who blinked at him like she was cataloguing a ghost. Not to the guards who watched him sleep like they expected a knife in their throat by sunrise. Not even to the kid—some scrawny arsonist teen on suicide watch—who’d asked, in awe, "Were you really the Red Hood?"
Jason had turned his face to the wall.
The truth wasn’t for Arkham.
The final lock buzzed open.
He stepped into Gotham’s brittle winter light, squinting at the grey sky that stretched over the East End like a permanent bruise. His breath clouded in the air—white, fleeting. He looked like smoke, rising.
No one was waiting for him.
He stood on the cracked concrete steps of Arkham Asylum with a plastic bag of personal effects slung in one hand and the kind of hollow ache in his chest that didn’t have a name.
Somehow, even now, he expected Dick to be there.
Maybe leaning against the hood of a sleek black car, arms crossed, sunglasses hiding his eyes but not the guilt.
Maybe waiting with that damn half-smile—the one he used like a bandage, like if he grinned wide enough, it would make the bleeding stop.
But there was no car.
No Bruce either. Not even Alfred.
Just silence. Just sky. Just the wind threading through dead trees and the buzz of a streetlight that never turned off.
Jason sat down on the low stone wall that bordered the asylum’s front lawn. “Lawn” was generous—it was more mud and weeds than grass, and the wall was crumbling at the edges, like everything else.
He pulled out his wallet from the bag. Empty, except for an old photograph.
It was a picture of them, taken before everything. Before the Pit. Before the crowbar. Before being dumped in this tomb of the mad and forgotten.
Dick had his arm slung over Jason’s shoulder. They were both smiling, sweaty from training, Jason’s hair falling in his eyes, Dick looking proud like a big brother who chose to be one.
Jason stared at it until his fingers shook.
He hadn’t asked to be brought here.
That night—weeks, months, maybe years ago—he’d been bleeding, disoriented, collapsing in an alley after taking out a trafficking ring in the Narrows. He remembered sirens. The flicker of red and blue. Dick’s voice in his ear, soft and scared: “Jay—just hold on, okay? I’ve got you. You’re gonna be alright.”
Then, darkness.
Then, Arkham.
Dick had committed him.
Said it was temporary. Said it was for help.
But weeks passed, then months. No one came. Bruce never visited. Dick sent one letter. One. It said “You’re not alone,” and “You matter,” and “I hope you can forgive me someday.”
Jason burned it.
He never wrote back.
Because what could he say?
You threw me in a cage with the people who broke me.
You said you loved me, then left me with the ghosts.
You saved me, then locked the door behind you.
He got the message loud and clear.
Jason dug his nails into the stone beneath him, until his knuckles turned white.
He should have died in Bosnia. Or stayed dead after Ethiopia. Or let the Pit consume him whole.
But instead, he was here. Half-reassembled, stitched together with spite and nightmares and whatever was left of the boy they called Robin.
A cab pulled up eventually, though he hadn’t called it. Bruce probably had. A silent gesture, like most things Bruce did.
Jason didn’t get in right away.
He stood, staring at the gates of Arkham, at the sharp lettering etched into the arch: Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
A monument to everything he wasn’t supposed to become.
He walked to the gate. Touched the cold iron bars with a reverence he didn’t understand.
“Fuck you,” he whispered.
The wind answered, empty and cutting.
He turned and got into the cab.
The driver didn’t ask questions. Just nodded and pulled away, tires crunching over gravel. Jason didn’t give an address. He had nowhere to go. Not yet.
As the gates shrank in the rear-view mirror, Jason closed his eyes.
He could still feel the restraints on his wrists.
Still hear the locks clicking behind him.
Still see Dick’s face, drawn tight with shame, whispering, “It’s just for a little while. I promise.”
He’d believed him.
That was the worst part.
***
Jason got out of the cab somewhere near Bristol. He wasn’t sure why he was even there really—wasn’t ready to go to the manor, wasn’t sure if he was even allowed. Could he just show up uninvited now? A part of him, deep in his bones and twisting painfully in his gut, told him he’d be sent back if he went there. It told him that Bruce would take one look at him and say Dick had made the right choice putting Jason there, and before Jason knew it, he’d be behind bars again. Nothing but some concrete, metal, and reinforced glass keeping him away from the Joker.
He walked through the park aimlessly, kicking at rocks, stepping over cracks in the pavement like he was a kid again—like maybe if he followed the same rituals, if he didn’t step on a line, nothing would break. But he was already broken. Already fractured. Already had been for a long time.
It was the kind of morning that bled into afternoon like a bruise, the sky overcast and dull, and Jason felt like it mirrored him a little too perfectly—grey, heavy, barely holding back the storm. Children laughed in the distance, a dog barked. Somewhere, a baby cried. The world moved on.
He sat on a bench with peeling green paint and picked at the hem of his jacket, eyes fixed on the grass. People passed him without looking twice. Just another tired man in a city of ghosts.
"Jason?"
His head jerked up before he could think.
Tim Drake stood a few feet away, coffee in one hand, cautious eyes on Jason like he was something fragile—or something dangerous. Maybe both. Jason didn’t know which one he hated more.
Tim looked older than Jason remembered. Not by much—still soft in the face, but hardened around the eyes. Older in the way grief makes someone. The same way Jason must look, maybe worse.
"Tim," Jason said after a beat. It tasted weird, like trying to pronounce a word he hadn’t said in years.
Tim didn’t move any closer. Just stood there, coffee cooling in his hand.
"I didn’t think I’d see you here," he said finally. "Bruce said you were taking time. That you didn’t want to—"
"Didn’t want to come home?" Jason finished, voice rougher than it should’ve been. “Or maybe I didn’t have one.”
Tim’s face tightened. “It’s still your home.”
Jason barked out a laugh. “Sure. Right next to the cell in Arkham where my brothers thought I belonged.”
He regretted it as soon as he said it, but the words came out like bile—burning, bitter, honest.
Tim flinched, and for a second, Jason hated him for it. For being afraid. For still being the kid he’d nearly killed, the one who had been fifteen and brave and trying so hard to hold a family together that kept falling apart.
The same age Jason had been when he died.
“I didn’t—” Jason started, but stopped. What could he say? That he didn’t mean it? That he was sorry? That he wouldn’t do it again?
It all felt thin.
Tim walked over slowly, sitting on the far end of the bench. Not too close. Just close enough that they were breathing the same air. He didn’t speak for a while, just looked out at the park like the answer was somewhere in the playground mulch or the cracked sidewalk or the clouds.
“You scratched your neck,” he said eventually.
Jason blinked. “What?”
“That night, in the Cave. Before all of this with Bruce, one of the longest times you every stuck around before storming off. You raised your hand and scratched your neck and I flinched.” Tim’s voice was soft, almost clinical. “And I remember thinking, ‘He’s not even going to hit me, he’s just—scratching an itch.’ But I couldn’t help it. Every time I see you I feel it, that fear.”
Jason stared at him. His mouth was dry.
Tim glanced down at his coffee, then set it on the bench beside him. “I used to think maybe I overreacted. That I exaggerated what happened. That I made you worse in my head than you really were.” He met Jason’s eyes then. “But you did try to kill me. More than once.”
Jason looked away. “I know.”
“And sometimes I think—maybe we’re both replacements.”
Jason turned back, something bitter crawling into his throat. “Don’t.”
“Why not? You were Robin, then you died. I took the cape, but no one ever really saw me. Not Bruce. Not Dick. Not even you. You hated me for it.”
Jason shook his head. “I didn’t hate you. I hated that you weren’t me.”
Tim nodded slowly, like he already knew. “I hated you for coming back.”
Jason gave a breath of a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Fair.”
A pause stretched between them, taut and buzzing with things unsaid.
“They told me you got out,” Tim said. “I didn’t believe it until I saw your file disappear from Arkham’s system. Bruce said you needed time, space. That you wouldn’t want to talk to anyone. But Damian’s been asking about you.”
Jason swallowed hard. “He has Dick now.”
Tim’s mouth pressed into a line. “That’s not the same.”
“He was a kid,” Jason murmured. “We were in the League together. He was a brat, but we… we were close, I think. But now he’s got the family. He’s got Robin and Nightwing and the big warm manor full of portraits of dead kids.”
“He misses you.”
Jason glanced at him sharply. “Does he?”
Tim nodded. “Yeah. He doesn’t say it like that, of course. He says you’re an idiot. That your tactics are crude and your aim is sloppy. But he’s been asking about you since you left Gotham. Since before Arkham.”
Jason was quiet for a long time. Then: “What about Dick?”
Tim went silent.
Jason’s stomach twisted. “That bad?”
Tim didn’t look at him. “He’s… not the same. I don’t think he forgives himself.”
Jason exhaled shakily. “Good.”
“Jason—”
“I’m not saying I want him to suffer. I just…” He dragged a hand through his hair. “He put me in there, Tim. He drugged me. Held me down. Said I was dangerous.”
“You were.”
Jason laughed again, sharp this time. “Then maybe I really did belong there after all.”
“You don’t.”
Jason looked at him, and for once, Tim didn’t flinch. Just met his eyes with something startlingly sincere.
“Come back,” Tim said. “Just for dinner. Bruce is making that terrible roast he does when he’s trying to play human. Damian made a list of things you missed. Cass is waiting to say hi. And Alfred’s—well. You know.”
Jason was shaking his head before Tim even finished. “No. I can’t.”
“Please.”
The word was soft. Honest. A little desperate.
Jason looked away. The wind rustled through the trees above them like it was whispering secrets.
“Dick going to be there?”
Tim hesitated. “I don’t know. Probably not.”
Jason stared at the gravel at his feet. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
Jason nodded slowly, still not looking at him. “Okay. I’ll go to dinner.”
***
Jason stood at the foot of the front steps like he was thirteen again and afraid to be thrown out. His hands, shoved deep in the pockets of a battered leather jacket, clenched and unclenched like they were still getting used to not being shackled. He glanced back at the long driveway, considering if it was too late to just turn around, disappear down the hill and let the night fold him up in its quiet darkness.
The house loomed ahead, impossibly familiar and yet not his anymore. He remembered every chip in the stone columns, the way the upstairs windows would glow yellow-orange at dusk like fireflies caught in a jar. It used to feel like home. Now it looked like a museum he wasn’t sure he had the right ticket to enter.
He didn't raise a hand to knock. He didn’t have to.
The heavy door creaked open before he’d even decided if he would move. Alfred stood there, composed as ever, in a grey suit without a single wrinkle. The man blinked once, twice—then smiled. Not a broad grin, not a fake, polite thing. Just a soft, crinkled corner of the mouth, warm in a way Jason had nearly forgotten.
“Master Jason,” Alfred said, voice low, steady. Like it hadn’t been months. Like he hadn’t been declared insane. Like he hadn’t been locked away. “It’s good to see you.”
Jason didn’t say anything. He didn’t trust his voice. He stepped forward, slow, unsure—and then Alfred’s arms opened just enough, and Jason dropped his guard and stepped into them.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t say sorry. But his fingers curled in the back of Alfred’s jacket and held tight like he’d fall apart otherwise.
“You look tired,” Alfred murmured against his shoulder.
“I am,” Jason said. “I’m so tired.”
“Well, then,” Alfred pulled back and gave him a small pat on the cheek. “We’ll feed you. Come in.”
Jason stepped over the threshold and into the manor. The smell was the same. Old paper, polished wood, distant gunpowder and lemon cleaner. It was too warm. His jacket felt like it weighed forty pounds.
He hadn’t taken more than three steps into the foyer before a voice called out behind him.
“Took you long enough.”
Jason turned and there stood Damian, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
The kid had grown. Taller than last time, shoulders set, the edge of the League still in his stance but softened. He wore a collared shirt with the buttons done all wrong and a dark sweater vest that didn’t quite fit.
Jason smiled faintly. “Damian.”
Damian’s brows lifted. “It has been many moons since we battled, akhi. You must prove your worthiness once more.”
Jason snorted. “Yeah? You think you can take me now, baby bat?”
“I am not a baby,” Damian snapped, bristling, but there was no real heat to it.
Jason reached out and ruffled his hair. “In your dreams, habibi.”
Damian scowled and swatted his hand away, cheeks pinking. “Tch. Your Arabic is still terrible.”
“And you still love me.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
From the dining room, a voice called, “Dinner’s getting cold!”
Jason let Damian lead the way. The dining room hadn’t changed, not a single chair moved, not a candle stick out of place. He hovered by the threshold again, suddenly unsure of the rules. But Tim was already at the table and looked up, giving him an encouraging smile.
There was an empty seat between Tim and Damian. Someone had saved it for him. His stomach twisted.
He took it, easing down slowly like the chair might reject him. Damian dropped into his with casual entitlement. Tim handed Jason a bread roll and a small smile. “You made it.”
“Yeah.” Jason’s voice was low. “I’m still not sure why.”
“You don’t have to be sure. Just glad you came.”
Stephanie was on Tim’s other side. She raised her glass in his direction. “Well well well, if it isn’t the prodigal son.”
Jason huffed out something like a laugh. “You’re still wearing purple, huh?”
“Purple’s iconic,” she said. “You know that.”
“I always liked you,” Jason muttered.
“I know.”
Cass sat beside her, next to Bruce. She inclined her head in silent acknowledgment. Jason nodded back, but uneasily. Cass could read him. She always could. He didn’t like people who could see right through him. Especially not now, when he was still putting himself back together.
Bruce cleared his throat.
Jason looked up.
“Tim said we should expect you,” Bruce said slowly. “But I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
Jason met his eyes. He didn’t blink. And because he had a bad habit of always putting his foot in his mouth: “Yeah, well. I figured I could make the time. You know. Since you couldn’t when I was in Arkham.”
The silence dropped like a lead weight. Even the knives stopped scraping plates.
Bruce didn’t flinch. But his jaw tightened. He looked older now, Jason noticed. Grey at the temples. Eyes worn thin around the edges. But still so composed it was maddening.
“I wasn’t welcome there,” Bruce said finally.
“Neither was I,” Jason snapped.
Alfred coughed lightly, breaking the spell. “Shall we pass the potatoes, perhaps?”
The conversation shifted. Slowly. Like ice melting. There was awkward chatter, snippets of old patrol stories, mentions of cases and bad guys and new gadgets. Jason didn’t contribute much. He sat there, letting the noise wash over him. Letting the warmth of it—however strained—soak into his bones.
Damian elbowed him once when nobody was looking and passed him the bowl of rice he knew Jason liked. Jason muttered thanks. Tim kept filling his glass with water like Jason would forget to do it himself. Stephanie asked if he’d seen the newest Fast & Furious. (He hadn’t. She called it a crime.) Cass said nothing but watched him like she was measuring something invisible.
The mashed potatoes were cold by the time Jason touched his fork again. They’d all settled into that tense rhythm of pretending everything was fine, like each awkward pause could be disguised under the clink of silverware. Tim was still occasionally sneaking glances at him, and Damian kept whispering corrections to Stephanie’s grip on her knife. Across the table, Bruce had gone silent again, chewing like it took all of his focus.
Jason let his gaze drift to the windows. He’d forgotten how quiet the manor could be when there weren’t alarms blaring or bodies hitting the rooftop. Outside, dusk had dropped like a curtain, and the garden was cloaked in moonlight.
The moment shattered with the soft creak of a door opening.
Jason’s fork paused halfway to his mouth.
Footsteps. Soft-soled, familiar.
A voice—faint, unsure—said, “Sorry I’m late. Patrol ran over.”
Jason didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Dick.
The air in the dining room thinned. Tim’s eyes darted between Jason and the doorway like he was trying to calculate the blast radius.
Jason didn’t look. He didn’t have to. He could feel him—like heat crawling up the back of his neck. That same unbearable presence that once used to feel like home. Now it just made his spine lock straight and his knuckles go white around the silverware.
The footsteps slowed. Then stopped.
Dick must have seen him.
Jason imagined the wide blue eyes, the parting of lips that never got around to forming an apology. The guilt. The hesitation. He didn’t need to look to see it.
And Dick didn’t say anything.
Not then.
Jason lowered his fork. His breathing was too loud in his own ears. He could feel a pulse hammering in his throat.
Nobody else spoke.
Tim’s voice broke first. “Dick—uh—Jason’s back.”
Still, nothing from Dick. No hello. No welcome back. Not even a nod.
Jason’s hand trembled slightly on the table. He dropped the fork.
Clink.
Alfred entered the room then, like the impeccable timing had been orchestrated, carrying a large tray with dessert plates balanced perfectly. “Chocolate soufflé,” he said in that same warm, measured tone. “With raspberry reduction. Master Jason’s favourite.”
Jason cleared his throat, forcing the words out before his jaw could lock and his brain could tell his mouth to stop. “Man. I really missed good food while I was locked in Arkham.”
Dick flinched.
Tim winced. So did Stephanie.
Cass stared at her plate.
Even Damian looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.
Bruce shut his eyes, jaw clenched like he was grinding down a scream behind his teeth.
Nobody laughed.
Jason leaned back, grabbed his glass of water, and took a long drink. It didn’t help. His mouth still tasted like rust and bile.
Then—finally—Dick spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
Jason’s eyes slid to him, slow and sharp.
Dick was standing stiff by the wall now, not sitting, not eating. Just watching, eyes tired, face pale. “I was under… a lot of pressure,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Jason smiled. It wasn’t kind. “Well, I’m glad you can see me now. I was starting to feel like a bit of a ghost.”
Dick swallowed. “Jay—”
“Oh, yeah. Speaking of ghosts.” Jason tilted his head, faux-curious. “Didn’t you have, like, actual hallucinations for a while? Real classic haunting shit, right?”
Tim paled.
Jason kept going because he never did learn when to stop. “Y’know, if you ever need help with that, maybe you should take a trip to Arkham. Really clears the head. Did wonders for me.”
The silence cracked like a gunshot.
Then—
BANG.
Bruce slammed his hand down on the table. Glasses rattled. Silverware jumped. Everyone froze.
“Enough,” he said, voice low, guttural. “That’s enough.”
Jason stood up.
He didn’t look angry anymore. He looked exhausted. Stripped bare. “This was a mistake.”
“Jason,” Tim said quickly. “Just—wait, please—”
“No,” Jason cut in. His voice was tight, almost shaking. “This whole thing was a massive waste of time, I’m done playing happy family.”
He turned to Dick. “Hey. Good news. You’ll be glad to know there’s a little less pressure now.”
Dick looked up, eyes unreadable.
“I’ve decided to leave Gotham for a while,” Jason said.
A long pause. No one moved.
Bruce pushed his chair back and stood. “Where are you going?”
Jason shrugged, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair. “Don’t know. Don’t care. I just… need to be away from everything.”
He turned and walked out.
His boots echoed through the manor halls like warning bells. Every step was loud enough to drown out his racing heart. He made it to the front door without anyone following.
Until—
“Jason.”
He turned. Bruce was there. Jacket in hand, something clutched in his other.
Jason didn’t say anything.
Bruce held out an envelope and a card. “For emergencies.”
Jason stared at it like it might burn his skin. “I don’t want your guilt money.”
Bruce’s jaw clenched. “It’s not guilt.”
“Right,” Jason scoffed. “I’m not a charity case, Bruce.”
“You’re not,” Bruce said. “It’s your money. The paper has information on your trust fund. It’s always been yours. I just want you to have it. Just in case.”
Jason looked at him.
Then, reluctantly, he took it. Stuffed it into his coat like it meant nothing. “Whatever.”
He turned to go, but paused.
Bruce looked like he wanted to say something more, but didn’t know how.
Jason didn’t help him.
He stepped outside.
The night air hit him hard and cold. His bike waited at the base of the steps, helmet slung over the handlebars. He walked down slowly, swung a leg over, and kicked the engine to life.
The roar echoed across the lawn.
Jason looked up once—just once—at the light glowing in the manor windows. At the family he could never quite seem to leave, and never quite fit inside.
Then he twisted the throttle.
And let Gotham disappear behind him.