Chapter Text
Jason hates magic.
Jason hates magic so fucking much.
Another crate explodes behind him in a fiery ball of splinters. They rain down on him, pattering off his leather jacket, pinging against the metal of his helmet. He ducks instinctively—tucking and rolling behind another metal support beam. The smell of burning wood and melting plastic fills his nose.
“You can’t hide from me forever, Hood!” the Mage cackles, his shrill voice echoing throughout the warehouse. The tenor pitch grinds on Jason’s already frayed nerves.
The Mage had been causing issues in Crime Alley for weeks. Mostly ignorable stuff—small fires in abandoned buildings, atrocious puns sprawled across storefronts in aggressive red graffiti—that Jason had thought was some small-time arsonist. But then last night, an inferno had started in the back of an animal shelter Jason had started as a community service project.
A dog had died.
And for that, the Mage had to fucking pay.
(Jason hadn’t known he was an actual, fire-wielding mage until after he’d already shot several bullets in the fucker’s direction—but oh well).
Another fireball hurtles through the air. It misses Jason by several feet and crashes through a large window, showering down glass like shards of sharp rain. Jason rolls his eyes. Sweat coats his neck, his face, traces uncomfortable beads down his spine and mats his hair beneath the helmet. A headache throbs between his temples—an annoying pulse, courtesy of a week’s worth of terrible nights and sporadic meals.
There’s more exhaustion, more pain, and he knows it—but it’s buried. All emotion, all physical limits are smothered by the constant sing of green in his veins. The Pit eats away at the edges of his vision until all that’s left is the Mage and the cool weight of the gun in his gloved hand.
He presses his back against the beam, forcing out a breath. His armor is scorched in places. The HUD of his helmet flickers in and out from magical interference. The muscles around his eyes ache from squinting against the glitching.
Fucking idiot, Jason thinks. He grinds his teeth against a surge of green. It takes everything not to give in to the emerald bloodlust of the Pit, not to let it drag him into the heat and chaos and rip the Mage apart with his bare hands.
That would be stupid. That would get him killed.
Again.
Not that anyone would care.
Well—Bruce might. He’d care enough to be relieved. Another mistake remedied, another stubborn red stain wiped clean from his beloved city.
(A city that’s Jason’s, too).
Hell, the bastard had already buried Jason once. Erased Jason like a distasteful smudge on his life he hadn’t meant to make. Had thrown a batarang at Jason’s throat and left him choking on his own blood. Had branded him a monster, called him a criminal. Not son.
Never son anymore, actually. Not since before he died.
And after the Tower incident, well—
Another fireball whizzes past, heat licking at his shoulder, pins and needles shooting down his arm like someone turned the whole limb into TV static.
“All right,” Jason mutters, pulling his other pistol from its holster and clicking the safety off. “We’re done.”
Silence is his answer. A weird, anticipatory quiet that makes Jason’s sweat-slick skin crawl.
He listens—straining his ears for a cackle or the tell-tale whoosh of the Mage summoning another fireball—but all he can hear is fire crackling as the wreckage of the warehouse burns. Then, he risks a glance.
The Mage stands dead center in the warehouse. He’s swaying heavily on his feet. His hands are blackened, his crimson robes scorched. His eyes burn a frantic, feverish orange. Sweat streaks down his ash-covered face. He looks damn near half-dead, but the madness in his grin is still very much alive and unsettlingly well.
“You think this is over?” he wheezes. “Wait until I’ve—“
He stops. His brows furrow.
Jason doesn’t wait for him to finish his train of thought. He springs out from behind the support beam, guns raised. One shot, two, six—
The Mage lifts a trembling hand. The bullets are met by an oppressive wall of heat—now flat as freshly minted coins, they hit the floor with metallic pings.
Jason swears. He hostlers both pistols and draws several kunai between his fingers.
The Mage raises another hand. The wall of heat slams into Jason like a freight train. The world narrows to sickening, suffocating, and sweltering. His skin feels too small for his body. The under layer of his armor clings to him like a second hide. He can hardly see straight; the air shimmers and swims. Nausea climbs up his throat.
“Holy fuck,” Jason breathes. His tongue feels scorched. His blood boils in his veins. The metal kunai sear through his gloves; he drops them, staggering—the heat is inescapable. The warehouse bends around him.
“You don’t belong here, do you?”
The Mage’s voice buzzes in his skull. Jason would laugh if he wasn’t going to throw up while doing it. Yeah, he’d say. I get that a lot.
Death’s normally a lot more permanent for people. A one-way door with no key and no lock. An exit people often never see coming. An ending marked by black ink and carved in granite.
Death normally doesn’t spit you back out.
But it spit Jason back out. So unwanted, even the Reaper sent him back.
“No—no you don’t,” the Mage mutters again, soft and almost…reverent?
A distant, much cooler part of Jason’s mind recognizes that hmm, that’s probably bad—but the rest of him is currently fucking melting. His insides are clawing up his throat in a desperate attempt to be outsides. The HUD screams red. He drops to one knee. The metal in his armor burns like branding irons. His breath stutters and skips uncontrollably.
“Don’t worry,” the Mage croons. “I’ll fix that for you.”
I fucking hate magic, Jason thinks again, though he’s surprised he can think at all.
The air crackles—like dead leaves underfoot, like the popping and breaking of bones. Ozone floods his nose and throat. He feels like he’s being pressure cooked.
And then—
Nothing.
The first Jason realizes is that he’s fucking cold.
The temperature shift feels…wrong. Because wasn’t he just—?
Green flares behind his eyelids. Jason forces himself still—the last thing he wants to do is give away that he’s awake.
That fucking Mage.
Jason listens, straining his ears—and it’s quiet. No floorboards creaking, no breathing, no rustle of fabric. For all Jason can hear, he’s completely alone.
He immediately refocuses, assessing: his arms and legs aren’t bound (do they even know who he is?). He’s laying on something hard—and judging by the ache in his tailbone, he’s been there for a while. His mouth is dry. His fingers and toes are painfully cold. He’s still in the Red Hood suit, helmet on, all weapons accounted for.
Okay. I’ve got my…body. And my gear. He’s still fucking cold, the sweat from his fight with the Mage gritty and long-dried against his skin. A weird, crawling wrongness settles deep in his gut.
His captors are either unfathomably stupid, incredibly cocky, or…nonexistent.
Jason risks cracking open an eye—a water-stained popcorn ceiling stares back. His HUD is dark, but that’s low on the priority list. Tentatively, pushes himself up.
He’s in some dusty apartment. Thick cobwebs clutter the corners. There’s no furniture—just a barebones kitchen, cabinets ransacked and hanging open. A scuffed brown door sits nearly rotting along the far wall. Weak light from the late-evening sun leaks in through a dirty window.
That uncomfortable, something-is-fucking-wrong feeling wiggles around in his gut again. Everything feels…off. One degree to the left.
He stands, shaking out stiff limbs and rubbing his cold hands together. He fiddles with his helmet, but the HUD—and all his tech—stays stubbornly dark.
Fine, he thinks with a huff. Future-Jason problem.
But…where the hell is he?
He crosses the room to the window, boots silent on the worn hardwood. The Gotham skyline greets him, dull and wintery gray. Crime Alley, by the crumbling look of it. The sun’s nearly down, the remnants an early-winter snow dusting the rooftops. The wind cuts through the side streets below. Jason shivers.
What did the Mage do to him?
In another life, Jason might’ve called Bruce. Might’ve had a beacon, a tracker—something. The moment it went red, Bruce would’ve come running.
But this isn’t another life. And Bruce isn’t coming.
Would never come. He’d made that clear enough. While Bruce’s parents hung forever memorialized in obnoxiously large frames, Jason had been reduced down to the street rat from the alley—just like as if they’d never met. As if Bruce had never pulled Jason from nothing and made him something. Had never given him purpose—had never called him son and tried to love him like one.
Instead, Jason was buried by indifferent hands beneath indifferent soil in an indifferent fucking box.
Buried a failure, a mistake, only to come back something even worse—
Pain cuts the spiraling thought short. Jason blinks, green fading from the edges of his vision.
Oh.
His fist throbs from where it met the window. He flexes it, the anger only leaving him colder. He can see the sickly green glow of his eyes reflected back at him in the dark HUD.
Okay, he thinks, pushing out a breath. Calling Bruce was never even an option anyways.
He turns away from the window and begins to pace, limbs thrumming with anxious energy. He swallows hard; his mouth still tastes like ash from the burning warehouse. Something’s wrong. Deeply, fundamentally wrong.
He could call…
No. Dick had never wanted him as a brother in the first place. And Jason—for all his twelve-year-old naivety—had realized that embarrassingly too late. The Golden Boy, with all his light and warmth and charisma, had simultaneously iced Jason out and burnt him.
And after what happened in the Tower—after what Jason had done to Tim—Nightwing had promised to drop him where he stood the next time they happened to meet.
Jason had shot at him in return—half out of his mind, sure. But angry? Tired? Fucking absolutely. He’d grazed the idiot on the shoulder, and the aptly named dick had thrown such a venomous look back at him that Jason was actually worried he’d bleed black the next time he was cut. It’s not like they’d ever “spoke” before—but after that, Jason hadn’t seen Dick again.
Jason had gone a little off the deep end that night, the Pit in his veins all to eager to feed green kindling to his already burning anger. A few more bodies than he’d originally intended found themselves filled with lead.
Bruce had shown up the next night, fury carved into every obsidian line of him.
(“I was a fool for ever believing in you.”)
Jason…hadn’t been prepared for what had followed.
(“You’re a character. I’ve never seen you hit Joker that hard. And you hate him.”
And in that moment, Jason couldn’t tell the difference between his father’s fists and his killer’s crowbar.)
That hadn’t been the first time, and Jason is left eternally kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. He remembers being slammed into the cold tile of a bathtub the first night he came back to Gotham and realizing oh—he’s not pulling punches. He might actually kill me.
And he had. Bruce had nearly killed him when he’d thrown that batarang at Jason’s neck.
And Jason had been left—bleeding, crying—lying on the floor of yet another burning building, wondering why his dad wouldn’t come save him.
Jason’s hand twitches to his throat—a nervous tick, a habit. Confirmation that the wound is sealed. He’s not bleeding out. He’s not dying again. He runs a finger over the scar—a smooth ridge against the rough fabric of his glove.
Fuck them, he thinks. Fuck them right back.
They tried to erase me. And I didn’t fucking let them.
His hand still aches from his altercation with the window. He shakes it out again, then freezes.
Wait.
The door.
Jason moves toward the far wall, cursing himself for every damn thing he’s worth—he never actually checked to see if the door was unlocked.
Jason runs his fingers along the frame, feeling for traps. He tries the handle. It’s unlocked. If this were The Office, Jason would be staring straight at the camera with the most withering look known to man.
He draws his gun and flips off the safety with a quiet click. He edges out into the hallway, peeking around the corner. Everything is…normal. He descends the stairs, silent and slow. This really is just some shitty apartment building in Crime Alley.
So why does it all feel so wrong?
Jason hits the bottom landing and pauses. Going outside—in broad daylight, in full Red Hood gear—is idiotic. But the Mage did something to him, and he needs to fix it before it gets worse.
He can’t call Bruce. He can’t call Dick.
Jason knows that he and Tim are not…on the best of terms. They’re on terrible terms, actually—the last time they “talked”, Jason was actively killing him in Titans Tower. But Jason also knows that Tim is wicked smart—smart enough to fix whatever is wrong.
A very risky, very dumb plan begins to take shape. Jason kind of hates it already. But he is, rather unfortunately, quite desperate.
He pats his pants’ pocket—the emergency cash is still there.
Okay. He can…make this work.
Yeah.
Maybe if he shows up in civvies, it’ll be less threatening. And if Jason just knocks on the front door like a regular person…
He slips off the helmet and peels off the domino, wincing at how it sticks to his scars and gritty skin. He runs a hand through his stiff curls with a grimace—he needs a shower, soon. He zips up his jacket to hide the red symbol blazoned across his chest. If memory serves him well, there should be a thrift store or two nearby.
Jason takes in a lungful of chilly air and steps out into the cold, dying light.
Does Jason feel bad about hotwiring some poor bastard’s car?
No—no he doesn’t.
Does Jason feel bad for knocking on the Drake’s front door, knowing full well he’s probably gonna scare the shit out of poor Tim?
…maybe.
He tried, at least, to look less like a crime lord. He’s wearing the least threatening pair of gray sweatpants he could find. He even swapped out his beloved leather jacket for a generic black hoodie. He doesn’t even have any weapons on him.
(Okay, that last one’s a lie—he’s got one thigh holster, and there are several small knives tucked into his boots.
He’s a Bat. Sue him).
Jason shifts his weight, debating whether to knock again. The wind blows, and he shivers. He risks a glance in the direction of Wayne Manor. The proximity wraps a frigid hand around his lungs, his throat. He swallows hard. That’s not his home anymore; it probably never even was. Green flashes and flickers at the edges of his vision—he feels the almost uncontainable urge to throw a kick through the monolithic glass doors of Drake Manor. He clenches his fists until his nails leave half-moon indents on his palms instead.
If Tim doesn’t open the door—if he calls Bruce, if he hides in some panic bunker Jason knows he has—Jason wouldn’t blame him. He already beat the poor kid half to death with his own bo staff. Not wanting to invite a sadist into your house seems on par with all forms of rational logic.
Maybe he should just go—
A shadow moves behind the frosted glass. Jason straightens, his heart in his throat. The door opens. He comes face to face with—
“You’re not Amir.”
Jack Drake?
Jason’s brows twitch upward before he schools his face into careful neutrality. Jack gives him a curt nod, eyes flicking past him like Jason’s some annoying bug on his windshield.
“Janet, dear,” he calls over his shoulder. “Did you forget to call us an Uber?”
“No, darling,” a woman’s voice answers from deeper inside. “He should be here in three minutes.”
“Ah.” Jack refocuses on Jason. “So—you must be the sitter, then?”
Jason blinks. He frowns.
Huh?
The tactical part of Jason’s brain screams retreat, you fucking idiot. The curious part of him wonders why the hell does Tim Drake need a babysitter? Isn’t he like…16—?
(And buried somewhere beneath six feet of indifferent soil, a very small, very quiet, distinctly Robin part of him seethes—they hired a stranger to watch their kid? And don’t even know what they look like? What if they’re some creep?)
Jason opens his mouth, ready to deny it and bail, but—
Then Tim rounds the corner, and Jason’s words die in his throat.
Tim is tiny.
Jason can’t help it this time—his mouth falls open.
Seven-years-old by the look of him—all enormous blue eyes and dark, messy hair sticking up in every direction. He’s wearing snowmen pajamas; the sleeves are too long, and the pant legs are rolled at least four times at the ankles. He’s looking up at Jason with so much open faced curiosity it almost forces Jason several steps back.
Something much colder and much, much sharper than the biting December wind drops in Jason’s gut. It spreads through his veins, winding its way around his lungs and settling like frostbite in his heart.
Guilt. It’s guilt. Freezing and raw and as hard and burning as ice.
Because Jason beat the shit out of this little kid. Taunted him. Mocked him. Broke his hollow bird bones with gleeful laughter and a cruel smile. Crushed his little Robin wings with the most satisfying of snaps, all to eager to use this child’s blood to paint the walls with his name. Shamelessly, mercilessly.
Jason swallows hard. He feels like he’s choking.
Jack Drake clears his throat.
Right. Jason’s gonna say no and leave.
“Yep,” Jason hears himself say. “That’s me.”
Well shit, Jason.
Jack smiles. “Great!” Then he looks down at Tim, and the smile sharpens. It makes Jason’s skin crawl.
“Introduce yourself, Timothy. Like we taught you.”
Tim steps out from behind his father’s leg and extends a tiny hand.
The ice in Jason’s veins floods the rest of his body. He remembers those little fingers snapping under his boots. He can’t look at the hand, but he takes it anyway—gently, carefully—suddenly painfully aware of just how big his hands are, the scars crisscrossing his fingers, and how small Tim’s palm feels in his.
“Hello, sir,” Tim says with adorable formality. “Nice to meet you. My name is Timothy Drake.”
“Jay,” Jason manages. His voice sounds so wrong in his own ears. “I’m Jay.”
“Lovely!” Jack claps his hands together. Tim flinches. Jason’s stomach lurches and he bites his cheek against a hot flash of anger. He silently prays his eyes aren’t glowing.
“Now—we’ll be back from Mongolia in a few weeks,” Jack continues briskly. “If you need anything, call Ida Mac—her number’s on the fridge. Once she’s healed from her hip replacement, you can go, and we’ll pay you accordingly. Until then, feel free to stay in a guest room, use the card, whatever. Oh—and take care of dear Timothy.”
Jason nods, not trusting himself to speak without saying something stupid. He doesn’t like Jack Drake.
He fucking hates him, actually.
“Perfect,” Jack says. His phones buzzes. Jason hears tires crunch on the driveway behind him. “Ah, there’s Amir. Be good, Timothy. Don’t cause Jay any trouble. Janet!”
Jack Drake disappears back into the house, leaving Jason and seven-year-old Tim alone on the steps.
Yup, Jason thinks. Something is definitely fucking wrong.
They stand on the front steps and watch the Drake’s Uber pull away. The smell of exhaust floats on the wintery wind when as it blows again. Drake Manor looms cold and quiet behind them. Jason’s stomach growls.
Jason…really doesn’t know what to do. So he starts with something simple.
“Pizza?” he asks, roughly but not unkindly, looking down at Tim.
Tim studies him. Jason fights the urge to squirm.
“Okay,” Tim says after a moment.
Jason nods. “Alright. I, uh…I’m gonna grab my duffel from the car, and then I’ll be inside.”
“Okay,” Tim says again. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Um. Can I…help?”
“Uh—“ Jason would rather not have Tim carry a duffel bag containing several military grade weapons and a helmet that doubles as a bomb. “If you can carry it.”
Tim perks up instantly. Jason feels like a snake talking to a field mouse.
(He lets Tim carry the duffel bag anyway, because the kid insists he can because he’s not a baby—and who is Jason to say no to that logic?)
Thirty minutes later, the two of them are sitting at the kitchen bar—surrounded by open pizza boxes and the smell of melted cheese and grease. Tim politely eats a slice of pizza the size of his face with a fork and knife. Jason inhales his with his hands like a sane person.
It’s kind of awkward—Jason can’t think of shit to say. He doesn’t know what Tim…knows. It’s weird, seeing him so small and unassuming. Childlike.
He thinks about teasing Tim, maybe asking about school, but he just…can’t. Flashes of blood keep dancing across his vision. Blood-curdling screams keep echoing in his ears.
Jason had hurt this kid. Jason had hurt this kid bad.
But—he’d hurt sixteen-year-old Tim.
He’d already ruled out time travel. The old TV in the thrift store told him as much; it’s the same year, one day later—and it makes sense that Jason lost a couple of hours between fighting the Mage and waking up in the abandoned apartment.
So no time travel.
Then why in the wild blue fuck is Tim…seven?
Tim’s voice breaks through the incessant noise in Jason’s head.
“So, Jay—when are you leaving?”
Jason frowns, lowering the pizza crust he’d been eating.
“Uh…leaving?”
“Yeah,” Tim’s tone is businesslike; it’s unnatural hearing the matter-of-fact-ness from a seven-year-old. He’s finished his slices and is working on a breadstick. “Mrs. Mac only comes Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. But she’s still getting better from her hip, so she won’t be back for a while. You’re obviously not gonna stay here the whole time. So…” He trails off.
“…When am I leaving?” Jason repeats.
Tim nods.
Jason studies Tim for a beat. He knows from his extensive research (in preparing to attack Tim) that Tim’s parents traveled a lot. He’d assumed it was fine. A spoiled rich kid with no adult supervision and an unlimited credit card? Talk about living the dream. All this information only further fueled Jason’s belief that Tim deserved to have the everloving shit beat out of him.
Jason had never realized it meant this. A seven-year-old, left to fend for himself in a mansion the size of a city block.
It makes Jason angry for some reason he can’t quite figure out just yet.
“I’m…not leaving just yet, kid,” Jason says. The words feel awkward in his mouth. He needs to leave, but not before figuring out what the fuck the Mage did.
Because clearly, the bastard did something to Tim, too.
“You’re not?” Tim says—and goddammit. He’s looking across the bar at Jason with the biggest blue eyes. They’re full of painfully open hope and a kind of quiet disbelief that pulls on Jason’s cold, guilty heartstrings.
Jason runs a nervous lip between his teeth, tugging at the scar tissue there. He needs Tim to stop looking at him like that.
“Nope,” he says finally. He can keep it quiet. He’ll swear the baby bird to secrecy then high-tail it back to Crime Alley. No harm no foul.
“Oh,” Tim says. He nibbles on his breadstick in contemplation. “Okay.”
Jason suddenly isn’t hungry anymore. He stands, the scrape of his stool echoing loudly through the empty house. He runs his hands beneath the kitchen sink to wash off the grease. It’s one of those fancy touchless ones, all sleek stainless steel and no handle. Jason hates it immediately.
“So, kid,” he says, scrubbing his plate. He would’ve used paper plates—because who in the fuck eats pizza with real dishware?—but the Drake’s didn’t have any paper plates because they’re useless rich idiots. “Can I borrow a computer? I’ve got some…homework.”
Tim gives him a look. “You don’t have your own computer?”
Jason mentally rolls his eyes. You little snot.
“Forgot it,” he lies.
Tim nods, definitely not believing him. Jason takes the kid’s plate and begins washing it. He can feel Tim wanting to ask another question—only this time, he seems nervous. He fiddles with the too-long sleeves of his pajamas.
“Um,” his eyes flash to Jason, then away. “Can I…sit with you? I’ll be really quiet. You won’t even notice me. Promise.”
Jason freezes for just a second. He adds a quick mental note to look deeper into the Drakes’ parenting habits.
Then he nods. “Sure.”
Jason sits behind the massive oak desk in Janet Drake’s office, restlessly twirling a pencil between his fingers. It’s dark outside now—the early winter sun long since set—and a single lamp in the corner casts soft light over the various artifacts displayed along the walls. Tim lies on his stomach on the rug, crayons spread out around him. The faint scratch of wax on paper drifts through the quiet.
Jason can’t look at him. He starts typing.
Both “fire mage” and “fire wizard” bring up empty searches. Which, fine—the guy was more of a Crime Alley issue anyway.
Jason huffs in frustration and tries something else.
He pulls up the Gotham Gazette, scrolling through headlines and articles. And slowly, the something’s-fucking-wrong feeling in his gut hardens into solid lead.
The Mage did something, alright.
He finds that Jason Todd—Robin—died three years ago. And not in the “died with wiggle room” sense that still left cracks in the coffin lid for Lazarus Pit water. No, poor little Jason was dead dead. There were no traces of return, no whispered sightings of a red helmeted figure. Jason Todd was dead, and he was staying that way.
Jason’s pulse grows louder in his ears as if in defiant denial of what he’s reading. If Jason Todd is so permanently deceased, how the hell is he alive, then?
He opens a new tab and types “Jason Todd death” in the search bar. In hindsight, that’s a terrible idea. What he finds is…wrong.
The first result punches him square in the face: it’s a photo, probably snapped by some snooping paparazzi shark with no respect for personal privacy. Bruce Wayne stands in a graveyard, head bowed, a leather-gloved hand covering his face. Dick Grayson has a comforting hand on his shoulder, his eyes glassy, guilt etched into every line of his posture. Alfred stands a step behind, his face full of grief.
The picture blurs with green haze. He feels something snap in his hands, but the sensation is a million miles away.
This is wrong. All of it. That didn’t—none of this—
Jason swallows hard, but there’s a painful knot lodged in his throat. His ribs squeeze his lungs. The picture burns into his cornea, his brain. The world narrows to article titles and fury.
“Wayne Heir Retreats from Public Eye After Son’s Death.”
“Batman Seen Bleeding Heavily Following Shootout—Where’s Robin?”
“Nightwing Returns to Gotham to Aid the Dark Knight.”
“Jury Convicts, Joker Given Life Term for Jason Todd-Wayne’s Death”
“Wayne Foundation Commits Millions to Overhaul Security at Blackgate and Arkham”
No. Nope. No no no—no.
Jason drags a shaking hand down his face and forces himself to look away from the screen. He risks a glance at Tim—he’s still coloring, blissfully unaware that Jason’s entire reality is currently unraveling three feet away.
None of this happened. Jason had been been buried without the Wayne name. Cold and alone and separated. The second Jason died in that warehouse, he was no longer Bruce’s kid. Because even in death, he was an effigy of disobedience and forewarning rather than a son that was tragically murdered.
(If Jason really thinks, he figures he’d stopped being Bruce’s kid the second Felipe Garzonas slipped off that damned balcony.)
Dick had retreated to Blüdhaven, his relationship with Bruce in nearly irreparable tatters. Bruce did not mourn—he packed his grief into a fist and turned that gauntlet on Gotham. It had been Tim—not Dick—that had brought Bruce back from the edge.
Except now, that little Robin sits on the floor, coloring, home from second grade on winter break
The Joker had run free. Arkham continued being no more secure than Swiss cheese. Jason never got justice.
But here…?
Jason refocuses the anger before he puts a hole in the computer screen. His fingers fly across the keys as he hacks into the Drakes’ email. Needless to say, it’s a mess—crammed full of unread airline newsletters, international shopping receipts, and travel confirmations. But buried among the junk is something else.
A chain of messages from Gotham Child Protective Services. They’re polite, clearly unwanting to cause a scandal, but obviously pointed.
Concerns have been raised about Timothy J. Drake’s wellbeing from an anonymous source. A follow-up is requested.
He clicks through to the final email:
A sitter has been confirmed for the duration of winter break. Mongolia itinerary attached.
The “sitter” never actually showed up—not that Jason would’ve actually let the rando watch Tim. He was more…waiting. To see if the Drake’s had put any effort into their child’s wellbeing. His answer had been a resounding no.
Jason leans back in the chair with a heavy exhale. His jaw aches from grinding his molars. He rakes a hand through his hair—yuck, he needs a shower—tugging hard at the ends.
So yeah—no time travel. And yeah—something is very fucking wrong.
The Mage’s voice bounces around his skull, oily and pretentious:
“I’ll fix that for you.”
Well—the motherfucker fixed it alright. He’s sent Jason to a whole other universe.
Jason stares at the glowing computer screen.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathes.