#dick hunting down the Red Hood like a bloodhound | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dont-be-so-shy · 2 years

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birthday gifts

notes: 7k jaytim reverse robins oneshot

Jason Todd is turning fourteen in half an hour when he comes down to the Batcave that night. He’d spent the day with Dickie, B, Alfie, and a few of his other friends before B had left early to go and kill some crime. Dick had gone home to Blüdhaven a half hour ago and Alfie was either puttering about upstairs or sleeping.

He steps into the Cave and instantly spots a silhouette, a tall lanky person dressed in a jacket and boots with a helmet under their arm. The Red Hood steps out the shadows of The Case. This is the first time Jason’s seen him up close. Black body armor cover his torso, he’s also wearing thin, insulated black combat pants, black combat boots made for both stealth and to break people’s tibia’s, and a black leather jacket with a blood stain near the hip, the sleeves decorated in patches: Robin’s R, Batman’s B, a purple Batgirl insignia, and one of a purple alien’s face which he immediately knows is in reference to Oracle. And of course, the telltale dark red helmet underneath his arm.

Timothy Drake, the dead Robin, smiles at him from the shadows of the uniform he wore as he died. “Robin.”

Jason’s fingers clench and he can barely keep himself from stumbling back. “Red Hood.”

Tim, maskless, steps closer, and Jason sees that his eyes are teal𑁋a mix of baby blue and poison green. (Tim’s eyes are supposed to be sky blue.)

“Batman𑁋Bruce𑁋everyone said you were dead.” He stutters. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. The dead Robin, grieved by so many, a crime lord? Does he yell for help, fight him, say hi? Is this even Tim or another one of Clayface’s tricks?

“I was.” Tim says calmly, and that’s one point for Really Tim𑁋supposedly he was always zen, calm, in control no matter what. Jason aspires to be like Tim mostly because sometimes (usually in the months of April and July) Bruce looks at him differently𑁋like he’s expecting something else, and he feels… upset. “Not anymore.”

“Okay…” Jason says. It doesn’t matter what’s going on; he finds he doesn’t want Tim to leave. Then he realizes how weird that would sound if he said it out loud: finding comfort in a dead boy he’s never even met but has always been in the shadow of? He blushes and his head ducks on instinct. (Hide your tears, hide your eyes, hide your face. Don’t make them want to hunt.)

Tim steps forward, and when Jason doesn’t move back, places a folder he withdraws from his jacket into his hand. Tim tilts his head to the left, eyes curious and more blue than green, and he says, “What are you thinking?”

Jason, with all his experience with crushes (one slightly strange and very short-lived crush on Damian, another on Eddie Bloomberg, who’s dead, one on Rose Wilson, and the last on Donna Troy and Diana Prince simultaneously𑁋God, that was weird) and relationships (nil), says with all of his tact, “I’m thinking that I’m really hoping it’s really you because I’ve been dreaming about meeting you since I got here.”

Then he realizes what he just said𑁋word-vomited𑁋and blushes again, harder this time. He hears a soft and not-mocking laugh and sees Tim’s warm blue eyes before Tim’s leaning in and placing a soft kiss on his cheek. “You’re cute.”

Jason thinks he should probably accept Duke’s offer of teaching him how not to blush because he really didn’t think he was capable of being this prickly-hot ever.

Tim turns and slides into the shadows𑁋Jason really needs to learn how to do that𑁋and twenty seconds later, there’s the sound of a Bat-engine huffing quietly into the Cave. Jason turns around abruptly, not stopping to see who it is, stuffs the file up his loose and faded Blüdhaven Bloodhounds T-shirt and runs up the stairs, hearing Bruce’s confused, “Jason?” and stumbling over, “No, I’m fine.”

Tim’s gift folder turns out to be a list of Black Mask’s drug running locations, codes, and runners, because Tim is𑁋supposed to be𑁋a perfectionist like that.

It’s a week until he sees Tim again, at a family dinner slash meeting. Basically, everyone shows up, they eat, they talk about normal family stuff𑁋he guesses, this is the first normal family he’s been in and Batman and his brood aren’t exactly normal𑁋and if anyone wants a consult on one of their cases, they’ll spread the pages of information across a cleared area of the humongously long dining table and everyone will take turns pitching in.

Jason likes these dinners because he gets to see everyone and Bruce is always wearing this proud Papa Bear smile and Duke and Cass always gang up on him to ruffle his hair and hug him hard enough he squawks, and Bruce lets Jason read his books under the table during dinner like he almost never lets him when it’s just them two of them and Alfred and Steph always sneaks Jason extra ice cream because Bruce always buys neapolitan but Alfred keeps enforcing the two-scoops-per-person rule until, halfway through, he eventually just sits back, amused.

Alfred and Damian have taken to opening the Wayne’s fan mail during these dinners while Duke explains the intricacies of the case he’s working on in Opal City involving prostitutes, drug runners, and traffickers and how he should approach the situation𑁋undercover op and risk losing the tail he has on a separate gunrunning gang or a more typical approach but taking on two heavy cases at once?

Steph’s just started recommending Duke team up with Vixen or Arsenal when Alfred’s voice wavers, “Master Bruce?”

The whole table quiets. This is family dinner night. There are no emergencies on family dinner night. Damian stands and hands a multi-page letter to Bruce and Duke slides out of his seat almost directly under the chandelier to read over Bruce’s shoulder. The two’s faces progressively drop more and more into Bat as they read the letter and Jason’s starting to get a bad feeling about this. Steph’s accessing the security camera above Bruce’s shoulder from her favorite Bat-tablet and Alfred is leaning into Cass’ shoulder, whose gaze is analyzing the windows and other points of entry warily.

Duke inhales shakily. “It says… It says that recently the League of Assassins revived someone using the Lazarus Pit. The Red Hood.” As soon as the word ‘League’ comes out of Duke’s mouth, Jason’s fingers are twitching again, itching to scar the palms of his hands like they always do when he’s anxious. “There’s a picture of𑁋Steph, can you pull up the cemetery, please?𑁋It says Tim’s the Red Hood.”

Nobody visibly reacts at the words and Steph’s purple hologram shows the Wayne’s plot of land in Gotham’s biggest and most popular cemetery. She types in a command and the picture zooms in on Tim’s grave.

Timothy Jackson Drake July 19𑁋April 27 Son, Friend, Hero “If Gotham needs a hero, I have to provide.”

A small bat is carved into the lower left corner, barely covered by grass. There are fresh flowers on the grave𑁋Jason thinks Cass, Duke, or Damian must have put them there. Duke and Damian always try to visit Tim’s grave on their way in or out of town. Jason recognizes water lilies, which means Damian. Cass uses roses and Duke honeysuckle. In flower language, water lilies mean rebirth and innocence and honeysuckle means happiness and affection. He doesn’t think they know that, Damian in particular.

There’s a knock on the door and everyone jumps. Alfred goes to answer it as he always does, but this time Cass follows and Steph pulls up the live camera footage of the front steps. A male-looking figure with black hair is on the front stoop, holding a bouquet of daffodils and lilacs. Rebirth and unconditional love. Whoever it is𑁋Tim, his mind screams𑁋is wearing a shrunk-in-the-wash too-small blue and yellow sweatshirt and dark blue skinny jeans with black boots. Steph switches the feed to the foyer. Alfred opens the door and it is Tim’s face that looks back at them, poison𑁋Lazarus𑁋green almost nonexistent in his eyes, face slightly scared, and bouquet outstretched.

“Hi.” Tim says on camera, reaches into his coat and grabs a paperclipped stack of paper, the first page being blood charts and DNA tests before Cass is grabbing him in a tight hug and, in the dining room, Duke, Bruce, and Damian are launching towards the door, Bruce moving as fast as his broken fibula will let him. Steph is speeding in her chair and Jason can feel his cheeks strain; he realizes he’s grinning too wide.

Alive𑁋alive, alive, alive. Tim Drake is really, truly, well and alive.

Bruce and Alfred are crying over Tim, who’s trying to hide his smile in his scarf, then it’s Duke and Damian, Damian cradling his head and whispering an Arabic dialect Jason has yet to learn, then it’s Steph and Cass, both holding as close as physically possible, holding him like they want to crawl into his skin and live with him, then he’s moving forward before Cass and Steph are even off him.

He pauses when he realizes he doesn’t know what to do. Why would he cry and hug and say ‘It’s you, it’s really you, you ass’ to a dead boy he’s never met, or spoken to in any meaningful manner?

Tim’s hands are reaching and wrapping around his shoulders and wow, Jason’s just realizing that even though he’s small for his age, three inches too short, only five feet tall but still only five or so inches shorter than Tim, who should be𑁋how old is he? Seventeen𑁋at least an inch taller.

As Tim hugs him and cradles the back of his head, Steph is selfish and keeps her arms wrapped around Tim’s hips but one of Cass’ hands land in his hair. Then he feels soft pressure and warmth along his back𑁋Duke, another hand settle on his shoulder𑁋Damian, soft sobs and even more warmth to contradict the cool breeze coming from outside through the open door his bare ankles aren’t liking𑁋Bruce, a trembling hand on his back𑁋Alfred. Then Tim’s shaking, moving his shoulders in deliberate movements, stepping back from the tight and warm embrace with big eyes. Tim whispers, “Coffin. Claustrophobia. Pit. Thermophobia. Sorry.”

They move the sitting room. Steph refuses to let go of Tim’s hand, Alfred grips his forearm from his spot next to him, Bruce sits cross-legged on the floor in front of him and Duke rests his chin on one of Steph’s knees. Tim strips of his sweatshirt in the warm room with the burning fireplace𑁋where they usually play Clue after family dinner nights and where Bruce reads Jason Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books on nights they’re alone𑁋leaving him in a thin and pale gray sweater with a graphic of a Minecraft zombie on it and showing off an old, stained bandage on his wrist.

Tim’s knuckles are bruised to hell and back but there are no scars on his hands like there were in the pictures, no burn scar on the back of his neck, no scar just under the plump part of his lower lip. The Lazarus Pit’s healing capabilities are god-tier but Ra’s al Ghul is a myth as much as he is a legend and Jason never thought he’d be witness to this. Tim meets his eyes from where he’s been looking on softly at Alfred and Jason realizes he’s been staring at Tim’s lips for entirely too long. Tim’s eyes turn amused yet gentle in a way that reminds of that day in the Cave and of the summer sun in San Fran, only for Jason to realize with a start that Tim’s eyes are almost entirely the captivating ice blue they were fabled to be, poison green leached out almost completely.

Tim and Jason don’t speak again𑁋well, look heavily at each other𑁋until later that night, at around midnight. It’s a family dinner night, not a patrol night, so Jason was supposed to be in bed an hour ago but exceptions can be made for newly-resurrected family members. No one even mentions Jason’s bedroom until he starts to leave the kitchen𑁋where they’ve relocated𑁋to head to bed. Jason’s known Tim was alive for a week even though part of him wondered if it was a hallucination or a trick and he has an English test tomorrow. He really likes Mr. Lakely.

Jason leaves his door open, like you do as an ‘okay, you can creepily sneak into my room in the middle of the night and cuddle me’ that Duke started back when he was Batman’s only protege. His covers are handmade by Alfred, given to him for his second Christmas at the manor, which means they’re extra warm, thick, and soft. They’re weighted too, because Alfred is a godsend who’s used to knowing people who want only one blanket but a heavy one. Jason’s not like that. Cold winters in the East End make him sleep with three blankets, one weighted, and two pillows. Also, Sparky the stuffed dog because he’s sentimental.

Jason’s eyes are half-lidded and close to sliding shut when Cass and Tim come into his room. Cass double-checks the locks on his windows as Tim sits in a big plush blue armchair stained with ink that only Bruce uses, when he reads to Jason while he’s sick.

Cass leaves and shuts the door behind her and he can hear the scraping of the I’m Not Mad At You sign against the door but he forgets about everything except Tim when Tim leans forward and rests his forehead on Jason’s forearm, one hand gripping his.

Tim looks up at him but his gaze stays on his cheeks, right where Jason’s blush is. It only makes him blush harder.

“Hey,” Tim says.

“Hey,” Jason whispers back.

“I’ve got a surprise for you. Two.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Tim pulls out a collapsible bo staff from the pocket of his sweatshirt, which he’s put back on sometime during the night.

“It’s a bo. Chinese, traditional but also new and improved. I designed it myself.” Jason nearly breaks his cheeks smiling and Tim smiles back, soft but his eyes are warm enough to light fires. Jason’s happy to see that Tim’s eyes are no less blue than they were at the beginning of the night.

Jason taps ‘thank you’ and ‘I love it’ against Tim’s bare forearms where his sleeves are rolled up and says aloud, “And the second?”

“Close your eyes.” It takes a second, maybe four, but Tim’s lips, chapped and dry but also warm, press against his eyelids, one by one.

“Thank you.” Tim breathes against his skin.

“For what?” Jason asks, slowly opening his eyes, eyelids feeling stuck𑁋glued shut.

“For helping Bruce. For becoming Robin.” Tim’s still whispering even though Jason knows that he knows full well they wouldn’t be disturbing anyone, and Jason feels like maybe he shouldn’t be feeling so warm at the thought of a secret.

“Batman needs Robin.” Tim whispers throatily against Jason’s shoulder, which is bare except for the strap of a red tank top.

“Yeah.” Jason whispers, knows he’s staring at Tim’s hair𑁋black and silky with a white streak slicing through it𑁋entirely too obviously to be utilizing literally any of his Bat training. “Yeah, okay.”

Jason can’t remember how or when he falls asleep. In fact, he can’t remember anything past Tim’s warm lips on his shoulder and an indistinguishable whisper𑁋Tim’s rough scream-hoarse voice and how it felt vibrating quietly against his throat.

He wakes up because one of the sun’s beams is shining into his eye uncomfortably, then he realizes it was actually probably the numerous Bat(-human hybrids, chants Steph in his mind)s surrounding him. Bruce is sitting in the armchair Tim sat in last night, Duke perched on the armrest. Cass and Damian are sitting by his Favorite Book bookshelf and the door to his library and Steph is closer to the windows, wheelchair in the middle of his carpeted floor.

Jason panics when the thought crosses his mind that they might be interrogating him𑁋wondering where Tim went, before he realizes that the warmth on his right side is not the sun. It’s Tim, still wearing his sweatshirt, jeans, and colored pastel bobby pins, which has got to be uncomfortable. Then he has to try to wrestle his blush down because it’s Tim’s breath he feels against his neck and shoulder, Tim’s hair tickling his cheek, Tim’s legs lying over his, the blankets Alfred made between them and his.

Jason brings his arm up from under his blankets to land haphazardly on Tim’s face, swatting at his cheek and pulling at his hair until Tim’s eyes blink open, a vague mix of blue and green that makes Jason want to swoon like one of his favorite classic novel female protagonists.

Then he remembers he’s lying on a bed with a boy he’s never met cuddling him, his entire family surrounding and watching him. The swoon dies a sudden and painful death, much like how Icarus flew then dropped. ‘Death to you and death to you and death to all of you!’ He imagines Oprah yelling gleefully as he sits up in bed, letting the blankets pool to his hips. “...Good morning?”

Beside him, Tim sits up, leaving the bed and moving towards Jason’s mirror, pulling bobby pins out of his hair.

“Good morning, boys.” Bruce says pleasantly, and he can tell B is feeling very amused right now but his lapis lazuli blue eyes are still watery. Is it normal to cry for eight hours straight? Jason’s not sure he can get a good answer to that question, since the only person he knows who’s died and come back is Superman and he’s basically a god.

Duke starts up conversation with Cass and it becomes clear that his family is here for Tim𑁋that they want to be in the same space as him as much as he does, maybe more. He grabs some random clothes from his top dresser and locks himself in the bathroom, the click of the lock giving him a feeling of privacy even though he knows his lock is no match for anyone’s lockpicking skills.

Over the next few months, Tim settles in their family. He’s the Red Hood, fearless and manipulative Gotham crime lord, but he’s also Tim, who’s smart and strong and non-judgmental to everyone despite their past or background.

When Jason tells Tim about his past in the East End with his mom and Willis and the things he did to stay alive, Tim just smiles sadly and tells him he’s sorry about his pain but not sorry he met Jason. Jason… understands and smiles painfully back.

Over the next few months, life continues and Tim’s there for him even when he’s not physically there. Kon, one of Jason’s closest friends, is killed by Superboy-Prime during the heroes' clash against the Secret Society of Supervillains. Tim holds him and presses kisses to his hair while he cries in the Batplane, Tim comes with him to the memorial for Superboy in Metropolis, and Tim leaves tulips𑁋Kon’s favorite𑁋on Kon’s grave with him. Tim fights against the Society in the Battle of Metropolis with him. After that, he learns Blüdhaven is blown up and radioactive. Dick, Jason, and Bruce go on a two-month-long sabbatical, returning in time for his sophomore year at Gotham Heights High.

(For his fifteenth birthday, Tim sneaks into his room in Titans Tower after his party𑁋Jason had a party the past weekend with his family in the manor𑁋and holds him in bed. He wakes up in his dark room in the middle of the night to Tim’s lips on his temple. Jason keens in the back of his throat and grips Tim’s bicep when he tries to leave. Tim smiles at him𑁋softly, the way Jason only sees him smile when he’s talking to him and isn’t that just an immense ego boost𑁋and stays the night. Jason deals with Kori’s proud smile and Gar’s catcalls as they all try to pretend they’re not grieving Kon so badly they feel like their hearts might burst.)

Tim joins Dick in New York and they work together for a few months, before Tim flies out to California to visit Connor Hawke in Star City for another three months. He comes home for Christmas.

(For Christmas, Jason sneaks into Tim’s new room𑁋his old one remains untouched by anyone except Damian, Alfred, and Jason𑁋and lies with him. Tim keeps his room cold but doesn’t use any blankets. With Tim, phobias are complicated. Claustrophobia makes him not like the weight of blankets against his skin. Tim fears the Joker as much as he’s angry at him. Tim hates the cold and closed, tight spaces. Tim hates hot tubs and pools and hates warm open spaces when it’s humid enough to feel the warmth under his skin. Tim runs a little hot so his lips are always warm when they press against Jason’s skin but Tim gets cold really easily and likes wrapping himself up in layers. Tim hates fireplaces and occasionally has a panic attack at the thought of cooked meat and Tim refuses to eat Asian takeout sometimes. One time Jason went to Tibet for a Robin mission with Cass and Tim didn’t leave his bed for days. Jason forgets about how he fears Tim might leave him, stop wrapping him in kind, gentle affection if he fails when Tim presses his face against Jason’s neck and holds him and only falls asleep when Jason reads Pride & Prejudice to him aloud.)

After Christmas, Tim drops off the face of the earth for three weeks and Jason fucks up badly enough to get his arm broken by Scarecrow. Tim comes back a week into Jason’s recovery. His eyes are closed off, and slightly more green than Jason is used to seeing, and his shoulders are stiff enough to make some old priests at the cathedral Jason used to go to proud. Tim doesn’t speak as he climbs into Jason’s bed, carefully avoiding his bandaged arm, but Jason wakes in the middle of the night to tears on his not-injured arm. When Bruce comes into his room at dawn, just in from a long, grueling patrol as a way to punish himself for Jason’s injury despite it not being his fault, Tim launches himself at him and startles him so much they fall to the floor in embrace.

It turns out Tim got stuck in an alternate universe𑁋Earth-51, to be exact𑁋where Jason’s not there and B chose lethal violence after Tim’s death. Tim talks, and he tells them, and Alfred, that he’d felt vindicated but also sick to his stomach.

In between Tim and Jason’s adventures with dead friends and killer dads, Jason starts his junior year at Gotham Heights High, the school Tim went to (Dick went to Gotham City High) and died at the end of the year of. Tim adopts the name Tim Head𑁋stolen from Talia al Ghul𑁋to attend Gotham University and starts studying computer science.

When Jason gets all A’s and B’s on his report card, Tim takes him and Cass (who just graduated Grieve High, where there was a shootout that scared the crap out of Jason and outed the Bats’ existence to the world) out to Gotham’s only mall, the Silver Lake Plaza in Coventry.

Tim gets a second tattoo (his first being a dragon wrapping around his right bicep) of a pair of crossed swords on his clavicle. Cass gets a dye job that turns the tips of her short hair red, and Jason gets his ears pierced. The whole thing takes eight hours because, in between, they window-shop and extort the food court and have a photo shoot for Cass in the department store section. Tim gives Jason his leather jacket and never asks for it back.

…And Jason starts wearing it with everything because he’s just that kind of sap. He loves the jacket, black with golden stitches and the vigilante patches on the right sleeve and the roses that line the hips-side to try and hide the bloodstains.

The day after he auditions for Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Tim and Damian pick him up in Damian’s Porsche. April 28th, the day after Tim’s death day (Jason always stays home on that day), Tim picks him up with an amused smirk𑁋probably because he’s doing nothing to hide the fact that he’s the newest thing at this school since Callie Evans dyed her hair and joined the basketball team. Tim’s wearing a red and black long-sleeve turtleneck shirt with black leggings and the same black boots he wore the night he came out as alive to the family, silver hoop earrings all over his ears and a new one on his lip. Jason knows he got it for an undercover op in Star City but still looks hot as hell, and leaning against his daytime motorcycle, dark blue and sleek as hell because even his daytime shit is better than most people’s, Tim looks so god-like it makes him blush.

Jason laughs delightedly when Tim takes him to Grant Park where there’s a showing of Macbeth and kisses him on the cheek when Tim buys him neapolitan from a nearby vendor, tipping nearly fifty bucks. Tim smiles down at him, eyes clear blue.

The only thing is… Jason’s sixteen now, and Tim nineteen. There’s no reason they shouldn't start dating, doing more, touching more.

They’ve been… entangled for years by now, but they haven’t even kissed.

Jason brings it up when they’re watching Quentin Tarantino’s movies in Tim’s favorite hideout, the old, decrepit Monarch Theater in Crime Alley.

“Why won’t you kiss me?” Tim doesn’t pause the movie, or visibly react at all but Jason has his head on his shoulder and his hand on Tim’s wrist, so he feels Tim’s pulse jump.

“I…” Tim wets his lip and swallows roughly, the hand in Jason’s moving to interlock their fingers. “I can, if you want me to. I just… I’m older and we’re𑁋complicated, and truth to be told, I’m worried you’ll. I dunno. Something.”

Jason moves onto his knees on the couch, staring Tim in his blue-green eyes and ignoring the movie still playing behind him.

“Tim.” He starts and his voice is a whisper, “I love you.”

His voice clears. “I really, really love you. And I think you do too. And I want you to kiss me. If you don’t want to, that’s okay. But if you do, please, please kiss me.”

Tim stares, then smiles and leans into the hand Jason’s put on his cheek. “I love you too. You knew that already.”

“I did.” Jason’s whispering again, voice too delicate to speak any louder.

“Okay.” Tim says. “Okay.”

Jason sits in Tim’s lap and turns to watch the rest of the movie. By the time Jason has to go back to manor, Steph outside to pick him up, they’ve eaten all their sour gummy worms and Jason’s started chewing gum.

He throws it out when it loses flavor and after he gets packed up, Tim pulls him closer by his shirt and his wrist, and presses his soft, warm lips to Jason’s. The kiss is gentle but fiery and Jason gasps when Tim’s hands fall to his hips and he runs his thumbs along the skin under his shirt. They split; Jason smiles into Tim’s shoulder. Jason leaves the theater with kiss-swollen lips and a blinding smile and Steph catcalls as he gets in the self-driving car.

After that, it gets easier. When Tim picks Jason up from school and takes him to Caroline's Diner, they hold hands. When Tim wakes up screaming, Jason turns on all the lights in his room and holds Tim close and kisses all of Tim’s freckles. When Tim and Jason say hello and goodbye, they press their lips together and Jason opens up before Tim and pushes back into Tim and he always feels prickly hot when they make out because when they make out he wants to crawl into Tim’s skin, and wear it and feel it and have it around him𑁋be it𑁋all day.

At this point, it’s a schedule. Thursday nights, Jason and Tim walk into the theater. Jason methodically strips off and folds his leather jacket, letting it catch on the skull rings Damian gave him for his birthday as a gift. He climbs into Tim’s lap, straddles his thighs, and they kiss, slow and long like nothing Jason’s ever known with Cassie or Ariana or Anita or anyone of the others.

Jason spends his early summer in California. It’s not exactly happy, not really, because Bart’s an adult now and he and Cassie are still grieving Kon. Cass gets kidnapped and disappears for five days. They find her in Malaysia and wreak havoc on the Kobra Cult that kidnapped her. Jason and Tim are the ones who find the leader, and they don’t hurt him too bad because it turns out they’ve both met Danny Temple and like him a whole lot.

Tim turns 20 and everyone drinks at his party even though Jason, the youngest, is still sixteen and Tim’s not even legal drinking age yet. Tim’s been drinking since he left catatonia behind and met Talia al Ghul and Jason’s been sneaking champagne at galas with Damian’s help since he got adopted.

Bruce adopts a ten-year-old boy named Dick Grayson and nobody can really blame him because Haly’s Circus was intended to be a short family outing, which means everyone was there. Dick finds out soon enough and even though Jason likes Dick well enough, but he’s still worried about Cassie who doesn’t seem to be getting better, and planning for his seventeenth birthday.

Two days before Jason’s seventeenth birthday and three days after Steph’s 21st, Bruce gets killed. For Jason, it’s the last straw. Sure, he has Tim and Cassie and Damian, but he’s just lost so many people. Kon is dead, Bart is dead, and Bruce? He wants to scream at the sky and demand they give B back to him. He settles for screaming at Damian instead. Damian is prickly and feeling violent and their scream-and-blame fest ends with Jason in the medbay for his sprained wrist and broken nose.

Jason stays at Tim’s that night. Tim’s not home. Duke has locked himself in his apartment in Opal City and no one’s heard from him since the funeral. Damian hasn’t left the Cave in forever. Steph has poured herself into her Birds and Cass moved permanently to Hong Kong. Dick didn’t know Bruce that well, doesn’t know how to grieve again so soon after losing his parents, so he’s settled for being extra happy, as if that will help.

Jason’s birthday is forgotten, Damian puts on the cowl, and Tim is still gone.

It’s 4 AM in the morning, 2 weeks after… B, and Jason is curled up in the center of Tim’s king-size bed when he hears the sound of a door opening and closing. His hand closes on a gun he stole from a mugger two days ago. The bedroom door slides more open from its cracked-open position and it’s… Tim who slips in. He looks exhausted, with designer eyebags and his long hair unwashed and tangled.

“Jay?” When he speaks to him, his voice is hoarse and Jason knows he’s been having night terrors and cigarettes and not drinking his soothing tea. Jason knows because he hasn’t been either.

“Tim.” He says and he can see scratches on Tim’s arms and splotches of blood through his gray sweater tee. He moves on autopilot, something he finds himself doing more and more since B is losing himself in his own head, and when he comes back to himself, he’s curled around Tim and back in bed.

Tim is shivering and Jason can feel the wet spot of his blood on his shirt with his fingers but Tim doesn’t ask for bandages and Jason can’t bring himself to move. Jason doesn’t know where Tim has been, what he’s been doing, and he knows he should be mad. He’s not though. Not yet at least. Not while Tim is shivering, while Jason can feel Tim’s blood on his hands, not while Jason can feel drops falling from Tim’s eyes to his palm.

The next day, Jason wakes up to the smell of coffee and buckwheat pancakes. When he walks out of Tim’s room to his kitchen, Tim is at the stove flipping some, humming along to The Clash. Jason smiles a bit as he presses himself against Tim’s back, hands on his hips and lightly grazing his lips over the back of his neck. Jason sits on Tim’s brown leather barstools and buries his face into the crooks of his elbows.

The sound of ceramic against wood makes Jason look up to the plate Tim has set on the counter, two pancakes slathered with melting butter. Tim’s back is to him again so Jason doesn’t grab his plate, just watches Tim work. He’s changed out of his blood-stained sweater shirt, which reminds Jason that he should probably wash his hands again, seeing as a light dusting of red still coats his inner wrists. Tim has put on one of Jason’s butter yellow sweatshirts, one of Cass’ neon yellow and dark gray sweatpants, and Steph’s fuzzy rabbit socks are high on his ankles.

Jason smiles at the ridiculousness of the entire ensemble and that’s the expression that makes Tim smile back at him when he turns around with his plate of pancakes, these ones drowned in maple syrup and sliced strawberries.

Tim reaches out and pulls Jason’s plate closer to him on the countertop and Jay takes the opportunity to rest his hand on Tim’s elbow. Tim’s arm slides from his until they’re interlocking fingers. Tim eventually pulls his hand away to eat𑁋left-handed that he is, just like Jason𑁋and Jason’s hand lands in his hair.

Soon, they’ve moved to the couch in the living room. Jason is curled up into the armrest, Tim is curled up into him. Jason’s eating with one hand, the other hand running through Tim’s now washed hair from where his arm is curled around Tim’s shoulders.

They haven’t said a word to each other all morning.

Lounging on the couch is a perfectly good plan in Jason’s opinion, seeing as he hasn’t seen his boyfriend in forever but Tim’s face is changing into his business face and his hand is reaching for his Bat-tablet, so Jason kisses morning cuddles and a lazy day goodbye.

On the screen of Tim’s favorite Bat-tech tablets, there is a picture of an old portrait hanging in Wayne Manor. The inscription reads ‘Mordecai Wayne’.

“It’s Bruce.” Tim says, and Jason stares at him, askance.

“Uh… Tim?” He says, hoping the confusion in his voice will ask the questions his words can’t.

“It’s Bruce.” Tim says again, swallowing nervously and glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. He launches into an explanation about his theory on time travel and Darkseid’s Omega beams and Gotham and the Wayne family’s history. Half of what Tim’s saying makes almost no sense to Jason𑁋time travel shenanigans, ugh𑁋but enough of it makes sense that Tim’s theory seems actually plausible.

Jason curls tighter around Tim and starts speaking quietly into his ear. Together, they form a plan.

Two days later, they’re ready. Jason and Tim have their bags packed, their fake passports ready, and their plan made. They’re first flying to Madrid on one of Tim’s hunches. Damian chose Dick to be his Robin, which disappointed the both of them immensely. Tim is still working as Red Hood, so Jason’s become Red Robin. Yes, he’s so creative, isn’t he? Supposedly, Red Robin is an identity Tim used while traveling interdimensionally to other Earths. The suit actually fits Jason fine, if a little small, since Jason is only three inches taller than Tim and they are about the same width.

In the car they’ve rented just for the occasion, Tim dresses as Al Draper and Jason becomes Peter Greenburg.

Once they’re off the plane in Spain𑁋such a long flight𑁋they change into Red Hood and Red Robin. When they reach one of B’s old safehouses, they change back into Tim and Jason.

Jason makes lemon tea with honey and they both curl up on the couch and watch the news. Tim is reading an article about Britney Spears on his WE tablet and Jason is scrolling through Instagram on his phone. It’s only 5 PM and their mission doesn’t start until sundown. It’s time for the retired Robins to go worldwide.

It’s three long and tiring months before Jason steps foot on Gotham soil𑁋hell, United States soil𑁋again. Damian activates his distress signal when news comes in from Hal Jordan (who is apparently a Green Lantern again? Jason doesn’t know, Lantern Corps events are too confusing) that Nekron has decided to activate the Black Lantern Power Core on Earth.

Or, in Steph’s very blunt and actually-make-sense words, “Basically Lantern villain is raising zombies. Don’t give in to them or they’ll kill you. Worldwide event. You know the drill.”

It turns out Nekron is raising only bad guys or people with emotional attachments to heroes, seeing as the GCPD headquarters, currently being defended by the Commish, Steph, and a new Batgirl he’s never met before except for once when he was 12, Barbara Gordon.

Later, while crawling through the sewers𑁋well, not really crawling but it feels just as gross𑁋they’re attacked by the reanimated corpses of Jack and Janet Drake (Tim’s parents), Catherine Todd and Sheila Haywood (Jason’s moms), Mary and John Grayson (Dick’s parents), Sarah Essen (the Commish’s wife) and David Cain (Cass’ dad). Well, they’re all being haunted by ghosts.

Jason is later enveloped in hugs by Kon, who he saw re-alive in Paris, Bart, who’s apparently alive𑁋why didn’t he know?, and Cassie. Jason is starting to feel more and more hopeful about his and Tim’s chances involving their Plan.

The hope blossoms into full-on conviction when Damian, Duke, Dick, and Alfred fly to London to put B’s body in a Pit. Tim is very against the plan and takes the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’ when it turns out the corpse is an insane doppelganger of B, not the real thing.

It’s another three months before Jason steps foot on America again. Seriously, he thinks Europe, Africa, and Asia are great and all and the sightseeing trips he and Tim took were amazing, but with Ra’s al Ghul on your tail it’s rather paranoia-inducing. Plus, there’s something about Gotham𑁋in her air, in his bones𑁋that raises his blood pressure, makes his eyes light up, makes him a little more energetic about things. Gotham is magic, but you can only feel it𑁋see it𑁋if you’re born in it.

It makes him think about the series he and Tim finished on their Eurotrip (or is it Brucequest?). BBC’s Merlin and two of the most powerful scenes: “I was born with it.”

About their… vacation, Jason should probably update his medical records, seeing as he’s now missing a spleen, Tim’s eyes are burning green, a month-long side effect of using the Lazarus Pit, and the two now have three assassin besties. How fun!

Their data helps Booster Gold and the newly-reformed Justice League save Bruce from self-implosion and everything is fine again. Jason cries for the first time since the desert in Baghdad (where he cradled Tim’s dead body and Pru held her neck shut as she drove) when B pulls him against him and presses kisses to every inch of his face.

It’s summer in Gotham again and Tim has just turned 21. Tim’s birthday party is just them, Damian, Duke, Cass, Connor Hawke, one of Tim’s new civilian university friends Sasha, and Roy Harper going out to a Star City nightclub and getting shit-faced, blackout drunk. Tim and Jason make out on the bed in their hotel room, and, from the sounds of it Connor and Cass are chaperoning Duke, who’s actually a sneaky, fun drunk, and Roy and Sasha have hooked up. Jason’s pretty sure he sees Black Canary but he’s not actually sure ‘cause, again, making out with his super-hot boyfriend here.

They do the same thing when Jason turns eighteen, except they celebrate in Gotham and B and Jason have a celebratory joint patrol taking down Professor Pyg beforehand.

There’s another multiversal event but Jason’s unconscious and kidnapped for most of it. Later, some magician visits Gotham and traps Tim in a mirror. After he gets out, Jason goes on a mission to space with his Titans that he’s co-leading with Cassie and Tim has somehow become good friends with Roy Harper and gotten pretty close to Starfire.

The first time Tim and Jason have sex, they’re both completely sober despite the lead-up being the Wayne’s famous New Years party at one of Lex Luthor’s hotels.

It takes another year, but Jason gets down on one knee in early April at Gotham’s Antiquities Museum, where Tim’s parents things are kept, bearing a ring𑁋specially-curated black silver with two rubies embedded in it.

The wedding is supposed to be in July in San Francisco, two weeks after Tim’s birthday, but it’s crashed by Deathstroke and a coterie of other villainous evil-doers. The Bats go on a purge patrol and the wedding is hosted by Gotham City, in October.

It’s beautiful. Tim wears a light gray suit with a dark red tie and pale red dress shirt. His hair is perfectly styled away from his face in a loose man bun, white streak shining in the light. He’s wearing silver earring studs and black lip gloss with sharp red eyeliner.

Jason is dressed in a traditional black suit and bow tie, curls brushed away from his face and pinned back with white silver bobby pins. He’s wearing small silver hoop earrings and his nails are painted dark blue. His lips are dark red and he’s wearing dark eyeshadow. The ring Tim insisted on buying him is a white silver band with two spinels inlaid in it. It’s absolutely gorgeous. They don’t read vows until they’re alone, back in their hotel in the city, in lieu of a real honeymoon. Tim reads him vows he wrote during their Eurotrip, when he first realized he wanted to marry him, and Jason reads him what he wrote back when he was fifteen, in awe𑁋he still is𑁋of the beautiful amazing man he loves to pieces.

They fly to Brazil for a mission and end up staying for a belated honeymoon trip. They feed each other strawberries and share champagne kisses that imprint of their tongues. They also go to the movies and order slushies that turn their mouths purple instead of blue and red and when they get back to Gotham, they visit the Plaza with Cass again.

At family dinner night, Damian invites Donna and Garth, Steph invites Dinah, and Cass invites Kara Kent𑁋who did they even meet?𑁋and Selina just shows up randomly so everyone’s here with their significant other.

And at the end of each and every night, usually sometime near dawn, Jason, freshly nineteen and just starting Gotham U, studying Literature and Social Work, lies in bed curled into Tim, who’s just started a job developing tech for the GCPD.

#daisy's drabbles #jaytim #reverse robins

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