Come for the Show, Stay for the Plot
Relationship: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Genre: First time, Phone/comm sex, Confessions/Reveals
Length: 7k
Warnings: unfinished one shot, 7k, doesn’t have a neat chapter end. Set in the fanon soft spot of almost-Red Hoot reintegration. Canonical “Jason slit Tim’s throat that one time,” Pit Rage, Resurrection– all discussed but not featured. Warning for Tim Drake’s emotionally fraught childhood, mostly absentee parents. Potential psuedo-incest due to Robins. I’m pretty sure I’m going to make it Tim’s 18th birthday in this, but Jason thinks he’s 17 so that warning got slapped on for underage as well.
–
The Replacement is stalking him.
Okay, strong words for a Robin just doing what Robins do best– finding their way into situations where they’re not wanted and perching their brightly-colored selves.
Jason had done it. Dick had done it. Hell, Dick had started it.
The Replacement is currently doing it.
Jason throws himself down onto the raggedy brown sofa that’s certainly seen better days, closing his eyes against the Roy-voice in his head, which currently sounds more like a Dick-voice, chanting stupid lines about ‘if I had to pick a dude’ and ‘currently doing that.’
See, Jason’s very much ‘been there, done that’ in terms of Robin-related nonsense, and it’s bullshit that being back in Gotham for five fucking minutes– alright, more like five weeks, this round– has opened him up to it again. Ugh.
Chasing dumb pop-culture references away with a palm rubbing down his face, Jason thinks about what he’s going to do about the situation. The current bird infestation. The not-so-sneaky Robin perching outside his neighboring building’s window.
He’s too tired for this shit. His knuckles are torn from occupational hazards, his knees sore for the same, and he’d slogged through a brief-but-passionate rainstorm to get back to his safe house– a downpour that stopped just as Jason reached the door, because Gotham— buoyed and fucking sustained by the thought of relaxing.
Of collapsing on the ugly-ass couch in his nice, warm, dry house, having a beer, and jerking off until the muscle soreness eased off and the tension headache disappeared for at least an hour or so.
Jason gazes morosely across the studio to his kitchen, with its beckoning fridge and hidden beer.
“Well, fuck this.” He grumbles, at least kicking his boots off. The fuckers are heavy when he’s not waterlogged.
He can’t actually see the Replacement, of course; kid’s too good for that. He’d caught the barest glimpse of yellow as he was first coming in, and a flash of shadow two minutes later confirmed it.
Jason rubs the bridge of his nose. On the one hand, annoying kids who dress up in other people’s clothes and sleep in other people’s beds and go to the best school money can buy, ought to be educated enough to know what eavesdropping gets you.
On the other hand– the hand now itching to get the rest of his wet clothes off, too– things have finally settled down after six months of Pit-fueled rage and sixteen more months of cautiously dwindling demarcation lines.
Here lately, they’ve moved towards something staggeringly like truce. Jason doesn’t try to clip any wings, anymore, and the bats leave him and his territory alone.
Whipping a pistol out the window to shoot down a low-flying Robin is not truce-like behavior. He also, though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, doesn’t dare trust himself with a gun aimed in a traffic-light colored direction.
It would only take one split-second of pure rage– occurring less often now, in all fairness, but still decidedly occurring on his worst days– to put daddy bats at two for three on the dead sidekick count.
So.
Jason takes in another deep breath and tries to find a meditative place. He can’t, of course– never could when someone was watching him– and it makes only the slightest difference in his stiff posture.
He also, in his heart of hearts, doesn’t want to undo his own progress. Robin the Third has lived two years longer than Jason ever got to, despite every effort of the rogues and– at one point– Jason himself, so he’d really like to keep that streak going, thanks.
One dead Robin is enough for a lifetime.
Fuck, this entire train of thought is depressing. Jason hasn’t seen a bat-shaped shadow in over a week and he was intending to keep it that way, even celebrate with some splurging on dinner if the weather didn’t go to shit–
After some personal time.
Jason throws a half-hearted glare at the window, then frowns at his ceiling.
Well, come to think of it.
If a seventeen-year-old vigilante got traumatized by the sight of one dick at a stakeout, that was his own fault. Nobody told him to come here.
Or at least, if someone did tell him to come here– here being Crime Alley, and Jason being someone who has been proven categorically unsafe for lone baby birds– then they were going to have a fist-shaped problem real soon.
Jason grits his teeth and forces that line of thought flat.
He decides he’s not going to let anything originating from Wayne Manor or the caves thereunder ruin his day. It takes only a little maneuvering to fish for a bat-approved comm, which he manages to put into his ear without leaving the couch.
(If it’s within arm’s reach so he can hear it vibrate three times in the event of an emergency-emergency, so that Jason can swallow down pride and rage and grief and– everything– to be a last resort hero, well. That’s his own business.)
He gives a thought to the most common frequencies they use and cycles to a likely channel.
“Hey, Replacement.” He drawls like an asshole, leaning back into the sofa cushions and crossing his ankles. “If you want to take a coffee break from your unlawful surveillance, now’s the time.”
No response.
Jason kicks back a little looser, rubs his toes against brown fabric, digs his elbows in until his shoulder-blade isn’t rubbing wrong at the arm of the couch.
“I’m sorry,” He says, all falsetto. “This show has been rated NC-17 for adult content, so any little birdies should come back later for a child-safe viewing.”
Silence. The faintest breath, a brief and muted crackle of static.
“You know I’m seventeen.”
Jason laughs out loud. Okay, maybe fucking with the Replacement is its own reward. He’s got to get his kicks somewhere.
“But I don’t know why you’re watching me, Timbit. Did you pre-order tickets?” He wets his lip, leans his head back against a threadbare pillow, shuts his eyes.
He’s just got to annoy the bird into flying off. Easy money. He’s fully expecting a “no names in the field” lecture to start things off.
Another silence. This one is careful with his words, more batlike than birdlike.
“Unfortunately, the summary wasn’t available online.” Tim says, dry as Nanda Parbat. As Jason is processing that, he hopefully, innocently tacks on: “Think I can get a refund?”
The voice is so fake and creepily on-target that Jason snorts before he can help himself.
“How much you paying for this show, kid?” He asks. “Your parents know you’re out this late?”
That bit takes on the slightest edge and Jason purposefully rolls his shoulders, letting it out. He drops both hands on his stomach. Unarmed, and his shirt is mostly dry– the leather jacket he’d ditched at the door took the worst of it.
“Nope.” The Replacement says, before pausing. “I never really asked permission to see the city at night.”
Now that rings with too-much honesty. Jason shimmies a little, searching for comfort.
“Dangerous, that. Gotham rooftops aren’t a place for kids.”
Oh, the irony there. Bitter and almost choking. Sure ain’t, and Jason’s got the fucking autopsy scars to prove it. He draws in a measured breath, beats the Pit-green back with a fucking stick.
“Oh, are you sure?” Something painfully young lifts the kid’s voice. “It’s only– I’ve been doing this for so long…”
“Not as long as I have.” Jason snaps, pointedly. Tim is quiet for a long time. Just when Jason thinks he’s left– fucked the fuck off, so Jason can have some time to himself, even if he feels a little– a smidge— bad that something as simple as a violent retort could trigger the kid to full flight—
“Well.” Tim says, “That’s not quite… true.”
Tim’s voice has dropped his terrifying real-boy impression, now tinged with more of that quiet, hesitant quality that might just be his– or at least a— true self.
Jason opens his eyes. The moth-yellow ceiling has not changed and doesn’t flinch under his baleful look.
“What.” He– that’s not a question. It’s not a question, but.
“I was almost seven the first time.” A shuffling, like the little bird is getting comfortable.
“You were–” Jason splutters. “Dickie was wearing the hot-pants when you were seven. I was nine.”
“Mm.” Tim agrees. “It didn’t occur to me to take a camera out with me for… a while. I got one for Christmas.”
He sounds almost wistful.
“You little fucking freak.” Jason says, half-admiringly despite himself. “You could have broken your fool neck. What kind of kid risks their life to take rooftop pics of Batman and Robin?”
A beat of silence, as if he’s measuring what to say– what kind of truth he wants to give Jason.
“Well there was hardly any quality footage out at the time, Jason.” His voice is prim, a little prissy, and fuck if it isn’t an amusing mental image– however much he’s play-acting. A persnickety little bird with all his feathers ruffled.
“Jay.” He surprises himself by saying. “I mean– if you’re going to call me. Look.”
He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. He shouldn’t have to explain to the kid who took over his entire life that Bruce only ever called him Jason when he’d fucked up royally, and nobody else called him anything at all.
“… Jay.” The Replacement breathes out, something in his voice that Jason can’t quite track. He hopes it’s awkward; that the street runs two ways and Tim’s commute is shittier.
“So this isn’t anything new for you, then.” He pulls the hand in his hair to his nape, supporting his head behind him, eyes sliding closed. “Stalking me, I mean.”
“…No.” Tim agrees, quietly. “It’s not.”
“So when’d you figure it out?” Jason keeps his voice light, his thoughts amused. There are a hundred darker paths he could take in this conversation, but he believes with his whole chest that he can find the single one that doesn’t end in fury and bloodshed.
Three breaths of silence. Jason is getting better at filling in the gaps of the other vigilante’s responses, getting a feel for the rhythm of conversation. Stilted, thoughtful, but not resistant.
“When I was younger, I… saw the Flying Graysons perform.” Tim says, soft and stiff. He knows enough to realize the baby bird is not used to being this honest. That’s half of what pissed him off, originally; the little fucking liar wearing his colors.
He wonders if anyone has ever heard this story before.
Wait.
“What?” Jason asks, the hand that had been straying down his stomach pausing in its tracks. “How? You would have been…”
“Three years old.” Tim confirms, guilelessly. He imagines blue, blue eyes behind that domino– open with, fuck, with honesty for fucking once. “Almost four, though.”
“Oh, because that makes it better.” Jason’s hand curls into a fist. “That timeline, that means–”
“I only caught their last show.” Tim agrees, quiet. Maybe a little resigned. Jason strains toward the sounds, trying to pick up little cues from tone alone– he hates not being able to see people talking, not to pick up on all the other ways they talk.
“Wait– that’s how you figured it out?” Jason puzzles aloud. “Make it make sense for me, baby bird. What’s one got to do with the other?”
“Dick… hugged me.” The silence before and after the end of that sentence is galling. “He… Let’s just say he left an impression.”
Something wry then, maybe a smile– maybe a self-depreciating lie of a smile, but an offer, too. Isn’t that pathetic? The invitation to join in, to poke fun, and Jason can’t figure out where the punchline is until he realizes what the Replacement really just told him.
“You didn’t get hugged often as a child.” He says, flat with disbelief. “You didn’t– as a baby. That’s why it was memorable.”
His fist clenched over his gut.
Replacement’s soft laughter, not so much inviting Jason in on the joke as rubbing it in Tim’s own fucking face. Like anyone could control that shit.
“I saw him fly. He winked and asked me to watch, to– that he’d do the extra special flip just for me.” Humor, light in the dark, and then– well, they all know how that night ended.
“Six months later, Robin joined the Batman on patrol. He did the same flip. Had the same smile. Wasn’t too hard to put together.”
Jason struggles to wrap his head around that little bombshell.
“Holy shit. None of them know about this, do they? They just think you– what, figured it out right before you did something about it?”
Certainly not that he’d know the secret from the time there was a secret. Early on enough in Dick’s career that Bruce had let him do shit like recognizably almost-impossible stunts.
Talia had told him the new Robin figured shit out, rubbing it in Jason’s face what a good little detective the Bat snatched up, not that some Gotham kid had known the drill from the word go.
“It hardly matters.” Tim brushes it off. Tim brushes everything off. At first, Jason had thought him infuriatingly ungrateful.
Turns out the kid just didn’t have an ounce of self-esteem, holy shit. What little swagger he put on as Robin was a carefully fabricated lie— or at least, coming from a place so deep the rest of Tim’s bullshit couldn’t touch it.
Fuck, Jason isn’t the kid’s therapist. He doesn’t know shit about his life and would prefer to keep it that way, most of the time. He realizes he’s gotten way too invested in the unexpected line of communication– in the olive branch the kid threw him, an open comm directly into the most secretive of neurotic bats.
“Thanks for the tit-for-tat, Replacement, but one form of entertainment doesn’t necessarily equal another. The sad previews for the upcoming Life of a Robin 3 film have run out and…”
“The main show’s about to begin?” A sardonic lilt, amusement lacing the prompt. Jason finds himself laughing again.
“So skedaddle, baby bird. I’ve only got a handful of hours to myself this week and unexpected heart-to-hearts were not in the picture.”
He flattens his palm against his stomach, warm. If he closes his eyes he could be anywhere else– some unmentioned place, details fuzzy aside from the soft-enough horizontal surface under him and the quiet of the room.
Point of fact, this is the first night he’s had any down time in almost two weeks, but the Replacement has no way of knowing that, so again: no birdie bound-bullets.
Or batarangs.
“You need any help with that?” A too curious voice. For a second Jason chokes, thinking– no, it doesn’t matter what he thinks.
“My caseload is fine and manageable.” Jason growls, heart thundering in his chest. Jesus fuck. “I’ve got everything handled.”
“No free time in seven days implies otherwise.” The kid says, fucking cautiously. Like he’s poking a bear to suggest Jason doesn’t have his shit entirely together. Which, rude.
“It was just a tough case, resolved now; thank you very much.” Jason corrects, very fucking pointedly. “If you’ve got so much experience, figure out wherever the hell Dickie is nowadays, and start up your old stalking habits again with the preferred model. No need to settle.”
Jason’s not bitter, not at all. How disappointed little baby Tim must have been when he came out at night and saw Robin had been replaced with some no-name punk ass kid.
His lips twisted with something dark and mean.
“You passed on the chance to be my Robin a long time ago.”
He knows. He knows why Tim wouldn’t have– shouldn’t have– agreed to that shit. Hell, Jason wouldn’t have agreed to that shit. It was a piss poor offer at a time when he was even more fucked up with rage than normal, and bringing it up now… in the silence that follows he knows he was just aiming to hurt.
“You were mine.”
So quiet he could almost miss it over the pounding of blood in his ears, the hateful whispers of the Pit.
“What!?” He chokes, halfway to snarling at the comm. Fuck, that doesn’t even make sense.
C’mon, Replacement, make it make sense.
“Dick was… He was untouchable. His eyes slid past me at galas, he was always smiling. Sometimes he didn’t feel real, like I’d made him right up, but… it felt like Robin was all I had.” Slow but honest, slow but real, and fuck Jason for preferring this awkward but truthful Tim to the one that smiled sharply and never reacted the way Jason expected.
“That’s fucked up.” Jason pants, wild-eyed still. He tries to calm his racing heart. He tries not to– fuck it. He doesn’t want to imagine a little kid with Tim’s big blue eyes who’s only glimpse of light was two heroes barely making a dent in the cesspool that was Gotham ten years ago.
Robin is– was— magic, all that brightness and hope, and before that Jason had felt like he was drowning in the dark, in everything fucked up and bad and lonely about the world, and he doesn’t want to feel any kind of connection with the Replacement, with the kid in his colors– who took Robin away— except, fuck, no he didn’t, that’s just the Pit, and–
Of course, he knows why he never let himself think about the kid in his shoes being in his shoes, aching and alone until he wasn’t, brought into the crazy, impossible family with its magic that mattered.
For his sanity, Jason sometimes really needs Tim to be just some rich kid who didn’t deserve Robin, didn’t deserve Jason’s life, and he pushes frantically against the picture Tim is painting, here, against that connection snapping into place.
But Tim steamrolls right over that thought. What Jason had thought was an olive branch is definitely a grapple line, shot right the fuck at him.
“Then you hit the streets.” Tim says, and fuck if Jason hasn’t seen that smile in his voice, the little one that’s so fucking different from Robin’s come-on or Timothy Drake’s empty grin.
“I sure as fuck wasn’t Dick.” Jason rasps, voice fucking destroyed. All the threads of his carefully woven apathy– clawed-for apathy, so much better than murderous rage– towards Tim are fraying in his hands. He didn’t want the kid who put on the Robin suit to be real, to be an actual fucking kid who went from the clutching dark to all that brilliant, unbelievable magic.
“You weren’t.” Tim allows, still smiling quietly. “I was a little mad at first, but I followed the news obsessively and knew about Dick’s estrangement, about… Jason Todd’s adoption.”
“You knew it was me.” Jason says.
“At first, I was comparing you to Dick in my head.” Tim admits, like he knows exactly what kind of powder-keg he’s kicking, and part of Jason wants to latch onto the rage and follow it down the green-brick road, but shit.
“So was I.” Jason laughs, raw. “Shit, every night.”
He can remember that so fucking clearly, the bitternesss and inadequacy in stark relief while the happy memories were– ha, buried.
“You were better.”
Tim’s voice draws Jason to the present and he takes the outstretched hand, the grapple line that stops him from free-falling into a bad night.
“Bullshit.” Jason says, daring to be proved wrong. Make it make sense, Timmy. Please.
“You were real.” Tim insists, forcefully echoing Jason’s thoughts from a minute ago. Fuck. Fuck. “Dick was– Dick was too perfect. An idea. Robin was this perfect figure and yes, of course, he was so important, but.”
“But.” Jason echoes weakly. He can’t think. He can’t fucking– hear this shit. What’s worse, he thinks he might need to hear this shit. He’s certainly not going to stop the Replacement, even if part of him wants to, the same part that constantly fucking doubted every step.
“You were real.” Tim says, voice wavering. “You got mad, you punched people, you argued with Batman. You weren’t happy twenty-four seven. Every emotion showed on your face, it was. You were.”
His throat is too tight to continue speaking and Jason can relate. Fuck. He scrubs a hand over his eyes.
“Finding out your hero is just a regular guy is supposed to be disappointing, Replacement.” Jason says, trying for levity. He almost sticks the landing– but almost is not close enough, in their profession.
“You were never disappointing.” Tim says, in that breathe-and-you-miss-it quiet voice. “Not to me.”
Fucking hell, Tim!
Jason laughs because the alternative is crying.
“Yeah, well.” He holds his hand over his face. “Wish I could have heard that five years ago. Fuck. That ship sure has sailed, huh?”
Because he might, one day, be able to believe that the Jason Todd that died wasn’t a grade-A fuck up, but the one that crawled out of the grave came back wrong.
“Fuck that.” Tim says, low and fierce, startling him into dropping his hand and staring at the too-bright light. “You’re overcoming more of the Pit rage every day. You’re making the best out of a shitty situation.”
“Are you drugged?”
It would explain the unusual fucking out-of-nowhere honesty, but not why he came to Jason of all people. Goddamn, that should have been his first fucking thought, since when does the Replacement give away anything?
He’s half a second from jumping to his feet, crossing the distance between two buildings and grabbing the kid by the collar– not the throat, not today, but. Fuck. He can’t risk it.
His control is fraught on the best of days and this has been an emotional rollercoaster of a goddamn conversation.
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
All thoughts of contacting the other bats– undesirable but maybe, in this case, necessary— or otherwise stealing some of the kid’s blood rush from his head.
“What the actual fuck, Tim?” Jason blurts before he can stop himself. His ears are ringing. He can’t–
He absolutely cannot take this.
“Jay.” Tim says, soft and hesitant– because Jason asked him to, because he asked and Tim just– “I’m so happy you’re alive.”
“For fuck’s sake, Replacement.” Jason manages, voice warbling. If anyone asks, he’s not fucking tearing up about this shit. What the hell. Who just drops that out of nowhere?
No one else has said it.
Fuck, it’s pretty sure no one else has thought it. Not even Dickie Bird in all his let’s play pretend fucking brother nonsense. Not even Bruce, who–
No.
“I didn’t ask for this shit.” Jason says hoarsely. “I just wanted to jerk off in peace. This is bullshit.”
Silence from the Replacement gallery.
“You’re not actually drugged, right? If you pass out over there from the side effects of some fucking Scarecrow Truth Toxin or something–”
Baby bird could stub a toe in Crime Alley and a whole slew of bats would rain down fire and brimstone on Jason, probably.
“Nn.”
“Was that supposed to be a sound, Jimothy?”
“You.” A hard, full stop. Tim swallows loud enough to be heard on the comms. Jason shoots a concerned look to the balcony, like he can actually see any wayward birds from his couch.
“Yes?” Jason drawls it out. He ignores the scratch of his own voice, the fading rawness of his throat.
Quiet, again, and a quiet bird answering:
“You called me Tim.”
Jason couldn’t even begin to identify all that’s going on there by tone alone. He hated not being able to see.
Something equally unnameable unfurling in Jason’s chest, sounding softly in his voice:
“You called me Jay.”
As if it’s that easy.
As if it could ever be that easy.
Tim’s breath hitches sharply.
Jason defuses the potentially emotionally-charged situation with his usual go-to humor. He genuinely cannot fucking handle another rollercoaster and would, in fact, like to get off the ride he’s currently on before it yells ‘psych’ and lurches them forward again.
Even if ‘getting off’ is seemingly fantastically less likely by the fucking minute.
“If you wanted me to say your name, sweetheart, all you had to do was ask.” He smirks lazily so Tim can hear it in his voice, can swat it down with a sputter or– if he’s lucky– a prissy little ‘Jay!’ that he can imagine so easily.
He can’t remember the last time someone said his name, that name, the one that means I’m here and I love you, which, alright, is kind of a-fucking-lot for him to realize all at once and–
Tim gasps a little. It’s more a shaky inhale, but.
Jason’s chest throbs a bit.
“Yeah?” He asks, a cautious note of question, and perhaps a little breathy himself. He should be asking himself alright, what the fuck, or maybe doubling down on the ‘Robin is drugged in Crime Alley’ line of fucking deductive reasoning, and yet.
“Jay.” Tim says, all shocked and shuddery.
And yet.
“Careful, Tim.” It wants so badly to be a Timmy but the way Tim’s breathing stumbles just-so on the other end marks the death of that nickname for the time being. “I might start thinking you really did come here for a show.”
And speaking of, why the hell was the babiest bat darkening his doorstep, if he wasn’t drugged or up to something?
He makes a mental note to actually investigate the shit out of that– baby birds can contain multitudes– but lets the thought fall away for now to hear Tim’s response.
He may, possibly, be listening so hard for that response.
“I can. See you. Through the window.” Tim’s stuttery fucking honest voice, like he has to force out every word past a lifetime habit of lying through his fucking teeth, like every word is pried out from the secret heart of him that nobody ever gets to see.
That Jason is seeing now.
Like Tim is seeing him.
Jay tilts his head and really looks to the balcony, working out the angles in his head.
“My legs, maybe.” He snorts, because there’s no way Tim can see anything else past the other furniture in the room.
“Yes.” Tim says, then, like an afterthought and like a caress: “Jay.”
Still a little hesitant, but it hits him like a fucking train how much Tim wants to have that, to be allowed, like it was Jason’s own grapple hitting dead center in the dark and Tim grabbed on with both hands and no gloves, skinned open on the lifeline of it.
“Fuck– let me,” Jason heaves himself up into a better position, throwing himself to the other side of the couch, and he may be breathing heavily, he may be sweating a little at the fucking idea, he may be–
Feeling stupid as shit when he actually does situate himself at the other end of the couch, fully in Tim’s fucking view, and it’s possible they’re not on the same page and Jason’s taking the joke way too far, that he was reading it wrong, and whatever he was starting to feel starts to sour, but–
“Jay.” Tim gasps, like blood has rushed to his entire pale, intense face and Jason wants to see it, see his expression when he says his name like that, fuck.
“Tim.” He says right back, echoing the tone, and Tim fucking groans like it’s Jason’s hands on him, like his words are a touch and a good one at that, rough and handsy over his armor.
Has Tim even had anyone touch him like that–
Wait, no, he had his own Batgirl, the one who went by Spoiler, surely he knows exactly how it feels.
“What. What do you.” Tim swallows hard on the comm. “Jay.”
Jason can taste his sweat for this.
He opens his mouth and moans for it, living a little in the heat of his body, the warmth spreading through him. He trails a hand down his front and sets it in his lap like a tease.
“God, fuck– tell me how you do it, Replacement.” Jay strokes his fingers feather-light against his thigh, petting.
A shudder of breath on the comm line.
“How I…?” The question is almost an afterthought,
Jason groans, lets his head tip back on the cushions.
“How you spank it, littlest bird. Don’t tell me you don’t. I won’t believe you.”
He expects a reaction– sputtering, maybe– but instead he gets an exhale that dreams of being a moan when it grows up.
“Like anyone else, I would guess.” Tim says, only a little hesitance– easier, then, when he’s making fun of himself a little, when he can be a wry little Robin, maybe pull on some of that traffic-light wit to ease the way?
“In bed? In the shower? Maybe in the Cave’s showers.” Jason throws the kid a bone, anything to get him talking, to pry the words out. Littlest bird is stingy.
“Yes.” Tim breathes, an all of the above, and Jason laughs his pleasure.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Timmy.” He says, more breath than sound, then, rougher: “Tell me you think of me.”
And nevermind how fucked up it is if he does, after everything– after all the bruises and blood between them–
“Yes.” A gasp of agreement, the rustle of fabric. Not even a hesitation and that does things to him, lights a spark from molten embers.
“Still? Or only–” Only before I died, he can’t quite make himself say.
“You were–” Tim laughs, a little crazy, a little in disbelief— that they’re doing this? That Jason even wants to know?
“Come on, baby bird, don’t leave a guy hangin’.” Jay curls his fingers tightly, digging into the meat of his thigh. “What was I?”
“It’s. Embarrassing.” Tim huffs and curiosity roars in Jason. He can’t remember the last time he wanted to know something so badly. Replacement is doing a fucking phenominal job of keeping him on his line, hooked and ready.
“Mm, Timmy– Tim. You’re killin’ me here. Tell me you think about this.”
Jason licks his lips a little, works a laugh into his voice as his hand trails over, fingertips ghosting across the ridgeline his dick is building. He moves his shirt up a little with the other hand, giving a flash of skin as he strokes his abs.
“Hnn.”
Jason grins a laugh.
“That sounded like it broke something important, Replacement.” he pushes his tongue against the flesh of his lip, stroking his teeth slow. He can’t help the asshole grin, the flush of sweat and victory.
Babiest bird is affected.
Being wanted is its own drug, sweeter than the high of adrenaline. It rushes through Jason faster and leaves his heart pounding, his toes curled.
“Just my– just ninety percent of my brain clicking offline, Jaso– Jay.” The name cuts off mid-sound with a little stutter, correcting himself, and the single syllable of his name is a flutter of air, almost shy. Baby bird holds it like a treasure, something soft and new and precious.
It burns through Jason like fire.
He rubs the back of his head against the couch with a groan, letting his fingertips give a little pressure as they hover over the– heh– impressive tent he’s pitching. He jerks his hand away before it can become a full-fingered stroke and then a loving cup and more verbs with more movement behind them, a flurry of activity that Tim’s secrets get lost in.
Jason had been given a file and a dossier and it’s rapidly becoming apparent how many holes exist in the paper-pretend version of the so-called pretender.
“You know what they say, Tim.” Jason returns the favor, uses the name that makes Tim suck in air over the open line. He rolls his head on his neck, relaxing into the cushions. “Heh. We get two heads but only enough blood to work one at a time.”
An ugly snort– and a few quick breaths after that might have been pretending not to be snickers.
“Jason.” Tim admonishes, reflexively, and it doesn’t feel bad– it’s cute as fuck, all that emphasis, but–
But.
“Aw, c’mon, gimme Jay back, baby bird.” Jason lets his shirt ride up more, scratching nails right along his trail. He bucks his hips shallowly into the loose hand curled in his lap. Pointedly.
Another swipe of his tongue over his lip. “I promise I’ll be real, real good if you do.”
Good for you, he almost said, but that’s another game entirely.
“B. Baby bird.” Tim says, slow like a stuttering computer program. Jason would laugh except his voice jumped an octave there and that’s telling. Of course Tim’s making him fight for it.
“Mm, I’ll make it worth your while.” Jay promises.
He takes a breath and then puts on approximately half of the simpering falsetto that dogged his adolescent adventures in smart-assery, “Oh please, Timmy? I promise you’ll have a good time–” He snickers, unable to help it, “– A swell time, even. Gee, a hundred-percent satisfaction guarantee!”
“Nrgk!” Tim makes a strangled sound and Jason stops laughing at himself to address it, voice shifting back to its normal, throaty register.
“That cannot be what does it for you, Replacement.” Jason insists. “I don’t think I’ve sounded like that since I was actually twelve.” Really he’d done that whole wide-eyed smart-ass innocent routine up until things got so fucking bitter between him and Bruce in that last week, but–
No, not that. Not tonight.
“It was. Familiar.” Tim allows, still choking. “Um. I mean– um.”
Jason raises a brow expectantly.
“Look, I already said– you were my Robin.” Tim says helplessly, blush in his voice– just, tinged with embarrassment and Jason wants to see it, the red under the domino. The words don’t lack impact the second time around, either.
Jason sucks air through his teeth.
“You gotta tell me what that means, Timmy!” He growls. “Don’t fucking– stop holding out on me.”
Newest Robin is such a bitch and he isn’t even shy about it, his fucking– prim little face, pinched mouth–
Plays so hard to get with the most deadpan flirting, lips forming into a moue that one time– they’d actually been starting to get along, lately, if only from a certain amount of distance–
“A bird never reveals their secrets,” He’d insisted, lips pursed, eyes twinkling– he’d fucking made some throwaway comment about the Super-clone and Jason had turned mid-swing, while Dick-face laughed, continuing the gentle ribbing.
(“You can’t tell me Robin doesn’t kiss and tell!” Dick yelled over the wind, delighted. “I know better.”
“What happens in Titan Tower stays in Titan Tower, brother-mine.” Tim’s lashes had fluttered, the deadpan hadn’t fucking moved an inch while Dick choked on indignant denial and laughter, and Jason was left once more wondering if things would have been different if he’d been the type of Robin with a team.)
Jason has only seen that side of him once and it was enough to stick, enough to wonder more about. This whole entire Robin who he only knows a sliver of. It’s not right, it’s not–
He’s part of them. As Jason gets closer and closer to the fucking cave it feels more and more wrong that the guy in the colors– in his colors– is–
–Well, not quite a stranger but there should be more there, right? There should be a knowing there, something more than words on a page. Another bat shouldn’t be a mystery.
Not in– heh. Not in this family, even if Jason still skitters away from that word like a gun’s barrel across a shoddy barricade in the rain.
“What else could it mean?” Tim demands. Jason’s heart picks up for it, for the emotion there. “You were– you were Robin, my Robin. Gotham is Gotham, it was cold and dark all the time, but you swung on grapples and made Batman laugh, you wore the colors and you smiled even with blood in your mouth. You were…” Tim struggles, passion not diminishing so much as his words fail him, and Jason?
Jason knows the feeling.
The word Robin hangs in the air with meaning, Tim trying to find a way to describe what those scaly greens and bloody knuckles and puns means to a city– no. What it means to a lonely orphan– or good-as-orphan– with dark hair and eyes on the fucking skyline waiting to see hope dressed in traffic lights fly with a whooping laugh that carried for fucking miles, joy cutting through the dark.
Jason knows.
“Magic.” He says roughly, completing the thought with less pain than he expected. “Robin is magic.”
“Yes.” Tim says, emphatic like a punch through the comm, and: “You were Robin and magic and you were everything.”
Emotion leaves him breathing raggedly by the end of it, in nothing like the right way for what they’re doing; except for how there’s not a wrong way to do this– how Jason thinks this might be the only way to do this.
A stripping of all armor and a stripping of all skin, ripping away every layer to the goddamn beating heart of a person, laying it all out there and hoping the naked self of you is understood. Is wanted.
“Yes,” Jason pants, and it may not be particularly healthy, but that’s– the magic and the meaning behind the title, the fucking weight of it, the worth. That’s something that can’t be faked, something he never thought he’d be able to share.
Part of Jason wants to fucking cry because if he had just–
Look, alright, he can’t count the number of times he’s thought ‘if I hadn’t left’–
— but for the first time he thinks of what he could have come back to, and how he could have found the dark-haired waif of a child he remembered from those fucking galas, maybe seen the knowledge in his face somehow–
Maybe Tim could have slipped up, but Jason could have dragged him back to Bruce, like look what I found, it could have–
They could have lived in that big empty house together, training and laughing and sweating to their fucking bones in the cave, building each other up stronger and faster and at night– flying.
It’s a new aspect of his life as Robin that he hasn’t thought to fucking mourn and it hurts, it’s fucking–
The possibilities.
Jason huffs and leans into it, inhales sharply and lets himself imagine being Robin with a dark little– intense little– shadow, learning the fucking ropes. Of giving Robin away instead of having it ripped from his cold dead hands, of a notebook full of half-sketched designs for a bird-related future in different colors, in–
Fucking blue instead of red.
“Jay,” Tim says, like a lifeline, and Jason makes a hurt sound, a wounded sound but he reaches back, gives a reassuring crack of a laugh to let the kid know he’s still alive, at least.
“Fucking god,” Jay groans, sharing with the class. “We could have known each other then, we could have–”
Tim yells, Tim–
Tim hadn’t sounded like that when he’d been shot and Jason jerks, eyes shooting to the little bird’s perch that he can’t actually see.
“Tim–?”
“I wanted that.” Tim says like it’s cut out of his throat. “I– that. That. I dreamed of talking to you, of– I know there wasn’t any place for me in the– the mythos of the story, but–”
“Fuck that!” Jason cuts him off. “You were made for this life, Replacement. Dick has told me about it. I wasn’t in the right headspace to hear it, but– you’re right. Bruce wouldn’t have settled for anything but perfect.”
Bruce hadn’t wanted to settle for any other Robin at all, which is something Jason can almost touch the edges of nowadays, when he isn’t blinded by rage thinking about anything red-yellow-and Pit green.
“Jay. Jay.” Tim shudders, he just– Jason can feel it. He knows in his bones the little bird just shook like a dog in freezing rain.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Replacement.” Yes, he is aware of the irony, thank you very fucking much, but it took a lot of perosnal growth and the slaying of his damn near literal demons to get here, okay?
They’re fucking tripping into dark waters here and Jason throws the guy a life preserver, leading him to shore.
“So– back then, huh? You knew me but I didn’t know you.” Jason lets the words burn in his voice, a little– leading.
“You wouldn’t have. Wanted to.”
“Oh? Why’s that, Replacement? You can’t have changed that much.”
The implication being he wants to know the Tim of now–and he feels that land, can almost imagine Tim’s rapid flutter of little blinks as his only fucking tell.
Tim huffs, a self-depreciating thing that wants to be a laugh when it grows up, probably.
“You’d be surprised. I didn’t– hm. It wasn’t proper to talk at those sort of galas, not really.”
“And those stupid parties were the only place we could have met, yeah? I gotcha. I remember how they could talk and talk and never say anything at all.” Nothing that mattered.
Jason hadn’t thought that kind of vapid lip service existed outside of actors faking it on T.V., those hollow fucking laughs. Turns out he wasn’t giving them enough credit because it had to be tough fucking work imitating that kind of shallowness.
“Heh. The lights were on but nobody was home. Kind of hard to strike up an interesting conversation, huh?”
“More like impossible.” Tim says, wry. “If we both knew, then maybe– maybe a conversation within a conversation. I always thought of– of just walking up to you, if I had something to say. If I could think of anything other than the secret. You were always. Always the most interesting person in the room.”
Tim says that one like it hurts— like the admission costs him– but Jason knows he’s in too deep now, the quiet of his voice as he paints the picture and follows Jason’s lead, however stop-start-stuttering he is when he’s not being Robin but the boy underneath.
He’s trying. Tim’s already cutting away the layers between them, desperate for some fucking metaphorical skin– and there’s not a Jason out there in all the universes who won’t respond to that, who doesn’t feel that in his soul. Baby bird’s not going to leave him hanging now.
“