Chapter Text
The last thing Jason expected to see in the middle of some damp alley on the northern edge of Crime Alley at a ripe 4 AM was Tim Drake buying drugs. But life is full of wacky surprises, isn’t it?
Jason had been minding his business, perched on the roof of his favorite bodega/apartment complex, waiting for a drug dealer that Mr. Escobar had tipped him off about during his last 2 AM ibuprofen-and-whiskey run. Not that Jason was terribly concerned about every run-of-the-mill peddler who happened to be selling in the most corrupted corner of Gotham. But he liked to keep an eye on things. And the weather was pleasantly cool for the middle of July, so Jason was enjoying a 4 AM snack and soaking up some of the city’s lovely polluted air.
Or he was until Replacement showed up. The dealer had shown up looking absolutely dashing in his drug rug and sagging pants and slunk into the shadow of an overflowing dumpster for approximately 2 minutes before a smaller figure appeared out of thin air at the mouth of the alley. The hood of a black sweatshirt hid the newcomers' features while a plastic grocery bag bounced against a black skinny jean-clad thigh, not that Jason was paying a whole lot of attention. Not until the little shadow with the grocery bag tilted his chin up just a bit and was suddenly looking a whole lot like a vigilante he knew.
Jason moved to lie flat on the roof, tucking further into the darkness lest maybe-Tim tilt his chin up a little more and spot him among the pigeons. The plan had been to hop down and scare the dealer, as soon as he finished the honey bun gratefully supplied by Mr. Escobar, off to some other corner a few blocks down into a less residential area where he wouldn’t bother the kindly man in the shop below.
He watched from above, licking the glaze from the inside of the empty wrapper with extreme stealth as maybe-Tim conversed with Mr. Drug-Rug for a few moments before exchanging a completely inconspicuous wad of cash for a completely inconspicuous, miniature ziploc bag, then maybe-Tim was slipping back out the mouth of the alley onto the street. It was more obvious, now Jason was paying attention, that maybe-Tim was most-likely-Tim. The familiar gait and near untraceable movement between shadows indicated that it was, in fact, his replacement buying drugs on his turf.
The little rugrat was gonna get the scare of his life when Jason ripped him a new one for playing dress up in his territory. Whatever drug bust or criminal arrest he was cooking up, he could do it somewhere else, or bring it to Jason’s attention and hand over whatever case he was working on, or at the very least, ask permission before stomping his muddy boots right through Jason’s front door.
The audacity.
Tim was slipping across the street, quick as a whip, to where his bike was stashed in some alcove behind a closed thrift shop. Jason swore, scrambling down to street level to where his own motorcycle was stashed before Tim could make his getaway. He drove the bike out of its hiding place keeping the headlights off to avoid showing up in Tim’s rearview, following the rev of the other small engine down the street. He followed at a distance, just barely keeping a tail to see where the rat was headed. He followed south until the both of them were rolling silently out of Jason’s sector all the way down to the financial district. Good. Jason would stomp his muddy boots all over Tim’s front door, see how he liked it.
As the decrepit mass housing gave way to pristine townhomes, Jason had to fall even further back. Tim was off his game if he hadn’t noticed the hound on his scent yet. Or he was just waiting until he was back in the safety of his own turf before facing the confrontation. That was more likely.
Some point after Jason passed Richey Rich Ln., he realized the mechanic purr of Tim’s bike had silenced and the kid was nowhere to be seen. Jason drove another lap around the block, keeping his eyes peeled for Batman Jr. lurking somewhere on the side of the street. He just hoped Tim hadn’t driven into an underground parking garage with an subterranean path directly to whatever overpriced mini-mansion he was camping out in. But sure enough, on his second pass around the neighborhood, he just barely caught Tim slipping through the front door of the last townhome on the street.
In no time at all, Jason was crawling along the rooftop of the unit next door to Tim’s, certain the little stalker had tricked the whole block out with cameras and waited for him to emerge.
One minute passed. And then two. He was starting to get impatient. I was plain rude to keep a nemesis, adversary, or any fellow vigilante you were at odds with waiting for a showdown. Superheroism 101. Not that Jason was really gunning for a huge showdown. Mostly he was just bored. It had been a slow night, and he’d taken a nice, big nap right before patrol.
And then, in one corner of the rooftop, a square of light flicked on, immediately catching his attention. He strode over to discover a skylight positioned right above the living room of the townhome. How convenient.
The safehouse was sparsely decorated. And by that, Jason meant soul-crushingly barren. All the furniture matched, and complimented the dark cabinets, white granite countertops, and pale gray hardwood flooring, as though the whole place had been a showroom Tim had bought as-is. Which was a super depressing and entirely believable theory.
Tim was just landing at the bottom of a staircase, clutching a little blue book and palm sized yellow box. He’d taken off his shoes and pushed down the hood of his sweatshirt. Tim padded over to the leather sectional that looked like it had never been used except for a Tim-shape dent in the corner. But this time Tim sat in the center of the couch, smack dab in front of the weird little modernist coffee table where the plastic grocery bag from earlier was sitting.
Tim laid out the little blue book, the yellow box - was that a box of fucking crayons? - then pulled from the bag a… cake? Maybe six inches in diameter, with a plastic dome, was what Jason was pretty damn sure was one of those cheap grocery store cakes left blank on the top so the staff could write a celebratory message in icing.
This was making less and less sense.
Then that little ziploc bag made a reappearance, slipped out of the front pocket of Tim’s hoodie and it was definitely holding some kind of white powder.
Tim better have bought some fucking baking soda from the most irreputable source imaginable. Because if Jason was about to watch Tim Fucking Drake snort a line of coke, he was gonna lose it. Weren’t rich kids supposed to snort a line in the dingy bathroom of whatever high end club they were getting wasted at? Now that he was thinking about it, it wasn’t all that inconceivable for Tim to be taking uppers, what with the rate that kid ran at. It would explain the fact that he never seemed to sleep, always busy running a company or leading a superhero team or carrying the weight of the fucking world on his bony little shoulders.
But something about that was just off. There were no case files lying nearby, no laptop to tap away on, just that weird little cake and a box of fucking crayons. Not usually cocaine related items. Then Tim was jumping up again adjusting something underneath the flat screen TV occupying the wall across from the couch. Jason shifted to the other side of the skylight, but whatever it was hid just out of his line of sight beneath the television. Just as quickly, Jason was shifting back to his original spot to watch Tim disappear into the kitchen, only to come back about 10 seconds later with a fork, a tiny measuring spoon, and a container of Clorox wipes. This just kept getting weirder.
Any second, Jason expected Tim to pull a microscope out from between the couch cushions and start running tests on the sample of not-so-mysterious white powder. But he didn’t. He just arranged everything on the table in a neat little line before pulling his wallet from his back pocket. Out came a shiny black credit card.
For the first time since spotting Tim, Jason considered just going home. This was not what he had signed up for. Whatever Tim was doing was none of his damn business.
Let the little crackhead go off the deep end. What’s it to me?
But behind the layer of general apathy, the whole scene made Jason sick to his stomach. Though the context was so different, Jason saw a hauntingly similar vision of his own mother slipping a tiny ziploc bag from her pocket in his mind.
Jason dealt with drugs day in and day out. Gotham was just like that. In an area like Crime Alley, it was damn near impossible to spit without running into your friendly neighborhood weed guy or some meth heads squatting in an abandoned warehouse. Hell, even among the city elite, there was always some trust fund baby chomping at the bit for a bump.
Exhibit A
Usually, this kind of thing never got to him. Jason understood that addiction was a disease and that not all drugs were the work of the devil and that, most all, he couldn’t make other people’s choices for them. It didn’t bother him.
Maybe it was just different when it was someone close to you. Or semi-close to you. Or close to someone you used to be close with but were only semi-close with currently. Plus there was just an itch he couldn’t scratch, a missing piece of this puzzle pawing at the back of his head. It wasn’t making sense.
Tim opened the bag and used the tiny spoon to scoop a measured amount out onto the coffee table. He couldn’t hear it from here, but the phantom tap tap of the credit card pushing the powder into a thin white line echoed in his head along with Tim’s movements.
Jason kept waiting for someone to jump out and yell Sike! You’ve been Pranked! But no one did. He couldn’t look away, kept waiting to see if it would actually happen. Like at the last second it would all make sense.
Something young and sad in his brain wanted to smash through the skylight and scream Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing! wanted to shut this whole thing down before he had to watch it, had to know about it. Something sick and vindictive in his brain asked What would daddy say if he saw his perfect little soldier snorting a line? Wanted to tell Bruce and be the one to find out.
Instead of doing anything, Jason watched as Tim pressed one nostril shut, leaned down, and snorted the entire line straight off the edge of the coffee table.