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Jason lights another cigarette as he leans against his apartment building, adrenaline thrumming underneath his skin. He had gotten into a fight with a few members of Black Mask's gang earlier and had won it with ease, but the itch to pick a new one remains under his skin. He doesn't want to take that energy upstairs, so he forces himself to remain here and smoke in the cold air of Gotham as snow drifts lazily down from the sky. The neon lights of the never-closing bars, pawn shops, and diners of Crime Alley bathe him in the light of his childhood.
The adjustment in becoming a son of Bruce Wayne had been hard, and he had never gotten used to the insane amount of wealth that had been at his disposal, but having enough money that he never had to worry about it had been a life that he didn't think was possible when he was little. He still has more than enough money between what he gained before he came to Gotham and what he’s gained since he came back, but being back in Park Row reminds how lucky he would be if he could afford to eat once a day. He sends donations regularly to the various shelters around here, even though he knows that Gotham is so broken that there’s really no saving it or its people.
The cigarette burns down to a stub, but Jason still feels the shaky edge of adrenaline in his blood. He lights another one, and it’s in that moment that he sees the figures at the end of the street.
They’re laughing at something. No, someone. They’ve surrounded someone, and Jason can’t hear them from where he is, but as he gets closer, he makes out the words.
They set his blood aflame.
“Hey there, pretty boy, watcha think about letting us have a taste tonight?” They’re talking to a fucking kid, one who’s way too skinny with big blue eyes and long black hair, who looks terrified of the men crowding around him. Jason’s seen him around, getting picked up by john’s who probably have wives and kids back home and still need to get their rocks off with some teenaged hooker.
Jason’s tried to talk to him, especially last week when he walked around with a black eye and hunched shoulders, but the kid runs away whenever he gets too close.
Must see Jason’s height, bulk, and anger and thinks of him as dangerous. Honestly, Jason can’t blame him.
But he’s not going to let this kid get knocked around, not on his watch.
“How about you fuckers leave him alone?” He hates it, but emulating Bruce’s Batman voice actually helps in these situations, because once most people hear it and see him, they take off running.
These assholes aren’t special. They clear off quickly, leaving only Jason and the kid standing there.
He stands there fumbling with a sleeve of his hoodie, clearly refusing to look at Jason with his head bowed. He still looks terrified, and Jason knows that this kid probably just expects him to rape him, not wanting to share him with anyone else.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he says. The kid says nothing and just hunches in further.
“How old are you?” he asks next.
He doesn’t think he’s going to get an answer for a solid minute until a small “Sixteen,” escapes the kid’s lips and shit, that’s older than what Jason was thinking.
Looking at him now, he thinks that if the kid got some decent food and sleep in him and stopped wearing oversized clothes, he might look his age, but Jason knows it’s all part of what he can sell.
Jason never sold himself. He never felt that desperate. But he knew kids that did or were forced into it, and as he got older and saw those same childhood friends growing up dead-eyed while he was living it up at Wayne Manor, he sometimes wondered if he would have had to.
“What’s your name?” he pushes, and again, the kid waits a minute before saying “Tim.” Could be lying, would be smart if he was, but Jason has a gut feeling that he’s telling the truth with this one.
“Tim,” Jason repeats. “Nice to meet you, Tim. My name’s Jason.”
Tim gives a short nod at that, but he shuffles his feet and starts looking around. He’s eyeing an exit from this conversation, and Jason doesn’t want him to go.
“Look, you hungry? I got money and I can get you something to eat.” Tim’s gaze snaps back to Jason, and stares him down. Jason’s being judged. He can see it. How fast can he run? How strong is he? How easy would he likely go on Tim if he couldn’t get away? Jason just meets his eyes, hoping that Tim can see despite the height and weight he has on him, he won’t do anything to hurt him. “No strings. The minute you want to leave, you can leave.”
Tim bites his lower lip. “No strings?”
Jason nods eagerly. “No strings. Just a meal.”
“Repayment?”
“No repayment. I don’t want any repayment.”
Tim looks at him a moment more, and then nods once, jerkily.
Jason breathes a sigh of relief. “Alright. What do you want?”
Tim looks down. Jason can barely hear him, but he manages to just barely get, “A burger.”
“Burger? A burger sounds great.”
*
There’s a diner with some of the best burgers in Gotham only two blocks away, and Jason manages to get Tim there, who every two minutes looks like he’s about to bolt. Jason just stops and stands in the middle of the sidewalk, praying to a God that he doesn’t think he believes in that Tim won’t run. Everytime, Tim decides that he trusts him enough to walk a little bit more until they arrive.
The diner is brightly lit, but nearly empty at what Jason is just now realizing is 11:43 at night. But it’s twenty-four hours and a warm place to be if you can spare a dollar for a cup of coffee to nurse, so Jason suspects that it’s going to fill up on a night as cold as this one. If he wasn’t so concerned about Tim and getting food in his belly, Jason would be walking the streets, looking for people that he can give ten bucks and directions here.
Tim slides into a booth, and now Jason can see just how truly young he is. Miserable too. A waitress comes over to place a couple menus at their table, and then walks off without saying a word.
“Get whatever you want,” Jason tells him. “I got the money.”
Tim doesn’t even look at the menu. “Burger, fries, and a chocolate shake.” His smile turns wistful, and Jason wonders when’s the last time he had that meal.
“Alright then.” He turns towards the waitress, who’s currently playing some game on her phone. “Ma’am?” He waits until she looks up. “Can we get two burgers and fries and two shakes, one chocolate and one strawberry?”
“Yeah,” she tells him, and goes to tell their order to the cook in the back. Jason doesn’t pay anymore attention to her, just goes back to talk to Tim. He opens his mouth to speak, and then realizes he can’t think of a single thing to say that he feels appropriate to ask Tim and that he’ll also answer.
And then he wants to hit himself in the head because Tim is probably expecting a hundred and one questions about his job, but he’s not just his job. He’s a person, one that Jason wants desperately to trust him. “Burgers your favorite food?”
Tim furrows his brow, probably confused over the lack of questions about his line of work. “Yeah.”
Jason nods. “Nice. Chili dogs are mine.” He’s starting to smile. He feels like he’s smiling too widely, but maybe that’s just his paranoia kicking in. “I know a lot of people hate them, but damn, I think they’re delicious. My mom used to make them a lot when I was little. They were cheap and easy and very filling, so they were like the perfect food.”
Tim is staring at him like he’s crazy, which is probably a smart thing to do. “I just like burgers.”
Jason shrugs. “That’s fine too. There doesn’t always need to be a reason for liking things. You can just like them.”
Tim just keeps staring at him.
“What else do you like? Books, movies, TV?” Jason should just shut up, but he can’t stop himself. He desperately wants to get Tim comfortable about him, but he can’t stop himself.
“I don’t do a lot of things anymore,” Tim says slowly, like Jason’s an idiot. “I don’t have the time.” He looks down. “But I did like photography.”
“Photography? That’s cool. I don’t know much about it, other than point and click, you know?”
“Yeah,” Tim says. “But that’s why I decided to come here with you.”
“Because of photography?”
“Yeah, I use to take pictures of you.”
Jason frowns, confused. “Pictures? What pictures of me?”
“Should I put on some Jackson 5, Todd?”
He goes cold. Their food is delivered. The waitress mixes up the shakes, but Tim just reaches across and switches them while Jason gapes at him. How does this kid know? Jason has never seen him in his life, and he somehow knows the most important secret of Jason’s life. Does Bruce know about this kid? No, that’s impossible. If Bruce knew about this kid, with his knowledge and his situation, then he would already be adopted.
“How long?” he finally manages to whisper.
Tim takes a big bite of his burger and swallows. “It’s a long story.”
“I got the time.”
Tim shrugs. “Your funeral.”
He takes another bite. “When I was four years old, my parents took me to a circus and that’s when I met Dick Grayson. Got my picture taken with him and everything. He and his parents were incredible, but well, the night we went was that night. The night his parents died. I remember it all. The performance, the fall, and Batman rescuing him. And see, one of the things I remember the most about Dick Grayson is that he was one of the few people in the world who could do a quadruple somersault. And he’s taken in by Bruce Wayne, and then Robin appears with Batman, a young kid, capable of doing that same thing? And you have to be rich to make the kind of gadgets Batman does, and I’d met Bruce a couple times before anyway. He never paid close attention to me, so I saw him drop his guard once and I could tell he wasn’t as dumb as everyone thought it. It made sense.
“And then a few years go by and Robin stops appearing. Nightwing shows up in Blüdhaven just when Dick Grayson moves there, doing quadruple somersaults just like Robin did. Robin reappears, looking different and younger, just when Bruce Wayne adopts a new kid. Then Robin disappears again, just when Jason Todd dies. Batman gets harsher towards the criminals, only stops when Nightwing comes back to town for a few months, just when Dick Grayson does. The pieces are there. I just put them together.”
The floor drops out from under Jason. This kid managed to figure out something that left most of the world baffled, and he made it all sound so obvious. How did no one else put this together?
“How does this tie into photography?” he forces the words out of his dry mouth.
“I wasn’t always on the streets.” Tim looks down at his food and hunches his shoulders. He looks so small and young in that moment that all the fear Jason feels about his knowledge melts away. How long has he been selling himself and living on the streets? Clearly awhile. He could have sold the truth to the highest bidder a long time ago, but for some reason he didn’t. “I had parents who made sure all my needs and wants were met.” Not loved him, Jason notices, and his heart manages to bleed a little bit more for this kid. “And I liked taking pictures. One day, I decided to follow you and take pictures. No one noticed.” Tim’s mouth twists into something strange. “No one notices me. It’s a talent.”
Jason frantically searches his memories. He can’t think of a single instance that he might have seen a tiny kid following them around. Yet he doesn’t think Tim is lying. He thinks he’s just that good.
"Why are you telling me this?" Jason leans back in the booth and crosses his arms over his chest. "You were scared of me in the street. Why so talkative now?"
Tim shrugs and refuses to meet his eyes. "I wasn't even sure it was you at first. But there were nineteen places on the way here that you could have forced me into to rape me and you didn't even look at them, and I feel like you haven't changed much from Robin. Besides the killing, that is." The kid actually has the audacity to give Jason a disappointed look at that, like Jason isn't doing Gotham a favor by killing the scum who live on it. He forces down the anger at that and how he's so clearly not Robin anymore. He left that boy behind long ago and he doesn't want this kid bring him back.
At the same time, the kid needs him and Jason isn't going to leave him. So if this kid needs Robin, then Jason supposes bitterly that Robin might be coming back.
"You said you had parents. What happened to them?"
Tim puts down his burger and picks at his fries. "Do you remember the Drakes?"
Jason frowns. The Drakes. . . . That sounds familiar. Jason pushes through his mind, sorts through his memories like Bruce had taught him as he tries to find the right one.
It takes him a moment, but then it comes to him. Jack and Janet Drake were a wealthy Gotham couple who died in a plane crash a few months before Jason himself died. Their bodies, and their son Tim's, were never found.
Their son is right before him.
"What happened to them?" Jason repeats.
"My parents weren't good people," Tim whispers. "They used their archaeology digs to sneak drugs and weapons into the country, and they took artifacts to sell on the black market instead of letting them go to museums. They were involved with some very bad people here in Gotham, people that they decided that they should steal from."
"And one of them got you," Jason finishes, mouth pressed in a hard line. Tim would have been about twelve at the time of his "death."
"They spent their final moments begging to live," Tim says woodenly. "They offered me up if they could go back to their own lives. It's not like they were ever in mine much anyway, they probably liked the idea of me going away. I was just a burden. But it doesn't matter. They shot them right in front of me, and then fucked me for the first time right next to their cooling bodies."
Tim's voice is devoid of emotion. Jason feels sick. He wants to dig up the Drake's, bring them back to life, and then torture them slowly back to death for doing that to their son. He wants to track down every person who ever hurt this kid and destroy them for touching him. His vision goes green, and he wants to get his hands on someone and punch and punch and punch until his hands are coated with blood and some more rot is removed from this world. He clutches the edges of the table, trying to force these feelings down so he won't scare Tim anymore than he already has.
The kid has pressed himself into the corner between the booth and window, trying to look as small as possible.
He didn't think of running.
Jason wondered how many times he tried before he realized that it was just going to hurt worse.
"Eat," Jason growls. "Eat, and then I'll take you somewhere safe."
Tim shakes his head. "No, no, I can't go. I, I can't leave him."
"You have me, Batman, and Nightwing. You'll be safe."
Tim keeps on shaking his head. "It, it doesn't matter. He owns me, I'll never be safe from him."
"Tim, you'll be okay." He's starting to come down from his anger and he can see how much Tim is shaking.
"No. No, he'll kill you. He'll kill you all. I'm, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. I shouldn't have bothered you." Tim scrambles out of the booth and runs . Jason throws down a hand full of bills on to the table and chases after him.
Jason is fast, but Tim's desperate and he knows this part of Gotham. It doesn't take him long to lose the kid, looking around in an alley with no sign of him. A frustrated sigh heaves out of his body, because he knows what this means.
*
He walks into the BatCave like it isn't a question that he deserves to be there, even though his skin itches as he walks around. Bruce raises an eyebrow when he sees him, and Dick gives him a blinding smile. "Jay, what are you doing here?"
"I need your help." He doesn't want to talk, he just wants to find Tim and get him to safety. "I met a kid who's selling himself on the street, and he's terrified of whoever has him. Won't tell me who they are, but I got his name."
"What is it?" Bruce demands, heading straight towards the computer.
“Tim Drake.” Jason moves behind Bruce to watch him type in the info, Dick moving in right next to him. He jumps a little at the name, but Bruce is silent as he types it in. “Tim Drake? Isn’t he supposed to be dead?”
“So am I.” Jason points out.
“You’re both right,” Bruce mutters. “We cannot assume that those who are dead are always dead, especially with a body that’s never been discovered, but Tim can’t have been going by Tim Drake or he would have been discovered. Jason, did he give you any clues about his abductor’s identity?”
“Just that they worked with his parents, sneaking artifacts, weapons, and drugs in and out of the country.”
Bruce nods, and goes to typing things on the computer. Jason doesn’t totally understand what he’s writing. It's in some sort of strange code that only Bruce's mind is capable of understanding, but he finds the information quickly. "There are a number of men who are still active in the last four years in the trafficking trade despite my best efforts, but there's only one man that I believe would have been responsible for working with the Drakes and covering up their murder and Tim's abduction." Bruce presses a button and the face of a man that Jason knows well fills the screen, sending his stomach plunging.
Fuck.
Black Mask. Roman Sionis.
No wonder Tim's so scared.
But Roman's no match for the three of them.
*
Bruce has been working on Roman's operations, stripping them away and leaving the man with less and less to work with. But with the news about one abused and abandoned kid, he throws away all of his plans and goes to work on getting Tim out . Bruce will sacrifice a lot, but he won't sacrifice a kid.
Even Jason in all his anger can't forget that.
He calls Cass, the new Batgirl that Jason finds himself liking despite himself, to meet them on the roof next to Roman's headquarters. Jason paces the length of it as he waits for her to arrive. He closes his eyes and he thinks about Tim and what could be happening to him at this very moment.
He's heard the stories of Roman.
He sells everything, got a hand in all of Gotham’s black markets. But most of all, Jason hears that the man is a fucking sadist in bed. He’s seen the kids.
Fuck, he’s seen Tim, skinny and bruised.
He looks behind him. Dick and Bruce are talking and waiting. He turns back towards Gotham, towards Roman's building. He narrows his eyes as he sees movement in the bright lights of one of the rooms, but shadowed through the curtain. He can't tell who it is, but then the curtain moves.
It's Tim. He’s grabbed the curtain, face facing someone taller and bulkier, someone who Jason knows is Roman. It’s far, so Jason can’t make out many of the details, but he can imagine. Tim’s grip on the curtain would be white-knuckled, eyes wide with fear.
It would be the same look that his mother had whenever she brought home a john who got rough. She never realized that Jason had watched the hits she had taken. That he had seen how she had done anything for money that kept him fed and clothed and warm. He had watched through the cracks of the closet, his flashlight and headphones turned off.
He’s a grown ass adult, but somehow in this moment he’s nine years old again and weak and helpless and unable to protect.
Tim is grabbed by a black-leathered hand, and then thrown onto the bed as the curtain gently waffs back to its original position.
Fuck this shit, Jason's moving in now.
He grabs his grapple and fires to the wall, ignoring the shouts of Bruce and Dick behind him. He flies through the air, crashing feet first to the window. Tim is struggling underneath Roman, pants pushed down to mid-thigh and Roman’s fingers brutally fucking him.
Tim is whimpering and clawing at the bedspread, eyes squeezed tight against the brutal assault.
Bruce told him not to kill. That doesn’t mean he can’t beat the fucking shit out of Roman as the world around him turns green.
He grasps the back of Roman’s shirt and pulls him out of Tim, and throws him to the floor and punches him again and again and again. Roman is laughing beneath him, laughing until one of Jason’s punches crack his teeth and then he stops.
Jason continues hitting him, grinning savagely as Roman gurgles, bloody bubbles in his mouth, hands weakly grasping for mercy. Pathetic. All he does is terrorize and destroy Gotham. He rapes kids and fucks up lives with his drugs and he doesn’t fucking care.
Well, he cares now, doesn’t he? He cares now that Jason’s fist is destroying his face. He cares that Jason will burn his entire enterprise to the ground. He cares now that-
“Red Hood!” A big hand wraps itself roughly around Jason’s wrist, pulling it back and preventing another blow. “Stop this now!”
Jason snarls, and turns towards the voice. It’s Bruce. Behind him is Cass and Dick holding Tim tightly in his arms, Tim shaking apart in his shoulder while comforting words are being whispered towards him.
“The police are coming,” Bruce says, shaking Jason’s wrist until he loosens his grip on Roman’s neck. He hadn’t even noticed he had been choking him. “They will arrest him, and he’s never going to see the light of day again. But we need to move now . We have Tim, and we need to get out of here.”
Jason wants to light this building on fire itself, but Tim raises his face up and turns to look at Jason. Suddenly, all the fight leaves him. He forces himself to nod and stand up.
He will find a way to permanently end Roman later. Right now he’s going to take care of Tim.
*
Jason remembers that when he was Robin, the longest part of the night always seemed to be coming back to the Manor. The Batmobile, always so fast in chases and rescues and patrolling in general, seemed to crawl back while he looked exhaustively out the window.
He’s not exhausted right now, in fact he’s keyed up an unsettling amount, but it still feels so long in actually getting back ho-
Getting back.
Tim is curled up in Dick’s lap, shaking slightly but otherwise making no noise. The three of them are in the back seat, Bruce in the driver’s seat, and Cass in the passenger’s seat. The entire car is silent, anticipating the Manor and the relief of ending patrol.
Jason just wants to get Tim medical attention, attention that Bruce had already radioed ahead for Alfred to prepare. In the end, Alfred decided to call Dr. Thompkins to get here.
Of course, Jason had to tell them what Tim had figured out years ago to convince them to bring him back to the Cave instead of simply dropping him off the hospital where Jason could lose him again.
Bruce had not taken that, or that Jason had known, well. Jason could see how hard he was gripping the wheel, despite not actually needing to drive, but Jason also knew that driving helped calmed him down. Good. He doesn’t need Bruce freaking out on Tim. Luckily, Dick had carried Tim away before Bruce had really started yelling at Jason and Cass had touched him lightly on the shoulder, stopping in the middle of his tracks. He had still swept dramatically away to the Batmobile.
But he had stopped to carefully brush some hair away from Tim’s face before getting in, and Jason knew that Bruce would be getting the paperwork to get Tim legally declared alive and adopted into their family started before he went to bed. In a month, he would have a new brother.
Tim shifts slightly in Dick’s arms and whimpers as they leave Gotham proper and start heading down the roads that lead to the Manor. Jason instantly turns towards him. He can’t tell if the kid’s asleep or not, but Dick hurriedly adjusts him so that Tim is still comfortable.
“Hey, there,” Dick whispers, smiling. “How are you feeling?”
“Hurts,” Tim slurs. “Drugged.”
“With what?” Jason asks, and Tim tilts his head back to look at him. “Fear gas. Scarecrow’s. Likes how I scream when I’m on that.”
Jason wants to throw up. Dick looks like he wants to pick up where Jason left off and choke Roman to death. Cass is far to still, even for her. Bruce’s grip on the steering wheel has gotten even tighter.
“I’m ‘kay,” Tim mumbles as Dick guides his head back to lean against his shoulder. “Developed some immunity. Still don’t like it.”
He sounds and looks much younger than sixteen and Jason’s heart breaks. How the hell does someone get so strong, that they can survive a life like this?”
“We have antidotes,” Bruce rumbles. “You’ll get one as soon as we get back to the Cave.”
“Cave?”
“Our base of operations.”
“We usually don’t take people here, but you’re special, Timmy,” Dick adds. “Jay told us that you knew everything about us.”
Tim nods slowly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry that they had to die. I see them sometimes, when I’m on this.”
Fuck, Jason had just mentioned the quadruple somersaults, not the fact that he had witnessed the Grayson’s terrible fall. He opens his mouth though he has no idea what he’s going to say, but Dick cuts him off. “It’s okay,” and Jason knows he isn’t imagining the watery quality in Dick’s voice. “I see them too. But I’m still here, and I got you.”
Jason doesn’t remember Dick being this good of a brother to him, and while one part of his mind wants to melt in rage and jealousy, the other part is very glad that Tim is going to have something good in his life, because Bruce and Jason are just too fucked up to really be helpful.
They get to the Cave, Alfred already preparing a bed for Tim to lay in, one that Dick heads towards immediately, sitting Tim down gently. The kid refuses to let go of Nightwing, and Jason tries to head over there, but he’s stopped by Bruce, forced into a chair. “Stay. I need to clean your hands.”
Jason looks down and blinks. Huh. His hands are a bloody mess, and only half of it looks like Roman’s. Jason can see the parts of his knuckles that got the flesh rubbed off from how hard he was hitting.
That isn’t good.
“I’ll have Leslie do a blood test for you as well as Tim. There’s no telling the diseases that Sionis has.”
Jason nods. He doesn’t feel like he’s able to speak right now.
"Hey," Bruce says, tilting Jason's head and forcing him to look at him. His father's brown eyes are sympathetic and worried, and Jason feels thirteen again, glad that someone finally loves him and desperate to make sure they won't leave. "I just need to say how proud of you I am."
"I would have killed him," Jason says. "I don't know how long I would have continued hitting him if you hadn't stopped me. That was all I could think about. Just hurting him."
"I know, Jay. But you didn't. And that's not even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how you saved Tim. You're a protector. You met this kid a few hours ago and you rescued him from hell. You did that, and that's always been you."
"I didn't kill Felipe," he mumbles. "I wanted to, but he- He really did fall ."
Bruce carefully cards his fingers through Jason's hair. I believe you, Jay. I'm so sorry it took me so long."
God forgive him, especially with Tim so close and so hurt, but a few tears escape his eyes, one's that Bruce lightly brushes off. "There is nothing on Earth that I love more than my children, Jay, and nothing I wouldn't have done to stop you from dying. I dreamed of putting you in the Pit myself. I looked into finding someone that would bring you back to life at the cost of my own. A part of me died with you, and I will never forgive myself for hurting you now and then."
There is so much more to say. There's the Joker and the League and everything that Jason has done and Bruce didn't do lingering just past the surface of this conversation. He needs to yell and rage and collapse crying in his dad's arms. He needs to do all of that and more, but they don't have the option right now.
Jason leans into Bruce's palm that's still wiping escaping tears away. "Tomorrow," he breathes out slightly. "I just. . . . I just don't want to do this tonight."
Bruce nods. "Tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever you're ready. I'll be here."
Jason nods. "Okay." Forces himself to take a deep breath and blink away the remaining tears in his eyes. He holds out his hands and prepares for the burning sting of antiseptic. "Let's just do this."
*
Jason gets his hands thoroughly bandaged and Leslie takes enough blood of his to test to make sure he didn't get any diseases from Roman. He's told that he should head upstairs to get some sleep, but he refuses. He just takes a shower and gets dressed in one of Bruce's old t-shirt's and Dick's biggest pair of sweatpants. Dick is helping Alfred with cleaning up the medical waste, and Bruce is working on calling lawyers and starting the legal hell that will be Tim's adoption in the family. Cass is reading a book that Jason recognizes as being one of the ones he recommended to her. " Good Omens ? That's one of my favorites."
"It is hopeful," she responds. "It makes me happy."
"That's why I like it," Bruce says. "My parents gave it to me on the last birthday I spent with them." He has a soft smile on his face, taken back to the days of happiness. At their surprised faces, he raises an eyebrows. "Despite the fact that I know you see me as an old man, I should remind you that I am only thirty-six. I was born in 1983, children."
Jason does honestly forget that Bruce was twenty-four to Dick's twelve when he took in his brother. It's strange, and makes him seem far more human than Bruce should be.
He moves on, sitting next to Tim, whose eyes are starting to flutter open. "Jason?" he says, as he spots him. "It was real."
"Yeah, kid." Jason sinks into the chair. "You're safe."
He looks around the Cave, eyes alight as he realizes where he is. "Wait. . . ?"
"I told them what you knew," Jason says. "They're okay with it. They're just glad that you're okay. Crane's drugs should be fully flushed out of you in a couple hours and you don't have any permanent damage, but you're malnourished and dehydrated, so you'll be hooked up to IV's for awhile."
Tim nods in understanding. "What's going to happen to me?"
"You are new brother now." Cass cuts in, not even looking up from her book. "Bruce will love you just like us."
Jason gives a soft chuckle. "What she said."
"Wait, what? No. I can't do that-"
"You won't be doing anything to us, Tim," Bruce states. "I want to take you in. You have no one else, and I will not let a child be alone in this world." He turns to Tim, who's looking right at him. "I can only apologize that I did not realize you needed me earlier."
Tim shrugs. "It's okay. You had more important things to worry about."
The five of them look up and lock eyes with each other, coming to a completely silent agreement that this attitude is something they need to fix.
"Yeah, well, you're the most important thing we need to worry about now," Dick says, sounding so sure and determined that Tim is clearly left at a loss on how to refute it. Dick has that way with words, the ability to just say something and make it totally and completely true.
Tim is left nodding, teary-eyed and grasping Jason's hand as hard as he possibly can.
"What's going to happen to me?" he asks. "Can I help you? Help Gotham?"
Jason wants to tell him no, that he's a kid and he should stay that way, but he can't. Like Bruce, like Dick, like Cass, and like him, Tim needs something more. He has seen and done too much, and who is Jason to deny him something like this? Looking carefully at Bruce, Jason squeezes Tim's hand. "Yeah, you can." Bruce nods. Jason can't tell if he's giving him permission or not, if he even realizes what Jason's about to say, but oh well. He'll borrow some of Dick's magic power and speak it true. "In fact, I've been thinking that Batman needs a Robin, but that's not me. Not any more. What do you say, kid?"
Tim's eyes are wide.
"Want to be my successor?"