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Tim Drake was nursing the mother of all headaches, which meant that he was in a terrible, bitchy mood.
Thankfully, the rest of the team had already retired for the night, while he was the only one who stayed awake to finish the mission’s report. He could have gone to sleep his mild concussion away, but he was still high on adrenaline, his head was killing him, and why leave for tomorrow what you can get done today? Tomorrow he would have to deal with over excited teammates: tonight, he could enjoy the precious, precious silence of the Tower while he worked.
He finished the mission report – ha, take that, Cassie! Who said he couldn’t work while concussed? She did, Cassie did. Well, Cassie was wrong, Tim was right, and now he was going to make some green tea to calm his itchy nerves and sleep for a week.
Yes, tea. He wasn’t a masochist. To be perfectly honest, Tim was already way past the point where a simple cup of coffee would actually affect him in any way, so he could drink it before bed, no problems. But it was the principle of the thing, he liked being a functional adult, despite the fact he was only fifteen. He may have a reputation of surviving only on coffee and no sleep, but that was bullshit he had carefully fed his friends for no other reason than to up his “creepy bat Gotham vigilante” rep. There was something inherently hilarious about a bunch of super-powered people thinking he was the weird one who had transcended basic physiological functions.
And the green tea actually helped with his anxiety so…
Tea.
Precious, precious tea to help him crash faster and sleep like the dead.
He dragged his feet to the kitchen, turned on the electric kettle, and went to find his favorite mug on the cupboards. It was a plain white mug with the classic Sherlock Holmes profile outlined – the one with the hat and smoking pipe – on one side, and the quote “You know my methods. Apply them.” in the other. Bart called it his “passive-aggressive mug” and he wasn’t wrong.
He particularly liked to glare at the team from over his mug, the quote on display.
So. Passive-aggressive mug. Water. Tea bag. A teaspoon of sugar. Perfection.
Tim let out a content sigh after smelling his tea, turned around to leave the kitchen, and his trained past-stalker-currently-vigilante eyes immediately locked on someone lurking in the dark hallway.
He froze on the spot – they were too tall to be one of the Titans.
He mentally took inventory: he was wearing his uniform but not his mask, he had practically no gear on him, having thrown it all around during the mission, but he still had the collapsible bo staff and the emergency panic button that would sent Batman – and possible Nightwing – flying to his coordinates like two bats out of hell.
Ha, bat out of hell. Hilarious. His head was hurting so badly. He hates it here.
He stayed behind the kitchen island, strategically positioned close to the knife block, and took a sip of his tea.
Ah, precious, precious tea.
“Kon? Is that you?”
Too tall to be Kon but he had to pretend everything was fiiiiine.
The looming figure slowly entered the kitchen, allowing the faint moonlight coming through the windows to reveal him. Male, young adult, wearing black pants, a white tee, leather jacket, no visible weapons but carrying a weird red helmet, black domino mask, a lock of white hair on his forehead– wait a second.
He knows this face. Is the face of a boy who died too early and that Clayface had used to attack Batman, to capture Robin and almost slit his freaking jugular.
But Jason Todd was dead, Clayface was in jail and the Tower’s security alarm hadn’t been activated. There was no way someone could simply sneak in like that without the pass codes. It was equally improbable that a third party would try to pull the same Hush crap again – Jason didn’t have that lock of white hair when he was alive, the whole Hush fiasco in the cemetery had been kept secret, and he got hit pretty hard in the head earlier, so the most logical conclusion – that didn’t involved magic, clones and other shenanigans – was that this wasn’t real.
It wouldn’t be the weirdest hallucination he ever had.
“Well, shit,” he said out loud, letting his mug rest on the counter. “I must be really tired if a mild concussion and 37 hours without sleep are enough to make me hallucinate with an older version of Jason who dyes his hair and looks like a shredded homicidal maniac.”
As if to emphasize his last point, not-Jason cracked an evil smile and took one step closer. Okay, so this hallucination was vivid as hell. Better not start thinking about not-Jason cutting his throat again before that started to happen as well.
Not-Jason opened his mouth to say something, but he was faster:
“In a scenario where I start to have Jason-hallucinations, I hoped they would at least be closer to my old dreams, and not,” he gestured the apparition in front of him dismissively, “whatever the hell this is.”
His damaged brain was a bitch.
Not-Jason stopped his panther-like steps towards him.
“You used to dream about me?” he repeated, slowly. He sounded incredulous and full of contempt and damn, even his voice was the same from the Hush fiasco, rougher and deeper than the voice of the Robin he grew up watching. “We never even met.”
Tim shrugged. If this was actually happening, he would never confess to Jason his more childish daydreams, but all was fair in 3 a.m. conversations with dead people conjured from your brain.
“Not in the literal sense of the word, no. But I did use to follow you and Batman around to take the pictures, so I saw a lot of you as Robin. I was a very lonely- I mean… An eager kid with nice dreams of flying over Gotham’s buildings with Batman and Robin using my own grapple hook.” Ignoring the hallucination dumbstruck face, Tim allowed a genuine warm smile to cross his lips as the old memories came back to his mind. “I used to daydream about how awesome it would be if Robin taught me how to fly, and you were the best Robin.”
“No,” the hallucination suddenly growled, viciously. “I don’t know what game you thinking you’re playing, Pretender, but-”
“Oh, give me a break, weird Jason hallucination,” Tim snapped back. What the hell, Pretender? That was just plain rude. “I think I would know which Robin is my favorite Robin. It isn’t myself, because I’m not that arrogant, and it sure as fuck isn’t Dick, because all I’m old enough to remember from his time as Robin was that he used to do unnecessary fancy acrobatics – which, by the way, was how I found out he was Dick Grayson – and get into repetitive arguments with Batman. Sure, he is the original boy-wonder and I bet they were amazing together back when he started, but GOD Dick was such a dick when he was a teenager. His team work with Batman was all off by the end of their partnership. And don’t even get me started on the uniform: sure it was a homage to his family, which again, BAD IDEA as far as covering their secret identities went, but he could at least have added some shorts if pants were just too much for him.”
He sighed and took a sip of his tea. Hmm, tea. Why wasn’t he drinking more tea and talking less with the rude apparition in front of him again?
Said apparition had the blankest expression on his face after his little outburst.
“You don’t think Dick was the best Robin,” he repeated, slowly.
Tim frowned.
“Weren’t you listening? I said, as far as I remember, no, I don’t think he was the best Robin. The last months of the original boy wonder were painfully uncomfortable to watch, to be honest. I was like, a nine years old trying to follow freaking Batman and Robin across Gotham’s rooftops, hoping to see them kick ass together, and more often than not I ended up eavesdropping on some serious teenager rebellion. I bet not even the villains were surprised when he left to be his own hero with his own godforsaken costume.”
He cringed at the memory, and even the hallucination grinned a little. “Discowing.”
“Yeah, exactly.” Tim took another sip of his tea. “Now, of course, Dick gets points for being the original and for giving so much magic to the whole ‘being Robin thing’. He also gets extra points for giving stupid names to every-single-item on Batman’s arsenal. It’s just too hilarious to think that broody, cryptic Batman goes around throwing batarangs and driving the batmobile.” He snorted against his mug. “But yeah, Dick’s only my second favorite Robin.”
Not-Jason tilted his head to the side, like a bird or something, considering him for a while, but still frowning.
“So you would be the third? The worst Robin?” he asked, not without a dose of venom in his words.
Wow, his frontal lobe and the sensory cortex really were out to get him, who would have known.
“First of all, fuck you, weird muscular version of older-Jason,” he cussed, pointing an indignant finger at his rude hallucination. His subconscious truly hated him. “Secondly, I am the best detective between all the Robins, and the best at team-leading and lying to Batman.” The last part seemed to almost impress not-Jason. Whatever. Tim took one deep breath to center himself. He was not useless, he was not bad at his job, and he was necessary. But. “But I wasn’t chosen for the job like Dick and Jason were, I imposed my presence on Batman’s life and pushed him to accept me as his partner. The first time he saw me in the costume he said I wasn’t Robin and that I would never be. He said there was no reason for Robin to continue to exist.”
He looked directly to that stupid domino mask.
“He didn’t want me, because I wasn’t you.”
He let the silence hang between them for a little, before lowering his eyes to his mug.
“Jason was the Robin that cared,” he declared, clenching the mug in his hands. “He was the Robin who talked to the victims, that made sure everyone was safe and okay, that made Batman laugh. He flew higher than anyone, he didn’t have a single drop of fear or cowardice in his blood, he fought and brawled more fiercely than even Batman, and he had the wickedest, crazy smile that made thugs shit on their pants.”
He slammed his hand on the counter and stared down the frozen hallucination in front of him. “Jason was my Robin, the Robin I watched from afar, the big shoes I had to fill, the one who set the bar so fucking high I never thought I would be able to reach, so you can bet your metaphysical ass he’s my favorite Robin.”
There was silence for a long time after his little speech, and he wished this would be enough to make the hallucination go away. He didn’t know why his brain was picking on his Jason-related feelings of inadequacy now, and honestly he didn’t care. He just wanted a nap. Oh, a nap sounded nice. He should totally do that.
“You really wanna me to believe that Jason, that Robin, meant so much to you, when you’re here wearing his uniform and using his name?” Fucking great, the hallucination was still talking nonsense. “When you just took his place in the family-”
“The what now? ” Tim snapped again, glaring at Definitely-Not-Jason. Because the real one would never be this fucking stupid. “I didn’t take Jason’s place in the family. Bruce didn’t adopt me, I don’t even live in the Manor, I’m not his son!”
He may have screamed that last part. Once again, the hallucination seemed surprised. Shouldn’t he know that, considering that he was a product of his brain?
Tim sighed tiredly and drank more tea.
“I had parents, you know. Sure, they weren’t always around and I basically raised myself since I was six and I’m about 87% sure my dad didn’t know my age, but I have my own home to where I go back after patrol when I’m in Gotham. I’m not Bruce’s son,” he repeated, lowering his eyes to his mug once again. “I’m not his son, and he doesn’t want me to be. No one could ever replace Jason in his heart.”
“Yeah, I’m not buying what you’re selling, Pretender,” his voice trembled a little, but it was still so filled with rage and pain that Tim almost believed he was the real Jason. Almost. “My body was still warm in the grave when he put you in my place, and you want me to believe I mattered so much to him?”
Fuck, his head was hurting too much for this shit.
“You’re dumb as hell for a hallucination coming from my mind”, he deadpanned, and Not-Jason practically growled, taking another step closer to him. Unimpressed, Tim only raised his mug so it would be in his eye level. He tapped the words on the porcelain. “Let me explain this slowly to you, Not-Jason. Batman,” and he tapped the words again to reinforce the point. ” Batman needs a Robin. Robin is a mantle, is a title, and its purpose is to help Batman. Dick outgrew it, Jason would’ve probably outgrown it too in his own time, when he decided to create his own bad-ass vigilante persona. Batman needed a Robin because he was going insane, and violent, and he was losing control. It didn’t have to be me, it could have been anyone else, as long as they kept him in check. The only reason I am Robin is because I decided to step in.”
He turned the mug on his hand, so now the Sherlock figure was turned to the hallucination, and he tapped his finger over the detective’s drawing.
“But Bruce needs his family. Bruce needs Alfred, Dick, and Jason, his sons. Sure, I’m kinda part of that family now too, the same way Barbara is, I guess, but not in the same way Dick and Jason are. That place I could never fill, and I don’t want to.”
He realized he’d lied the moment he said it. Fuck it.
Tim lowered the mug and rubbed his face, tiredly. Now was not the time for the kind of soul-crushing revelation. Maybe it was what his brain was forcing him to admit with the hallucination? Hell if he knew.
“Okay, yes, maybe I wanted to be part of the family, like a third son or something, but not taking Jason’s place. Never that.” He wanted Dick and Jason to be his brothers, dammit, both of them. “I guess… I just wanted someone who cares. It would be nice, for a change.”
Wow, he had never sounded so defeated in his life. The hallucination apparently agreed, because he was so dumbstruck it would be hilarious in another, less depressing and raw circumstances.
He drank his tea, and Not-Jason shook his head, probably coming out of whatever shock he just went through.
“Then you would be disappointed, kid,” he said, almost softly. “Bruce doesn’t really care. If he did, he would never, ever, let you put on this uniform, no matter how annoyingly insistent you were.” He turned the helmet in his hands, staring at it thoughtfully, and wasn’t that red thing strangely familiar? His concussion didn’t want him to remember though. Whatever. “That is the uniform that got me murdered. And he didn’t even kill that fucking clown.”
Hmm, it wouldn’t be a strange feeling for Jason to have, he supposed, if he had actually come back to life.
“Well, yeah,” Tim agreed. “But that’s Superman’s fault.”
The hallucination flinched, and Tim simply sipped more of his tea. It was starting to get cold, but it was still good.
“What?” He almost choked on his words.
“What what?”
“What do you mean that’s Superman’s fault?”
“Oh, the first time the Joker made a public appearance after he killed you, Batman gunned for him.” Tim frowned. “I don’t really know if he was going to kill him or not. Normally I would say no, because that’s his rule, but he was pretty unhinged after your death. Superman decided to not take any chances and went after him to prevent him from trying, I guess. Now we’ll never know for sure. To be honest, they don’t really talk about that time.”
The hallucination was once again frozen in the middle of his kitchen, apparently fighting his own thoughts. Tim wondered what kind of consolation he could offer him.
Or he could just go to sleep because hallucinations didn't need to be consoled.
“Dick did kill him, though,” he said anyway.
Not-Jason took a step back, as if he had been slapped.
“What?”
“The Joker captured me, told Nightwing he had killed me, started to taunt him describing your – Jason’s – death, and Dick lost it. Completely lost it. He beat him to a blood pulp and his heart stopped beating, so, you know, dead.” Not-Jason was definitely trembling now. Okay, it would be a bad idea to mislead his poor hallucination into thinking the Joker was dead. “He got better though. CPR and everything.”
Which was a memory he didn’t want to relieve, thank you very much.
“Nightwing killed the Joker after he captured you,” he repeated, slowly, almost in awe. It didn’t last, though. He shook his head, as if he was readjusting his thoughts. “The Joker captured you, which only proves my point: as long as that clown is alive, Robin will never be safe. Batman lets you use those colors and he doesn’t even protect you. If Bruce cared enough, that green-haired motherfucker would be dead.”
Tim propped his cheek on his fist, starting to feel bored as hell. “And then he would win.”
Not-Jason frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“The Joker would win,” Tim repeated, monotonously. “That’s exactly what he wants. If he pushes Batman over that edge, if Batman kills, he can no longer be a vigilante, Gordon wouldn’t cover for him anymore. He would be a criminal. He wouldn’t be any better than the Rogues he fights. The Joker would be dead but he would ultimately win, because Gotham would lose her only spark of hope. And that would destroy Bruce, too. He needs to be Batman, I don’t think he knows how not to be Batman anymore. It would kill him.” He sighed. “Is that what you want, definitely-not-Jason? You want Bruce dead?”
Now he seemed to be definitely fighting with himself. Trembling a little, his face all contorted, he finally crossed all the space between them and came to sit on one of the island stools. The red abomination that was his helmet was put in the counter in front of him, while he rubbed his face.
“You think that what the Joker wants is to push Batman to kill him?” He tiredly asked, clearly deflecting Tim’s last question.
He shrugged.
“No, I think that what the Joker really, really wants is to get fucked by Batman in the sexual sense of the word, but that’s absolutely disturbing so I avoid thinking about that as much as I can.”
Not-Jason flinched back so hard he almost fell from the stool.
“What the fuck, kid!” he seemed as horrified as Tim felt.
Good.
“You made me think about that. You made me think about Joker’s sexual fantasies. I hate you so much right now, you’re the worst hallucination ever.”
For the first since this whole shit show started, Not-Jason seemed almost amused.
“Why are you so sure I’m a hallucination?”
Pff. Dumb hallucination.
“Well, because if you really were Jason Todd miraculously back from the grave you wouldn’t be here.”
Not-Jason gave him his signature wicked grin, and Tim felt suddenly nostalgic.
“Oh, and where do you think I would be, kid?”
Dumb, dumb hallucination. Tim rolled his eyes, and it hurt a little.
Concussion. Right.
“The Mansion, obviously. You would go see Alfred.”
The smile disappeared from his lips. “Alfred.”
Tim nodded.
“Yeah, and after you let Alfred know you’re alive, you would go scare the hell out of Bruce. You would need Alfred to convince Bruce you’re real and not Clayface or another shape-shifter or alien or zombie. And if Dick’s stories are true, then you two would start screaming at each other but end up hugging anyway. Then you would let Dick know you’re alive in the most troll way possible, and spend the next 72 hours avoiding his emotional neediness.” Tim shook his head. “The next on the list would probably be to pay the Joker a visit with a crowbar.”
Aaaand the wicked grin was back, and Tim was almost fond of this hallucination. Almost.
“But you wouldn’t come here. You don’t know me, I’m not your brother, I mean nothing to you.”
Not-Jason’s wicked grin became 30% more evil, and suddenly Tim wasn’t feeling so nostalgic anymore.
“Maybe I would wanna know what the fuck you’ve been doing with my name and my costume. Maybe I would want to beat the living shit out of you so you know what happens to Robins who stray from the nest.”
Oh yes, he had forgotten how ridiculously dramatic and rude this hallucination was.
“Okay, first of all, this is not your costume because it has pants, thank you very much, I worked hard on it. Second, if you try to beat me I will beat you right back, asshole.” He took a deep breath. “And then I would tell you that all I ever wanted as Robin was to uphold your legacy and take care of them for you.”
Not-Jason seemed to be taken back for a second, but only a second.
“And if I told you I wanted the name back?”
“Well, if you looked like this,” he gestured the ridiculously tall apparition in front of him. “I would tell you to take the whole costume too because you’re a little too big for the scaly panties.”
He snorted, but quickly became serious once again. “You really would give up on being Robin?”
That felt like a punch on the guts.
“I’m not ready to let Robin go. I love being Robin, and I enjoy being B’s partner.” The took another deep breath, and drank the rest of his now cold tea. “But I stand by what I said before. I became Robin to help Batman first and foremost, not because of some deep rooted desire to be a hero. But since I ended up being good at this and enjoying it, I don’t think I want to stop. Yeah, it would be like losing a limb, but I could just create my own vigilante persona. After all… you also weren’t ready to let Robin go, and it was taken from you.”
He was avoiding the hallucination’s eyes now. Ridiculous.
“That didn’t answer the question, kid,” Not-Jason prodded, almost gently.
“I’m not ready to let Robin go,” he repeated. He threw his head back – and that fucking hurt, why did he keep forgetting he has a concussion??? - and finally met Not-Jason’s eyes once again. “Fuck it, I would not give you Robin back. I would, however, move earth and hell to convince you to become your own hero. I’m sure you would come up with something so much better than Discowing.” They both snorted. “Maybe we could even go around kicking ass together.”
For some reason, Not-Jason seemed almost pained.
“I can’t believe you have hero-worship syndrome towards me.”
“I thought we had already established that you were my favorite Robin,” he answered, unapologetically.
“But what if I wasn’t that Robin anymore?” he asked, almost desperate. He moved his hands to his domino and removed it with one fluid emotion, and all Tim saw was green. Poisonous, vivid green eyes, and that was all kinds of wrong. Jason’s eyes were blue. “What if I came back wrong, insane, violent? What if I started to kill the scumbags instead of sending them back to the corrupted system? What if Batman told you that I’m now the enemy? Then what would you do, Robin? ”
His first thought was ‘Jason would never do that’. But again, that wasn’t the question. The hallucination was asking what he would do in a hypothetical scenario, and Tim knew all about those.
“I guess I would have to beat some sense back into your thick skull,” was his simple answer, but he let his eyes and his entire body language show how serious he was.
If Jason ever came back, no matter how insane, he would still be family.
“And then what?” Not-Jason clenched his fist over the counter “Send me to Arkham?”
Oh, for the love of-
“What? No! Are you crazy? Or course not!” he answered, vehemently. Stupid, insecure Not-Jason hallucination. “Then we would have to find out how you came back, what made you insane, how to help you recover…”
“Are you forgetting about the murders?” Not-Jason interrupted his list, the prick.
“Batman and Robin cannot condone murder,” he answered truthfully, and Not-Jason took a deep breath. “But Bruce would always want his son back, no matter what. He just sucks so much at expressing that.”
Not-Jason seemed far from convinced, but he also didn’t seem remotely interested in discussing the point.
“And what about Tim Drake?” he asked instead.
Hell, he had already told him all about his stupid childish dreams. “Tim Drake always wanted to be Jason Todd’s friend,” he answered simply.
“That’s all?” Not-Jason insisted.
And Tim was just too damn tired to fight against his own subconscious.
“And I really, really wanted to be yours and Dick’s brother.”
Some emotion he couldn’t discern passed on the hallucination’s face, but it was gone as quick as it came. He simply got up from the stool, taking his helmet with him.
“You sure you wanna be a crime lord’s little brother, kid?”
And Tim stared at the helmet. The red helmet. It was a freaking helmet, not a hood, why the fuck…
“Oh, you have to be kidding me!” he exclaimed, throwing hands. “Why am I hallucinating about Jason being the Red Hood now?!”
Not-Jason laughed. This time it was a full, breathless laugh that once again reminded him of a young boy who used to fly above Gotham’s sky, hang out with gargoyles and kick child-abusers in the balls because he could.
The best Robin.
“You’re something else, kid,” the hallucination eventually said, after he calmed down. “But I better go now, you need to sleep.”
“Don’t need to tell me that,” he mumbled. Tim would be happily asleep now if his brain hadn’t decided to prank him like this.
Not-Jason snorted.
“But one last thing before I go,” the hallucination said, and before Tim could ask what was that, he felt a flick on his forehead that sent a sharp sting of pain through his eyes.
He took a step back, covering his face and hissing “Mother- Jason! You know I’m concussed, you bastard! You-”
He froze. Hallucinations aren’t supposed to cause you physical pain.
When he opened his eyes again, Jason – because that was Jason Fucking Todd Back From the Dead Sweet Mother Of Tesla – was already exiting the scene of his horrendous crime through one of the windows, and grinning like he was about to make a bad guy shit on his pants.
“Not a hallucination, baby bird. See ya around.”
He jumped.
Ignoring his aching head, Tim ran to the window just in time to see him pulling the grapple hook back and running to a motorcycle hidden in one of the brushes.
And then he was gone, and Tim was left with the mother of all headaches and the uncomfortable sensation that he was forgetting something vital.
It took another second for the shame to catch up.
“I told Jason Todd that he was my favorite Robin and that I wanted him to fight crime with me and be my big brother,” he said out loud, to make sure it was as bad as it sounded.
It was.
And Jason – that absolute bastard – had just sat there and listened to all of Tim’s deepest confessions.
As far as Tim saw the situation, he could either a) drown in self-pity and shame or b) plan his vegance-slash-bring-Jason-back-to-the-family next move.
And option B sounded great.
Especially the revenge part.
