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English
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Published:
2026-01-19
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395
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1/1
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Suffer More

Summary:

A love-hate letter to every enemy-to-caretaker attack on titans tower fic. Usually, the plot goes that Jason's resolve breaks once he finally humanizes Tim as a child to himself.

This is my 300 word argument against the trope.

Or:

Can Tim actually suffer enough to be innocent? Can anyone?

Notes:

I might add on to this, it was just a quick compulsive thing in a fit of thinking that both Jason and Tim (my boys) are quite mischaracterized (positively) by said trope.

I know it says MCD, but it's actually ambiguous to your interpretation. Maybe Tim is save by the batfam, maybe not.

Work Text:

The truth was, there was no amount of suffering that would make Tim Drake a child in the eyes of Jason Todd. The boy that had never even considered he, himself, might be one until after he'd already died certainly wasn't giving that kind of grace to Tim.

Because there was nothing holy about Tim, even on his death bed. He wasn't a martyr dying filled with golden innocence in the name of a greater purpose. He was a rich boy who'd stepped too far off the block and been made to know the pain of every lower class citizen in Gotham. A lamb being sacrificed for the sins of the world.

Maybe.

But he'd committed plenty in his short life, too. Abused his power, thrown money around, learned how to navigate higher society and how to get what he wanted. What he artificially wanted.

So maybe Jason was right, and Tim dying would be the right thing to do. If he never had to experience the pain everyone else was, the pain of toiling away for nothing, maybe he wasn't even human. Not really.

It was the luck of the draw. Out of Tim's control entirely, but Jason already knew that.

So he could sit here in this pain, broken bones screaming, each breath a red hot wheeze, blood pooling, and beg.

Sob to Jason about every time his parents had forgotten to order groceries, and he'd starved. All the times he'd cried himself into catatonia over the cold silence, the loneliness. The slice of sharp words and sharper ignorances.

But what a useless waste of breath it would be.

There was no justifying it, so there was no room for a change in heart. Jason's heart wouldn't go out to him just because Tim had suffered some. Jason had suffered more.

Tim would need to be a puddle, be ash, be a lump chained down for enough years he couldn't even walk.

This was the understanding between them. Jason's green eyes filled with hate, hand firm and steady on the blade. They were equals, and there was no room for pity.

You don't get the grace no one gave me, the motions seemed to say. And as he felt the razor's edge kiss his throat, he could only be thankful he would die with dignity. Not as a child, but as a man.