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Timothy Jackson Drake, Robin III, protégé and partner of the legendary Batman of Gotham. He was a hero, taking to the streets of the city every night and putting criminals behind bars. He was a source of inspiration to the citizens, a source of exasperation for the GCPD (particularly Commissioner Gordon), and a source of frustration for Batman.
All in all, Timothy Drake was living the dream. He was Robin, and Robin was magic.
Nowadays, he didn’t feel much like magic. More like a costumed punching bag.
And on the bad days? The days where Tim thought too hard about it all, he was left with a horrible, vomit-inducing realization: Timothy Drake was Robin because of the Joker.
The psychotic serial killer who terrorized all of Gotham was the reason that Tim Drake wore the bright colors of this suit.
Joker kidnapped, tortured, and burned alive the last Robin, the kid who’d been Tim’s inspiration. Joker killed Jason Todd. Joker killed Robin. Joker killed a part of Batman’s heart.
We can trace it to earlier actions. Jason Todd was kidnapped because he went after Joker solo. He went after Joker solo because he’d been angry. He’d been angry because Joker shot and raped Barbara Gordon, leaving her body broken and beaten on the floor of her apartment, somewhere she should have been safe.
Cause and effect.
Joker hates Batman. Batman is friends with Commissioner Gordon. Commissioner Gordon’s daughter is Barbara. Joker hates Batman, but can’t dream of taking him by surprise; so he goes down the grapevine a ways. Destroy Barbara –> destroy Gordon –> destroy Batman. Like knocking down a row of dominoes.
Jason loves Barbara, loves Batgirl; she’s his big sister. Jason hates Joker. Dick and Batman refuse to do anything permanent about Joker. Jason tracks him down. Jason underestimates the psycho killer. Jason is taken, tortured, killed.
Joker hates Batman. Batman loves Robin. Joker kills Robin. Joker kills Batman, if not the man, then he kills the symbol. What kind of hero is Batman if he can’t protect his own sidekick?
Rows and rows of dominoes. Falling, one at a time, each hitting the back of the next, spreading out to create a pattern. A line of effect, leading from Joker to Batman. The pieces in the middle are casualties of war, no more consequential than dirt on the ground. Joker and Batman. That’s the story.
Joker versus Batman. The Clown Prince of Gotham versus Gotham’s Dark Knight. Hot insanity versus cold logic.
Tim was tired of it. Tired of Joker haunting the narrative, haunting every corner of Gotham like an old ghost. Joker was just one man. A mere mortal. Red blood ran through his veins, his heart beat just the same as any other.
Joker shouldn’t be allowed the nightmare-quality he has.
When the news that Joker escaped the Arkham Asylum again – how many times has it been now? Joker must have some sort of rewards card. Escape 10 times, and the next one is free! –Tim’s fingers dug into the worn leather of the Batchair in front of the Batcomputer.
He was beyond pissed. And thirty hours later, he found out how the Joker escaped – the usual bribery and blackmail – but he was no closer to finding out where the Joker was holed up. He checked the usual lairs, but they were all empty, covered in a thick layer of dust, despite the large space. No one, not even the criminal underground, dared to take over Joker’s haunts, even if the madman was locked in purgatory for a million years.
Batman wasn’t happy either. But he wasn’t surprised. Of course not. Everyone expected Joker to escape. It was a fucking running joke that the Asylum was made of swiss cheese.
Why Bruce Wayne didn’t spend millions of dollars really supe up the security and safety of Arkham Asylum was far beyond Tim’s understanding. He’d had a couple discussions with Bruce on the subject, but Bruce kept insisting that every time he tried to offer assistance, it was turned down by the city.
Clearly it was corruption in the government. Corruption that Batman could root out; corruption that Batman could fix so Bruce Wayne could fund the Asylum.
A frustrated grunt was all he got in return.
Joker was beyond redemption. Tim had attended so many funerals, so many memorials, stood in front of countless graves, murmured to sobbing victims, sent flowers to hospital rooms. All because the Joker wanted to play with Batman. All because Batman would rather play the game, then put a permanent end to it all.
Barbara was picking up the pieces of her life, accepting her paralysis, working within the new parameters of her existence. She’d been through the ringer, and she wasn’t giving up the fight. She was building her reputation, her network of cameras, of eyes. She was putting her finger on the pulse of the city, making her the all-knowing goddess of Gotham.
Tim had sat with her, lending a hand with some of the hacking. He ran errands for her, putting bugs and devices in key places around the city, patching blindspots in the city’s piss-poor CCTV.
He held her hand on bad days, ate ice cream with her, watched movies with her. She was a big sister to him, full of kindness and grace, and so full of goodness. She was the epitome of strength. Someone Tim would always look up to.
On the anniversary of her attack, as he consumed a pint of ice cream with Babs while a silly movie played in the background, Tim was struck with the realization that he needed to take shit into his own hands. Get rid of Joker for good. It Batman couldn’t do it, then Robin could.
Even with the no-killing rule, he would find a way to fix it. The Justice League put super-powered criminals into the Phantom Zone, where they could never escape or harm anyone. Surely, Tim could find something like that to imprison Joker.
Weeks of research went by. Batman was called away by the Justice League. Nightwing returned from Bludhaven to help hold down the fort in his absence – read, babysit Robin. Alfred was requested by the Kents because Martha was unwell.
And then Red Hood showed up. Killed his way through an entire Black Mask warehouse, tearing through the men like they were nothing. Tim followed him to Black Mask’s main headquarters, followed the trail of dead bodies all the way to the top. Where he got his ass kicked by Red Hood, who didn’t kill him for some reason.
Any other criminal would have taken the golden opportunity of Boy Wonder’s vulnerability and put him down for good. Red Hood didn’t.
Tim didn’t understand.
Not at first.
Not until he retrieved Nightwing’s injured body and retreated to the Batcave.
Robin stitched up the stab wound and stabilized the injured vigilante. Nightwing had been quiet the entire time, only opening his mouth to drop a bomb on Robin’s head once the last wrap of the bandage was secured.
Red Hood was Jason Todd.
“Are you sure? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Robin paced up and down behind the chair Nightwing was lounging in, moving his staff in circles. The movement helped him think, helped him settle. The serial killer dressed in a creepy red mask, who’d just dismantled Black Mask’s main headquarters in less than an hour, the guy who kicked their asses and ran off with Black Mask, was Jason Todd.
The Robin who knew what it was like to be vulnerable in front of a criminal with the upper hand.
The son Bruce mourned by throwing himself into the path of every fist and knife and bullet, like pain could absolve his guilt.
“Are you sure it wasn’t someone that looked like him?” Tim asked.
“I know what I saw.” Dick’s tone was dark, serious. He was certain of what he’d seen.
Tim reframed that in his mind. Dick Grayson saw Jason Todd tonight. Assuming that Dick wasn’t hallucinating or imagining things, there had to be some sort of logical explanation.
“Are you guys even sure it was Jason you buried? His body was burnt to a crisp. Disfigured. It could have been someone else.”
The words were harsh, but there was no need to beat around the bush, not when Jason Todd might be alive out there.
“It was him. Did all the tests. Bruce was… I was… it tore us up. Ran them a dozen times. It-It was definitely Jason. Jason that was tortured for months; Jason that was burned alive. It was Jason that we lowered into that ground.” Dick’s voice was thick with emotion.
“Then how the hell is he out there running around?”
Dick’s voice broke. He started again. “I don’t know.”
The Bat Computer beeped. Tim turned his feet toward the keyboard. Finally, results of some sort. Maybe it would give them some answers. Either way it would be better than talking in circles.
“I ran some tests on the sword. The one I pulled from your gut,” Tim said.
The result popped up on the screen: League of Assassins.
“The Lazarus Pit.” Dick sounded empty, exhausted. “Those bastards must have brought him back to life.”
Tim stared forward, thinking. He didn’t know much about the League. They hadn’t made any appearances in Gotham during his tenure as Robin, so all he had to go from was the files he’d read on the Bat Computer when he couldn’t sleep.
The Lazarus Pit. Some sort of chemical that could bring people back to life. At the expense of their sanity. Tim shivered at the idea.
“They must have taken his body after you buried him,” Tim said. How horrible that must have been. Killed horrifically and then forcibly resurrected. No autonomy, no choice. His mind sacrificed without his consent, just to bring him back to life.
“Why?” Dick asked for them both. “What could they have possibly wanted with him? That poor kid suffered enough. Why couldn’t they just have let him rest?”
“Their methods have always been obscure, to say the least,” Tim said. He remembered reading the files, reading the frustration and confusion that Bruce had had regarding the cult’s intentions. Nothing they ever did was clear, no motivation easily pulled from the senseless violence and insanity.
“It might have been Jason’s body, but that wasn’t the Jason that I knew,” Dick said.
“What do you mean?”
Dick had a sad smile on his face as he recalled Jason, when he used to be Robin. How he’d been full of anger and righteous fury. How Dick had warned Bruce that he was a loose cannon.
Tim had some opinions on that, but he didn’t think Dick would appreciate being called out on his bullshit. If memory served (and Tim’s memory was impeccable), Dick had been the violent one. He’d been the one cutting through enemies, leaving them senseless on the ground.
Jason had been violent, sure, it came with being a damn vigilante in Gotham. The difference was that Jason was more obvious about it. He was upfront, blunt, his fists met noses and jaws and stomachs. Dick had been slippery, sharp hits sliding into weaknesses, oozing under defenses.
It was easy for Dick to claim he wasn’t as violent as Jason.
For Tim, who’d followed both of them around the streets? It was a different story.
Besides, Jason didn’t seem all that different now than before. Aside from the murderous rampage. And his new tank-y physique.
Was the muscle and the height change because of the Lazarus Pit or the League training or plain ‘ole puberty?
“We should tell Bruce.”
“What? No. We can’t,” Dick argued.
“Why not?” This was his dead son they were talking about, not some villain of the week!
“He has too much on his plate. If he found out, I don’t even know how he’d react,” Dick said. Tim relented. Bruce was not exactly great with emotions, and dredging up his grief over Jason, when his son had returned from the dead to kill over a dozen people? Tim wasn’t sure what the fallout would be, only that it was bound to be explosive.
“Besides, the good that he saw in Jason? It’s not there,” Dick said. Tim rolled his eyes. “Those people that he took out so carelessly-”
“I don’t think he’s as far gone as you think,” Tim interrupted. He would not listen to Dick throwing himself a self-pity party. Whining about Jason killing people wouldn’t fix anything. For chrissake, Gotham wasn’t exactly a haven for well-adjusted, law-abiding citizens. If Dick wanted that, he could move to Metropolis and deal with those happy-go-lucky morons.
They lived in Gotham. Everyone here either was, knew, or was related to a criminal. Every single person. Hell, Tim knew a ton from circling the galas when he was a child. There were several in his high school.
Jason suddenly turning up as a criminal wasn’t exactly weird. What was weird was him not being dead. That was pretty unusual.
“Tim!” Dick exclaimed, his voice full of frustration and disbelief, as if Tim was delusional. As if Dick’s opinions on his dead younger brother were somehow more consequential than logic.
“Hear me out. You said he was put in the Lazarus Pit. That changes people, we know that. You said he died full of rage. Maybe he’s holding onto that rage.”
Dick was rolling his body around, groaning when he pulled on his stitches. He was ignoring Tim’s words, refusing to listen to reason. Tim huffed.
Dick was so dramatic. He’d made up his mind about Jason.
“Maybe if we talk to him– “
“No! No, there’s no talking to him. It’s too dangerous! We can’t trust him, Tim!”
Tim wanted to scream, but that wouldn’t help anybody. Dick was being thick-headed. Like father, like son, Tim mused.
“Besides, we don’t even know where he is.”
Tim pushed Dick’s chair away from the computer. Big bird wasn’t using his brain. He never was quite as good as Tim was at the detective half of the gig.
Jason had left with Black Mask. Black Mask’s helmet had electrical components because of the lights and voice modulator, and in this day and age, likely connected to the internet. Why have a full helmet if you couldn’t listen to tunes while you worked? What kind of music would Roman Sionis listen to? Tim made a mental note to research later when he got bored.
Tim’s fingers rattled on the keyboard, running scripts. Less than a minute later they had a hit. An apartment building on the edge of Crime Alley.
“There’s our boy,” Tim said proudly.
“That’s him?” Dick was trying to hide it, but Tim could see he was impressed. He smiled smugly to himself. He liked impressing the first Robin. Even when he was being… well, a dick.
“Jason Todd,” Tim said with a dramatic flair. But he had to bring a little reality to his claims. Technically he wasn’t really sure that’s where Jason Todd currently was. “At least that’s where he has Sionis.”
“Ok. That’s where we’ll keep tabs on him in the next few days,” Dick said.
Tim blinked. Next few days? What?
“Let me go now. I can go now. There’s no point in waiting-”
“Jason, I’m not going to let you go fight him alone!”
Tim froze. He swallowed his words. He stared at Dick, who didn’t even seem to realize his own mistake. Not the first time he’d been called Jason’s name, but it hurt nonetheless. Tim’s mood soured.
“I’ll be fine. I know what to do.”
He did. Plans had been formulating in the back of his mind for the past hour. Not that Dick would approve of any of them.
Within the last few weeks, his room at Drake Manor became littered with dozens of failed attempts at creating something like the Phantom Zone Projector. A device to send Joker to his own prison, not the actual Phantom Zone. He didn’t want to stick Joker with super villains, not knowing the kind of maniacal nonsense that Joker could get up to, but he wanted a better solution.
He was months away from creating anything half-way like the Phantom Zone Projector. But now Jason Todd has entered the scene, stage right. Full of righteous fury. Full of murderous intent. Hatred towards the Joker.
Obviously, this was all about the Joker. It was no secret that Black Mask also had a vendetta against the clown. Tim had quietly been rooting for Black Mask to succeed on the sidelines.
Then Jason Todd swept through Black Mask’s headquarters, killing everyone, all for a thumb drive? (Which Tim may or may not have accidentally destroyed – but in his defense, he hadn’t known who or what he was dealing with at the time).
Tim wanted 2 things: Permanent removal of Joker (whatever the method), and Jason Todd (newly alive!) returned to his rightful place in Wayne Manor. Even if the last thing ended up with Tim losing his title as Robin and returning to his normal life in Drake Manor. (He would totally get bored and find a way to help, but that was beside the point).
Tim could accomplish both by talking to Jason. Bruce and Dick were too emotionally close to the entire situation, too blinded by their own personal history to think straight. Tim was the only one who could do it.
Dick had no choice but to let him go after Jason. He was in no shape to run or fight, and he sure as hell couldn’t stop Tim. He knew it too, because he passed Tim a comm and promised to listen, to be ready as backup.
Some backup he would be. Thirty minutes away and too injured to fight. But Dick seemed comforted by the idea that he could hear Tim being murdered instead of finding out after the fact.
Whatever floated his boat.
During the entire drive to the apartment, Tim listened to music that he knew would piss Dick off and sung at the top of his lungs. Five minutes away, in the middle of belting I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight, he turned off the comm. It would make it easier to explain that the comm must have gotten busted.
Jason surprisingly opened the door and didn’t immediately shoot and kill him. Small mercies.
He slipped through the crack, enjoying the annoyed look on Jason’s face.
The room was sparse, aside from a punching bag, a conspiracy wall, and the black helmet on the bedside table. Another glance showed that Roman Sionis was nowhere in the apartment.
There was a chance he was being kept in a different location, somewhere his cries for help would go unheard, but Tim suspected he was dead. Why keep the helmet separate from the man?
Tim kept up a string of commentary. He couldn’t exactly go around telling Jason to kill Joker. That would ruin his reputation as Robin, not to mention piss off Bruce and probably get his suit taken away.
Anyways, people don’t like being told what to do. Bruce and Dick didn’t for sure, and when he needed them to do something, he had to make it seem like their idea. Ice cream after patrol? Can’t ask for it. Bruce would grunt and tell him they need to hurry home for reports. Mentioning how hot it was in the suit? Pulling at the neck of his suit and panting slightly? Complaining about how he forgot to eat dinner? Stare longingly at the lights of a Batburger? Oh yeah, trigger those weird dad senses Batman had and score some ice cream.
Dick was even easier. Wanted a sleepover in his apartment in Bludhaven after a weekend patrol? Can’t ask for it. Dick would offer to drive him back anyways. Instead, he dressed in the biggest clothes Dick had, the stuff that made Tim look like a tiny child swallowed by fabric and not a hardened vigilante. Yawn and rub at his eyes with the over-large sleeve in front of Dick. Then the sweet, sweet offer of “You look tired, Tim. Why don’t you stay the night?”
Jason would be easy. He was upfront and not very good at lying. At least he didn’t used to be when Tim watched them patrol at night. Jason was the type for brutal honesty, not kind lies.
Tim, however, was a mastermind. He spun circles of intrigue around the Riddler. Honestly, the bats should be happy Tim went down the vigilante route and not the rogue route. It would have been very easy for him to slip down that particular slide.
All Tim had to do was pretend to care about the no-killing rule, that there was a right way to do things, that Jason couldn’t kill Joker. Jason would fall, hook, line, and sinker. If he wasn’t already, he’d be champing at the bit for the opportunity to kill Joker. Tim just needed to set the stage and ease the way.
Then, no more Joker.
Gotham would be able to rest easy. Batman could satisfy himself about never killing anyone. Jason was already a murderer, so what was one more? Why would killing Joker matter more than killing Sionis or one of the Black Mask goons?
He watched Jason get angrier. He listened attentively to Jason’s sassy villain monologue. Oh yeah, it was all coming together.
“You didn’t kill me. You didn’t kill Dick. You haven’t even killed him yet either, right?” Tim said, pointing at the black helmet.
He watched with so much amusement as Jason tried to lie. He really was horrible at it. “Right.. Yeah, I’ve… got him tied up somewhere.”
Tim would laugh at his failed attempt at being suave, except he had his own mask to wear. “Right, yeah, I figured.” No, he didn’t. “Got to keep him alive to find the Joker after I destroyed that drive.”
Tim needed to know if the drive was fully lost. Did Jason have the intel already, or did they need to find another way to get the information?
“Yeah, thanks for that,” Jason snarked. Ok, that had the definite ring of truth in it. The drive was kaput. New plan, Tim would find out where the Joker was.
“Let me help,” Tim said. One of the truest things he’d said tonight. Jason scoffed at him. Good, he thought Tim wanted to stop him from killing Joker.
It took a bit of back and forth, and finally, they fell into agreement. Tim would locate where Black Mask and Deathstroke were meant to meet. Jason would go and get the intel they needed. Tim would go as backup, because he did not expect Jason to succeed without his help. They would find Joker or hire Deathstroke to finish the original job.
Easy peasy. Tim left the comm with Jason and hurried back to the Batcomputer.
Dick was not happy to see him. He was pissed at missing out on the riveting conversation between Robins II and III. Tim wasn’t particularly concerned. Dick had his own opinions and motivations for throwing a tantrum, but that didn’t mean Tim had to deal with it. He dealt with enough man-child tantrums with Bruce.
Tim easily evaded the questions and got Dick to go upstairs and rest, calling the comm faulty. The vigilante believed him. Seriously, did no one think Tim capable of lying? He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed.
The moment Dick was out of earshot; Tim logged onto the Batcomputer.
“Jason? Jason? Can you hear me?” Tim asked. He winced as his voice echoed on the cave walls. Dick didn’t come barreling down to confront him, so it must be safe.
“I’m here.”
Tim let out a breath of relief. He’d been worried Jason would leave the comm behind and go solo.
“Ok, cool. I’m gonna try accessing their files real quick,” he said. His fingers were already flicking over the keys with practiced experience. The command line windows flickered so quickly that an observer would get motion sick, but Tim’s eyes took in the information and was already typing out the next commands before the text finished populating.
Once, Batman had complemented his speed, saying he moved faster than the computer sometimes. Which, wasn’t true. Not with the superior Batcomputer. Now, maybe an old laptop, the kind that stuttered and wheezed, waiting to be put out of its misery? Sure, Tim was faster. Commands flying before the UI could follow.
“Wow,” he scoffed. “This is way too easy. Security is like a piece of tissue paper.”
He was climbing through their directories, eyes flickering for the file he needed.
His mouth ran as searched, before Jason cut him off midsentence. “What did you find?”
Tim winced. He tended to ramble when hacking, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to annoy others with it. Except Barbara. She never minded listening to him, but that was because she would hyper-focus when hacking and go silent. Tim’s one-sided conversation worked well between them.
“Yeah, ok, sorry,” he said quickly. “Deathstroke and Black Mask planned to meet at…. Daggett Industries at 11.”
“Thank you, Tim. You have no idea how much this helps.”
Tim smiled. “Of course! I’ll go too, just to make sure-“
“No. No, this is something I need to do on my own,” Jason said.
Tim rolled his eyes. He already expected this exact conversation. He said Jason’s name in a half-hearted attempt at arguing.
“No! Ok, you’ve done enough already.” Tim nodded to himself. He had done a lot; in fact, he felt like he was doing everything around here. Not that anyone knew or would ever acknowledge it.
“Fine, but when you’re done with Deathstroke. Go ahead and hand Black Mask over to us.”
Did Tim need to say it? Not really. Black Mask was most likely a corpse in the harbor. He wanted plausible deniability and also the dark satisfaction of listening to Jason lie badly. He wasn’t disappointed.
“… Yeah, sure.” Tim bit his lip to not cackle. Jason should kiss his dreams of an Oscar good-bye.
“You know if you need anything, you can always ask for help.” Tim was rambling at this point. How long would it take for- Oop, there it was. The comm crackled and went dark.
Tim smiled at the predictability of it all. Tim and probability were close friends. If he weren’t a vigilante working with a billionaire bat, he could have taken the casinos by storm.
He suited up. Making sure that his hacking was cleared from the computer and that Dick was safely upstairs, he hopped on his cycle, headed for Daggett Industries.
When Tim arrived at the warehouse, he could hear the sounds of fighting inside. This was why he came. Because Jason would try to lie to Deathstroke, who would never believe for a moment that he was Sionis, and then would get himself killed again unless someone did something about it. And upon whom did the fun task of keeping Robin II alive fall?
Tim.
Because the universe was cute like that. Rescue Bruce. Rescue Dick. Who’s next? Ah yes, Rescue Jason. Like Tim was a Pokemon trainer. Gotta catch ‘em all!
His footsteps were silent as he snuck closer. The sounds of scuffle were loud. An explosion of light. A loud bang.
Someone threw a flashbang. Deathstroke was winning.
He was also monologuing. Praising himself all to high heavens and putting down his opponent as weak in comparison. The usual bullshit. “You won’t give me my money? Fine. I don’t need to kill you, but I will.”
Time to step in!
His grappler whizzed in the silence. The hook was caught in Slade’s strong hands.
“Boy Wonder,” Slade said, his voice dripping with amusement. With a flick of his wrist, the line was pulled taut, and Robin was thrown forward into Deathstroke’s bruising grip.
“Mr. Stroke,” he choked out around the hand holding his throat. With his other hand, he went for a swift strike, fingers delving deep into the flesh of Slade’s throat, right in the chink of his armor.
Slade shoved him away, coughing at the blow.
Tim extended his staff and wasted no time. In his peripheral vision, he saw Jason bloodied and leaning against a support beam. He seemed conscious, thankfully, but he wasn’t getting up either. Tim maneuvered, trying to keep himself between Deathstroke and Jason as they traded a few blows.
Jason crawled forward and grabbed Slade’s boot. “Miss me?” Tim smiled at the sass. Once a Robin, always a Robin.
Slade kicked him in the head, knocking his weak grip off. The snick of a sword echoed in the warehouse, but Tim’s staff prevented it from cleaving Jason’s fool head from his neck.
They traded more blows. Tim wasn’t winning. Jason was still on the ground. Slade’s swords were shoved away, but Tim was sure Slade didn’t need a sharp blade to win. The real goal was stalling. Tim’s mind was whirring through the details he knew.
Black Mask had hired Deathstroke to find and kill the Joker. Deathstroke was a mercenary, working for the highest bidder.
Shit! Tim was slung around. The warehouse spun in an array of lights. The metal helmet collided with Tim’s unprotected forehead, and he was tossed backwards against the metal shelving.
He looked back in time to see his staff being thrown at Jason. Thankfully, Jason was back on his feet and managed to catch it before it could hit him.
“Robin. Do the thing.”
Tim stared. What thing?
“Do the fuckin’ thing.” Jason’s eyebrows wriggled, trying to signal something.
Flashes of memory raced through his minds’ eye.
Oh! Tim slapped the button on his wrist. It beeped and the electromagnet that attracted his staff flicked on, in time for Jason’s javelin throw at Deathstroke.
If it were any other enemy, they would have been impaled on the metal. Not Deathstroke. The motherfucker caught the staff in midair. The staff vibrated with tension as it tried to return to its master. Tim’s body was being slowly pulled forward instead.
With a quick motion he collapsed the staff and released the magnetic pull.
Deathstroke laughed. The dark sound surrounded the two of them. “Let’s see how you do, two on one.”
Slade was playing with them. To him, they were no more than entertainment.
The first several blows were fluid, but then Tim was shoved away and into Jason; they collided. Deathstroke watched. If it weren’t for the mask, he would probably be smirking with all the enjoyment of a cat stalking a bird with a broken wing.
“You fight like Batman,” Tim said, panting.
“What?” Jason sounded offended.
“You lead, I follow,” Tim amended. He hadn’t meant that Jason fought like Batman, only that he should take point, like Batman.
With the meagre agreement, they entered the fray. They moved like a unit, like they’d fought side-by-side forever. They slid around Deathstroke, landing punches and kicks at his joints. A single movement spoke a thousand words, and Jason and Tim held an entire conversation over their enemy’s head, a back-and-forth that would look to the rest of the world like familiarity.
Even though they had never fought together before. They had been trained by the same man. Worked the same drills, burned the same memories into their muscles.
It wasn’t enough.
Deathstroke’s sheer strength was better than them combined. Tim’s head slammed into the support beam, throwing stars in his vision.
He couldn’t see. Possible concussion.
Tim heard the sound of the sword slivering over the ground more than he saw it. Jason. Jason was about to get killed.
“Wait! Wait!”
Tim blinked his vision back. Jason was on the ground, Slade towering over him, sword poised to take him through the heart.
Deathstroke paused. He was allowing Tim to continue.
“You still have Black Mask tied up, right?” Jason nodded. It was convincing enough. Tim would take it. “Ok. Why don’t you tell us where the Joker is, and we’ll go and kill him. Nice easy paycheck for you. You don’t have to do the work, but you’ll still get paid.”
Deathstroke slowly turned, his two-toned mask staring directly at Tim.
“Since when did the bats start playing dirty?”
Tim’s jaw tensed. The bats played dirty when their own got injured. At least this Robin did, regardless of what Batman would think.
“Do you want the money or not?” He slid the conversation back to the deal being made. Deathstroke would get nothing out of him in terms of his own morality.
The man chuckled, but he tossed a burner phone down to Jason. “Wire the money to the account on here. Then, and only then, will I reveal Joker’s location.”
Deathstroke prowled towards the exit. “Oh, and do be sure to get me my money soon. We wouldn’t want any secrets to get out, would we, Tim?”
Tim’s heart stuttered in his chest. Deathstroke knew his identity? Shitballs. He could kiss a ton of his contingency plans good-bye at that revelation. Faking his death would only get him so far when a well-trained mercenary like Deathstroke was on his tail.
“How does he know my name?” Tim asked once Deathstroke was gone.
He helped Jason to his feet. Between the two of them, Jason looked the worst. His nose was leaking, and his shirt looked like it went a few rounds with a flamethrower.
“He’s with the League of Assassins, and they know everything” Jason said. Ah. Well, fuck.
Jason hazarded a step and nearly faceplanted. “Whoa, whoa. He got you good. Why don’t we go back to the Batcave? I can help you there.”
Jason’s face twisted at the thought, but he didn’t argue. More reason to believe that Black Mask was indeed dead. The guy didn’t even try to pretend that he needed to get to wherever Sionis was supposedly tied up. Honestly, his acting skills and planning needed a brush up. Weren’t the League of Assassins supposed to be really good at making convoluted plans that bamboozled everyone until the endgame was near?
Maybe Jason didn’t get to train with any of the smart guys. Only the angry stabby ones.
It didn’t take long to tend to Jason’s injuries. Less than a day ago, Tim was stitching up Dick, and now he was stitching up Jason. What was up with old Robins getting their asses kicked? Tim should make sure he doesn’t lose touch with his abilities as he gets old and creaky at the joints.
It didn’t take a genius to realize Jason was uncomfortable in the cave. His shoulders were tense, as if waiting for a punch that wasn’t coming. His eyes wandered over every piece, probably picking out the parts that were familiar and the parts that were different.
Tim wondered what he saw. He didn’t ask.
Jason wandered over to the new Batman suit hanging next to the Batcomputer. Bruce hadn’t had a chance to use it yet. The design had been finalized less than a day before he’d been summoned away by the Justice League.
Tim described the cool dispersion tech in the suit meant to help protect against bullets. He knew Jason’s interest was piqued. He also knew if he turned around for more than a second, Jason would grab it and run.
“Bruce kept some of your old stuff in the back,” Tim said, handing some old clothes from the changing rooms. There was a pile of Jason’s old things back there. Less than there had been a couple years ago, though, since Tim had stolen a few pieces. They were big and comfortable, and they almost felt like familial hand-me-downs.
(Tim never got hand-me-downs. Everything he owned was brand-new, store-bought. He loved his things, but something special owned by someone he looked up to? He didn’t have much like that.)
Jason took the sweatshirt, but didn’t put it on. “How you feeling?”
Tim accepted the change in conversation. He shifted the icepack on his head, trying to target the spot that would definitely turn into a knot. “Aside from a tweaked-out shoulder, sprained ankle, and my heartbeat pulsating through ma noggin? I’m doin’ alright.”
He was rewarded with a laugh from Jason. “I did tell you not to come.”
“You’re welcome,” Tim said. “I’m assuming that’s your way of saying ‘Thank you.’”
Tim had never heard a ‘Thank you’ from any of the bats before, and he didn’t think that would be starting today.
“You would have been screwed if I hadn’t shown up.”
Jason scoffed. “Ok, he had the upper hand, but I was also fighting without weapons, soooo.”
“You were fighting without weapons?” Tim could not believe his ears. He didn’t listen to Jason’s attempt at justifying himself. “You went into a fight. With Deathstroke. Without weapons. Not even a gun?”
“I had to sell the Black Mask thing.”
“What was the plan? The tactic? Just look like Black Mask and hope he buys it? Are you kidding me?”
Jason looked like he was ready to punch Tim. “Sometimes you don’t have time to make a full plan. You just gotta get shit done.”
“Get shit done?” Tim chuckled. He did not understand this at all. His mind was constantly whirring with plans. In the thirty-minute drive between Jason’s apartment and the cave, he’d come up with Plans A-J along with all the spiraling contingencies that each required.
They bickered back and forth. Tim intentionally poking fun at Jason’s plan, or lack thereof. Jason was getting pissed off, and clearly fighting the urge to end Tim’s life. It was good fun.
“You don’t have to do shit on your own,” Tim teased.
The silence that met that statement was sobering. They weren’t crime-fighting partners, no matter how well they fought together against Deathstroke.
Jason’s expression had turned sour and he turned away. Tim knew a bat dismissal when he saw one.
“I’m gonna go make sandwiches. Want anything?” Tim headed up the stairs. Jason turned him down.
It was to be expected. Tim also expected the cave to be empty when he returned.
While Jason had been tending to some of his more superficial injuries, Tim had unlocked the Batcomputer and made it easy to find access to Bruce’s banking system. Without Black Mask’s funds, they needed a way to pay Deathstroke for his information. He couldn’t tell Jason to use Bruce’s money directly. That would be too suspicious.
No, he needed to make it available for Jason to do on his own.
Tim had also hacked the burner phone, so he would have access to any text messages to and from it. Once Jason ran off, he would be able to provide back-up, even though Jason would not want it.
Tim was in the bad habit of helping bats against their wishes. But seriously, not a single one of them (aside from himself and Alfred) had any sense of self-awareness or self-preservation!
His footsteps echoed up the stairs. Before the door even closed, he could hear the tapping on the keyboard. Tim rolled his eyes at the impatience.
The kitchen was empty. Alfred was away for the week, but he left them plenty of supplies for sandwiches. The butler did not trust either Tim or Dick to make anything that required heat, for fear that the entire manor would get burned down in his absence.
To Alfred’s point, Dick did manage to get pieces of fruit everywhere on the second day, when he tried to make smoothies. Next time Alfred left, he would be banning all appliances.
Tim hummed as he made a couple sandwiches. He knew Jason was likely to be gone by the time he returned, but on the off-chance that Tim was wrong, he wanted to give him some food to eat.
When the door to the cave opened, he sensed a presence inside. Jason hadn’t left!
“Jason! I know you said you didn’t want anything, but I figured I’d make a sandwich anyways,” he said, holding up a plate.
He turned the corner and was met with an empty cave. He thought he sensed someone in the room. Tim glanced around, trying to pinpoint it. His eyes caught on the Batcomputer screen. Two new wire transfers. One for the 20 mil of Deathstroke’s fee; another for 5 mil.
“Did I just hear you call for Jason?”
Oh shit.
Tim had sensed someone down here. It wasn’t Jason.
He turned around to see Dick leaning against the wall. He looked pissed. Time for contingency plan E: Gaslight Dick.
“Why would you call for Jason?”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been monitoring Jason through the city cameras, and-“
“Tim, you’re so reckl-” Dick said through his teeth. Tim realized his mistake at once. Behind him on the screen was not traffic camera footage. It was two wire transfers for several million dollars.
Plan E: Gaslight Dick was a complete failure, a straight up nonstarter. Now for Plan K: half-truths to throw Dick off the trail; play up the sad, blindsided Robin; keep him from getting to Jason.
“What did you do?”
Tim made a face.
“25 million dollars. Explain yourself.”
“It’s not my fault. Jason probably took the money because Deathstroke threatened to kill him if he didn’t.” This was a truth. Deathstroke would kill them if they didn’t follow through. Tim was hoping to appeal to Dick’s brotherly senses, even if those senses were currently down for maintenance.
“You’re letting people shake you down for money now?” Dick sneered. “Why on earth would Jason need 25 million dollars?”
Didn’t Tim just cover this? It was so Deathstroke wouldn’t kill them. Come on, Dick, keep up!
Tim explained some of what happened. About Black Mask hiring Deathstroke; Jason posing as Black Mask; the hit out for Joker. Dick was on the verge of an aneurysm.
“Don’t worry, Jason’ll get the money back to us.” Lie. Bruce wouldn’t even notice the missing sum. Especially if Tim never told him and renamed the payments as some sort of charity donation.
That seemed like the last straw for Dick. He exploded with anger. Tim mentally prepared himself for the oncoming lecture. All thing’s he’d heard before from Nightwing, from Batman, everyone. His phone buzzed in his pocket, probably the coordinates from the burner phone.
Jason would be on the way to the location. If Tim bought enough time, Joker would be dead before they had an opportunity to intervene.
“He manipulated you to get exactly what he wanted,” Dick said. His voice was dark, and his eyes glittered in the dim lighting. In reality, Tim was the one doing the manipulating, but it would be contrary to his goals to say that out loud.
“I TOLD YOU!” Dick screamed in his face, drawing a flinch from Tim. As much verbal abuse as he could handle, he really hated being yelled at.
Tim focused his eyes on the far wall and let himself drift away. Dick’s words floated in one ear and out the other.
He waited until the words stopped. Dick was scoffing, his attention on the empty mannequin near the computer. Jason had taken the suit.
“Congratulations, Tim. You can mark this down as one of your accomplishments.” Though the way he said that word sounded like failures. If only Dick understood the real plan, the real plot of the story.
Dick stormed off.
Tim waited yet again for the vigilante to disappear upstairs and angst and lick his wounds.
The moment he was gone, Tim was looking at his phone. The text copied from the burner phone was sparse. Just a set of coordinates. They led nearby the Gotham Train station in Newtown. It was spitting distance from Amusement Mile, which figured. How had no one found the crazy clown? How had Tim not found him?
Donning his suit, he headed for the coordinates. He would arrive after Jason, but that was fine.
Best case scenario he got there too late and the Joker was already dead. He would pretend to be horrified or whatever Batman would expect, then he’d get to cleaning up the scene. Jason could run off or whatever, but oh darn, there’s a dead Joker to deal with, can’t exactly run after the murderer when the crime scene could get tampered with!
The location was an old wax museum that was clearly condemned. The building was dark and quiet when he arrived. He schooled his face into a neutral expression and slipped past the faded paintings of various famous people; there was even one of Brucie Wayne and one of Batman.
Tim would have laughed, if he wasn’t on the verge of finding dead Joker.
He found a broken window and quietly slithered inside, looking around. The air was unmoving and heavy with dust and mold.
Shit.
No one was there. He checked for heat signatures and found a mass of warmth coming from the far corner. Tim crept to the source and found a pile of Joker’s henchman piled up. Their bodies were still warm, dead within the last hour.
Tim held his breath as he picked through them, searching for that familiar crazy face.
Joker wasn’t there. Neither was Jason.
Tim searched some more and found remnants of a fight. Splatters of blood, now congealed, laid in messy arcs on the concrete ground, pools and puddles dotting the uneven floor. It was impossible to tell who won. Either way, the winner kidnapped the loser.
There wasn’t time to panic.
With a couple hurried commands, he pulled up the CCTV videos for surrounding streets on his wrist computer. A few cars driving around. He spotted Jason’s motorcycle headed to the building.
Tim’s eyes scanned the footage, searching for the motorcycle. It wasn’t anywhere on the premises, so presumably it was used as a getaway vehicle.
Unfortunately, not all the streets had working cameras. Most were busted. It was pure damn luck that he’d spotted Jason heading to the museum in the first place.
Think, Tim!
Tim had no idea where Joker would take Jason. But if Jason was the winner, he might head back to his apartment. Worst case, there might be clues on that conspiracy wall. Jason was no slouch when it came to the research on Joker, and he might have found something useful.
The Robin-Cycle revved beneath him, pushing the speed limits, as he dove around the few cars driving this late at night.
Tim cursed when a loud noise rang in his ear.
His comm.
“Robin, come in. Robin.” Fuck, that was Batman’s growl.
Tim smacked a hand against his ear. “Robin here.”
“Where are you?”
“Patrol.” Not exactly a lie. “Are you back in Gotham? I thought you were still with the League in Asia.”
“Nightwing requested for my return. I zeta’d back.”
Tim bit back his curses. Of course, Nightwing called for Batman. Jason was on the loose with 25 million dollars and a taste for murder.
“I see.”
“Robin, where are you?” Nightwing asked, joining their conversation. Tim could imagine the two of them crowded around the Batcomputer.
“Currently travelling. How much did you tell Batman?”
Nightwing didn’t answer. “Nightwing, report,” Batman’s frustrated growl came through the comm.
Dick still said nothing. “Jason Todd is alive,” Tim said for him.
The silence was heavy. Tim pulled to a stop outside the apartment building. Without the whoosh of air and the rumble of his bike, he could hear the sounds of heavy breathing through the comm.
“Batman?”
“What did you say?”
“Jason Todd is alive. He showed up a couple days ago, and we found him.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No, it’s not. You know we wouldn’t joke about that. We fought him. We’ve seen his face. Nightwing confirmed it was him. I ran a DNA test. 99.98% match,” Tim reported. Batman needed facts; he needed proof. When Jason had gone to the cave to be patched up, Tim secretly ran a test on his blood (so much of it was already outside of his body!) just to have extra verification. “You can check the results on the computer. I’ve also got cowl footage loaded from earlier.”
There was clicking on the side of the comm.
“Bruce,” Dick said, his voice cracking. “It’s not our Jason. It might be the same body, but that’s not Jason Todd. Whatever he is, he’s wrong. He’s killed people, B. He murdered more than a dozen in the past couple nights. He’s probably killed Black Mask; and now he’s after the Joker.”
Batman grunted.
Tim hopped off his bike, muting his side of the comm. He would listen, but Batman would take time to process everything they’d said along with all the evidence compiled on the computer.
He ran to the apartment. He knocked. The windows were dark. Lock picks glinted in his hands. The shitty apartment lock melted like butter under a hot knife. He flicked on the light, unsurprised to find it empty.
There was something new.
A League sword was driven several inches into the center of the wall, right through the Joker’s printed face. It held up a note and a jacket underneath it. As he watched, red substance dripped from the dangling sleeve to join a growing puddle at the base of the wall.
The note had a set of coordinates. Ones that looked oddly familiar.
The jacket was bright purple, made of thick material. Joker’s.
Jason had been here, but Tim was too late. He put the coordinates into his wrist computer. His heart sunk to his toes.
It was the coordinates where Jason’s body was recovered, only a couple years ago. An abandoned truck-stop on the edge of Gotham. When the highway was closed down due to a series of rogue attacks that collapsed the nearby bridge, the truck-stops, fast food restaurants, and motels slowly closed. The traffic petered out into nothingness. A perfect location to dump a body with no witnesses.
The place where it all started; and the place where it would end. Leave it to Jason Todd to weave an end for Joker with satisfying poetic symmetry.
“-n! Robin! Answer, dammit!”
He’d been so focused on his findings that he’d forgotten about Nightwing and Bruce on the other side of his comms.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I’m here.”
“Where the hell are you? You better not be anywhere near those coordinates so help me god!” Nightwing spat.
What coordinates? The ones on the wall? Tim turned to his wrist computer, as a feeling of dread rose in him. Jason had sent a picture of the wall to the Batcomputer.
Batman had the coordinates already.
“We’re en-route,” Batman said lowly, confirming Tim’s worst nightmare. There was an undercurrent of some emotion in Batman’s tone, something not normally there. Tim didn’t have time to analyze. Tim had to get there first.
Jason was going to kill Joker, and Tim needed to be the one who discovered the body. He needed to make sure everything was perfect and ready so that Bruce wouldn’t be haunted with the sight of Joker’s body every time he saw his beloved son. Why did Nightwing have to call Batman? Why did Jason have to taunt Batman?
“Robin, return to the Batcave.”
Tim’s jaw tightened. “I’m coming with you.”
“Negative. Go back to the Batcave. That’s an order!”
“Will you listen for once in your life!” Nightwing shouted. “It’s dangerous enough; you need to go run comms. You’ve already done enough.”
Tim heard the unspoken parts. This was a family situation. Tim wasn’t a part of that family; he was an outsider. Bruce, Dick, Jason; they were the family. They didn’t want nor need his help.
At least that’s what they liked to believe.
It would be so much easier if that was true. Then Tim wouldn’t have had to do any of this. Wouldn’t have had to fix Batman when he was drowning in grief; wouldn’t have had to be a stand-in for Dick who was blaming himself for not being a better brother; wouldn’t have had to save Jason’s ass with Deathstroke and given him a perfect way to achieve his goals (goals that Tim needed to figure out immediately).
They didn’t like to believe they needed Tim, but that was ok. He was used to it.
“Fine,” he gritted out, lying through his teeth. “But stay on comms. I wanna hear everything.”
“We will,” Batman promised.
Tim ran from the apartment like a bat out of hell. Why would Jason go through the trouble of letting them know where he was taking Joker? Why would he send it to the Batcomputer where they would all be alerted?
What game was Jason trying to play?
The cycle revved to life. He pushed it as fast as it could go, even faster with the boosters he’d added to it – not that Batman knew about that upgrade. Tim may or may not have stolen a couple Batmobile schematics and modified the turbo thrusters for a smaller cycle. Either way, he was absolutely zooming through the city. The lights were a smeared blur, and the cars around him were reduced to nothing but blocks of color and faded honks.
It didn’t feel fast enough.
Every second, every moment, an impending sense of doom creeped over his shoulders. He had no idea what situation he was about to walk into. Jason had proven himself to be a bit of a loose cannon, what with that shitshow of a “plan” to fool Deathstroke.
The truck-stop was dark, but there was an aura of light coming from behind the building. The Batmobile was parked haphazardly in front of the building. No sign of anyone inside it.
Tim silently hid the bike in a bush a couple hundred feet from the truck-stop, and approached on foot. The gravel made it impossible to be silent, but he did his best.
He climbed to the roof and approached the circle of light. He crouched behind the AC unit and watched the spectacle below.
Batman and Nightwing were standing with their backs to him. A single lamppost was shining in a circle on the cracked concrete. In the center of that circle was a chair, Joker tied down. He was gagged, but this close, Tim could hear the sound of his deranged laughing.
Behind Joker, just out of the light, stood Red Hood, fully suited up, mask in place. He had a sword levelled at Joker’s neck.
“–I am?” Red Hood demanded. There was a Batman-esque growl in his voice.
“Nightwing debriefed me,” Batman said. The emotionally-constipated asshole was repressing his feelings with cold, un-emotional language.
“Nightwing…” Red Hood laughed to himself, shaking his head. The sword shook around Joker’s neck, and the clown leaned away from the blade. “Nightwing debriefed you? Right, it’s just your ex-solider, back from the fucking dead, no fucking deal. Who cares, right?”
“Jason…” Batman said and his voice cracked in the center. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what? Kill the Joker? All for what? So that I don’t have blood on my hands? Hate to fucking break it to you, asshole, but I’ve already got blood on my hands. What’s one more life?”
“…”
Jason shook his head. The situation was devolving.
“You let this psychopath kidnap, torture, and kill me. You let him get away with what he did to Barbara. You let him get away, every. Fucking. Time. Oh, what? Send him to Arkham, so he can escape without even trying, so he can go back out and kill and torture more people. You’re no-kill-rule has gotten people fucking killed. Their blood is on your hands! All those victims; all those innocents who had nothing to do with anything. So much death, all because you refuse to make his removal permanent.”
“Jason, son–,”
“No! Don’t call me son. Don’t fucking do that! I am not your son. I saw that memorial case. Just a soldier, just a Robin. That’s all I ever was to you. That’s all the new Robin is to you. Just a child soldier in traffic-colored lights; a casualty waiting to happen in your goddamn crusade!”
“It’s not like that,” Bruce said. Because that wasn’t Batman anymore. That was all Bruce. The gravel-tone was gone, and he was reduced to pure desperation.
“It’s not? Then prove it.” Jason tossed something on the ground. The object slid to a stop at Batman’s feet. Tim couldn’t make out what it was. “Pick it up. Prove to me that you cared about me. Prove to me that you are willing to do what it takes to take a madman off the streets.”
“Jason, stop!” Nightwing said. He stepped forward, wincing as he did so. His stomach wasn’t healed enough for this much movement. Tim would probably need to redo all his stitches. “That’s enough! Batman loved you, but you’re taking this too far. You don’t get to force him to break the No-Kill Rule.”
Tim needed to set a distraction.
“I’m not going to make him break the No-Kill Rule if he’s dead-set on not breaking it. But Joker is dying tonight, whether at my hand or Batman’s. He’s lived long enough, caused enough suffering. It ends tonight.”
Tim crept away from the edge, making up a plan on the fly.
An explosion bloomed on the street in front of the truck-stop. It wasn’t very large, but it was accompanied by inhuman screams, the sound echoing around them.
After a moment of hesitation, the three of them run to the source of the disturbance. Tim slipped out the shadows once they were past and hurried to the tied-up hostage. The not-quite-phantom-zone projector wasn’t ready; and any possibility of this Jason-Bruce confrontation ending in anything other than bad blood and hatred on both sides was zero.
Joker was going to die tonight.
Tim crouched next to the hostage. Joker’s eyes rolled in his head in maniacal glee, and his body shook with the force of insane laughter. He found the entire situation extremely funny.
Without wasting any movements, Tim affixed a bomb to the front of Joker’s shirt. It was already covered in blood from the thin cut on his neck along with some wounds on his torso, likely sustained during his kidnapping.
Another explosion detonated along with another round of inhuman wails. Tim had crept into the truck-stop and cobbled together three make-shift bombs from the few supplies he’d found inside; constructing them in tubes to achieve that wailing sound.
Two of them he set up along the road, far enough to attract the bats, but also close enough to draw them towards the wreckage.
There wasn’t a timer, but he grabbed a stopwatch and set it to countdown ten seconds, making sure to place it within Joker’s field of vision. Then he lit the fuse. “This is for Jason and Barbara.”
As a last act of vengeful joy, Tim pulled out the gag, letting the damp cloth fall around his neck.
“BATMAN! HELP ME!” Joker screamed, his voice hoarse. He bucked his body around, trying to dislodge the bomb. Joker loved to laugh at the misfortune of others, and yet when it was his life on the line, it was suddenly no longer funny.
Tim retreated to the shadows of the sparse tree line behind the truck-stop.
Three shadows appeared on the edge of the blast zone just as the timer went down to zero.
An inferno exploded, and the Joker’s scream was drowned out in the sound. When the light faded, all was left was the smoking husk of Joker’s half-destroyed body, never to laugh again.
Tim picked his way back to the Robin-cycle. He turned on his comms.
“What was that? Is everyone ok? There’s no cameras out there; what’s going on?” he asked. The lies fell easily from his lips.
“Joker… Joker is dead,” Nightwing said. He sounded dumbfounded. There was a sickly-sweet smell in the air, and Tim wrinkled his nose at it.
Through the comm and in real life, he could hear Jason shouting.
“What the fuck! Who? Who the fuck did that?”
Tim climbed on his bike, making sure it was running on silent. Checking that no one was around to see him, he started the long drive back to the Batcave.
“You weren’t the one?” Nightwing asked.
“I wanted Bruce to… to be the one. Who?” Jason sounded upset, even muffled through the comms. Tim didn’t feel the slightest bad about ruining his plans. Batman couldn’t kill Joker; it would ruin all of the trust he’d built with the GCPD not to mention the public. Jason couldn’t kill Joker because it would ruin Bruce’s trust and love in his own son.
Tim wasn’t Bruce’s son. He wasn’t anyone to them, aside from a temporary Robin. If his involvement was ever found out, he could enact one of his contingency plans; he had a few set up for faking his death.
Tim killing Joker was the best outcome there could be.
“Is anyone else injured? I’m alerting the GCPD and emergency services. They’ll be arriving soon.” Tim quickly did just that with a message from his wrist computer.
He made it to the cave in record time.
When he got inside, he stripped out of the suit and into civvies. He sat at the computer like he’d never been anywhere else and started running comms like normal. He checked for cameras around the truck-stop. Thankfully there were none, but he went through the cameras on the route home and quickly erased himself from the feeds, on the off-chance that Batman decided to snoop.
Tim took a deep breath and tried to relax.
A few minutes later and Tim’s chest felt like it was contracting. The weight of what he’d just done was hitting him all at once. He’d killed the Joker. He’d killed someone. He’d taken someone’s life. There was a soul that was no longer around because of him.
With a rush, Tim ran to the bathroom and emptied the contents of his stomach, which admittedly wasn’t much. He retched and retched.
His brain caught up with him and he realized what the sickly-sweet smell from earlier was. The stench of a body burning. Of Joker burning. He spun and retched again, emptying his already-empty stomach.
There was a rumble as the Batmobile approached. Tim quickly flushed away the evidence of his guilt and threw water on his face. He was exiting the bathroom when Nightwing and Batman entered the cave.
Nightwing seemed surprised to see him. “You’re still here?”
Tim flinched at the tone.
“Why the hell wouldn’t he be?” Another voice said. Tim’s head snapped up to see Jason walking behind them, his face stony.
“Just… Just didn’t think he’d actually listen and stay in the cave,” Nightwing said.
“Robin, report,” Batman said in lieu of a greeting. No: Hey, Tim, haven’t seen you in a month, but it’s so good to see you!
Tim’s back straightened automatically, telling the abridged story, making sure it sounded like he left Jason’s apartment and immediately returned to the cave. That he heard everything through the comms, but there were no functional security cameras in the area to give him any visuals.
“You went silent,” Batman said, an accusation and an observation both.
“Silent?” Tim asked. “When I got back to the cave, I immediately hopped on comms. You were arguing about what to do with Joker.”
“And what about when the first explosion went off?”
“Yeah, I heard it. I was trying to get ahold of you all, but no one was answering. I was freaking out,” Tim said, like a lying liar who lied.
“Hn. Must have been a disturbance with the comms, then.”
Tim didn’t move a muscle, but inwardly he was relieved. Batman believed him, thank god. Not everyone could lie to The Batman, but Tim had done it so much that it wasn’t even funny. Earlier he’d been lamenting everyone assuming that Tim couldn’t lie, but honestly, it came in clutch now and again.
“Is anyone injured?” Tim asked, changing the subject. “Nightwing, how are your stitches?”
“Popped ‘em. You mind?”
Nightwing peeled off his suit, and Tim busied himself with cleaning up the wound and redoing the stitches.
Jason and Bruce were silently watching each other. The tension was thick enough that you could cut it with a knife.
“Jaylad, I missed you. So much.”
That wasn’t what Jason was expecting, because he reeled backwards. His hand flew to the back of his neck, rubbing nervously.
“Did you?” he gestured over to the fucked-up memorial. “Because it looks like I was only ever a soldier to you.”
Bruce sighed. He removed the cowl, revealing his wrinkles and a smattering of grey in his hair.
“You were never just a soldier to me. You were– You are my beloved son. You are more than just Robin. I love you, son.”
Bruce’s hands twitched, clearly wanting to reach out and wrap his son in a hug.
“Would…?” Jason hesitated. He frowned at the ground, seeming to make up his mind. He turned the full force of his glare to Bruce. “Would you have killed Joker?”
Bruce didn’t say anything. His face was a battleground of pain and hesitation.
Tim didn’t look up, but he listened to the retreating stomps as Jason left.
“He’ll come around, Bruce,” Tim whispered, so softly he wasn’t sure the sound would reach his ears. “Just give him some time.”
The city celebrated the Joker’s death with what turned into a month-long party. Signs and banners were hung outside buildings; party music blared from windows, including a new smear-song about Joker; and confetti fell like rain, painting the sky in a hurricane of bright colors.
By the time the celebration died down, leaving the streets littered with wet remnants of confetti, the vigilantes had found some sort of truce.
Dick was staying in Gotham for a short while. He was trying to connect with Jason again, slowly sharing old jokes, old memories. They were tentatively ok, now. (Tim liked to think it was because of him, that they were cool again. Particularly because the last couple rooftop hangouts that Tim stalked accidentally saw from a distance, the two were laughing about some random shit that Tim had done. Which Rude! How was he supposed to know that kid was gonna fire a confetti gun in his face?)
Jason refused to live in Wayne Manor, preferring his myriad of safehouses in Crime Alley. Bruce and Jason argued over the murder and the no-kill rule, back and forth in a pale mimicry of Dick and Bruce’s fights. Jason might be explosive, but there wasn’t any furniture being shattered anywhere in the house–mostly because Jason respected Alfred way too much to destroy the property.
Speaking of Alfred, the butler had been overjoyed to find Jason alive and well. He’d cooked all of Jason’s favorites for a few weeks, and when the undead grandson wasn’t at the Manor to eat it, Tim had the wondrous job of food delivery.
Not that Tim minded. He rather enjoyed figuring out which safehouse Jason was staying at that night and annoying the hell out of him. He had a feeling that Jason didn’t kill him only because of the precious food packages.
Tonight was different.
Jason was staying in that first apartment. The one with the conspiracy wall. The one where Joker’s bloody jacket had been pinned to the wall.
Tim didn’t bother knocking. He smushed his face against the crack in the door and screamed.
The door slid open immediately, and he was treated to Jason’s panicked expression.
“The hell, dumbass? Thought someone was fuckin’ dead.”
Tim walked inside, shoving the container of warm food into Jason’s chest as he did so. He saw the Joker’s jacket still pinned to the wall, and he averted his gaze to the messy bed. There wasn’t a couch, so he elected to perch on the shitty mattress.
“That was the point, you know. Also, why do you care about someone dying? You literally kill people.”
“I don’t kill kids, and I try not to kill women. I thought it was a little girl getting murdered on my doorstep,” Jason said snarkily. He ripped open the container and began digging in.
“Alfred sends his regards. Wants to know if you’ll agree to join him in an outing tomorrow. He missed grocery shopping with you.”
“’course I’ll go,” Jason scoffed. “You jealous Alfie’s taking me again instead of you?”
Tim blinked. “What?”
“Grocery shopping with Alfie.”
Tim stared at him blankly, and Jason raised an eyebrow. “Ok, my bad, I forgot little rich boy has better things to do then go shopping with the help, I get it.”
“What! No, it’s not like that. Jeez, Jason! It just sounds more like something family does. You did it because you lived there, and you were Bruce’s son. It makes sense that you join the household chores and errands.”
“Right, and you’re excluded from that because…?”
“I’m not family,” Tim said slowly. He thought that was pretty obvious.
“What the? Don’t you live in the Manor?”
“No.”
“Where the hell do you live?”
“I have an apartment in the city with my uncle.” The uncle was a fake, a part-time actor who showed when he was needed. Tim had made that contingency plan not long after becoming Robin, and when his parents met their untimely end, it had paid off. The use of the Batcomputer helped, and not even Bruce could tell the documents were forged.
“An apartment. With your uncle. Didn’t think you had an uncle, baby bird.”
“Yeah, my Uncle Eddie.”
“I swear to god, if it ends up being fuckin’ Eddie Nygma–“
“No! His name is Edward Drake,” Tim said. Why are they still talking about this? “And what’s he got to do with anything?”
“Dunno! Kinda assumed you were already adopted by the big bad bat. You look the part, and you’re an orphan, and most importantly, you’re Robin.”
“It’s not like that, Jay. B and I are more like coworkers.”
“Coworkers.”
“Yup,” Tim said, popping the p. “I respect his authority, but I also will do things outside of it. We’re equals, and he knows it.”
“He knows it?”
Tim sucked air through his teeth. “Maybe not consciously. But B knows that if I want to do something, he’s not stopping me.”
Jason’s eyebrows are so high, they’re hidden by his fringe. The box of food has been left on the counter, forgotten. Alfred would tut at that.
“He’s not stopping you? So… let’s just say… for shits and giggles, if you wanted to kill Joker, really put your mind to it, Batman wouldn’t stop you?”
“He’d try, if he knew. But if I wanted, hypothetically, to kill Joker or any of the rogues, I wouldn’t let B know about it. By the time he figured it out (if he ever did), it would be too late.”
Jason sat in silence. Tim grabbed a fork and stole a few bites of the pasta Alfred had made. He’d eaten some earlier for dinner, but it was so damn good, and he needed something to do other than staring at Jason’s bewildered expression or the jacket still pinned to the wall.
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
“You killed Joker.” Tim finished chewing his pasta, and placed a careful expression of confusion over his features. Edited version of Plan E: Gaslight Dick Jason.
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pull that shit with me. Might work on Dickface and Brucie, but I invented lying to authority. Besides, I suspected you. Didn’t think you would have the guts for it.”
Tim wrinkled his nose. The scent of savory pasta was turning slightly sweet, the smell of burning, the smell of flesh.
He rubbed his nose and leaned away from the food.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You can’t look at the Joker’s jacket. It’s got his blood on it. He might’ve died in it, ‘f I didn’ leave it as a message to you.”
“After I came here, I went straight to the cave.”
“No Robin listens when he’s benched. Least of all, a stubborn one like you. You ignored Nightwing’s orders not to help me in the beginning.”
Tim had no argument for that.
“Please, tell me. Did you kill Joker?”
“Look, man, I don’t know–“
“Tim. If you killed him,” Jason’s voice wavered. Tim hesitated a look at him, and found an expression he wasn’t sure how to interpret. His horrified mind supplied that it looked dangerously close to hope and excitement. “I wouldn’t be mad. Hell, I wouldn’t tell B either. I didn’t think any of the bats would care enough to kill him for me.”
They sat in tense silence for a minute, each staring down the other.
Tim folded. Jason knew, and Tim might have been feeling really bad about seeing Joker’s dead body. Tim had seen dead bodies before, in many horrific manners, but none of those bodies had been created by himself.
“Yes. I did it. I made those bombs with stuff I found in the truck-stop.”
Tim ignored the sharp inhale from the other man. The words started spilling from his lips, unable to be contained now that the gates had opened.
“Look, I’m sorry for ruining your plans. But Batman wasn’t going to kill Joker. His No-Kill Rule is so integral to his being, that I don’t think he could ever do it. Batman as we know it would collapse and turn into something dark. You didn’t see him after your death. You didn’t see the havoc he wrought on the streets, the way that everyone was terrified of him, petty criminals to rogues to victims alike. B killing someone, even someone as evil as Joker, would have destroyed another piece of him, the same way that your death destroyed a piece of him. So I couldn’t let that happen.
“And I couldn’t let you kill Joker either. Well kinda. I was originally planning for you to do it. I was pushing you towards that end, but then B had to show up. He was supposed to be gone! I couldn’t let you do it. Not in front of B. Neither of you would recover from something like that. You could kiss any sort of relationship with your dad good-bye. And I couldn’t watch that happen. Not when you two used to love each other so much. He loves you, Jay! You can’t throw that away, even with everything that’s happened! I know what it’s like to have your dad look at you like… like that, like nothing you do is ever right, like you’re a mistake, and I couldn’t let that happen to you.
“This was the best way, trust me. I mean. I hated it. Killing someone… I… Anyways, I had to do it. There wasn’t any other choice! My Phantom-Zone-Ish Projector was nowhere near ready, and there was no way you were gonna let Joker go that night. And I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let him loose on Gotham again. There’d be more blood on my hands than just… than just Joker’s. So I had to do it. You know? I had to!”
Tim didn’t know when the tears started falling, and he didn’t know when Jason had moved closer, but suddenly he was being crushed in a tight hug. He buried his face in Jason’s shoulder. He smelled of gunpowder and motor oil.
“Deep breaths, baby bird. Follow me, ok?” Jason held Tim’s hand to his chest, letting him feel the calm heartbeat, taking him through a breathing exercise. A few minutes later, and Tim was feeling more stable.
“Thanks, Jay,” Tim sniffled. He rested limply in Jason’s arms.
“Thanks for killing him for me, even though you didn’t want to,” Jason whispered back.
“And for Barbara. I did it for her, too,” Tim added.
Jason chuckled. “Good. We won’t tell her that, though. Don’t think she’d like that.”
“Prolly not,” Tim said. He pulled out of the hug. Jason didn’t comment on his teary face, and Tim didn’t comment on Jason’s.
“Ok, that’s enough emotions for tonight. Movie time?” Jason asked. He reached for a ratty old laptop and turned it on. Tim winced at the sound of its death rattle breaths.
“Your computer gonna survive?”
“Shut it, rich boy! If you don’ like it, then get me a new one. I’m not buyin’,” Jason scoffed. Tim graciously didn't mention the $5 mil stolen a month ago. “And don’t think you’re escaping a conversation about the whole ‘I’m not family’ bullshit. Or this uncle that I’m not convinced exists. As far as I’m concerned, you’re family. Ya know Dickface was awful as an older brother at first. He started warming up to me after a while, but then I fuckin’ died. I’m better than Dickwad, though, and I swore to myself back then that if I ever turned into an older brother, I’d step up on day one.”
A warmth bloomed in Tim’s chest. He liked the idea of Jason being his brother. Of being family. As a younger brother, he did have an obligation to be annoying to older siblings.
“Day one? Like the day you kicked my ass?”
“I didn’ kill ya, did I?”
“You harmed your own brother, for shame,” Tim said in mock disappointment.
“I will beat you up again. Don’t try me!” Jason said, teasingly.
“I think I’m stronger than you,” Tim said. When Jason side-eyed him, he elaborated. “Think about it. Joker killed you, and I killed Joker. I think that puts me higher than you on the food chain.”
“And if I kill you, we end up in a circle. Like rock, paper, scissors. That makes me stronger than you, even if you are stronger than Joker.”
“Yeah, yeah. Put on a movie already, old man.” Tim laughed at Jason’s offended squawk.