Tim stared at the little dot blinking on his screen. It was odd for Jason to stay in one place for so long. As long as Tim had been tracking him, Jason never even slept for more than four hours, and even that four hours was often interrupted by what he assumed were pacing or walks or cigarette breaks.
Now it was still. The dot that was always moving in the in the periphery of his vision had been still for hours now; Tim finally took note.
He stared at the dot. Still, it was still. He used the program to backtrack Jason's whereabouts, see if he'd encountered Ivy or Scarecrow or anyone that could put him out of commission. Tim only found that Jason had only followed the Red Hood's usual path of destruction the night before. He made a few stops, Tim assumed to kill some thugs or save some children or do whatever it was the Red Hood did, and then settled in Crime Alley. The dot moved about a bit, once it got to whatever space Jason was in now, and then stilled for six hours.
It got there around seven, which was unusually late for a vigilante. Then it stilled, and it was one pm and it still hadn't moved.
At this point, Tim started to worry. His eyebrows pinched in the dark of the cave and he stared at the dot, willing it to move.
Maybe he took on more than he could handle, Tim thought. Maybe he's hurt.
Tim would never admit it to Bruce or Dick or anyone, really, but Tim had always looked up to Jason. Even though they were now something around the same age, Jason was Tim's Robin. Dick had only been around for the first few months of Tim's obsession, but then suddenly there was new Robin. One that wasn't the same as Dick, didn't fight like Dick, and didn't smile Dick's brilliant smile.
He didn't really ever smile at all. Jason and Dick were antonyms. It was perfect, like they were examples right out of a literary textbook. Jason is to Dick as cold is to warm. It had always been like that, as far as Tim knew. Jason was just that kind of person.
As cold as Jason was, he was always moving. This current stillness disturbed Tim to no end. He looked at the time again. One thirty.
He considered his options. It wasn't that weird for Robin to be out in the daytime. In fact, that was a big part of his existence: He was around to be juxtaposed to Batman. Batman is to Robin as day is to night.
So Tim decided to go find Jason. He silently worked his uniform on, lost in thought.
Maybe that's why Jason never worked out. Night with night is too dark for Gotham.
It was getting close to two by the time Tim was ready to leave the cave. For some reason, he felt the need to track Jason's whereabouts on his arm computer. The dot moved. Not much, but there it was. Jason was fine. Tim rolled his eyes at his own overreaction, and he sat back down at the computer to finish his research.
Meanwhile, some part of Jason's body was trying to leave the home that he'd created. The warmth in that frigid apartment was leaving his bones. He felt empty. He was cold again. When he put that needle into his arm, he wasn't expecting to ever be cold again. He was expecting warmth and nothingness.
But now he was cold, and still alone. He looked up, realizing where he was, and was disgusted. He looked down at the dark floor, slick with his vomit and reeled back on his hands and knees. He wiped his mouth and looked around with hazy eyes.
In some part of his brain he could still see his mother and Bruce and feel the warmth, but it was far away. He wanted to go back there. He didn't want to live here, in the cold and the damp and the ugly. But he hadn't expected to come back here. He hadn't expected to need to go back into the warmth. He was expecting to rot here, smiling up at the ceiling, until the apartment building was finally demolished and he could stop existing entirely.
He was curled against the wall, staring at the ceiling, trying to smile, trying to get warm again, when a noise jolted him from the cloud. He didn't know what it was, and honestly, he didn't care. He got up with shaky limbs and slowly eased himself to the fire escape, where he began his slow trek to the closest safe house.