A/N: Well, it's short and late and terrible, but here's part 2. I am untalented and exhausted, but hey I wrote something. Go nuts.
"Nice of you to show up," Jason growls, a trifle snarly because one, he's getting over a cold, and two, it's Tim. It's the principle of it, really.
They're hunched against the chill of November wind, perched easily on the (spotless, well-manicured) garden rooftop of some stupid fuck's fancy town home. Jason doesn't understand the appeal (utter idiocy) of decorating both the roof and the foundation of one's house with flowers and fluff. There's perfectly good grass right there on the ground, isn't there? Use it. Upper East Side, old Gotham, old money—he digresses. He can smell the stink of it from here—that money—can fairly feel it in the air he's breathing through a still-congested nose, clogging his lungs.
That could also be the phlegm.
Tim settles beside him, and Jason feels rather than sees him shrug. They both keep their eyes on the brash red and blue lights below.
"I brought you a present," his brother says, pulling a steaming to-go cup of coffee from under the shadow of his ridiculous cape.
Jason's eyes light. "You didn't," he protests, despite the way his gloved hands reach and curl around the offering. He sniffs, appreciative of the blend and just the littlest bit touched.
"Where's my cinnamon twist?" he asks to cut the fondness.
"In the fiery depths of hell, where it belongs," Tim replies. "I'm not giving refined sugar to an invalid."
"Screw you, Mom," Jason shoots back, but there's no real heat in it. He hasn't been able to actually taste anything in over a week. "Speaking of, where's Mommy 'Wing?"
Tim's silent for a moment, and Jason twists to see a tiny smirk on the replacement's exposed mouth, made evilly pleased by the flashing police lights.
"He's taking a nap, courtesy of the 'special tea' I made him earlier," Tim answers, affectionate and smug.
Jason sips, hisses as the java burns his tongue. "You sneaky shit. Knee still bothering him?"
Tim inclines his head, profile hard under the cowl. "Careful," he warns, "someone might think you're starting to care."
He snorts. The line's for show; they both know he gave up appearances years ago. They're too old now, have lived through too much, for games.
"What've we got?" Tim hedges around the silence. "I heard most of it on the scanner, but—I can't—it's not—"
"It's true," he confirms, and Tim deflates—in relief or disappointment, he's not sure. He's thankful, now, that they can't see the body, lying smack in the middle of the street and surrounded by tape and officers and bright lights, from here. It's not a sight he'll forget soon, and Tim doesn't need that. There's no closure in that.
"Saw it myself, kid. Pinky swear."
Tim shudders. "I couldn't let myself believe it, not until. You know."
"Yeah," Jason agrees. They have enough ghosts in their lives without searching out a new one. The man's dead, and Jason would leave it but he knows Tim, and he knows Tim won't.
"Method?" It's Red Robin's voice now, cool and collected, and not for the first time Jason wonders how the hell he turns it right off. It's not healthy, and Dick will mother the kid about it later, but god, Jason bets it's easier.
He hesitates still, because the answer isn't something they can let go.
"Execution style. Beheading," he says bluntly, because there's no other damn way to put it.
There's a tiny hitch in Tim's breathing, but it's gone between one blink and the next.
"Harkness…" Tim begins carefully. "I was not aware he'd been active lately, that he'd made enemies of the sort to…do this."
Jason feels a tiny pinch at the way the kid is trying so hard. He's always been like that, earnest and driven and sometimes infuriating. It's one of the things Jason hated (admired) most about him, back when they got their kicks from attempted fratricide.
Tim—bless him—loyal now and forever to their dead father.
Jason, though…well, like he said, dead is dead.
Jason shakes his head. "You don't have to do that, you know. Humanize him. He's dead, but that don't make up for a whole life of bad, Babybird. Do what you need to, but he was still a murdering bastard, and you're not obliged to give him anything."
Tim is still in the way that means Jason has poked too close to a bruise, quiet and startled like an animal. He nods slowly, thoughtfully, but doesn't meet Jason's eyes.
"Boomerang," he corrects, and his voice is harder. Jason feels a tiny thrill of pride, because it's Red Robin's don't fuck with me voice, and he's partly responsible for that.
"He didn't." Jason answers belatedly. "Have enemies like that, I mean. Not that I could dig up, and I've got my ear so far to the ground it's practically in the gutter."
Tim hums, gives a pointed glance to Jason's muddied countenance.
"I see you've been playing in the dirt again." A slender hand snags his sleeve with an iron grip. "And ripped your favorite sweater," he says chidingly, fingering large, teeth shaped holes in Jason's jacket. "Horrid child."
"What can I say?" Jason smirks, equally casual, but he feels the way Tim's checks that the teeth marks don't go any deeper. He's fine. The day he's slower than an overgrown gator is the day he retires. "He may be a reptile, but he sings like a bird."
"You stink, by the way," Tim acknowledges, in the tone that means Dick will hear about this. A car door slams, below. "Medical examiner's here."
"Yup. You want the scoop with whipped cream and cherries on top, or am I just going to keep jawing until daylight?"
Tim scowls at him. "Shoot."
"Darling, you should never say that to a trigger-happy old cowboy like me."
Jason waits for Tim to do the frog face—his signature, eyebrows and mouth flat in parallel lines—before continuing.
"Our reptilian friend wasn't quite as helpful as I'd hoped. He didn't feel like performing, but after some persuasion," he grins wolfishly, "I convinced him to share. Mr. Knickers there," he says with a nod towards the mess in the street, "wasn't the first."
"First what?" Tim asks emotionlessly.
"Kill, headless two-bit baddie. C'mon, Baby B, keep up."
"Who?"
"No one important. Couple of small-timers, but they made ripple enough that Croc is talking—without even taking his pound of flesh, I might add."
"Shit," Tim says.
"Yeah, shit," Jason agrees.
"Got the murder weapon?"
He rolls his eyes. "What is this, amateur hour? Yeah, dude, I got it. Some sorta curved blade, maybe a sword, tapered. Fucking sharp though, severed the head with one blow. Clean."
Tim freezes up.
Jason's impressed, only took him about a second flat. Friggin' geek always was the smartest of them.
"You got it, nerd wonder?" There's no joke in it, no bite either.
Tim nods, and the cowl is more mask than usual. "I've got it. Tapered, curved. Could be a scythe, but I don't currently know any psychos parading around as the reaper. The other…"
Tim's mouth is hard and thin. His face is a garish mesh of blue and red flashing lights, purpling in an ugly imitation of bruises.
"Katana," he finishes. "Old. Probably from the Koto period, if I'm making assumptions."
Tim knows. Tim knows, and Jason won't say it. "If you were a betting man?"
"I don't bet without backing."
Tim's mouth quirks humorlessly and a gauntleted hand presses Kevlar covered ribs in remembrance of pain. "But I seem to recall a scar or two from a Koto era blade—square guard, Arabic lettering overlaid, notched grip."
Jason was afraid of that.
"I know the one," he agrees quietly. There are some things he doesn't want to know.
Tim's anger is palpable. "I won't let his goddamn name be a taboo any longer. You know it as well as I. Damian is come home, big brother. And he's killing."