Chapter 13
They were going too slow.
Since their ascent up the god-forsaken cliffside of the North Shore, Tim and Jason had only progressed a third of the way to the League's headquarters. Part of their slow advance could be blamed on the island's terrain. Though less deadly, their route was marred by tedious obstacles that produced one delay after another. Unfortunately, the trees were too thick and tangled to allow for grapple maneuvering, leaving them with the only option of journeying through the dense island forest on foot. The forest floor was arguably as challenging as old fallen trees covered in moss spread in every direction. Any prior paths had long been overgrown, consumed by the insatiable island.
Even with those obstacles, their trek was far slower than appropriate. Tim was exhausted, physically and mentally, but he'd been through far worse and had still been able to maintain a good clip. No, it wasn't Tim that was moving slow… he was being held up.
He eyed the slight limp in Jason's leg as the other man maneuvered over a particularly large fallen trunk.
Tim suspected that Jason's ankle must have been injured during the rockfall. For any average person, the weight from the tangled vines and rocks would have surely led to a catastrophic hip dislocation. Jason was, of course, far from average. But still, he wasn't totally invulnerable and would have been lucky to walk away from the incident with a nasty sprain.
"I think we should rest," Tim spoke measuredly as he watched the other man hop down from the trunk and land discretely on one leg.
Jason huffed, hand on his hip as he turned around, "You getting tired, Timmy?" There was a hint of meanness to his voice, but Tim could tell it was covering for something else.
Tim rolled his eyes. Of course, Jason was too proud to own up to his apparent injury. He found it extraordinarily petty but decided not to push it.
"Look," he said, pointing to the sky, "those clouds will start dumping on us any minute. We're better off stopping at the next possible spot for cover and picking it back up when the storm dies down."
Sure enough, the sunny morning they'd been gifted earlier hadn't lasted. Within hours, the temperate weather was replaced by high winds. Massive gusts angrily ripped at the towering trees above them, shaking leaves from the branches like snow. Only moments earlier, they both had dodged a large palm frond that tumbled toward them during an especially big squall.
It wasn't hurricane weather, but it certainly would be miserable for the next couple of hours.
Jason stopped ahead of him, considering their following options seriously. His hand was still on his hip, his sword dangling in the other hand. He'd used it to clear away some of the brambles, largely unsuccessfully.
After a moment, he nodded.
"Fair enough," he said, "We should be getting to a river soon. There're some waterfalls with alcoves. We could pick out a spot there." Decided, Jason turned around and began walking again.
Tim didn't argue. It sounded like a decent enough plan, and already he could feel the beginnings of rain splatter against his hood.
They found the river alright, but finding an appropriate resting place proved more difficult. As they navigated downstream, there were a couple of waterfalls with recesses behind them, but all were ground level and deadly in a flash flood. Already the rain, once a drizzle, had become a torrential downpour. The windswept rain slapped at Tim's cheeks; his hood having fallen from the gusts. Jason also seemed to be having a hard time. With his need for balance finally outweighing his desire to hide his injury, he gingerly navigated the rocky terrain.
"There," Jason shouted over the wind, pointing to another waterfall downstream.
This one was an overhang, the crest jutting out before plunging into a large pool. Underneath the lip of the rock was an elevated alcove formation several meters above the water level. The large open mouth of the cave wouldn't offer any warmth, but at least it'd keep them out of the elements.
Careful not to slip, they anchored their ropes from the overhang and rappelled down to the entrance. They unhooked the ropes from their waists and secured them to the cave's opening for later. The alcove was smaller than anticipated but thankfully dry. Tim sat down as he ran his hands through his hair, shaking out the excess droplets.
Jason opted to take his mask off and shake his hair like a dog, and Tim 'tsked' when some of the droplets splattered against his face. Then Jason slid down against the wall next to Tim, carefully maintaining just enough distance so their sides didn't touch.
Tim was glad for it. Although sitting beside each other in the cramped space wasn't ideal, Tim didn't know if he had the face to look directly at Jason if he had sat across from him.
Honestly, he felt he needed to clear the air about his earlier meltdown. Throughout his sobbing, Jason had stayed fortunately silent, letting Tim cry it out without interruption. He hadn't even commented on it when Tim's full-on weeping had transitioned into gasps for air before finally turning into pitiful sniffles. Tim couldn't tell if it was an unusual act of kindness or awkwardness that stayed the other man's words, which usually cut like a knife. But he chose not to question it.
It wasn't precisely that Tim was embarrassed about crying, per se. It was more so that the outburst was unlike him. Throughout his relationship with Cassie, she occasionally commented on his inability to cry. She chalked it up to toxic masculinity standards and stressed that as a boy, he'd grown up in a hyper-masculine environment where crying was a sign of weakness, so of course he'd have problems with showing emotion…
If she'd met him only a few years earlier, she would have known Tim was perfectly capable of crying. Perhaps too capable. There'd been a year when Tim always cried profusely and repeatedly. But that had all been before he just suddenly… stopped. Like his body had run dry, and he didn't cry because he simply didn't have any more tears left in him.
And yet, Tim never corrected Cassie. He loved it when she got in those moods, fighting for his honor and turning all her fire towards the systems that she believed bit at him. He'd often just sit there during her rants, resisting the urge to smile and soaking up her heat like rays from the sun. He never told her how deeply he loved her in those moments… Maybe if he had, things would have ended differently.
So no, he wasn't embarrassed about crying, he was embarrassed about something else.
"Look," he started slowly, "about earlier."
Jason waved his words off as if he were swatting a fly, "Don't mention it," he spoke gruffly.
Tim fell silent as he watched the storm winds rip at the waterfall, carrying some of the mist into the cave entrance. The wind howled outside, the resonance low and chilling.
Tim knew he could leave it at that, and Jason was giving him permission to. But for some reason, his chest ached with the unsaid words, a desperation to explain himself. All his life he'd struggled to be perfect, yet he'd shown his most shameful side to who he was realizing was the last person he ever wanted to.
"I just," Tim took a deep breath, steeling himself, "Look it's just been a shitty couple of—"
"Tim," Jason took his mask off and looked over at him with an expression that might have been close to… sincere, "Don't worry about it," he paused, inhaling noisily through his nose. "…I know a panic attack when I see one," he said.
They looked at each other for a moment before Tim dropped his gaze to the alcove floor. He chewed over Jason's words carefully before picking out his next ones, "Back on the plane—"
Jason groaned, his voice prickly, "You still on that, Drake? Scared I'll go rabid?" He smiled darkly, and his body was tense as if rearing for a fight.
"Ease up," Tim replied, taking off his sticky domino mask to glare at the other man. "I'm just saying it seemed like you were having your own… moment back there, and I was just trying to point out a commonality between us. Sorry I bothered." He huffed, tapping his back against the wall as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Tim was just about to consider any interaction a lost cause when… Jason's body relaxed. His shoulders dipped and his neck lost some of its tension. His fists were loose, no longer in a white-knuckle grip and ready to hit something. It wasn't a lot, but it was noticeable.
Jason's voice was low when he finally spoke, "Sensei said I have… 'anger issues,'" he said in a surprising admission. He ran his hand through his hair, his fingers combing through the loose waves. "It's why he taught me meditation. To work through my violence problem. These rages I get."
"A violence problem, huh," Tim replied, laughing darkly.
He didn't mean it to sound sarcastic, but it apparently came across that way. Jason's head snapped in Tim's direction, "Well, we can't all be Wonder Boys like you and Dickhead, now, can we?" he sneered.
Tim sighed, "Jason…We all signed up to fight adult crime lords at thirteen years old; I don't think any of us Robins fit the bill for well-adjusted, nonviolent teenagers."
He meant it. Though Tim put on a front and tried to be as perfect as he could be, in no world would he ever say that he was an exemplar of moral goodness. Instead, he always just smiled, hoping his mellow and easy-going attitude was enough to keep people at arm's length. Far enough away so they couldn't uncover the person he really was.
"Us Robins…" Jason repeated Tim's words back to him, "Did you know that earlier today was the first time you said my name?"
Tim startled. Had it really been? He'd cursed Jason's name in his head more times than he could count in their short reunion… but had the first time he'd said his name out loud been back at the cliff? Tim's skin felt scratchy, and he didn't know what to make of that revelation.
So instead, he chose a lie.
"It didn't feel respectful… to use Jason's name on a clone," And fuck, did Tim hate himself the moment he said it, instantly wishing that he could snatch the ugly words back and swallow them. Even Jason aside, Tim's words carried a nasty inference for Will and Jim Harper, two clones of Roy Harper that Tim looked up to immensely. He could feel Jason's stare burning into his side, and he wanted to bury his head in shame.
When Jason spoke, though, it was with a detached nonchalance, "A clone, huh? That still the number one theory?"
Tim looked over at him. Jason's hair was still wet and curling over his forehead, and his face was smudged with dirt and bruises. His expression, though, was curious as he leaned minutely forward.
Tim shrugged his shoulders, still feeling guilty but literally trying to shrug it off. "I don't know… You could be. Given the timeline it makes a reasonable amount of sense, and it wouldn't be the first time that the Light tried to infiltrate the Justice League with clone double agents."
"And what about my memories? I remember… everything."
Tim's throat went dry as if all the air had been sucked out of the cavern. The implication of Jason's words was heavy, and distantly a crowbar flashed across Tim's thoughts before he immediately suppressed it, like he was a master at.
"Implanted," he ground out. "It's happened before. Will Harper had enough memories from Roy to fool everyone on the team for a year, even himself. You wouldn't be able to tell if your memories were real or fake." Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong blared like a siren in Tim's head.
"Huh," Jason grunted, leaning back on the wall again. He seemed fine to drop the subject, turning his head to stare out the cave's entrance.
"I have," Tim paused, wondering if he should continue. "I have another theory..." he said quietly.
Jason looked over at him, and for some reason, this look was different than the usual glares he sent Tim's way. It was pensive, his eyebrows raised in wary invitation to continue. His eyes were guarded, but Tim couldn't help but feel that maybe, just maybe, there was a slight earnestness to them. A whisper that said, Go on.
Tim's voice was hoarse as he suddenly looked away from Jason to his hands. They were clammy in his lap. For some reason, it felt like it had never been so vital that he get a theory right in his life.
"In the fifteenth century, Ra's al Ghul came across an unusual pool with a unique phenomenon… A pit that had a remarkable ability to heal life-threatening injuries… even being rumored to have the power of bringing the dead back to life," Tim glanced up at Jason. Still, the other man was staring straight ahead at the opposite cave wall. "It would later become known as the Lazarus Pit." Tim continued. "Ra's would go on to find multiple Lazarus Pits worldwide. And they're all now heavily guarded by his sect to deter people from seeking out its restorative properties.
"But the pits aren't totally benign either," he added. "There's been mention of side effects: psychosis, hallucinations, corruption of the mind, amplification of rage, amplification of a person's worst qualities… There's a lot of speculation."
"So now I'm not a clone, but a zombie with anger issues," Jason laughed dryly. "Fuck Tim, painting a good picture of me to send back to old Bats now, aren't ya?" His smile was humorless. "Out of curiosity, what made you come up with all this?"
"You're eyes back on the plane. They glowed."
"Ah, that." Jason sighed, "Yeah, that's been an inconvenient lil' hiccup." He propped his good leg up, resting his elbow on his knee and his cheek on his fist. "So what? On the plane, I lost my marbles for a minute, got angry, eyes glowed a spooky shade of green, and that was—"
"Your eyes don't glow because you're angry," Tim interrupted.
Jason's eyebrows knitted together, forming a tiny little wrinkle in the center of his forehead. "They don't?" he asked.
Tim shrugged, "I thought it was tied to rage, too, at first. It made sense, given the rumors of the Pit's side effects. But your eyes… back at the cliff. They glowed green there as well."
Jason stared at him, his eyebrows still knitted together and the wrinkle deepening. Tim didn't know why he found that little wrinkle so comical. "Your point?"
Tim was always at his best when explaining his theories. Lost in the conjectures and the constants and the variables. It was always when he felt the surest of himself, and his thoughts were consumed with his explanations, leaving no room for self-consciousness. "Okay, so if my hypothesis was that anger was what makes your eyes glow, sure, if we went off the plane incident, then that'd be solid evidence. But back at the cliff… you were totally yourself, but your eyes still changed to green. That'd be an inconsistent result unless my hypothesis were wrong altogether."
Jason's body was stiff, and Tim suddenly wished that it wasn't so dim in the alcove so that he could see the other man's eyes properly, his curiosity taking control.
"Your breakdowns. Your eye changes. None of it's tied to anger…" his voice was quiet. "It's tied to fear."
Because that had always been the heart of Jason's anger, hadn't it? As children, what drove his outbursts and tantrums. His fear that no one wanted him. His fear that he'd be left behind. His fear of being alone. Sure, maybe there was some semblance of truth to the rumors that the Lazarus Pit amplified "worst" qualities if it could be called that. But Jason Todd's "worst quality" had never been anger, but the fear fueling it, giving it gas to ignite.
And his episodes... Those weren't "rages"; they were manifestations of that fear… They were panic attacks on display.
Jason sat silently for a moment, his chin still propped on his hand, before sighing loudly through his nose. "You always were a smart little shit, weren't you?" he finally said.
It was the closest thing to an admission that Tim would get.
Tim huffed. "No smarter than you," and oh, how easily did that old loyalty rear its ugly head in the presence of his childhood idol. Tim could remember how fiercely he'd come to the older boy's defense when the other vigilantes teased Jason about his smarts, conveniently forgetting that Jason, too, was a genius who impressed the unflappable Bruce Wayne. Tim's endeavors had never won him any favors with Jason. The older boy usually stormed off, shouting that he didn't need some brat coming to his rescue.
"I think," Jason paused as if he were also unsure of this uncharted territory they were both approaching. This unspoken truce. "I think if it weren't for Sensei, Talia, and…" he paused, shifting his back uncomfortably against the rock. "I think if it weren't for them my life would be a lot different."
"How so?" Tim asked, hoping he wasn't probing too much. His excitement from explaining his theory dissipated, and that self-consciousness came crawling back. He didn't know when he'd again face Jason's rigid walls that would leave him with more questions than answers.
"I dunno," Jason said, picking up a small rock and tossing it against the rock wall with a clatter. "Look, I'm not saying I always make good choices as it is… but I just think without them, my choices would have been… worse, I guess? I just think that I owe everything to them."
Tim nodded, paying no attention to the dark feeling that rose in his gut. "I feel," he paused a lump catching in his throat, "I felt that way about Connor."
Jason chuckled, though it wasn't unkind, "That asshole managed to suck you into his orbit too, huh? Woulda' thought it'd be Dickhea—"he eyed Tim warily, "Dick who you would have latched on to?"
Tim smiled smally at the other man's catch, "No, Dick, he… he had a lot going on for a while." How could he explain that Dick and his relationship had only flourished in the last few years, only after Dick had finally forgiven himself and let Tim back in.
Jason tapped his fingers against his knee, the faintest hint of a nervous gesture. "I shouldn't have said it. Back at the townhouse. About Connor." Jason glanced up at the ceiling, and his jaw clenched, his Adam's apple slowly rising and falling as he swallowed thickly. "He was one of the good ones," he said.
Tim nodded, "You shouldn't have. But it's alright because you paid for it."
And before he could even think about it, Tim reached his hand out and pressed his thumb against Jason's cheek, right where the remnants of the bruise from Tim's crushing slap still lingered. Jason's cheek was rough, and the barest hint of stubble tickled against the pad of Tim's thumb.
It was a bold move, and it surprised even himself. Tim's jaw went slack as he laughed awkwardly before he pulled his hand back, draping his arms over his bent knees. Inwardly, he prayed that he hadn't seriously overplayed his hand and invited Jason's wrath again.
Jason seemed surprised too at first. But then he laughed and slapped his hand against Tim's shoulder. Tim pretended it didn't hurt a little bit. "You're such a little shit," Jason said, rolling his eyes as he shook his head. He pressed his hand against the bruise for a moment before letting it fall down to his waist.
"And you're an asshole," Tim responded.
The two sat like that quietly for a while. Every now and then, they discussed strategies and plans. But for the most part, they just watched the rain as it stormed outside the alcove's entrance. Tim couldn't help but feel like maybe it was something close to… comfortable. That the air between suddenly wasn't so flammable, waiting for one wrong word to ignite a spark.
It wasn't a ceasefire quite yet, but… maybe the air held the beginnings of one.
"Looks like break times over," Jason commented. Sure enough, the rain had slowed once again to a drizzle, and the worst of the storm had passed.
Tim agreed. "You sure you're good?" he asked, pointing to Jason's ankle, which still looked uncomfortably swollen.
"Look Drake," Jason said as he stood, hefting his travel bag back over his shoulder, "if you're gonna be a mother hen like Dick Grayson, then we're about to have some problems."
"I ask, because you, were the one holding us up earlier," Tim retorted as he also stood, "I'm calculating what kind of a liability you're going to be here on out." Which was mostly true.
Jason's eyes flashed. "You're ruthless," he said, almost seeming impressed. He surveyed the cave one last time before his eyes found Tim's, as if he were counting this as one last moment of honesty before they rejoined the real world. "Look…I've got a lot riding on this, so I'll make do. You just focus on getting us where we need to be."
And to Jason's credit, he really did seem motivated. He hadn't questioned Tim's judgement for their entire mission, allowing the younger man to make the calls, and graciously providing for their logistical needs. He really did seem to genuinely believe that Tim would lead them to the weapon. Tim wouldn't have gone so far as to say that it was trust because he knew that was impossible. But it was some distorted version of it.
Tim tried not to think about it. Because if he lingered on that thought, then he would start to feel guilty… and Tim had no room for guilt if he was going to steal the weapon right under Jason's nose. This truce, it was only temporary. And Tim would have to make peace with that.
A/N: Alright friends! And with that third update, we are all caught up with the other site that I've been posting to. Three chapters in one day? This author's never done such a thing *gasp*! But in all seriousness, rather than spacing it out, ultimately it just felt easier to post it all now so both sites are updating the same chapter at a time. That way my clumsy self doesn't cause any mixups. Truly, thank you to the very kind individual for taking time to encourage me to continue posting here. Like I said, just knowing there is even one person out there on this site enjoying this story makes my lil heart so happy. Update 3/3
