Somewhere in the limbo-hell-haze of the time that follows, Jason thinks he might have called Dick.
Not because he has any real proof of having said anything— nor does he particularly remember picking up his phone and actually using it —but because one minute, he's hunched over the floor, and the next minute, he's being bodily hauled up.
He could get so big, he thinks fuzzily. He could be the size of a literal tank, and Dick would still somehow manage to pull him up effortlessly.
Snap.
The sound echoes dully, at first, and then—
Snap.
Sharper, this time. Bright with clarity. Jason actually sees a hazy shadow flash across his vision. His gaze drifts slightly from the wall in front of him to—
"Dick," he says hazily when some blurry semblance of his brother's face comes into view, and his fingers graze over Dick's wrist. He seeks out a pulse and finds one, almost subconsciously, and his breaths fall into step.
"Yeah, I'm here," Dick says, easy and low. A towel presses up against the side of Jason's head and pats at his brow. "It's okay, Little Wing. I'm here. It's going to be okay."
"It isn't," Jason croaks, and he's barely even able to speak. He unclenches his fist, and the near-decimated piece of paper flutters free of his hold to land between them. He's sitting on the edge of his bed, now, Dick beside him— in civvies, so he must have already finished his mission by the time Jason called. "He's gone."
Dick tilts his head, confused. The concerned knot of his eyebrows unravels, then, into perfect smoothness as he glances down at the note. For a long moment, Dick is quiet; Jason knows his brother is reading the words upside down and through the wrinkles.
"He left a n—" Dick says, but falters. For a moment, they're both quiet as grief in the form of remembrance expands to fill the space between them; then, Dick speaks again, almost disembodied. "There's nowhere Jack can go that Babs won't find him."
"I'm gonna kill him," Jason says through clasped fingers.
"Jason," Dick says quietly.
"I'm g—" Jason says, and his voice breaks. Wordlessly, Dick winds around him; Jason unexpectedly feels smaller than he's ever felt tucked into his brother's elbow. He scrabbles his fingers tight into Dick's sleeve, and his breath hitches, and he gives himself exactly five seconds to fall apart in one of the only places left that it makes sense to.
Then he pulls himself together and straightens, because he has to fucking get that kid back. And even if Tim had lied— even if he'd gone back —any minute spent in his father's presence is one minute longer than anyone should be spending in Jack's presence.
The identities— that takes the back burner.
"How long has it been since I called you?"
Dick's brow furrows as he glances down at his phone. "Not long. Fifteen minutes, I think, from when I got your call to when I got here. I was already back from helping Bruce out by the time you called."
Jason checks the time. Tim's already been with his dad for far too long.
"I need to make a call," he says, not exactly looking at Dick. Dick makes an affirmative sound, clasping his shoulder briefly before standing, and Jason can hear him padding to the kitchen.
"I'm going to call Babs," he says. Jason grunts affirmation, takes a sharp breath, and taps an unnamed number he's had yet to press. It only rings for half a second before it's answered, and Jason's entire stomach twists up tight like a Twizzler.
"Jason?" Bruce answers, a little breathless, but Jason doesn't give him a chance to speak. He wonders how long Bruce has had caller ID saved for him.
"You and I aren't good," he says, and his voice cracks. "We have a lot to get through before we'll be good, or even— fucking okay. The decisions you made fucked me up, B, I— you have no idea what it was like, to die, and then come back, and—" Jason stops. Breathes. Refocuses. "But this isn't about me. This is about Tim. Jack's got him again, and h— he's." He can already feel his eyes welling up from some hell-combination of stress— fear— worry— he doesn't know. He doesn't care. "Jack's dangerous, B, I think he's going to try to get Tim out of Gotham. It's fucking bad, okay, and I c— I can't— let anything happen to that kid. I promised I would keep him s—"
He chokes.
"I promised I would keep him safe, B." He says, and his voice quakes, unexpectedly small, unexpectedly childlike, even to his own ears. "I— I need help. I need— your help." He stops, and then says, "he left a note." Softer, he repeats, "he left a note," and he knows his breath hitches.
There's silence for only a beat, and then Batman's voice comes down the line. Raspy, low, perfect veneer of control, and Jason must be imagining the way it wavers slightly at the end when he says, "Do you want me to track him down?"
"Please," Jason says plainly, swiping the heel of his palm over his cheek. "And let me know if you pick up on anything about Jack's whereabouts— or Tim's. Listen, I— I think Jack may have figured out your identity, mine… fuck, maybe Dick's too, I think that's how he got Tim to go back. The evidence may still be at Drake Manor."
"It'll be taken care of." Bruce says flatly, and even though it's only a few words, Jason starkly and suddenly finds himself relieved of a little bit of the weight pressed on his shoulders. He may have, like, a water tower's worth of trust issues surrounding himself and Bruce, but he can also trust that Bruce will be neat and, more importantly, thorough. "Anything else?"
"No, I—" Yes, there is more, yes, Jason has to figure this out, but he's overwhelmed. The buzz in his brain, like an angry locust's swarm, crescendos into something almost unbearable. He's overwhelmed. "Yes, but—"
"Take a deep breath, Jason," Bruce says levelly, and it cuts through the buzz, hot steel through butter. Jason realizes he's gripping his shirt collar so tightly his nails are all but carving crescents into the skin underneath, that his breaths are perhaps a bit more shallow than he'd initially realized. He resists the urge to hang up immediately by pitching his phone at high-speed right into the nearby wall, and tries instead to focus on Bruce's voice. He inhales— shakily, but air still gets through somehow, pools slowly back into his lungs. "Focus on the next step."
The next step. He wants to leap right to the final step. The step where Tim is back already. The step where they're a family. The step where they move into that apartment with the bookcases and the kitchen. Jason wants to flip to the last page of this book, because he doesn't know if he can handle what comes in between.
"Okay," he says anyway, because what fucking choice does he have. "Next step. Checking in with Oracle."
"Good. Alright, good," Bruce says. "We will figure this out, Jason. We'll bring him back."
"You don't understand," Jason says, and stops. He just told me he wanted to move in with me, and now he's gone. Everything was about to be right.
There's a stretching moment of silence before Bruce speaks again; his words would've come across wry to anyone who didn't know him.
"Don't I?"
"Babs is checking surveillance," Dick tells him by way of greeting when Jason finally regains control of his legs long enough to make it to the kitchen. "They're no longer in Drake Manor, which we expected, but she's tracking the plates of the car Jack left in. They have security cameras in the garage, most likely for all the cars Jack owns."
"Tim was with him?" Jason asks quietly, even though he knows the answer, and Dick doesn't even have to reply; his expression says it all. "Did he look—"
"He got into the car 'of his own volition,'" Dick says flatly with heavy air quotes. "Presumably, Jack had already gotten leverage over him at that point."
Jason grinds his teeth together, about to say something scathing when a sharp knock on the door startles them both. He's not exactly expecting anyone in his current state, obviously, and meets Dick's bewildered expression with his own equally bewildered expression.
He's half hoping it'll be Tim, for some fucking reason.
And it isn't. Of fucking course it isn't.
But it is one very stressed Marco, whose expression floods with profound relief when he sees him.
"What the fuck, Jason?" Marco says, a little— or very —breathlessly, and Jason just stares at him blankly. He's literally panting like he sprinted clear across the city, one hand braced hard against the doorway to keep him from collapsing.
"What are— what are you doing here?" Jason asks, perplexed. He's relieved to see him too, but— how did he even know to get here?
"What am I—" Marco stammers, incredulous. "What am I doing here? You— You called me like eight times! I half thought I'd open the door to see you dead, Jason, fucking hell." He slumps up against the wall, heaving out another breath before pulling out his phone. "I was at one of Maria's boxing matches, so I didn't hear the calls, and then just as I was about to call back— fucking thing died." Marco combs his hair back with his hand, anxious, and Jason wordlessly moves aside so he can collapse right onto the couch. "So I just— sprinted here."
"I called you?" Jason echoes, a little numbly, and checks his phone. It makes sense, he guesses— he'd called Dick at some point in the middle of the panic, so he must have called Marco, too. He hadn't noticed his outbound calls when he'd called Bruce earlier, far too out of it at that point to have cared to check.
Marco nods, face semi-buried into his hands as he tries to catch his breath. "What happened, anyway?" He asks, words muffled against his palms. "I'm sorry I didn't pick up, I— those fights are loud as hell, I couldn't hear a damn thing. Maybe I'm going a little deaf, though. It'd make sense after all the shooting and grenades and—"
"Tim's dad has him," Jason says, fairly certain he tears skin with how hard he yanks the bandaid off.
Marco lifts his head from his hands and stares at Jason blankly.
"What?"
"Tim w—" Jason starts, and chokes to a stop. "He said his dad was going to hurt us, and he went back to him to stop it from happening."
"We're trying to track his dad's location," Dick says from the table, but Jason barely catches that before Marco has him by the collar. It's so fast that Jason barely has time to react— or he's still sluggish after everything, and doesn't realize what's happening —but he hears the scrape of Dick's chair as he pulls back from the table.
"Are you telling me," Marco says, chest heaving, fury bright like a firecracker in his face. "That Tim is with someone who gave him motherfucking I-5?"
Dick sucks in a sharp breath, but doesn't move— like he's deferring to Jason to defuse the situation.
Marco isn't hurting Jason, not physically; he's not shaking or rattling him, or specifically even yelling, exactly. But his tone hooks into Jason like barbs, wraps around his lungs and squeezes; his still-bruised knuckles burn searing-hot against his exposed collarbone.
Marco's anger has always been a rare, quick affair; as quickly as he gets up in Jason's face, he seems to pull back away from him. Jason still can't seem to find air, at least not easily, and realizes that Marco's hold on his collar has shifted from incensed to stabilizing. He's holding him in place now, keeping him from losing his footing entirely.
"I'm sorry," Jason croaks.
"Don't apologize to me," Marco says back immediately, dropping his backpack on the ground with a thump. Dick remains standing for a moment, gauging the situation for a moment before he takes a wary seat. "There's gonna be plenty of those to go around when he gets back. What happened?"
"He set me up to check something out and took off while I was gone," Jason says, not keen on divulging exactly what that something had been. He can see Marco's brow furrow in his periphery, as if he's trying to figure out what Jason's talking about, but he seems to decide that that isn't a priority now. "He claims that Jack has dirt. I'm not sure of what variety," he adds, frustrated.
"Hey—" Dick says, head snapping up from his phone. "O has something."
"O?" Marco echoes, inquisitive eyebrow arching in Dick's direction. Jason's kind of over the identity shenanigans at this point, but it's not his right to tell Marco, unfortunately. Even giving Marco his actual name— Jason Todd-Wayne, technically —opens a whole fucking can of worms. Worse still would be giving Dick's name away; knowing Dick Grayson is Nightwing is basically a hop-skip away from knowing Bruce Wayne is Batman (to Jason and Tim, at least, but obviously Brucie is remarkably convincing up against Batman). It's a logical enough assumption for someone with no detective skills, let alone Marco, who's probably one silly pun and a flirty smile away from smacking those two neurons together anyway.
"An old friend," he says instead, striding to Dick's side in what feels like half a beat. He glances over his shoulder at Barbara's message, in too much of a haze to really read it himself; still, he feels better if he's got something to just focus on.
"I clocked his Genesis arriving at the harbor," Dick reads. "He vanishes from camera view after that, because there aren't many working cameras in the harbor. Possible hideouts: nearby storage units, fishing shacks, warehouses. I've already started checking the warehouses and fishing shacks with working security cameras."
"Tell her we'll take care of the rest," Jason tells Dick, and even he isn't sure of the tone in his own voice— distant, somehow, he thinks. Like he's trying to separate from this to deal with it, but he's not exactly finding success. The anger breathes life underneath his skin, its own entity at this point— and at this point, he's almost positive it'll only be slaked when he watches the light leave Jack Drake's eyes. "And tell her thanks."
"Done and done," Dick says, and squeezes Jason's shoulder reassuringly as he stands up. "Let's go get him back, Jason."
They're ten minutes into the search, and Jason's already so hopped up that he's ready to start shooting.
He doesn't. Of course. Mostly because he's trying not to make a lot of noise, and also because even though the idea that he'd need the element of surprise to take Jack Drake out is insulting, he wants to be able to scope out the situation to make sure Jack can't use Tim against Jason.
If Tim is even with Jack, that is.
No, Jason tells himself as he fingers the handle of the gun tucked into his thigh holster grimly, he can't afford to think like that. He has to hope that Jack's desperate and control-hungry enough that he's keeping Tim close— but, he thinks as he thoroughly examines one of the dingy houseboats on quiet, catlike footsteps, that'd definitely give me an excuse to beat the shit out of Jack Drake.
And then there's the matter of what he's going to do if he does find them together— the matter of how much of Jack's punishment lies in Jason's hands, how much of it lies in Tim's. He'd told Dick that day— how he wouldn't be able to help himself, if someone did hurt Tim —and he'd meant it. Still, not so long ago, Tim had held out hope that his father had the ability to change; he's a kid who's had to grow up too quickly, of that there's no doubt, but he's still a kid. He's still optimistic, and it kills Jason.
Jason scrubs his face as he steps quietly out onto the dock again, and his comm crackles. The brief flame of hope dwindles immediately when Dick says, "cleared the abandoned distribution centers. No sign of them, so I'm moving to one of the shipping warehouses."
"Nor in the first two fishing shacks," Marco's quick to add. He sounds some combination of frustrated and nasal, like he's holding his nose. Actually, he hates the smell of fish, Jason recalls as he moves to the next vessel— this one, a small yacht. "I'm going to check out the third one now."
"Checking one of the yachts," Jason says quietly as he carefully crosses the gap between the dock and the yacht. He lands with a quiet thump against the dark deck, somewhere near the bow, and makes his way into the cabin to have a quick look around. It's times like this when he really appreciates the built in lights of his helmet, because it's dark as shit and he'd have been able to make out exactly nothing if he hadn't had the light.
And, if he hadn't had the light, he wouldn't have noticed something.
Not all the yachts on the harbor are currently in use; it's still chilly, after all, and barely anyone's going out for a casual spin. But in a pinch, it's the perfect way to lie low and vanish for a while, off the radar of anyone searching in the city. To that end, the yacht is well-stocked; there's bottles of water, canned food, dry snacks, exactly the kind of stuff that two people might potentially need if they're going to be out on a boat for a little while. There's no dust anywhere, other than what Jason can see in the light, which means none of it's been sitting outside for very long. No, this yacht was recently stocked and made ready for departure, Jason would bet fucking anything on it.
His eyes narrow.
The path lights up only a few feet ahead of Jason; his scope is limited as he tilts his head slightly, only for a flash of red to flicker in the corner of his eye, a little in the dim light. He turns fully to see, because no, that can't—
It is.
It's Tim's jacket.
Despite his best efforts to stay quiet, Jason's breath catches. He reaches out to wind his hands into the crumpled red fabric, trails a thumb over the inside of the soft hood. In the light, there's darker discoloration, almost black, dotted along the inside of the hood and the sleeves— blood.
Jason's careful, measured breaths had been all he could hear when he'd first walked onto the yacht. Now they're accompanied by the roar of blood in his ears, like a vengeful tide swallowing up the shore, the harbor, the city itself. Like a tsunami suspended over Gotham, waiting for Jason's creaking, shuddering dam to crack before it consumes.
Jason can feel it start to fracture—
—start to crack—
—But he takes a deep, shaky breath, because this just gave him what he needed: the evidence that they're still around here. It's still early in the night, all things considered, and Jack could easily be waiting with Tim somewhere nearby. But where—
Jason pauses, tilting his head slightly to glance out over the dark, quiet water lapping at the harbor.
Oh.
Oh.
The storage units.
Of course, Jason thinks, winding the arms of the red jacket around his neck loosely. He's going to give it back to Tim when he finds him again, he is. He will. He finds himself gripping the knot of the sleeves where it's tucked beneath his chin, anxious, his heart tapping out an unsteady rhythm as he crosses the gap once more. The sound only gets louder, louder, practically booming in his ears as he quietly, carefully checks the door of each of the storage units for anything amiss. The light from his helmet casts a thin ray in the dusty darkness, so thin that it's hard to actually see beyond one storage unit at a time.
It's not so thin, though, that Jason misses the one with the cracked door.
He almost misses it regardless of the light, actually, because it's so fucking dark in that hallway; usually, there would be lights, even dim ones, but he supposes there comes a point in the night where they shut off even those lights, presumably because they expect everyone to have cleared the premises.
Everyone, he thinks, his heart firmly swollen in his throat, except perhaps a man with enough money to convince a few security guards to look the other way.
He dithers for longer than he'd like to admit, flicking between his options, and is surprised to find himself … calm, somehow. Not like he isn't a maelstrom of fury that could raise hell at the moment, because he absolutely is, but it's all wrapped in an almost unhinged sort of calm. Tim is alive— injured, based on the blood, but alive —and his father is finally almost in Jason's grasp.
Jason could hurt him. He could kill him. And when he thinks of everything Jack's done, directly or indirectly, he's not entirely against the idea.
He's debating whether to wait for Dick or Marco— and, actually, he knows he really should, because he's probably going to need someone to hold him back from eviscerating Jack —but there's a tiny scrape from inside the storage unit, the smallest shuffle, and Jason—
Jason realizes he can't wait. He can't wait even a second longer.
He yanks the door stopper free, gripping the edge of the door and slamming it open so hard that the resulting clang rattles the entire garage-sized door frame. Actually, it kind of rattles the entire fucking storage unit.
It takes his eyes a moment to adjust, even with the lights in the helmet. Actually, as they adjust, he realizes there is actually a light source in the unit as well; it's dingy and small, just a lamp in the corner powered by a battery. It hadn't been enough light for Jason to have noticed from outside the storage unit, but it's enough, now, for him to see the whites of Jack's eyes, for him to see his dark, dilated pupils as he stares at Jason with nothing short of unadulterated horror.
And Jason knows he looks a fucking sight, too– eyes gleaming white in the darkness of the storage unit, blood-red bat smeared across his chest, the helmet revealing nothing of his expression whatsoever.
Jason's glad for it, because he completely loses any control over said expression when he notices a child-sized mattress in the darkest, unlit corner of the unit— and the body. It's that— that, the fact that Tim's not just tucked away in the back, but he's in the complete opposite corner of the only light.
Jason's chest feels like it's going to fucking collapse, because for a second— for just one, earth-swallowing, sky-shattering second, he thinks that is what he's looking at— a body. The aftermath.
He sees the rise, and then the fall. The world rights itself long enough for Jason to move again.
He takes a single, purposeful step into the unit, and his boot lands hard against the ground— the fall of a guillotine's blade for all Jack is concerned.
"Y— You can't," Jack starts to say. He really is such a small man. Tim had said as much, but Jason positively dwarfs him with his own frame. He cowers back when Jason turns toward him— this small, small man cowers back entirely, seemingly losing every ounce of his composure under Jason's cold, blank stare. And it fucking pisses Jason off, right— seeing him infuriates Jason beyond any comprehensibility. He thinks about everything Tim's been through— everything Jack did to him —and he hates that Jack is this pathetic, tiny, cowardly man who can't even make eye contact with Jason. He finds himself thinking about Bruce, who's nothing like Jack Drake to begin with, but at least Bruce could stand by his fucking decisions. He could stand toe to toe with Jason, despite how much Jason disagreed with him.
For all his crimes, for all of his sins, Jack Drake can't even look Jason in the eye and try to justify any of it.
He wants to ask if it was fucking worth it, those big fucking yachts and that beautiful, empty house and all those goddamn motherfucking trips he took to all the most picturesque places in the world, if all of that was worth it.
Instead, Jason looks at the man who was supposed to protect Tim with his fucking life, and he realizes he has nothing to say to him.
Nothing other than, "If you try to run, I'll shoot you in the head," almost conversationally.
Despite the threat, he's realized in that moment that he won't kill Jack. Jason stands for so much more than just death now, in the wake of his life with Tim, and part of being responsible for his safety— part of doing what Jack had never done —means that he won't beat his father to death on the floor of a musty storage unit. He won't even deal with Jack until Tim is safe, and far away from the situation, physically and mentally.
Or at least— that had been Jason's line of thought, until he actually reaches out to gently turn the prone form tucked away against the wall. His stomach is just a minefield of grenades at this point, ready to pop and go off at any fucking moment.
"Hey, Tim?" he says quietly, only for the kid's ears. He figures Tim must be asleep— it's not surprising, given everything that had happened to him that day.
But Tim doesn't respond like a person being roused from sleep.
He lolls slightly toward Jason, and it's just so dark that Jason needs the light from his helmet to even get a proper look at Tim's face. At the blank set of his mouth, at the lowered, inexpressive eyebrows, and most importantly, his eyes.
Tim's pupils are blown wide, so wide that the thin circle of white is hardly visible anymore. They seem to swallow the light down like a void, and lost in them, Jason's words actually catch in his throat and choke him.
"Did you," he says, and his throat bleeds. He can hear Jack shuffling nervously without even turning around.
Don't think about Jack, he tells himself, even though the fine tremor buzzing underneath his skin has long since snowballed into a furious, cacophonic rattling. He reaches out, gathering Tim's arms into his own to coax him out of the corner, and finds it thankfully easy to be gentle despite the roar for blood that seems to crash like the angry sea against the inside of his skin.
"Can you come out, Tim?" he asks, still keeping his tone low, still keeping it calm— somehow.
"I can come out," Tim says immediately, matching Jason's whisper. He's in just a thin white undershirt and shorts, and there's a dreamy sort of softness in his words that unsettles Jason, that clicks some sort of unlabeled switch on in Jason's brain. He can't— place it, he can't— "I can come out. I can—"
Reflexively, Jason hushes him. "Hey, it's okay," he says, trying to soothe him— even though he kind of wonders if he's soothing himself, actually, because dread suddenly seems to consume every single one of his bones. It's this fucking feeling of deja vu, and it's so strong, so terrifying and strong that it's making it hard to speak, to think. He's breaking out into a cold sweat, which is always such a fucking god-awful combination with the helmet that makes him run hot—
"Okay," Tim agrees, staring at Jason; where one of his hands winds around Tim's wrists, he can feel Tim's pulse quicken sharply despite how sluggish the kid's movements are. "It's okay."
And then.
And then Jason realizes why he feels like he's going to be sick.
"Did you…" he says again, almost like he's speaking through a dream— no, a fucking nightmare. "Did you give Tim I-5?"
He feels Jack flinch. It's all the fucking confirmation he needs. Leather creaks ominously as his hands curl into fists.
"Did you. Give my kid. I-5?"
Everything he'd considered earlier seems to dissolve away into ash as he slowly, almost lethargically, rolls to his feet.
Tim isn't just drugged— he's scared out of his fucking mind and utterly susceptible to suggestion, which is why he's talking like— that. Jason had spent so long trying to eradicate any trace of I-5, I-fucking-5, only for it to knock on the door of his own home, only for it to bury its claws right into his. Own. Kid.
And Jack Drake had been the one to let it in.
He doesn't know when he starts hitting; all he really recalls is feeling like a rocket being launched with how fast he crosses the room. The first fist is already too much for Jack, the mousy, cowardly, abusive piece of shit— a squishy, soft thing with bones that splinter apart like fragile spider legs.
Jason can't kill him fast enough,
He can't kill him slow enough.
He can feel wetness smeared against his cheeks from the anger, from the way it spills out of his eyes. He feels like he did back when I-5 first made its rounds, younger and wilder and angrier, so much angrier. So, so much angrier. He feels the same way now, so much so that he can taste blood trickle down along his upper lip. His nose throbs sharply, ears ringing, hands shaking where they're wrapped around Jack's neck.
"Did you touch him," Jason says, or really bellows. He isn't sure. His voice doesn't sound loud enough to him, because the world is moving like it's been dunked underwater and everything sounds muffled and blurry. The modulator twists the words into a screeching crackle, practically garbling them unintelligible. But even though he's practically punched Jack's face into a pulp, he can still see the fear. He can still feel the fear, and it feels so good, so fucking addictive. He wants Jack to be as afraid as Tim had been— no, more.
"No," Jack pleads as he blindly scrabbles at the hand around his neck, and the word comes out like mush through his blood-filled mouth. And see, Jason might have let up, he might have at least loosened his hold enough to let one tiny stream of air through, if Jack hadn't said, in apparently a fit of ongoing fucking stupidity, "I din' lay a hand on 'im. It was jus' t'keep him quiet."
For a moment, the only sound in the room is the faint buzz of the dusty little lamp. Jason stops breathing altogether; he can feel blood dripping off his chin, now.
"You," he says, voice cracking slightly, and can't even think of an insult vile enough— or even words, really. His brain just hums blankly.
(He's going to break Jack's fucking neck.
He's going to drag him all the way to the Lazarus Pit, resurrect him, and then kill him again.
He has all the time in the world to repeat that forever.)
Jack seems to realize he's fucked up, because he's backtracking in Jason's silence. He's blubbering for his life, now, while Jason just stares at him mutely, almost thoughtfully, wondering what Jack might look like with his intestines wrapped around his neck. He's kind of itching to find out.
His comm crackles, probably either Dick or Marco trying to reach him, but he's too far gone, at this point. The bones of Jack's neck grind together underneath Jason's hand, and he writhes and twists about in his hold pathetically like a netted fish flopping about on dry land.
And Jason's ready to do it.
(He's too far gone.)
Tim hums. The tiniest sound, barely audible, only just enough for Jason to hear it in between Jack's gagging.
(Right?)
Jason hazily lifts his head, shifting his focus from Jack to Tim, and it's like— like a puzzle piece that had been pressed into the wrong place, a slot too small for it, shifts to the right one and clicks into place. Tim's hand dangles loose over the side of the mattress and he's not looking exactly at Jason, but his expression—
Jason's never really needed a manual to know what fear looks like.
He just doesn't know if it's because of I-5 or because of Jason, who's about one solid squeeze from killing Tim's dad.
For a moment, Jason doesn't move. He'd only need to flex his hand once, once more, and Jack would no longer be able to hurt anyone.
But—
Killing Jack is fucking easy. The easiest thing in the world, right now.
Parenthood isn't.
And parenthood means making the hard decisions. Parenthood means not killing Jack Drake and throwing his body into the harbor. Parenthood means letting someone else deal with what's left of him— not Jason, a dead boy with a trigger finger.
A dead boy with a trigger finger who somehow ended up being a parent himself.
Jason releases Jack's throat . He feels like he's walking through fresh cement as he makes his way back over to Tim and kneels down next to the mattress again. Tim rolls his eyes slightly to look up, not able to move much further, and Jason unwinds the sleeves of the jacket from around his neck before pulling it over the kid's trembling limbs.
"Makes you brave, right?" he asks quietly, and Tim— doesn't seem to understand what Jason's saying, exactly, but muscle memory seems to kick in, because his shoulders loosen slightly as he nestles back into the soft fabric.
"Makes me brave," Tim agrees in that same vague voice as before. Jason grits his teeth.
"Listen, kid, I'm going to need to move you," he says reluctantly, never raising his voice above a whisper. Tim stares at him, glossy-eyed and dazed, and fuck, Jason feels wrong just interacting with Tim like this. He knows Tim understands what he's saying, to some degree, but there's no hope of him protesting, or suggesting alternatives. He has no chance of advocating for himself, not under I-5, and influencing him like this makes Jason's stomach twist up into tight, furious knots. He wishes Jack was out of his sight, because knowing he's in killing range is really, really testing the limits of Jason's self-control. "I know… you can't say anything, I know you can't even agree to being moved, not really, and I'm sorry. I won't do any more than necessary. I promise."
"Okay," Tim says, because of course he does. It's infuriating not being able to know what he's actually thinking; when Jason stands, hoisting Tim's dead weight up into his arms gently, he swears he can feel Tim trembling beneath the red jacket. Still afraid, with no way of expressing it, and Jason feels like he can't fucking breathe.
Goddamn fear toxin. He has a whole list of offenses to kick Crane's ass for, between Dick and Tim.
He turns back toward Jack, and that's when he notices Marco and Dick standing at the entrance of the storage unit. The way the dim light falls, it only just casts shadows on both of their faces. It's especially odd for him to see Dick at a crime scene like this, without his costume, without the black and blue. It's isolating, somehow, but he can't explain why.
"Took you long enough," he says hoarsely.
It's not the prettiest sight to walk into, admittedly; Jason's covered in blood and Jack's a sight as well— with just one derisive glance, Jason can tell it's going to be a while before he's back in any condition to cause harm to anyone again, but even still, he's trying to stagger back up to upright position, despite how hilariously he's outnumbered. He wonders if Jack still thinks he could make it out of this situation with Tim, how deep that idiotic confidence poisons his blood.
"Tim," Dick says, a little out of breath, his gaze flicking from Jack to Jason's arms, and Jason splays his fingers over the back of Tim's head, beneath the hood; his knuckles sting something fierce.
"He's— okay," Jason says, stilted, and wishes he could remove his helmet to swipe the blood off his upper lip; it had been one hell of a nosebleed, and it hasn't stopped yet.
"Sleeping?" Marco asks, and he's looking at Jack like he's also considering what his intestines might look like wrapped around his neck.
Jason's expression, hidden behind the helmet, cracks.
"Drugged," he corrects, and he's glad his voice stays steady even when his face doesn't. "Jack gave h— him."
Oh. Maybe he hadn't actually been able to hide it, after all.
Dick's breath hitches; he looks stricken, and with no mask, the expression is almost nuclear in its impact.
And Marco. Jason actually watches his expression change, and he finds himself— not afraid, exactly, but something adjacent. Because even though his face betrays very little underneath the helmet, there are some things that go unsaid. Jason doesn't need to say I-5; it's the hitch in his voice, Tim's silence, his hand dangling over Jason's shoulder.
In any case, the foreboding feeling isn't for himself— it's not for Jack, either. Because he knows Dick won't kill Jack, but he doesn't know that Marco won't.
"Nobody would find him," Marco says, and Jack twists back surprisingly fast, so fast that Jason is surprised (and a little disappointed) that he doesn't break his own neck.
"I know," Jason says.
"The harbor is right there," Marco says. It's almost pleading.
"I know," Jason says regretfully. It had been his first idea for disposal, after all.
"Fuck," Marco says with feeling, bitterly, and the tension in Dick's shoulders seems to ease slightly at the relent. Marco isn't going to kill Jack; neither of them are, not now, and either way, Dick would stop them, even if he's standing a few feet away. Dick moves fast, and Jason has no doubt he'd have come between them if the situation necessitated it.
Jason hates to admit it, but… the situation would have necessitated it, and Dick knows that. There's a bigger priority at hand, right now, and killing Jack doesn't actually solve any of their problems— if Jack dies, or even goes missing, then the law might step in and relocate Tim to god knows where, possibly even out of the state, and Jason would literally rather dunk himself back into the Pit and pledge his allegiance to Ra's al Ghul than let that happen.
So even though he wants to— they both want to —he lets Dick haul Jack up unceremoniously, lets Dick incapacitate him. It has to be Dick, doesn't it, because Jason's hands might find their way around Jack's fucking neck—
Even still, he's gratified to see how roughly Dick is treating Jack, with no regard to his injuries.
He loosens his hold slightly, moving past the two of them to stand next to Marco. He doesn't want to relinquish his grip on Tim— maybe not ever, now that he thinks about it, but he hands him over to Marco anyway; he has to make a call, and he doesn't want Tim to overhear and get any more freaked out than he already is. His life's about to get completely fucking flipped upside down, after all, and Jason wants him to be sober when it happens.
He paces away a few feet, glancing back at Marco and Tim before dialing the number.
It does ring this time; Jason finds himself holding his breath after the first, the second. He nearly loses his nerve and hangs up, but before he can, Bruce picks up.
"We found him," Jason says before Bruce can get in the first word, worrying away at the inside of his cheek with his teeth. "So— Um." He rubs the back of his head, hating how awkward he feels, hating— all of this. It isn't that he— it isn't that some part of him doesn't long to find something to reconnect over, or that he never wanted to reconnect at all; looking after Tim had made him slightly more keen on the idea. It's just that the reconnection being over Tim, over Tim's ordeal, feels— wrong, somehow, especially when Tim hadn't trusted Bruce.
Well— Maybe he'll tell Tim that Batman helped them out.
"Good," Bruce says, ever a man of many words. There's a long, stretching silence for a moment, before Bruce tries to initiate something himself. "I'm glad you got him back, Jason."
"Me too," Jason says. There's silence again, but it's not as awkward this time— it's more thoughtful, maybe a little longing. It's hard to tell with Bruce, as it so often is; Jason wonders if Bruce is remembering the last time when his child didn't come home. At the thought, Jason… realizes he does actually— not pity Bruce, per se, but maybe understand where he's coming from, just a little more. He's had only nineteen heart attacks since Tim went back to Jack, and in all honesty, he doesn't know if he's going to be able to handle Tim leaving his sight for at least the next year. The very thought of this possibly happening again makes him want to break out in hives.
"So—" Jason says, and clears his throat. "You're not going to ask if Jack is…." He doesn't elaborate further, hoping Bruce can read between the lines.
"Do I need to?" Bruce asks simply.
Jason stares skyward, and his eyes sting. It's hardly approval, and he wouldn't even call it acceptance, but it's possibly the closest thing to trust, to an olive branch. Maybe a single leaf. Jason will take it, mostly because he doesn't have the brain power to do anything else. Now that all of the adrenaline's bled out, Jason's left with only the echo of a jitter and some of the worst fatigue he's felt in a long time.
"I might still need— not Batman, but. Um— There's some legal stuff." He kicks at the ground with his boot, wishing that he could just— spit it out. Say it. I want help. I need help. I can't do this on my own. "Fuck. Jack—"
"Actually," Bruce says, cutting off Jason's rambling, "I found quite a few … interesting files on Jack's work computer when I went to find out how much he actually knew. As far as I can tell, he knows your identity, but it doesn't seem like he actually managed to figure out the rest."
"'S fine," Jason says hoarsely, and means it. Tim's still a child, even if he's precocious and often seems older than he actually is; to that end, he can see how Jack finding out about Jason's identity would seem absolutely catastrophic to a little kid. In Tim's head, Jason's Red Hood and Robin; that's something far scarier for his father to have figured out, because that's a connection back to Batman, back to Bruce Wayne. In actuality, Jason doesn't really care if Jack knows who he is; for all intents and purposes, Jason Todd is dead, and there's very little Jack can do with that information— he likely hadn't thought of what to do if Tim called his bluff on the matter. Jason has a common enough name, and he has a hard time believing Jack would actually entertain the idea of Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne's son, coming back to life.
"We'll figure out what to do with that in due course," Bruce says, drawing Jason back from his reverie. "But what I really wanted to tell you is that I have found information that could put Jack away for a long time."
Jason straightens, shoulders stiffening. "In what context?" he asks carefully, wondering if Bruce somehow stumbled upon the worst of it. When Bruce speaks, however, his tone is equally as careful— as if he's realized from Jason's question that there is more.
"Fraud, scamming investors, artifact smuggling…" Bruce trails off, and his voice sharpens. "What do you know?"
"It's not for me to tell," Jason says shortly, but tries to soften the edge of his voice. He can admit to himself that he's getting defensive, protective, but there's no need to take that out on Bruce; if Tim ever wants to divulge, he'll get there when he gets there. For now, if they don't need to dig it up, Jason wants to afford Tim that peace for as long as possible. "But it is bad, and it involves Tim, and if possible, I'd like to avoid all of that in the legalities for now. Is there enough from just what you found to force Jack to transfer his guardianship temporarily?"
"It might take a little while, but it can be done." Bruce says, and then his tone takes on an unusual edge, something Jason has a hard time interpreting. "Does that mean you plan on coming back to life, to apply for guardianship?"
Jason takes a deep breath. "Actually," he says, and hopes his voice doesn't waver. "It's not me who's taking over guardianship."
It takes I-5 six hours to wear off.
Six hours.
Dick hasn't divulged where he'd taken Jack for the time being, probably for the best, but Jason's positive it's Blackgate. Naturally, he'd opted to bring Tim back home for him to sleep off the effects of the drug, and had been appreciative when both Marco and Dick had offered the both of them privacy. He's not sure how much Tim can handle now, and how much he will be able to handle once he properly wakes up; either way, he figures the less people the better.
He isn't even sure if Tim's up for seeing Leslie right now— all he can hope is that at some point, Tim will feel safe enough to allow Jason to take him to her clinic. At least Tim is familiar with her, if only a little, because Jason doesn't think he could bring himself to hand Tim over to just any doctor, hippocratic oath or not. He's completely on edge, and he's pretty sure Tim would also completely freak all the way out.
Jason doesn't sleep with Tim, because he doesn't want Tim to wake up and startle at having someone so close to him, but he does sleep on the floor next to the bed. And really, he doesn't even sleep so much as he lies there and stares at the ceiling and wallows in a ridiculous amount of anxiety over his decision.
It isn't as if the agreement had been difficult, or that Bruce had even argued; he'd readily agreed to take up the spot of Tim's guardian temporarily, just until Jason could work out the next step with Tim. Even still, the thought of Tim being an honorary Wayne— it's nerve-wracking, somehow, and Jason can't place why. Maybe it's because he isn't even a Wayne anymore, or maybe it's because of their fallout. Maybe it's because now, Bruce has much more of an official title than Jason does, than Jason feasibly could have, right now, and that fucking stings.
Fuck. For once, he really wishes he wasn't still dead. It'd been great for the crime, but it's so much less great when he's trying to have guardianship over a child.
And he knows Bruce won't do anything but bear the title for the legalities. He knows Bruce wouldn't take Tim away.
But the thought that he could— that he could, if maybe he ever though Jason wasn't good enough—
Jason's stomach twists into a noose at the very thought.
He props himself up on his elbows, glancing toward the bed, and startles slightly when he realizes Tim's also awake, half-slitted eyes directed hazily in Jason's direction.
"Hey, buddy," he says, cautious and relieved, his voice a little raspy as he sits up completely. He reaches a hand out and rests it on the comforter a decent distance away from Tim, just showing that he's there, that he's nearby, that this isn't a dream— or a nightmare, maybe.
Tim blinks slowly, tucking his head in closer to his body. It's a good sign; I-5 doesn't paralyze, necessarily, but it can be incredibly difficult to move or speak of one's own volition while under its influence. Tim had only been able to answer him before because Jason spoke to him first, and it's clear he's struggling to speak now, without further prompting from Jason.
"I—" Tim starts, and then stops. He opens his mouth once more, sluggishly, and Jason waits patiently for him to form the words.
True to form, Tim does try. He tries his damnedest to get them out for a good few minutes, but eventually sniffles, defeated, his eyes watering from the exertion.
Jason feels his own expression fall slightly at the distress in the sound. It's clear that the hold of the drug is still a little too strong, but Jason can't imagine how terrifying it is for Tim, and how terrifying it must have been all the other times, too. Lying there, with a stranger looming over him, unable to move, to speak, to do anything but just let it happen— it's one of the scariest things Jason could imagine anyone ever going through, let alone a child.
"Can you curl your fingers to signal yes?" Jason asks Tim quietly, careful to phrase it as a question instead of a command, and rests his head in his arms at the edge of the bed.
Tim swallows, and his fingers twitch slightly. It's good enough for Jason; all he needs is a sign that Tim is there, to some extent.
"Can I come sit with you?" Jason continues, as gentle as he can possibly be.
Tim exhales with effort, a shaky sound. A moment passes, but his fingers twitch again, fingertips curling in slightly.
Jason doesn't hesitate a moment longer before moving across the bed to sit beside Tim— still a couple inches away, but closer this time. "And can I give you a hug?"
Tim blinks at him again, and his nose scrunches up. He curls his fingers again, with a little more vigor this time, and the lump in Jason's throat expands, grows thorns until can't even swallow properly. There's a burgeoning pressure behind his eyes, warning him of the inevitability of a total breakdown, but he manages to keep it together for now as he winds his arms around Tim and draws him close.
"I'm so sorry, Tim," he says, and Tim utterly melts against him, any remaining stiffness leaking out of him with someone to fall into completely. It's trust, it means Tim hasn't completely lost faith in him. Jason can work with that— he'll fucking take anything at this point. "I never should have left you alone that night, I— I'm sorry. You— He shouldn't have—"
Once, Jason Todd had forgiven Batman for not making it to him on time. He maintains, still, that for all his faults, Bruce would have come earlier if only he had known. He hopes Tim knows he would have come, too, if only he'd realized. If only he'd known what had been about to happen— he would've come earlier, much, much earlier.
And he doesn't know what the fuck he would've done if he'd found a body at the end of that road; he'd barely been able to let Jack go today, and Tim had been alive.
Tim makes a soft, choked sound low in his throat, hooking one finger into Jason's t-shirt, and Jason tilts his head to rest it against Tim's. He brushes a gentle thumb over Tim's bruised knuckles— those had been the source of blood on his hoodie. As far as he can tell, Tim isn't otherwise injured— at least, not in the physical sense.
They just sit like that, for a moment, and then a minute, and then an hour. They sit long enough for Tim to be able to try words again— and he succeeds, this time.
"Dad?" is the first thing he asks, and Jason knew the question would come. Even still, he can hear hatred so obviously color his tone dark, as much as he tries unsuccessfully not to let it in.
"Dickie took him," he says carefully, cupping a hand over the back of Tim's head. "If I had to guess, Bruce probably pulled a favor or two with the commissioner to have him spend a little while at Blackgate, but— he's alive, Tim."
Tim shifts slightly, and his grip tightens. "Now?"
"Now…" Jason hesitates. "Now, you just focus on recovering. I-5 is a dangerous drug, Tim, and— I want to check if there were any lasting effects on you. It won't be until you're ready, but— you think you might be up to go to Leslie?"
Where Tim is pressed against him, Jason can feel more than hear his heartbeat pick up almost instantly.
"Now?" he asks again, shaky-voiced, and the tremble in his voice is strikingly more prominent now.
"No, not now," Jason says reassuringly. "Only when you're ready, Tim. Now, you need rest, and you need a hell of a lot of it, because your body's been through hell and back. We'll figure things out little by little." He hesitates, and then adds, "one other thing. I did ask Bruce to take temporary guardianship, but only because it's likely that if I didn't, then … I don't know, with Jack being deemed unfit as a guardian, I don't want you to end up god knows where. I have my issues with the old man, but he's got one hell of a pull above ground, and he promised it would only be in name. I'm sorry to spring it on you, but I was a little desperate, and I needed someone with a lot of sway in Gotham."
Tim tilts his head back slightly, and Jason doesn't quite know what to make of his expression.
"You?" he asks plainly.
Ah.
Jason smiles slightly, and he knows it's a little bit wobbly. He can feel it. "You bet, kid. Just wait until I come back to life— well, again."
"Still?" Tim persists, and fuck, this kid is killing him.
"Still," Jason says firmly. "The plan hasn't changed. You. Me. That fuckin' apartment with the bookcases and that giant-ass kitchen, and shit, I'm going to make you just about a hundred muffins in there. Or donuts. Or cupcakes. Shit, anything you want, I could make it in that kitchen."
The sound Tim makes is so hopefully close to a laugh.
The thing about laughter, though, is that it's only a hiccup away from crying, and Tim blurs that line before he even seems to realize what's happening. Jason had been expecting them to reach critical levels at some point during the night; even still, Tim's fear is all-encompassing, and when he cries, he quails like the boughs of a sapling in a hurricane. The more he gains control of his hands again, his face, his voice, the more visceral his sorrow, and fuck, it hurts in a way Jason can't explain, to hear Tim like that.
"I didn't want to leave," Tim says as he comes back to himself. His hands, finally entirely free, practically claw into Jason's shirt with a sort of terrible, frantic intensity. "I w— was happy."
"I know," Jason says.
"I want us," Tim hiccups, barely understandable. Jason can see him literally falling apart in real time, and all of a sudden, holding Tim feels like holding pieces of him together. "I'm sorry."
"I know," Jason says, and the control he's trying so hard to maintain starts to slip. "But I don't want you to be sorry. It wasn't your fault, you're just a kid—"
"No," Tim says, or really sort of warbles. "It's not, it's not okay. You trusted me. I promised."
And that's when the strings keeping Jason together just— snap.
"I thought you were dead," he says, and Tim goes very, very quiet. Jason's trying not to let everything just spill out, but he's been under so much fucking stress, and now, he can't seem to put it all back inside. It feels like it's been months coming. "I thought y— you were dead. For just a second. It was like— being—" He shakes his head, hands on Tim's shoulders, and he isn't sure which one of them he's trying to ground. "Like nothing was worth it anymore. I didn't just want to hurt your dad, I— and then when I found out about the drug, Tim, I wanted to fucking— do a lot more than hurt him." He can't bring himself to be any more clear, mostly because he doesn't want Tim to look at him like— like he's a threat, the way Jack had looked at him. "Because I'm also just a fucking emotional kid, sometimes, I guess, even if I'm technically an adult," he adds, gulping air in harshly. "It's my first time, Tim, what if I mess up again?" he asks, and there's so much— so much, that just bubbles up out of him, so much relief and worry and fear, so much fear, so much fear.
(He's not even sure that dying had been scarier.)
"I've never felt more like a kid," he admits, words scraping raw against the inside of his throat, against his tongue; they're bloody on their way out. "Like I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. Like I needed my dad. It was the first— f-first time, I've reached out to him in so long— and it was hard, but nothing. Nothing, nothing could compare to the thought of what could have happened to— to."
Tim stares at him in shock, white-faced.
"That shit is barely meant for adults," Jason says, and wants to throw up. "I-7 kills people regularly, adult people, and you— you."
He isn't trying to scare Tim— He knows he's being too honest, but he was so afraid, and he's just some guy who doesn't always know how to regulate his fucking emotions. He's just some guy, and he's in over his head, but there's no chance he'll let Tim go, now. He doesn't care if he's in over his head for the rest of his life.
"I don't want you to promise me anything," Jason says, trying to take a deep breath. "Because you're a kid. And you might do this shit again, because that's what kids do." He would know. "But Tim, no matter what happens, or— or who has you, or where they take you— I'll come." He bumps his forehead against Tim's, just relieved that he can, that he's here. "I may be late, like— like I was this time. But I'll be there. I will."
(It's such a lofty promise, but Jason's willing to do damn near anything to keep it.)
Tim's entire body shudders, once, and his expression crumples. "I believe you," he says, and it comes out half-eclipsed into a whisper as he grips Jason's sleeves. "I'll— I'll be really brave until you get there."
Jason closes his eyes. You don't always have to be brave, he wants to say. Sometimes, you can just be a little kid, he wants to say. But sometimes, it isn't about that; sometimes, it's about reciprocity. It's about trusting each other. It's about— this.
"Be brave for as long as you can, Tim," he says, "and I'll find you."
"Here," Marco says a couple hours later, and Jason's so exhausted that he doesn't even notice what he takes from Marco— at first.
Blearily, he looks from his hand, to Marco, and then back to his hand. "Is this—"
"It is," Marco says evenly, and immediately, Jason understands.
"I nicked it from the storage unit after Jack and Dick cleared out." Marco looks down at his watch, and then past Jason at the still-dark morning sky beyond the window. "I have time to watch over Tim while he sleeps. Breakfast starts at 6 at Blackgate. Think you can make it there and back in an hour?"
Jack Drake is a fucking mess.
Jason's satisfied about it, and yet— not, at the same time. Mostly because he still so sincerely wants him dead, but knows, with full certainty now, that despite everything he's done, he still means something to Tim.
Jason understands. That doesn't mean it doesn't fucking incense him.
"'S never going to stick," Jack says through a swollen face and a mouthful of oatmeal— so much more than he deserves to have. "Whatever smear campaign you and Bruce Wayne are running. I'll get my son back."
Jason silently watches through the eyes of his helmet until Jack's finished his bowl of oatmeal, and then he crouches down in front of him. To his credit, Jack doesn't flinch back— so full of bravery, with simple steel bars separating him from Jason's wrath. Even still, he stares warily as Jason reaches into one of the pouches on his belt.
"I'll scream," Jack hisses. "If you try anything, I'll scream."
Wordlessly, Jason dangles the baggie Marco had given him between his thumb and his forefinger, displaying it to Jack.
"That's—" Jack's expression flickers with confusion. "But— there were still a few in there. Where did they—"
He jerks, then, and clasps a hand against his chest.
"That'd be the fear toxin from I-4," Jason says pleasantly.
"Y—" Jack gasps, and then curls involuntarily onto his side, limbs locking up into fetal position so tightly that Jason's surprised his legs don't meld together. His gaze swivels around wildly in one last scramble for control, and then snaps to his empty bowl. "Can't—"
Jason smiles. It's not a nice smile.
"And that would be I-5," he says, standing up. "Don't worry— it won't kill you, not at these doses. But a parent should take on a hands-on approach sometimes, really know what their kid's getting into."
Jack's mouth gapes open into a soundless scream, his eyes rolling back into his head until all Jason can see are thin white crescents.
They're a terrifying combination, I-4 and I-5. Jason suspects Marco had figured out as much the moment he'd seen the baggie in the storage unit. Jack had likely been planning to use all of the remaining pills on Tim at some point, and, well— how fortunate that they hadn't been wasted, really.
"Oh, and—" Jason leans in slightly, clicking his tongue down at Jack. "Last cell in the block, you know how it goes. Might be a while before anyone checks in on you, especially if I convinced the guard for this floor to look the other way for a few hours. I'm sure you'll be fine, though— Tim pulled through, after all." He taps the bars with his knuckles. "Good luck."
He'd had regrets about Jack when he'd walked away from the storage unit.
When he walks away from Blackgate, he doesn't have nearly as many.