The phone was ringing. Jason glanced at it sideways, weighing the pros and cons of answering. On the one hand, it was probably a telemarketer. On the other hand, Jason was bored, and he wouldn't mind torturing some unsuspecting scam artist out of a few hours of his time. Jason's previous record for holding a scammer on the line rested at 5 hours, and while he wasn't sure he was ready to go for gold, he wouldn't mind a bit of fun…
Just before the phone ran out of rings, Jason snatched it up, not bothering to check the caller ID. "'Yello?"
"Hello, sir, this is the Gotham Police Department. We were calling about one Damian Wayne - is this his emergency contact Todd Peters?"
Jason slapped a hand over the phone before bellowing into the mansion: "TIMOTHY THE KIDS GOT ARRESTED."
Jason drove, and kept shooting Tim glances out of the corner of his eye as they made their way to the station. Tim was absorbed in his computer, double checking the online identity he'd set up for Dick, and running over the security footage he could find of the kid's arrest and subsequent imprisonment.
Jason couldn't see any of the footage while he was driving (he'd tried; Tim had shoved his face back into a forward position), but Tim's drawn features couldn't be good. Still, there was no panicking involved, which was a hopeful sign.
Dick had been doing so well, too. The kid had been improving by leaps and bounds, really coming out of his shell… maybe he'd built up enough of a tolerance to handle this situation. He'd be shaken up, sure, but maybe he'd see that even getting a little bit arrested wasn't so bad, and he could walk it off.
No harm no foul.
Jason repeated that phrase like a mantra in his head, repeating each time the wheels of the car went around.
The car screeched into the precinct, and the two hopped out to race inside the building. As much as Jason wished he could defer the formalities and paperwork to Tim, he was expected to be the legal adult in this situation, and so was forced to endure the litany of thinly-veiled suspicion and annoyance that came with bailing your two idiot brothers out of prison.
Well. One idiot brother and one unrelated family friend, if you asked the very-official records Tim was able to produce. In its own way, it was sort of true.
As soon as they were taken to see the kids, Jason felt his heart sink. Damian was his normal glowering ball of anger, but Dick was staring into the middle distance, pressed against the wall with dried tear tracks down his cheeks. Damian's shifting did nothing to attract his attention, nor did Jason and Tim's calls.
Jason whirled around - "We're taking him, now."
The officer next to him frowned, "I'm afraid that's not possible. You see we need-"
Jason was on the verge of cutting her off, but Tim beat him to it. "Of course mam, I understand wanting to play this by the book. Of course, you can expect a lawsuit for interrogating a minor without an adult present in your very near future."
Her face twisted in surprise, and Jason smirked smugly at her from behind Tim. He couldn't believe they'd been stupid enough to try that… but that was the GCPD for you. The gift that never stopped giving.
Shortly afterward, Damian and Dick were being escorted to the car, Dick maintaining a death grip on Damian's hand. The two of them shuffled into the back and Tim joined them, the two sandwiching Dick between them like a sardine.
Jason tried not to think about being pushed away from Dick again (why were they the ones in the back; why did he have to stay up here?), and focused on driving without incident.
Green.
Green.
Green.
As soon as they pulled into the garage, Tim was bundling Dick up and carrying him away, Damian on his heels, stewing with anger. They both seemed to know where they were going, and Jason trailed behind, so many words clogging his throat that nothing seemed to come out.
The little procession filed into Tim's room, as the boy genius tucked Dick into his bed and surrounded them with pillows. Tim glanced upwards - "Damian, can you get-"
Damian nodded jerkily, and vanished, feet silently slipping over the floorboards.
He always did go ninja when he was uncomfortable.
Tim turned his gaze to Jason, who was still standing there uselessly, watching and waiting and staring and silent. His hands trembled in aborted movements, and his throat contorted in halting gulps as he took deep breaths to prepare to say something (anything) and he was so angry that he didn't know what Damian had found it so obvious to get.
"Jaybird, could you make some hot chocolate, please?"
Jason wanted to scream. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to know why Tim was the one who got to hold Dick. He wanted to rip that stupid paperwork the police made him sign to shreds. He wanted to set the mansion on fire and smash someone's face in and burn everything in liquid green flame burning burningBURNING-"
Jason turned sharply on his heel and stalked away.
The buzzing persisted, in his fingers and under his scalp, and he tried to shake himself awake through deep gulps of cool air but there was a hazy fog of static that had settled over his mind. His hands shook as they set the kettle on the stove, and while he was down here the two brats were probably POISONING DICK AGAINST HIM filling him with LIES and they were LAUGHING at him because they sent him DOWN HERE away from Dick nobody TRUSTED him whynot whynot that SMUG woman and dick in JAIL who put an eight year old in jail they hurt him they traumatized him this wasn't right tiny-small child too small dick grayson tear tracks too cold paleshakingnomovingkillbruceRIGHTNOW
Jason gasped, the screaming of the kettle piercing the haze that had snared his mind. His gaze dropped to his hands (stinging?) to find blood smeared over his knuckles. He raised his head to see shattered ceramic littering the floor, metal appliances twisted out of shape.
The kettle was still screaming.
Numbly, brain still tingling, Jason closed his hand around the kettle handle (his fingers were so cold) and took it off the heat. Pour into the cups, watch the swirling disintegrating chocolate meld with the liquid. Spoons. Into the cups.
Jason watched his bloody hands follow his instructions, blinking in morbid fascination as a stranger's hands did his tasks; these were his hands, he didn't know them.
Jason leaned back against the counter, deep breaths filling his lungs with cold air. There was nothing to hit. He couldn't go to war over this. There was nothing to do.
But there was something to do. He couldn't show up covered in blood. Jason watched as his shaking hands cleaned themselves, before he stalked numbly away to find bandages. Bandages. Yes.
Now a tray, for all these cups.
Jason took each step up the stairs with purpose, each footfall imprinting in his mind as distinct and separate from the others, but by the time he reached the top of the stairwell they had all blended together.
Jason pushed his way into the room, to find Tim and Damian (of course) cuddling Dick between them on the bed. Dick was holding his stuffed elephant, Zitka (of course, that was what Damian had gotten), and was now wearing his robin sweater, which he hadn't been earlier, Jason was pretty sure.
"Dinner's served," Jason said, which was the wrong thing to say because it wasn't time for dinner, and he only had drinks anyway, but this was what he had come up with.
Tim and Jason look at him, and Jason can feel them staring at his hands, can feel their gaze burn into his knuckles, but he ignores it (he will ignore it) and sets down the tray beside the bed.
"Thank you, Jason." Tim presses a cup into Dick's hands, but he doesn't do anything with it. Someone has cleaned up Dick's face; the tear tracks are gone. He isn't crying anymore, just staring. He isn't shaking, either.
Tim and Damian look worried.
There is no room for Jason on either side of Dick.
If he leaves, he will be proving every awful thing they already think about him.
The burning in his chest tells him to stay, to do something but there's nowhere to go, and he feels so awkward, and every moment they just stare at him makes it worse they're wondering why he doesn't go away he knows it he wants to help but there's no room for him here…
Jason turns, and walks out of the room.
The library is quiet, and Jason is sitting on the loveseat with a book he grabbed at random and hasn't read a word of. He doesn't know how much time has passed since he left. Minutes or hours. Maybe he'll never decide to leave, and no one will come for him. Maybe he'll just die here, starve to death and wither away into a skeleton that someone will find in a few years and they'll give him another trophy case.
It seems like a profound thought, but in a few seconds Jason can't remember what he was thinking about. How long has he been here?
The door creaks open (surprise, anticipation, forboding) and Tim slips into his haven (Pretender, Replacement, favorite). Tim looks awkward and out of place (he can't be out of place around Jason, Jason is out of place because Tim took his place but that makes them both more out of place than ever) and he rubs his palms on his pants which he did when he was a little kid but doesn't do very much anymore.
Tim glances at Jason (he isn't doing anything embarrassing like holding the book upside-down, is he?) and shuffles forward.
"He's not doing very well."
Thank you, Timothy, for your brilliant observation.
"He won't respond to us. Damian's sitting with him now, but I think we have to be prepared for the fact that this might take a long time to get over."
Jason's eyes narrow. Tim is here, now, which means he can focus on Tim, and what Tim has done, and how Jason feels about Tim. He feels angry.
"Oh, we need to be prepared, do we?" He isn't even trying to sound angry, biting, poisonous. It just happens. It's just him. From the heart the mouth speaks.
Tim's gaze shifts and his face contorts, but Jason can't read faces right now. "Yes."
"I thought you just wanted me out of your way? I thought I was just one-too-many, we've got to get Jason out of there before he traumatizes the little brat!"
Tim holds up his hands as if he needs to calm Jason down, placate him, as if Jason is a threat. "That wasn't it at all, Jason."
"Oh yeah? How come you two are the only ones who can be with him? How come you both got to have him in the backseat while I had to drive? And on the bed! You sent me away so you two could have him and there wasn't room!"
Is he making sense? Tim is the little genius, he should figure it out.
"Jason, no, we weren't trying to exclude you. You're just always the one who's been driving, so we didn't think to do anything else. And in the bedroom… I sent Damian to get Zitka because he knows where she is. He's spent the most time in Dick's room. I asked you to get hot chocolate because you were the only other one there and then by the time you got back… well, of course Damian wanted to sit on Dick's other side. If you asked, we could've moved around to fit you."
"That's a lot of words to try and make excuses, Timmy!"
Jason is advancing now, and Tim backs away from him, as if Jason is dangerous, as if Jason is an animal. And he's just. So. ANGRY!
"Well, I don't believe it for a second! You've never trusted me! You always wanted me out of the way. And I'm sick of it!"
And Tim looks up at him in that stupid way he does when he thinks he's figured something out and his back is against the wooden door now and he says, "You are angry, Jason, but not at me," and then everything goes green for a second and Jason wakes up and his fist has splintered through the wooden door.
Right next to Tim's head. He pulled his punch, right? He wasn't aiming for Tim, he meant to hit beside him. Or did Tim dodge? Was he in the same place as before?
Tim is staring at him with wide eyes, and he's so much smaller than Jason and Dick is so much smaller than Jason and he was so small in that cell and on that bed and he was just making progress and now everything is broken.
Jason crumples to his knees, splotches of green and black dancing at the edges of his vision, and he doesn't know what to do.