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Hour One
Tim woke up feeling… distinctly weird. Everything felt wrong, even the air felt wrong, dry against his parched throat. Did his parents forget to pay the power bill again? Would it fucking kill them to pay basic attention to their own fucking house when they lectured him all the time about responsibility?
No, that wasn’t fair. They worked hard. They gave him everything, he probably sounded like a spoiled brat. Not that they weren’t spoiled themselves, throwing fits every time someone hesitated to comply with one of their ridiculous demands.
Tim shook his head roughly and sat up.
This time last year, Tim would not have been able to immediately notice how wrong things were. Being Robin meant knowing his body, inside and out, clocking small changes and accommodating for them.
This was way too many fucking changes.
His hands were huge. All of him was huge!
This was bad. This was really bad. Bruce was going to be furious. He had to figure out what was happening and he needed to fix it.
He wanted to throw something! Why the hell couldn’t things just go right for once?
Jason felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Trying to get himself to move felt like pulling teeth. Should he be feeling like this?
He felt…empty, but not. Like something was removed, but it wasn’t leaving a hole in him. Was this another ‘temporary side effect?’
He took a deep breath and his shoulders instantly relaxed without coaxing. He could breathe so easily, but his limbs still felt like that time Dickwing had taken him paintballing. He hurt like hell even though he’d been put into a pretty fancy bed- no. This wasn’t where he’d been last night. He bolted up, and then stared at his hands, at his feet.
Jesus, no, he couldn’t handle any more changes! Was he seriously back in time or some shit? But he would remember if he’d ever stayed somewhere this luxurious when he was this small.
He was getting really fucking sick of being a guinea pig without a say.
Hour Two
Okay, so Tim was developing a list of facts.
- He was in a room he did not belong in:
- Possibly a country he did not belong in.
- It was devoid of weapons, intentionally, including everything your standard Arkham cell would replace or eliminate.
- There were voices nearby speaking a language he couldn’t understand.
- He was very thoroughly locked in.
- The room still appeared opulent and included a stack of drawings, several books with the spines uncracked, and a punching bag that stood out like a sore thumb.
- He was dressed in a simple tunic and pants that were soft, pocketless, and did not appear to be hiding anything in the lining.
- He’d found 4 bugs in the room. No cameras so far.
- He both was and was not himself:
- This body was not his own, nor an aged up version of his own as evidenced by a lack of scars, different build, different hair texture, and several other factors.
- His memories appeared to be intact up until falling asleep and waking up an undetermined amount of time later.
- His consciousness appeared to be his own, but he may have been exposed to some magical or chemical factor that impacted his emotional regulation. Significantly impacted, if the ripped punching bag on the floor was any indication.
He’d done his best to create and hide makeshift weapons and tools, but he wasn’t confident in it. Without any sense of why he was here, where here was, or who he was dealing with, he’d usually think lying in wait was the best option.
If only his very being wasn’t rebelling against the very concept of waiting for the moment.
He wasn’t loving this position, with no allies, no backup, no answers, and no real trust in the accuracy of his current perceptions. No one ever said being Robin was easy though.
He’d claw his way through hell before he let Bruce bury another partner.
Everything was wrong and Jason was scared.
He was pretty sure he was back in Gotham, though certainly nowhere he’d ever been to before. He’d probably remember even a one-time gala at such a soulless place. The carpet was just a little too white, everything just a little too untouched, except for the pigsty of a room he’d woken up in.
The bathroom (one of them anyway, there were probably like a dozen on this floor alone) held a civilian-sized first aid kit. The reflection was a young teen- black hair, blue eyes, bruises and scars under the sweats. Grapple calluses decorated his hands. Vigilante, not abuse victim. He was sporting the world’s worst case of eyebags.
Last night, he’d been fantasizing about making Bruce pay. The whole past week, he’d been dreaming of revenge. Right now…
He had to get his head on straight. This was not good at all. Why this kid of all people?
He was here alone. The fridge held a third of a casserole, a jug of iced coffee, a package of lunch meat, and a door full of untouched gourmet condiments, and half-gone normal condiments.
The freezer was packed with TV dinners.
Jason started pacing around the kitchen. His vision felt clearer without the green haze, but he still had so much to think about. He’d been abandoned, betrayed. He…
Jason hugged himself tight. Without the anger, he felt so crushingly lonely.
Fuck this. He’d already gone through so much alone. He wasn’t going to torture himeself further.
If his observations of the gray sky outside were correct, and he was in Gotham, then damn it all to hell, he was going home.
Hour Three
When Tim heard a knock on the door, his body immediately poised to fight. He had a half-second of hesitation that perhaps he was responding with premature aggression, but fuck it, he was already opening the door.
A little kid in a green tunic stood at the door.
Threaten him. Tim smiled. With a hand around his windpipe, surely this boy would lead Tim out of-
What. The. Fuck.
Tim stumbled back several steps, desperate to put distance between himself and his would-be victim.
He ran himself through Bruce’s breathing exercises. Twice.
The boy appeared unsurprised by Tim’s strange behavior, but he gave a low nod. “Todd. How are you feeling today?” The boy’s voice was formal, with just a hint of an accent Tim couldn’t place.
So he needed to be some person named Todd? He had no idea how Todd would handle this situation. Which felt infuriating. But he was not going to hit a child over it- who the hell even thinks like that?
Tim chose to mirror the boy’s tone. “I am well, thank you. And yourself?”
The boy squinted his eyes in suspicion. Shit.
“How is your rage?” The boy asked warily.
Okay, so the anger was clearly something anticipated. “It is… quite strong.”
The boy looked disappointed, and concerned. Who was sending a child that small to check in on an adult with known rage issues? Whoever it was needed to sleep with one eye open.
“I am sorry to hear that. Would you prefer a day of respite in solitude? Or…might I still be permitted to…?” The boy could not finish his question, and his nerves danced across his face. The boy was more polite than Tim was at his age going to functions with his parents.
His parents would probably put the same exacting standards on this child, because heaven forbid a motherfucking kid be allowed to be anything less than-
Tim forced himself to do the irritating breathing pattern again.
Even with his emotions clearly affected, Tim thought he might need to consider some therapy.
Lord knew his parents would never be proactive enough to invest in his mental health.
The boy had remained in place, waiting patiently. Tim wished he felt more equipped to be kind right now. As it stood, he barely felt equipped to get answers out of the kid in a humane way.
“To…” Tim prompted, hoping the boy would give him some clues.
The boy looked unspeakably uncomfortable. “To… play?” He spoke in a reverent whisper, like Tim could offer him something forbidden and enchanting.
Tim pressed his lips together. “You may come in, but I may need you to leave, should the rage become stronger.”
The boy gave him a look that clearly indicated he knew something other than ‘rage’ was happening with ‘Todd,’ but apparently whatever he was looking forward to was more important.
The boy shut the door, locked it, and promptly combed through the room collecting bugs. When the boy grabbed five of them, Tim felt the world go green.
He forced himself to sit.
He was not going to throw something over missing one bug.
The boy pulled a small box from his pocket. It was lined with thick foam and he placed each bug carefully inside, before shimmying under the bed.
Tim wondered what questions ‘Todd’ could get away with asking.
The kid shimmied back out only a moment later with four dolls clutched in his tiny hands. They were beautiful, with long limbs and torsos, wearing what appeared to be hand-embroidered clothing.
Quietly, the child sat them up against the bedposts, making them face one another in a friendly looking manner. Creating the scene evidently required a good deal of care, with skirts being meticulously arranged, and poses being redone several times over to meet some unknown standard.
Then the kid looked at Tim like he had personally hung the stars.
“You will not report me for punishment?” The child verified.
Tim felt every muscle clench. “No,” he replied fiercely. “No, I won’t.”
So, because nothing was ever simple, Tim now needed to find out what was going on, figure out how to escape, and figure out how to take a child with him.
Jason felt like his younger self would have killed him for leaving that mansion empty-handed, but now that he was moving, he didn’t want to stop.
Whatever brought him here left him a quarter mile away from where he wanted to be. Because god forbid rich people keep their neighbors a normal distance away.
His heart stuttered when he saw Wayne Manor.
He replaced you.
He turned on you.
He should pay.
The thoughts came automatically, but they felt more like habitual visitors than the unshakable truths they had appeared to be all week.
Jason wanted his dad.
The body he landed in protested the speed he ran at, but he didn’t give a single shit. Whoever owned this body needed to start getting their eight hours, but that wasn’t Jason’s problem right now.
When he got to the gate, he ignored the number pad and used his thumbprint. The gate opened, but Jason refused to analyze that. He used the spare key under the Green Lantern Garden Gnome that he and Dick had given Bruce for Father’s Day.
God, he could really go for one of Dickhead’s hugs right now.
Alfred’s coat was gone from the hooks in the foyer, but Bruce’s was here. Jason ran around to the kitchen, bedrooms, library, study, everywhere he could think before approaching the grandfather clock.
He could have called out for Bruce, but it felt like doing so could break whatever magic chance he had of seeing his dad.
Time stood still as his hand guided the smaller, inanimate hands to 10:47.
He didn’t want Batman, he wanted Dad.
He made himself enter the cave anyway.
Hour Four
Whoever this Todd was, Tim thought he deserved a medal.
From what Tim had gathered, Todd saw this child daily, played with him, and somehow contained the murder instincts that were currently wracking Tim’s brain.
Todd was skilled in combat, was a favorite of the child’s mother, and was apparently recovering from a dip in the ever-helpful Lazarus Pit a week ago.
Tim had read enough about Ra’s to know this was less than stellar news. The little kid wasn’t afraid of Todd, though. Somehow, miraculously, even with the tremendous amount of rage lashing through this body, Todd had never lashed out at the child. The kid felt comfortable enough to talk about how it had been predicted that Todd’s current level of control would take a fortnight. Due to his progress, Todd would soon begin rigorous training.
“Mother is considering allowing me to take hand to hand lessons from you, in between your katana lessons and…” The kid paused and his face looked like the whisper of a wince for just a moment. “My apologies, I cannot recall the correct English term. I will endeavor to do better.”
Tim shook his head. “No need to apologize.”
The kid looked even more wary. “You are behaving strangely today.”
Tim wanted to take back every nice thing he thought about Todd. How harshly was that rat-bastard treating this poor kid?
Tim wanted to scream.
He froze for 10 counts instead.
“What would I normally say?” He asked, hoping Todd was prone to contemplative questions.
The child rolled his eyes, and then put on a cartoonishly exaggerated Gotham accent, of all things. “No sweat, Damian. Your English is sure as hell better than my attempts at the League dialect. If I needed an answer that badly, I’d nag your mom until she told me.”
Tim let out an involuntary laugh, but his brain was sorting frantically through the new data.
The Lazarus Pit. The League of Assassins. Gotham accent. Todd.
No way.
Tim frantically searched the room. There were no mirrors, but a large silver wash-basin was a good enough reflection.
It was hard to tell…
Tim pretended he was the bravest, most confident, most compassionate person imaginable and gave the basin the biggest smile he could.
Jason.
His dad’s giant frame, sat in his giant chair, in front of his giant computer screen in his giant cave.
Dad looked just like himself and Jason wanted to cry.
“Your case files are on the corner desk. I added two more cold cases, but priority is still the harbor deaths.”
Dad sounded nothing like himself and Jason wanted to cry.
“I’m- here,” Jason offered.
Batman grunted.
“Your Robin,” Jason added, the bitterness in his gut feeling all the more painful for being organically his.
Batman started moving and Jason waited for his dad to finally see him. Instead, the man grabbed his fucking cowl and walked right past his son. Batman looked at Jason, but he didn’t see him.
Talia had told him about Bruce turning around and replacing him with a kid who was richer, smarter, more obedient. The universe must have decided that it hadn’t fucked with it’s favorite punching bag enough and decided to throw him in the skin of his rival, but somehow having another kid treated differently felt worse than if he’d been treated the same.
He looked down at the hands that weren’t his own.
Small hands.
Unaware of Jason’s internal crisis, Bruce called orders out as he walked away. “Email me if you find anything substantial. Be ready for patrol at 9.”
“Hello to you too,” Jason spat. The voice he was borrowing sounded young and high, but there was no mistaking the Bristol vowels.
Batman didn’t even acknowledge him. He just walked away. Jason had held so much anger at Bruce for not being too late. The anger he felt seeing Bruce right here and still more likely to save a nameless civilian than a child he was responsible for was deeper, rawer, it shook him to his core.
Jason’s eyes scanned the cave, as if Dickwing would just appear and start teasing Bruce with him or Alfred would give B the look to make the man tune in.
When he saw it, he threw up, as violent and sudden as everything that kept happening to him was.
His retching finally got Bruce’s attention. “Robin! How long have you been sick?” His dad’s voice wasn’t the soothing voice of a man ready to watch Rugrats reruns until Jason fell asleep. It was his ‘mission report’ voice, accusational and impersonal.
“A Good Soldier?” Jason choked.
“Robin, answer the question.” Bruce clipped, checking Jason’s vitals with cold efficiency.
“Answers and orders and cold cases and mission reports. Is that all you’ve got?” Jason wanted to sob. He was hurting for himself, and he was hurting for this kid. He wanted to hold his dad and he wanted to punch him in the teeth.
“You’re not well. You’re benched until further notice,” Bruce announced.
No. Hell no. This was going to change. If Bruce wanted to take another kid, Jason would hold his dad to it. Jason was going to give the man hell.
Hour Five
Tim gasped, disoriented. He felt dizzy enough to feel sick, which was convenient, because he was already in the medbay.
Batman’s face was set in a hard line as he stared Tim down. “This would go faster if you would just answer the questions. Can you tell me who the current mayor of Gotham is?”
Tim winced at Batman’s annoyed tone, then winced again at how much the first wince aggravated his bruising.
He was back to himself.
It felt like he could breathe again, like he could string together 2 thoughts without filtering out 3 violent ones.
“Jason’s alive.” He blurted.
“Is it possible you were exposed to any sort of toxin in the past 72 hours?” Batman asked. He looked weary, like he’d been fighting to finish this mental status exam for far longer than his patience allowed. Like the process had been painful.
Bruce was hurting.
Tim didn’t know how he was going to convince Bruce to trust him, but he had taken this job to be what Batman needed. Right now, Batman needed to find his son.
There was a knock on the door.
Jason tensed for a fight on instinct.
What the hell?
He was back in the League room. He looked down. He was back to his hands. He was back to his height.
He was back to the pit.
It was so much clearer how much the pit was not him after a few hours without it. Shit. He needed help.
The knock on the door came again. “Todd?”
Shit, the little demon prince was here. Jason opened the door and the boy stepped inside, quick as lighting. He had a large pack on his back.
“I have done as you have requested.” The child reported.
“As I requested?” Did Damian already talk to Tim?
Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Yes… I have packed a bag with everything of practical value for travel, or…personal value to myself. Though I must remind you that I don’t need anything of sentimental value. I am simply fulfilling your request to grab anything that potentially could hold such value.” The child’s voice was equal parts faith and skepticism.
Tim, that crazy son of a bitch, was building an escape plan.
Jason still felt the pit, and even without it, he was still pissed at Bruce.
He was still hurt.
Still, he felt clarity that he hadn’t felt since… actually probably since quite some time before he died.
Jason flew about the room, looking for everything he would need. He found it already waiting on the bed, tightly compacted into a small bag. The room was stripped clean of everything that could possibly be helpful. There was a neat layer of books with drawings Damian had given him pressed lovingly in between the covers for safe keeping. The dolls were wrapped carefully in his League cloak.
“Todd, I still don’t understand what this is about.”
Jason secured the bag to himself, careful it wouldn’t impede his movement. He held his hand out to the youngest member of his family. “We’re going home.”