Chapter Text
. . .
Jason wakes before the sun, but only because he never really slept. His body does this funny thing now—shutting down and jerking in false starts like an engine that’s on its last legs.
He lies there for a while, staring at the cracked ceiling of his safehouse. There’s mold blooming in one corner. He’s been meaning to clean it up for six months now. He keeps telling himself he’ll get around to it. He never does.
Every inhale tastes like smoke. It always does, even if he miles away from Gotham’s smog. Or that warehouse. Or the crowbar. Or that laughter.
Some mornings, he wonders if he’s actually breathing at all. Or if he’s just mimicking it.
Eventually, he forces himself to sit up. His joints protest like old men. His brain complains about why he even bothers. He rubs his face and feels the stubble—another sign he’s slipping, falling back into old habits. Always having to reteach himself how to take care of himself. He thinks, if I scrape hard enough maybe I’ll shed this version of me.
He forces himself to shave, to brush his teeth, to drag a comb through his hair. A half-assed attempt at being presentable.
His phone buzzes. He doesn’t check it.
Probably Roy. Or Kori. People who mean well. People he likes in that distant aching way where he knows he’ll never be able to give them what they give him.
He makes shitty coffee. Cleans his guns. Checks his ammo twice. Checks the safeties three times.
It’s almost obsessive. A compulsion he calls a habit but really it’s just that kind of thing where you over-prepare because you’ve been caught helpless once and it hollowed you out. He doesn’t need to be diagnosed by a therapist to know it’s hyperarousal. He lives in it.
The days pass uniformly. Caught up in routine. Like he’s stuck in cement.
He skips breakfast because he likes the sting of an empty stomach.
Helmet on. Door locked. World muted.
The armor’s meant to protect him, but most days it just feels like a lie.
He moves through the city like a ghost. Present, but not really here. He busts a drug deal. Breaks a jaw. Disarms a gunman. But there’s no thrill. No righteous fury. No release.
Just motion. A body on autopilot.
One of the thugs spits blood at him and snarls, “You’ve gotten real pathetic.”
Jason almost laughs.
Instead he just says, “Yeah.” And knocks him out cold. The man is right. He doesn’t kill anymore. He can’t even remember the last time he raised his voice in a fight. Anger used to be so easy to tap into. A flame he could always rely on. Now it’s more like wet matches. They strike, but nothing catches.
He’s tired.
For so long he clung to the rage because it was better than feeling like this. Easier to be angry and hateful instead of sad. Better than hollow. Better than the dread sitting on his chest like a tombstone.
He spots Red Robin before Tim notices him. “Red Hood.” Tim calls, cautious. Like he wasn’t the one who walked into Jason’s territory. “I’ve got a suspect who crossed into your zone.”
It’s as much of an explanation as he’s going to get. “Yeah, whatever, have fun with that.” Jason doesn’t even stop walking. Just lifts a hand in a half-hearted wave—somewhere between a dismissal and a goodbye.
Tim watches him leave. He can feel the stare but ignores it.
There’s no fight about boundaries, or snarky comments. Just the endless, suffocating distance of people who don’t know how to communicate.
He eats nothing all day. Forgets to. Back in his safehouse he drinks half a bottle of cheap whiskey. Not nearly enough to get drunk.
He collapses onto the mattress and stares at the ceiling again. The mold patch looks a little bigger. He wonders if it’ll spread enough to cover the whole ceiling.
He rolls onto his side. Hours pass him by, and he doesn’t get a wink of sleep.
He tells himself, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll do better.”
But even he’s starting to recognize the lie for what it is.
. . .
Morning, if you can call it that, pries Jason from his restless sleep.
Get up, he thinks, get the fuck up you piece of shit.
He goes through the movements. Cold water on his face. Teeth brushed until his gums sting. Gear in place. He doesn’t think, just moves. Thinking hurts.
Routine is kinder than thought.
He throws out yesterday’s coffee, makes new shitty coffee, drinks without tasting a damn thing. He cleans his guns. Checks his ammo twice. Checks the safeties three times.
Muscle memory. A ritual he’s half-tethered to this world by.
He’s halfway through strapping on his boots when his communicator buzzes. A rhythm he knows by heart. He hasn’t gotten that code in… God, months? They don’t call him unless something’s gone terribly sideways.
There’s a version of him that would ignore it. A version of him that would shoot a I’m too busy, reply and fuck off. But he isn’t either of those today.
Today he just sighs and grabs his helmet.
Time to put on a mask, pretend to be normal, a functioning human being.
. . .
The Cave opens up around him in cold blue light. Damp and dark. Jason’s boots echo as he walks. Everything echoes, really. The sound, the memories, the feeling like he’s sliding back into old clothes he outgrew.
He registers the fact everyone is gathered already. Even Alfred, which can only mean this is world-ending. It makes sense it’s a Tuesday.
What he doesn't have time to register, what is simply impossible despite his eyes and reality telling him otherwise—is someone small and familiar in a way that has his heart seize in his chest.
Bright traffic colors, short unruly curly hair, wide blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. Body of a boy who once knew malnutrition but eating healthy now. A boy who still thinks the world can be won by punching hard and loving harder. A boy who believed in right and wrong as if the world itself would honor the promise.
A boy who looks like a carbon copy of Jason Todd before he died.
There’s tension in the air upon his arrival, a fact he’d long since gotten used to and didn’t really care to take note of this time. But this was unlike any other time, it seems.
For a long moment, nobody says anything. Nobody moves.
Jason’s helmet hangs useless in his hand as younger him blinks up at him, mouth parting in confused recognition. “Holy shit, I grow that big!?”
It’s comedic. It’s funny. It’s fucking dreadful. And Jason feels it—something inside him fractures quietly. Like ice cracking under pressure, plunging him into the dark murky waters of a lake.
He stands there. Rooted in place. The world narrowed to the shape of that kid. That version of him that was still naive and cushioned by optimism and reckless hope.
He reminds himself to breathe, and like show curtains pulling up, he acts.
“That’s your first reaction? You’ve got some fucked up priorities kid.”
Jay beams—because he doesn’t know any better—tipping his head back further to take him in. “Well, yeah. I thought I’d already peaked in growth!” He squints. “Wait, how old are you? Why do you have grey hair already! Oh my god, am I forty?”
“Kid.” He says, “Calm down. I’m twenty-something.”
The child laughs, bright and careless. It’s a sound Jason remembers making once. Before crowbars and coffins and second chances that tasted like blood and gunmetal.
He catches the subtle way everyone looks at the younger version of himself. It’s a painful contrast. He hates it so much. They’re looking at that kid like he’s a candle in a storm. Like they forgot the flame goes out.
“Oh, so it’s a fashion statement? Man, future me is so weird.”
Jason swallows down the lump in his throat. Watching his own ghost smile in his face had a cold sweat gathering on the back of his neck.
Somewhere behind Jay, Alfred clears his throat politely, possibly to get them back on the topic of—presumably how on earth this is possible.
“So,” Jason says, stuffing the helmet under his arm to keep him grounded. “Anyone gonna explain why Mini-Me is here, or why I am, for that matter?”
Bruce finally steps forward. “Your younger counterpart was displaced,” Bruce says. “Temporal instability. We’re still determining the cause.”
Jason pinches the bridge of his nose. Right. Of course.
Then Jay’s eyes catch on the holsters. The smile falls right off his face. He stares at the guns. “Why… why do I have guns?”
Jay looks around at them. Bruce. Alfred. Dick hovering at the edges. The people he actually knows, even if they’re older. No one rushes in with an answer. No one lies, either. And that’s worse.
His jaw tightens. That spark of temper—yeah, Jason remembers that too.
“Well?” Jay prompts, sharp. “Somebody say something.”
Bruce exhales, heavy. “This isn’t the time—”
Jay’s glare cuts him off. “And why not? It’s not like it changes your timeline. As soon as I was displaced, it created a branch. A parallel universe. So spill.” Jay’s eyes swing to him. “You gonna tell me?” He asks. “Or are you just gonna—what? Stand there?”
Jason’s chest goes tight. There is something viciously surreal about being interrogated by the ghost of who he used to be.
Tim raises his hand, “Even so, I don’t believe sharing details about the future is a good idea.”
Mini-Jason’s head swivels over to him. Eyes narrowing. “And exactly who are you? You may be part of this family in the future, but I don’t know you, so don’t speak on behalf of future-me. He’s a big boy.”
Tim opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. Stephanie and Duke snort in the background.
Jason actually laughs at that. “Man. I was such a little shit.”
Little-him pouts and crosses his arms. “I’m still waiting on an answer.”
Well. If he wants it so badly, he’ll have to live with the answer. Bruce and Dick shoot Jason a look that screams don’t you dare tell him the truth, like not saying anything can protect the kid from the inevitable. “I have guns because I shoot people. It’s pretty self-explanatory.”
Now it’s Jay who looks like a fish out of water. Like he can’t comprehend his words.
“Jason—”
Jay cuts Bruce off. “Like… with actual bullets, not rubber ones?”
Jason smirks, even when it feels flat. Mask on. Remember to breathe. “Rubber.” Jay releases a breath, more than likely going to say what a relief when Jason continues. “At least, recently. I wouldn't be able to stand here and talk to you if I was still killing people.”
Color drains from everyone’s faces.
Jay’s most of all.
He sways a little, like the air just dropped ten degrees. Like someone pulled the rug out from under him. “Wait—” Jay says, voice thin at the edges. “Wait. You mean… I—he—we—”
Jason doesn’t let himself flinch. Not when Bruce grabs him by the collar, voice low. “That’s enough.”
Dick crouches down by Jay and tries to direct his attention elsewhere. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just—” Jay shrugs off his hold, pushing past Bruce.
“No. No, I want to hear it from him. Not any of you!” Jay snaps, his voice cracking like something strained too far. “I— I don’t kill. I don’t just—how could I—why would I ever—?”
Alfred steps in. “Master Jason, perhaps it's best we take a moment to collect ourselves and speak about this when we’re ready.”
He shakes his head. “No! I want to know now!” Jay’s breath rattles as he looks Jason in the eyes. “Why?”
It’s a soft question. Too soft. The kind kids ask when they’re afraid of the answer.
And that’s the part that guts Jason. He knows exactly what that softness becomes. He remembers how it curdles into rage or despair or a sick cocktail of both. He remembers becoming the kind of person who needs armor to feel like a person at all.
He shrugs one shoulder. A practiced deflection. “Long story.”
“Make it short!” His eyes lock onto Jason’s. He looks furious. And scared. And worse—ashamed.
God, did he always wear his feelings this loud?
Right. Of course he did. That’s why he wore the helmet. Before he got better at pretending.
Jay’s voice trembles. “What happened to me?”
Jason sucks in a breath. It tastes like ash.
He tells himself not to tell the truth.
He tells himself not to lie either.
He tells himself to walk that impossible line he’s never once managed to stay on.
“You learned that sometimes the only person who can save you is yourself.”
Jay’s face scrunches, confused and frustrated. “What? No—stop talking in riddles. Just tell me!”
Something molten and ugly stirs in Jason’s chest—anger he’s felt for the first time in months. The kid wants a monster? He’ll give him one.
“I am saying it,” Jason snarls. “You start liking it. The violence. The finality. Watching the lights go out behind the eyes of people who earned it.”
“That’s enough!” Bruce’s voice booms across the Cave, but it falls on deaf ears.
Jay shakes his head hard, tears gathering. “You’re lying! I’d never—I can feel it! You’re me, and I know when I’m lying! Just tell me the truth!”
Jason’s eye twitches. If the kid wants the truth, let him choke on it. Let him be just as miserable as he is. “Fine, you die!” He roars, and the world goes silent. Jason keeps going—because once he starts, he can’t stop. “Is that what you want to hear? You die scared and alone, and the world? It just keeps spinning! You come back and it hasn’t changed, and the person who hurt you is still alive—still alive and killing others! And you realize that your death meant fucking nothing. That you mean nothing!”
The words shatter like broken glass. Jay recoils as if Jason slapped him.
For a second—just a second—no one breathes.
Dick looks like he’s witnessing a car crash in slow motion. Tim’s mouth is a silent oh god no. Stephanie mutters something that sounds like holy shit. Alfred’s hand trembles. Bruce… Bruce just looks gutted. Like he’s watching both of his sons die at once.
But Jay—Jay is staring at Jason like the whole world tilted sideways. “You…” Jay’s voice catches, cracks, shatters. “I— I die?”
Jason wants to look away. He doesn’t. Cruelty’s easier when you keep eye contact.
“Yeah.” His voice is low. Brutal. Almost bored. “You die.”
Jay’s breathing stutters.
He looks twelve and twenty and dead at the same time.
“How?” He whispers. Bruce steps forward like he can still stop this train wreck, still play the good father in the script he keeps rewriting in his head. But Jay snaps—loud, furious, terrified. “NO! Don’t interrupt—let him talk! Let him TALK!”
There’s no universe where Jason stops now.
He’s already cracked open. Everything is leaking out.
“You want details?” He spits. “You want the play-by-play? You find out Catherine isn’t your real mother. You chase the fantasy that someone out there still wants you—because the family you have now was never yours. You find your birth mom. She’s alive. She’s desperate. And she sells you out in the same breath she says your name.”
“You walk right into a trap, and the Joker beats you with a crowbar until you stop counting hits and start counting the bones you didn’t break yet. You hold yourself together long enough to shield the woman who betrayed you. Because that’s who we were—pathetic and loyal and stupidly hopeful.”
“Joker leaves you in a warehouse with a bomb. You choke on smoke. You suffocate on fear. Calling for a man who will never reach you in time.”
Jay’s face crumples. He looks nauseous. Jason barrels on.
“And then? You wake up months later, not in heaven, not in hell. Just here. And you expect someone to care. But nobody does. Not really. They’ve moved on. They’ve healed. They get new soldiers.”
Tim flinches at that.
Jason keeps his eyes on the kid. “You get trauma and a second chance you never asked for.”
“Jason,” Dick breathes, voice horrified and raw. “Stop—”
He doesn’t.
“You’re not special. You’re not chosen. You’re not magic. You’re not loved enough to be saved. You’re the consequences of every bad choice ever made. A ghost with a beating heart. A fucking mistake.”
Jay’s tears finally spill over. He shakes his head, desperate. “No—no, that— that can’t be, that’s not— I wouldn’t— you wouldn’t—”
Jason laughs. A dry, empty sound. Like his coffin. “Kid, you keep saying I’m you. Start listening.”
Jay wipes at his face angrily, like he can erase the fear. “That’s the future?” He demands. “That’s who I become?” Jason says nothing. The boy’s face twists. “I don’t want to be you.”
Jason goes still. And then… then he smiles. The most genuine smile he’s had in a long time. Not because it’s funny—but because it’s honest. And because the kid doesn’t realize how much Jason agrees with him.
“Yeah.” He murmurs. “I didn’t want to be me either.”
He turns and leaves, not looking back. Before they can ask him to stay or leave. Before he can see the look on their faces. Before he has to acknowledge what he’s said. Things he’d meant to keep locked away in a box. He’s out of the Cave and into the Gotham night before he even realizes he’s running.
. . .