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yellowocaballero · 4 months ago

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omg i love it when you do a wip in title game, talk about tim's desperate longing for cocaine?

So that's a sequel to an unposted story! The story is the covid puppy one, which i also just posted a snippet of. But I honestly think I can post it here without spoiling the story too much. Some nuance is lost (Tim is a paranoid freak about literally everyone but Cass, so his trust of Jason is extremely notable) but the gist can be related.

It's definitely my own take on the "Jason rejoins the family" trope. And a look at it in this universe. Which, uh....Jason, you aren't the most evil guy here...you're in 90s Batman, Jason. Everybody is a fucking antihero. You aren't special.

Jason and Tim brotherly bonding under the cut.

Tim stared at the burger, wondering if he was being kidnapped.

It was nice. Not a Gotham street burger, fried on a spitting grill outside on a summer’s day and sandwiched between two freshly baked slices of bread and oozing sauteed onion. This burger had processed cheese and a spicy mustard. There was avocado. Tim didn’t know what avocado was doing on a burger.

Tim’s kidnapper slash new friend seemed to hold a similar opinion about the placement of avocado on otherwise God-fearing food, but he happily shoved his own identical burger into his mouth anyway. Tim watched him eat in a morbid (hah?) fascination. He savored every second of it. He looked downright blissful about it, accepting the burger precisely for what it was and finding rapturous joy within that fact. The 24/7 diner was abandoned, so Tim couldn’t call for help.

He finished most of the burger in a few huge bites, as Tim poked at his perky lettuce and checked for exits. The man leaned back and sighed, stretching his arms high above his head as his shoulders popped.

“They don’t make ‘em like that in Saudi Arabia!” The man said cheerfully. He looked and sounded much older than he was, but he was wriggly and bouncy like a man barely out of a very active teenagerhood. “ ‘Course, they don’t make ‘em like that in Gotham either. Can’t believe we couldn’t find a real all night diner place in Bludhaven. Actual fuckin’ Bludhaven! Talk about turbo mega bass boosted gentrification. Look at this menu. Says diner style. Style! It’s got vegetarian options! God, so lame. Makes me miss the slums. Why ain’t you eatin’?”

“Am I being kidnapped?” Tim asked, just to clear the air.

“Why would you think that?” the man said, withdrawing a gun from his shoulder holster.

Bells tinkled behind them, soft voices murmuring as two pedestrians escaped the windy night into the safe confines of the diner. The man shot at the ceiling.

“Hey!” He called. “Private fucking conversation, you two?” The people screamed and fled, and the man stuffed the pistol back into his holster with no small amount of satisfaction. He turned back to Tim, picking up his burger again. “So why would I be kidnapping you?”

Tim wondered if gentrified diners sold wine.

“Anybody ever tell you that you have the most demented stare, kid? You look like a vulture tapping your watch and waiting for me to give you lunch.” The man took another big bite of his burger, and Tim sat silently so as to not interrupt his enjoyment of the food. Through a mouthful of burger, the man said, “Eat up, you’re too skinny.”

Tim ate, and they sat together in silence finishing their food. Experimentally, Tim closed his eyes and tried to eat his own burger the same way the man was eating it - glean the same sublime enjoyment from bun and meat and pickle and avocado.

He couldn’t. Tim had burgers all the time, he couldn’t find G-d in them. But he could still slow down and taste each individual ingredient, letting them meld on his tongue. The sweet starch, the tang of vinegar. Grease pooling on his tongue and coating the lid of his mouth. It was a new experience, as every experience was unique in its own way: approaching the burger exactly as it was, without super-imposing any other ideas or standards. Eating it without comparing it to burgers of the past or superimposing better burgers on top of it. Ignoring that avocado shouldn’t go on burgers. Existing in that moment, with that burger. Experiencing the world simply as it was. Rejecting nothing.

Tim opened his eyes, and saw Jason Todd staring at him with sickly green eyes.

If he was to be honest with himself. Tim rarely was.

“Good?” Jason asked softly.

“Ra’s?” Tim asked. Jason grinned jaggedly, something sharp that broke itself, but Tim just shook his head again. “No. Longest known post-death resurrection was four days post-mortem. Jason hadn’t even been buried yet. It’s impossible.”

“I was beginning to think you didn’t even recognize me.” Jason’s eyes were unnaturally fluorescent, and in dim lighting Tim could see a faint green shine to them. The Pit had been involved. Healing him after the revival, probably. Kind of mean to save a guy from death and not even heal his mortal wounds. “I do look a lot like Jason Todd, don’t I? Do you think I’m him?”

Tim hesitated. Jason saw it. He smiled even wider, crooked yellow teeth flashing in the dim lights. There was some lettuce on one of his teeth.

“Go on,” Jason said. “Guess. Try it.” Tim sat silently, picking at his sandwich. “Guess. And stop playing with your food.”

Tim took a bite, chewing three times before swallowing. “Ghost of Jason. Different ghost. Supernatural creature from Jason. Different supernatural creature. Alternate reality. Alternate dimension. Different plane. Hypothetical.” Tim slurped a strip of lettuce before thoughtfully adding, “I could be drugged.”

“In pretty much all of those instances I sound like somebody who’d be kidnapping you.” Jason was clearly a little impressed by how many possibilities Tim could list. It was the Bat-training. “For a kid who’s feeling pretty kidnapped you’re not acting very kidnapped.”

“Do you want me to act kidnapped?”

Jason’s eye twitched a little, and he squeezed his bare hand into a fist. Tim watched the motion carefully. Jason exhaled, shaking out his hand, and took a long drag of his Coke.

“So glad I changed plans,” Jason muttered. “It woulda been such a let down. Bet you wouldn’t even have screamed. You woulda just, like, looked at me. Freaky kid.”

“Should I be screaming right now?” Tim asked, confused.

“What, just to make me feel better?”

Tim shrugged.

A shrill ringtone burst through the air, and Tim and Jason both jumped. They both looked around wildly for a second before simultaneously remembering that cell phones were a thing, and Tim quickly dug his flip phone out of his cargo pocket.

Tim held it carefully between two fingers, making it clear that he wasn’t about to open it. “Can I answer this time?” Jason scowled. “He’s not going to stop calling. In another twenty minutes he’s going to activate the tracker.”

Jason scowled, withdrawing his pistol. He aimed it at Tim, snapping his fingers and cuing Tim to slowly pass it over to him. He flipped it open with one gnawed fingernail and accepted the call, pressing the speakerphone button and handing it back over as he kept the pistol pointed at Tim.

Tim pressed the phone against his ear, heart beating hard. “Hey, Dick.”

“What the hell, Tim! Where have you been? Your curfew was three hours ago! Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

Uh. Tim looked at Jason, eyes wide. He didn’t know what was a proper kidnapped response to this situation. Or if the kidnapped response was the appropriate response. Tim felt vaguely as if he was here willingly. But he still somehow felt kidnapped about it.

Clearly, Tim mouthed, ‘What do I say?��. Jason looked distant, clearly catapulted into a dusty memory. Tim wondered if Dick had ever yelled at him over where the hell he was. The feeling was exceptionally strange.

“I was really busy, sorry.” Tim didn’t enjoy being in charge of this situation. If Jason was going to go through all of the trouble to kidnap him, he should at least take responsibility for why Tim disappeared. “I actually might not be home for a while. Lot of stuff’s happening here. You wouldn’t believe it.”

There was a heavy pause over the phone before Dick spoke again. His words were very calm and measured, which was probably the point of the pause. “We made an agreement, Tim.”

Tim winced. “Yeah.”

“I’ve been keeping my end of it. It really hasn’t been easy, but we’ve been working on this together. Why are you breaking your promise to me?”

Dick was the master of the guilt trip. It was awful. Tim was building up a resistance but he didn’t have full tolerance. The words made a heavy stone of guilt sink in his stomach. Jason just looked impressed. “That really isn’t my intention here, Dick, I swear. I’m not trying to make this happen, it just - happened?”

“Then what happened?”

“Hold on?”

Tim turned off speakerphone and put his hand over the keypad of the phone to muffle the speaker. Jason had shook himself back into the moment, and was making an elaborate series of facial expressions. Tim did not care. “What am I supposed to tell him?” Tim hissed. “He’s not going to let me just run off with you. And he’s not going to let you run off with me!”

“He sounds tired,” Jason said, seemingly randomly. “Do you hear that? He sounds like a fish in a carnival bag that a little girl’s shaking up. I thought he wasn’t even in Gotham during No Man’s Land.”

“He’s twenty six and he got stuck taking care of two sixteen year olds, leave him alone.” There may be some parenting going on here, but Tim wasn’t really sure. He had no frame of reference. Bruce would worry about where he was too, and look how that turned out. “Look, maybe we can - like, do this later? When it’s less obvious I’m sneaking out?”

“You’re the one who got on the bike!”

“Do you think I wanted you to drag me out to fucking Bludhaven? I told you I didn’t want to come here, you didn’t listen!”

That made Jason’s face twist, eyes flashing, and the pistol jolted. “You aren’t the boss here, kid. I am. I’ve waited three years to do this and I don’t want to wait another stupid second just because Dick’s in a housewife tizzy. Make him fuck off, we have a lot of ground to cover tonight.”

“Jesus, fine. This’ll be easier if you stop pointing a fucking gun at me, you know.”

Alright. That was easier said than done. Tim wasn’t very good at lying to Dick, and Dick was ridiculously talented at sniffing them out. But Tim had absolutely zero intention of sharing the Jason thing yet. He was replacing the gun in the holster and scowling darkly, and Tim knew that he couldn’t introduce Jason to his family like this. If it was Jason. He couldn’t show the Waynes a Jason shaped guy like this. He didn’t want to risk anybody in the organization mistaking Jason for a Jason-shaped monster and dispatching him with extreme prejudice. If he was, in fact, Jason, and not a Jason-shaped monster.

Tim took his hand off the keypad, turning speakerphone back on and replacing it on the table. “Sorry about that. You still here?”

The response was immediate. “Sure am. Everything alright?”

“By my definition. Look, Dick, uh.” G-d, how was he supposed to explain this. “Look, I need to tell you something and you need not to freak out. Because it’s not a big deal. I’m perfectly safe and everything’s fine.”

“You’re not filling me with a lot of confidence, Tim,” Dick said easily. He didn’t sound so mad anymore, or even like he was pretending not to be mad. He had completely chilled out.

Right. That was good. There was no way he was worse than Bruce, but less insane about Tim or Cass getting kidnapped than Bruce was a very low bar. “I’ve kinda sorta been kidnapped. I’m fine! But I can’t super come home right now.”

“You really don’t sound like a guy who’s being kidnapped,” Dick said. Did he not believe him?! “Will you just come home already? I’m making chicken noodle soup.”

Jason groaned and muttered under his breath about old chestnuts.

“I could eat,” Tim agreed. AKA: Yes, I’m not being coerced to say this, it’s of my own free will. “Look, I don’t sound like a guy who’s being kidnapped because I’m fine and things would only become not fine if you sent anybody after me. If you don’t escalate the situation then everything is going to be just fine. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? Like, less than a week, I swear.”

Dick was silent for a second before saying, “Can I talk to the other person now?”

“Wait, you believe me?”

“I want to talk to the other person.”

Tim shot pleading eyes at Jason. Jason had the distinct pinched look of someone who was now realizing that things had gone a bit out of control. Well! That one was on him! Tim had just wanted to get chili dogs or something!

Jason grabbed his helmet sitting on the table next to him, unlatching a little speaker in the rim and pulling it out. His voice modulator was detachable - useful for situations like this. “I’ll drop him back off at your doorstep in three days, Nightwing. If I see hide or hair of Batman, his little friends, or this one’s fucking boyfriend, he’s dead. Got it?”

“That was very confrontational,” Tim said reproachfully.

“Well, damn, Tim, didn’t know I was supposed to be polite about it!”

“It wouldn’t hurt. Alfred says that manners matter.”

“What matters is how incompetent your damn family is at keeping Robins un-kidnapped. Let’s call this a valuable life lesson, huh?” Jason tapped the speaker, and Tim knew that Dick could hear the sneer. “Your first fuck-up was embarassing enough, Dick Grasyon? I thought you never made the same mistake twice.” An old Bruce adage. “Hopefully the lesson fucking sticks this time. But if a crowbar didn’t do it then I doubt five days out of sight will.”

“Did you not believe me when I said he never got over it!” Tim cried, frustrated. “How many times do I have to -”

“You are the most annoying fucking teenager I’ve ever met.”

“And you’re the rudest young adult.”

“Five days,” Dick said, “I’ll see you then. Tim?”

“I’m really sorry for worrying you, Dick,” Tim said miserably. “My new friend’s just a jerk who didn’t want to bond with me normally.”

“Bond?” Jason squawked.

“Sure. Dick’s big into the bonding.”

“Since when!”

“You are well aware since when.”

“Favoritism-ass motherfucker -”

“Tim,” Dick cut through, and despite everything both younger brothers quieted. It was The Voice. “You’re just as good at managing people as ever, right?”

“Still my job,” Tim said, long suffering. Jason squinted at him, and Tim elaborated, “Bruce is a fucking dick and I was always trying to get him to calm down so he wouldn’t flip out on us.”

Jason’s face tightened. It wasn’t the first tidbit about Tim’s home life that he had dropped, and he had moved from incredulous to thoroughly pissed. “And this is why I’m fucking kidnapping you, you brainwashed-ass -”

“Then I’ll trust you on this one,” Dick said, calm and sure. “I won’t send anybody. Don’t destroy your phone and call every morning, alright?”

Tim sagged in relief. “Got it. Thanks, Dick. You got no idea, but this is really the best possible outcome. I got it handled.” He hesitated, wondering if it was the right thing to say - if Dick would understand what he meant, where the words came from within his heart. He said it anyway. “This guy would never hurt me.”

Of course, that was deeply offensive to Jason. “You’re fucking kidding me -”

Dick hummed it was hard to tell if he understood. “If you say so, I believe you. Be careful, Tim. And hey, stranger?”

“Stranger,” Jason announced, rolling the word on his tongue. “I guess after a while that’ll always come true again. Stranger’s just an asshole you haven’t met yet.”

“We didn’t tell anybody about the crowbar,” Dick said, and Jason froze. His eyes widened. Tim ate a strip of lettuce. “I don’t know how you found out, or what you want from Tim, or what Tim wants from you. But when I meet you, we are going to have a nice long talk about using a kid’s murder to mock his brothers. And you are going to keep him out of your fucking mouth.”

Jason’s eyes widened further, and he jammed the end call button. A little frantically, although he would deny it.

He grabbed the phone, jabbing at Tim in a way he probably meant to look intimidating. It was just a little funny. “I - do not say that again. I climbed out of a Lazarus pit, buddy. Those things stick a lobotomy hook up your nose and swirl your brain around like spaghetti. They flash boil brains. I’m not joking. I’m nuts. Cuckoo. Cuckoo in an oak tree. Are you listening to me?”

Tim munched a fry. “Sure, whatever.”

“Sure, wha - do you even know what I meant to do to you tonight?”

“Kidnap me?”

“No! No, that wasn’t in the fucking - I was going to -”

“You didn’t,” Tim said. It was partly selfless: he didn’t want to make Jason say it. Make him feel like a bad person when he really wasn’t. But it was a little selfish too: he didn’t want to hear Jason say it. “So it’s no problem. Okay? I got time off school and PTO from work. Where are we going?”

Jason leaned back in his seat, flabbergasted. “You’re serious.”

“I have faith in you, Jason,” Tim said. “You’ve never disappointed me.”

Jason just shook his head as the poison receded from his eyes, strange and lost. “You’re meeting your hero in the flesh for the first time and I’m waving a gun at you. I haven’t crushed any little dreams at all?”

“I’m just happy to see you, honestly.”

“Then we’re both nuts.”

“Yay,” Tim said blandly. “Brotherhood.”

Jason rolled his eyes, the motion a juvenile relief. “Gonna have to kick Dick out of the club. He’s the normal one.”

“Dick is insane as shit.”

“Seriously? Do you have any normal adults in your life? Don’t tell me Alfred joined a fight club while I was gone.”

“Fine, I won’t tell you.”

This obviously actively distressed Jason. “You’re joking. That’s a shitty-ass joke, right? You’re pulling my leg.”

“If you let me go home then I can smuggle out a bonafide Alfred Meal for you,” Tim suggested. “He’s always giving Dick and Cass and me giant tupperwares of pasta. If you start acting normal then I can hook you up.”

Jason’s eyebrow twitched. His resting bitch face was on a different level. It somehow filtered every ordinary expression into a promise of homicide. “Normal, huh? What’s normal? You don’t give a shit that I’m crazy, but you aren’t tryin’ to get me crawling back to the old man. You ain’t so eager for a happy family reunion.”

“Are you serious?” Hadn’t Jason picked up on this by now? Tim hadn’t been subtle. “Dick’s Sunday dinners are awful enough. I wouldn’t subject you to that. Or myself. Talk about awkward central.” Tim took a large bite of his burger, masticating thoughtfully. In reckless disregard of his short childhood of manners indoctrination, he garbled, “Kidnapping aside, better ‘long time no see’ than what happened with Dick. That almost ended in superhero CPS.”

Flatly, Jason said, “Kidnapping aside.”

“If I’m being kidnapped,” Tim allowed.

Jason stared at him for a long second, expression inscrutable outside of misdirected and malformed rage. Almost anybody else couldn’t see what lay underneath. But Tim had learned how to read body language from the best, and he spoke the language of death in clunky syllables. Tim could see into the sickly green pools of Jason’s eyes.

They were lost. Jason’s world had changed beyond all identification, and he no longer knew where he stood. There was no path home.

Tim couldn’t fight the swell of pity inside of him. He was still invested in Jason’s happiness. Honestly? Bit bizarre of him.

Unfortunately for him, Jason had seen the pity too. A blaze of anger consumed everything else inside of him, and he abruptly slid out of the booth. He grabbed his red helmet and spun the keys around one finger. “Dickhead probably traced that call. The casino’s a long drive, so get your ass in gear.”

No shit it was a long drive. Atlantic City was on the other end of Jersey. Tim hadn’t left his city in three years. The idea of traveling so far away from home, of leaving -

“Do you even know how to pump your own gas? Because I don’t know either and I’m not sure that I could help.”

It was thrilling. But it wasn’t necessary. Tim would have followed Jason anywhere.

Jason grabbed the handgun on the table, pointing the barrel straight at Tim’s forehead. “The only job of kidnapped teenagers is to shut the fuck up and do what I say. Now move.”

Tim would follow Jason anywhere. But clearly Jason didn’t know that. Tim wouldn’t bother saying it. Jason didn’t seem like the type to believe it. Maybe he was kidnapping Tim to make himself feel better? Cass would know. G-d, this adventure would really put Tim and Cass’ tentative ability to spend days without seeing each other to the test.

Tim pointed at Jason’s half-eaten burger. “Are you gonna eat that?”

“Fucking move!”

Tetchy.

#jason is dangerously unstable but tim is so used to that he's completely unphased #i wanna post the whole thing bad but that would involve coming to terms with covid puppy and herghhhhhh. herg.#my asks #my writing #i have a few opinions about my ideal points in a 'fam finds out about jason being resurrected' fic #i do think jason needs the balance of doing actually awful shit and also not entirely wanting to do the shit he's doing #feeling uncertain and lost but its fuel in the tank of being terrible #and of course his terribleness is extremely performative.#jasons voice was hard to get down but it was also very fun

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