Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s not like waking up.

There is no murky border between not-awake and awake for Tim to pass through. There is only nothing, and then there is bright, searing agony.

He exhales a shriek that dies down to a keen, bouncing back deafeningly from the darkness that’s packed in tight around him. He doesn’t even notice, his ribs shuddering as they threaten to splinter around a sob. His body tries to curl in on itself, but his knees strike something hard above them, the impact rattling through him as he cries out again.

His fingers scrabble, gliding along smooth fabric. Satin. Beneath it, something hard and ungiving as he presses against it. His eyes roll, seeking light, something, but there’s nothing. There’s just satin-covered wood, pressing back at him, threatening to crush him.

He cries out again, calling out for - for someone. He wants - what? He wants his -

Words escape him.

He touches his ear, trying to find - something.

Nothing.

There is nothing, nothing but him, his every rattling breath a thunderclap in his own hollow ears.

The nothing hurts.

The breaths aren’t enough, they feel like they’re breaking him but they’re not enough. He needs more, he needs - out.

He pushes at the walls around him until his palms are bruised. And when that doesn’t work, he starts to claw. Satin threads catch and tear, wood splinters embed themselves under his fingernails, and he doesn’t care. It’s nothing, nothing to the way the bones in his ribcage shift and grind as his lungs suck in air that tastes stale and rotten against his dry mouth.

It’s not until dirt begins to trickle onto his face that his terrified desperation gives way to true panic.

Because suddenly the trickle becomes a stream, flowing down the sides of his neck, filling his mouth and clogging his nose, surrounding him, drowning him, and it is so much worse than nothing.

He’s not in charge of his body any more. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts to rake his hands through the heavy earth, how his ribs buckle when he contorts them through the hole he’s scraped in the wood, how his left leg drags behind him as he pulls it upward along with the rest of his useless, painful body.

It is good, maybe, that his body fights without him, pushes the pain back and leaves it buried beneath him.

The earth is endless.

Maybe he got it wrong. Maybe he is not clawing upwards at all, maybe he is digging down, down, a tunneling rodent trying to escape the flames above, all that soil raining back down alongside him with every fistful he rips loose, until -

His hand plunges into nothing.

He hooks it into soft grass and clotted soil, hauls. Aching shoulders scream. Earth breaks like a wave against the cliffs, and then he’s choking, the dirt and the nothingness competing for space in his sore throat.

The nothingness wins, and suddenly he can breathe again.

Small stones scrape his skin as he pulls himself free of the clinging ground, tiny pains that nonetheless feel unbearable against his overstimulated body. One foot, the lame, throbbing one, is still stuck when his arms give out beneath him, and he collapses against the ground, sucking in air that still smells like rich soil rot. There’s a small stone caught beneath his tongue, but he can’t muster the strength to spit it out.

He’s shivering.

It takes effort to lift his head, shuddering. The ground is so cold beneath him. His breath comes out in soft clouds that don’t look like they should feel as sharp in his chest as they do. He’s cold, he wants - he wants -

He lets out a low, soft and wordless cry, a question. It hangs in the air, unanswered but for the quiet whispering of the trees, the moonlight casting churning shadows beneath them.

His wide eyes watch the shadows, sure somehow that what he wants is among them if he just looks hard enough.

The shadows taunt him, but come no closer. They start to blur, and he realizes there are tears dripping down his cheeks, only adding to the chill that touches him.

It hurts, standing up, like everything else. His hands protest bitingly when he tries to put his weight on them, and his left leg won’t bear his weight at all.

But it hurts to be on the ground, too, and he so desperately wants -

No words will come, so he doesn’t try to call out for whatever it is he’s looking for. He just limps towards the trees, leg little more than a dead weight beneath him.

The trees are loud, up close. Everything is too loud. His feet scuff the ground unevenly, and the wind isn’t quiet for a moment. It hurts, and it’s so much, too much on top of all the other hurts. He whimpers. His hand keeps coming up to his ear, and he doesn’t know if he wants to cover it or not. His tattered fingers keep brushing against it, like there should be something there, something he could press against, something that would make the hurt better.

There’s nothing, and he keeps whimpering as he stumbles along through the endless trees and the shadows that don’t reach back for him.

A new sound cuts through the night, the sharp crack of a dog’s bark. Tim flinches, teetering on his one stable leg. Another bark. He tilts, and rough bark scrapes against his skin as he tips against a tree. He leans into it with another loud keen. It’s too much, too much too much -

The dog is a rush of shadow as it darts out of the trees. Moonlight glints off of pale teeth, it’s low growl humming beneath the rustling leaves, growing steadily louder as it prowls forward.

Suddenly, the moonlight isn’t the only thing lighting the clearing.

The flashlight beam might as well be a spotlight as it illuminates the great dane, creeping slowly forward, and Tim cowers back from the blinding light with a fractured cry. He yearns desperately for the shadows to pull him in close, to shelter him.

And miraculously, the light dims, a hand partially covering the bulb, and he is able to blink away the searing starbursts against his eyes.

A man stands in front of him, dark hair a mess and face almost as white as the streak that runs across his temple. The plastic flashlight creaks where he grips it, wide green eyes reflecting the moonlight so brightly they might as well be glowing themselves.

“Tim?” he croaks.

Bark, sandpaper against his skin as he turns slowly to look at him, the name tugging on something deep in his caved-in chest, and his lips try to form an answer that won’t come. He tastes dirt on his teeth.

The flashlight sweeps across him before pausing on his hands, the beam trembling as it rests on the red flesh peeking out from under the caked soil, fingernails ripped away and the tips of his fingers shredded nearly to the bone.

Jason retches violently into the underbrush, and Tim keens.

Chapter Text

The day of Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne’s funeral, the Red Hood walks into a building full of nearly fifty armed traffickers, and by the time the police arrive an hour later, there isn’t a single living soul left inside.

The last of the Drakes has been in the ground for a little under six hours when Nightwing arrives at the docks, joining the shadow that already sits slumped beside the water’s edge, helmet resting on the ground beside him.

He might not have been present, but Jason knows down to the minute how long it’s been.

He doesn’t look up at his older brother. There’s blood in the creases of his gloves, dried on and flaking, and he scrapes at it with his fingernail.

“Are you hurt, little wing?” Dick asks. His tone is all wrong, quiet and dull and thin and so unlike anything Dick Grayson should ever sound like.

Two bullets in his right shoulder. Stab wound in his forearm. His knee is swollen and stiff, but probably not broken. “Bumps and bruises.” There’s almost no breeze this evening. The flakes of blood drift straight down, resting on the murky water’s surface before dissolving.

Dick lets out a shuddering breath. “Police have pulled out forty-seven bodies, Jay,” he says, achingly soft. “You telling me you walked out of that with just bumps and bruises?”

The jolt of emotion that overtakes him doesn’t even feel like anger, it feels like an electric shock, and he knows his eyes are flaring acid green. “I’m not fuckin’ sorry,” he snarls. “I don’t care what you think, and I don’t care what Bruce thinks. I’d do it again. They fucking killed him, Dick.”

He makes the mistake of meeting Dick’s eyes, which means he can do nothing but watch the way Dick’s expression fractures, and Jason feels what’s left of his heart do the same.

“I’m not - Jason, I’m not mad at you,” he chokes out. “You think I don’t understand? Fuck, Jason, I wish I’d been right there with you.”

The words are bitter and jagged, slicing right through Jason like glass. They should make him feel vindicated, but they only leave him feeling off-kilter and raw. He opens his mouth, absolutely no clue what he’s going to say, but nothing comes out.

Dick huffs, reaching up like he wants to scrub at his eyes, before remembering the domino and abruptly changing course to rake through his hair. There’s still traces of gel in it, stiff in the dock lights, and Jason’s gut clenches at the reminder that the funeral was only a few hours ago. “I didn’t come here to lecture you on morals.” His hand drops limply into his lap, and Jason keeps his gaze fixed on it, knowing exactly how much of a coward he is, knowing there’s no way he can meet his big brother’s eyes a second time and see the raw emotion there. “I was so sure you were going to be number forty-eight.”

He blinks, and the black-and-blue gloved hand is suddenly wrapped tight around his own, squeezing it so tightly his bruised and fractured knuckles scream at him, and he makes absolutely no attempt to wrench it free. “You can’t do that to me, little wing.” It’s a beg and a plea all at once, so desperate it hurts, and Jason squeezes his eyes shut as though that can keep out the agony. “Please. You can’t do that, you can’t make me go home and tell Bruce and Alfred and Damian, you can’t.” His voice breaks, shatters, and Jason feels like he’s crumbling into ash. His head is suddenly pillowed against a familiar shoulder, one he hasn’t curled up against like this in years, like he’s a tiny little bird in bright wings and not a grown man covered in so much blood.

He thinks of another bird, even tinier than he ever was, that fit against their shoulders like he was made to be drawn in and held, and he breaks.

Tears soak into his big brother’s shoulder, but he can feel the same dampness where Dick presses his face into Jason’s curls, and there’s no room left inside him for embarrassment. How can there be, when he is so full of this cresting wave of fury and regret and grief and the unfairness of it all?

“I should’ve been the last,” he gasps out, and Dick clutches him closer, rocking them slightly where they sit. “I should’ve - I should’ve been -” so many things. Closer, faster, smarter, a better brother, a better vigilante, smart enough to spot the trap, to realize Tim was cornered before the horrific crunch of the car reaching the end of the alley before he had any chance at getting out of the way - he chokes on the answers that can’t spill out at once, but one keeps rising to the surface.

If he hadn’t been there in the first place, hadn’t asked for Tim’s assistance on the case just so they could hang out together, Tim wouldn’t have been in the trap to begin with.

“I should’ve stayed dead,” he rasps, and the words fall rotten and foul and true between them.

Dick makes a noise like someone has plunged a knife into his chest, and crushes Jason against him like he can compress them both back to a time when none of this pain existed yet. “Don’t you say that,” he snarls, sounding panicked. “Don’t you ever, ever say that, Jay. It’s not true, it’s not true, if there is one single fucking miracle in this world it’s that you’re here right now and I don’t have two graves to visit. Do you even understand - ?” he cuts himself off so quickly the sentence might’ve been sliced in two with a razor, and Jason does understand.

Do you even understand how much it hurt to lose you?

And he does. He really, really does.

…

He lets himself be taken back to the manor. Says nothing at the way Dick hovers within arms reach, like he’s prepared to grab him if he suddenly decides to bolt.

Not like he’d make it that far if he did. Now that the haze of green has faded once more and there’s no one else to throw his fury at, he’s become very aware of the way blood loss makes his head swim, and that knee really hurts to put weight on.

Alfred is waiting for them in the cave when they arrive. His face is drawn and worn, and his ever-careful composure feels careful instead of natural, in a way Jason doesn’t remember ever seeing, like it’s taking effort to hold himself with dignity. But he manages to offer a small smile when Jason limps his way out of the car and towards the medbay, as he knows Dick is going to insist on.

“You had us rather worried, Master Jason,” he says softly.

Jason ducks his head. No one but Alfred has the power to make him feel so thoroughly chided with so little. “Sorry Al,” he mumbles. “Wasn’t tryin’ to.”

Alfred just sighs, stepping forward and enveloping Jason in a hug before he can even think of protesting. “We’re all simply very relieved to see you here and whole,” he responds gently. He holds him tightly for a few moments longer than normal, before stepping back and eyeing him critically. “Now, let’s get those bullet wounds tended to.”

…

He makes it about three steps into the manor before a small body slams into his, and he bites back a curse as his fresh stitches tug.

“That was incredibly foolish,” Damian snarls from where he’s wrapped around his waist. “If you are so determined to subject us all to two funerals in the same week, you may borrow one of Father’s credit cards and purchase an empty coffin. There is absolutely no need for you to be in it.”

“Jesus, Gremlin,” he sighs, allowing one arm to settle warily around the kid’s shoulders. “Trust me, if I decide to throw a party, coffins aren’t going to be part of the decor. Been there, done that.”

“Tt,” says Damian, and tightens his grip.

Dick comes forward from where he’s been hovering behind Jason since they got out of the car, kneeling beside them to try and meet Damian’s eyes. “Hey Dami,” he says, smiling at him, and it almost looks genuine. “Where’s Bruce?”

He turns his head, though Jason can’t tell if he’s looking directly at Dick or not. “His study,” he mumbles. “I believe he’s working.”

Jason scoffs. “Yeah, I’m sure he is.”

Dick shoots him a look, before standing up, ruffling Damian’s hair affectionately. “Me and Jason are going to go talk to him, okay?”

“Dick, I don’t - ” Jason cuts himself off. He’s not even entirely sure what he’s protesting.

“C’mon,” he says quietly. “He needs to see you.” He glances down at Damian again, who, contrary to every aspect of his usual personality, is still clinging to Jason, and smiles slightly, though it’s clearly strained. “I’ll meet you outside his study in five minutes, okay?”

The piercing look he gives him makes it perfectly clear that he will be coming to find him if he’s not there by minute six, and Jason nods, any further protests feeling like they’ll choke him if he tries to voice them. Satisfied, Dick vanishes, and Jason suppresses a sigh as he looks down at the kid.

He does not feel remotely qualified to handle whatever’s going through his head at this point. That’s Dick’s job, or if not Dick then -

Well. He supposes him, now.

“D’you like hot chocolate?” he finally settles on.

Damian sniffs. “I find Alfred’s recipe to be acceptable.”

That draws a snort out of him. “Course you do, everyone does. How about you let me go talk to Bruce for a couple minutes, and then I’ll meet you in the kitchen and we can see if Alfred feels like making us some? Do you wanna do that?”

As abruptly as he latched on, he lets him go, stepping back and looking down at his own hands. “I don’t want you to go,” he says in a rush.

That’s...not what Jason was expecting. A hug, fine, the kid’s had a rough day, but that sounded...vulnerable. He kneels down, trying to meet his eyes, but Damian is glaring determinedly at the ground. “Alright,” he says slowly. “I do have to go talk to Bruce, but that’ll just take a few minutes, and then I can spend the night. I think Dick’s probably gonna make me anyway.”

Damian scowls, mouth flattening into a thin line. “No, I simply - I don’t want you to go anywhere. So. You cannot. I forbid it.”

And oh.

God, Jason’s a fucking asshole.

“Christ, kid. Can you look at me?” He does, defiantly, though Jason could swear his chin quivers ever so slightly. “I’m fine,” he stresses, tugging his collar down slightly so he can see the fresh bandages on his shoulder, placed there by Alfred’s careful hand. “Little banged up, but I’m fine. I was just - it was just a really rough day, alright?” Damian is staring at him, eyes the same searching blue as Bruce’s, but unlike Bruce’s, they don’t look like they’ve found all the answers just by looking at him. Jason huffs out a breath. “A really, really fuckin’ rough day. I won’t do it again.”

He’s not sure he meant it before he said it aloud, but as soon as the words are spoken, something settles slightly in Damian’s expression, his shoulders relaxing a tiny bit, and shit, Jason can’t not mean it now.

Damian gives a short, sharp nod, straightening his back. “I will await you in the kitchen, then. I’ll see to it that Alfred begins preparations on the cocoa.”

Jason’s lips quirk up into a smile. “You do that, gremlin. I’ll be there soon as I can.”

He stands up, watching the boy head for the kitchen.

God, he really is tiny, isn’t he? It’s easy to forget that, sometimes.

Jason’s not sure he’s ever going to be able to forget that again.

Reluctantly, he makes his way towards the study where Dick is undoubtedly waiting impatiently, dread already curdling in his stomach.

…

As Jason had suspected, it is very clear as soon as they open the door that Bruce has gotten exactly no work done in the time he’s been locked away in here. He’s staring at the screen of his laptop, the screen casting his pale, slightly gaunt face in stark contrast, but his hands are completely still on the keyboard, and his eyes are hollow and unfocused, clearly not taking in whatever information is in front of him. He raises his gaze slowly when they walk in, but it still seems to take him a long moment to actually recognize the fact that they’re standing in front of his desk.

Once he does though, he blinks, and a strange expression flickers across his face as he stands up. “Jason,” he breathes.

Jason can’t seem to shake the tension tightening between his shoulder blades. He’s out of his uniform, but he hasn’t taken the time to shower yet, and he knows there’s probably still drops of blood splattered across his skin, knows Bruce’s eyes must be able to pick them out at a glance, concrete proof of what he almost certainly already knows Jason has done today.

Sure enough, he can see him scanning across Jason’s body as he makes his way around the desk, gaze lingering on the stitches on his forearm and the bandages peeking up from beneath his collar, and Jason can’t stop himself from bracing as though for a blow.

It’s almost a shock to his system when his arms wrap around him, drawing him in against his father’s broad chest, tight but ever mindful of his wounds. “You’re okay,” Bruce breathes into his hair.

And just like that, even though he’s nearly as tall as his father and about as broad, he feels like that little twelve year old that could hide in the folds of Batman’s cloak all over again, and he crumples into the hug, arms coming up to wrap around his father in kind.

“I’m really sorry, dad,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I was too late.”

“Oh, baby,” he chokes out, voice shaking slightly. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to know what that feels like. This is my fault, not yours, never yours.”

“Sorry I missed the funeral,” he mumbles. He’s not sure there’s any universe where he could have handled that, actually, but he is sorry that he couldn’t handle it, that he couldn’t be there to support his family and pay his respects the way Tim deserved.

Bruce’s grip on him tightens. “I’m not angry, Jaylad. I understand.”

His tone makes it clear he’s talking about more than just his absence. Jason has to blink back hot tears. He realizes his shoulders are shaking, though he doesn’t let himself make a sound. Nonetheless, Bruce’s hand rubs his back soothingly.

“Thank you for bringing him home,” he says quietly, and it takes Jason a moment to realize he’s talking to Dick, who he’d almost forgotten was still lurking behind him.

“Always,” his brother says softly, and Jason has to shut his eyes. Dick always was the kind of fool to make promises he couldn’t keep.

But speaking of promises he can keep. “I promised Damian I’d meet him in the kitchen for some of Alfred’s hot chocolate,” he mumbles into Bruce’s shoulder.

“Hot chocolate,” Bruce murmurs. “That’s a good idea.”

“You should come too,” he adds. “Kid needs to see you. Plus it’ll make Alfred and Dickiebird feel better.”

He can hear the dry response in his head, the quiet huff of laughter, the solemn but knowing well, if it’ll make them feel better.

Instead, Bruce just swallows hard. “Okay,” he says softly. “I’ll come have some hot chocolate.”

…

It’s been almost four weeks, and he still hasn’t left the manor, and he honestly couldn’t say if that makes him strong or weak.

He’s thought about leaving, retreating back to one of his safehouses to lick his own wounds and leave them all alone to their grief. On the harder days, it’s hard to resist, even if he doesn’t really know if the silence of being alone in one of his apartments would be more or less stifling than the manor.

But at least there, there’d be no expectations, no need to rein in the impulse to just start breaking things that sweeps over him sometimes with little warning, the urge to pick a fight that rises up like venom to his tongue every time he’s confronted with his father’s hollow eyes or his brother’s false smile, the fracture lines lying just below the surface that would be so easy to shatter with just a little bit of pressure.

Sometimes he thinks it’s actually a really, really bad idea for him to be here.

But the part of him that isn’t half-poisoned by years of death and trauma and pit rage just...can’t. Not when the tension in Damian’s shoulders dissolves every time he comes down for breakfast and finds him still at the table, helping Alfred lay out the silverware. Not when Dick is clearly splitting himself in half trying to be in two cities at once, his grace period at work long since run out, and thank god for Wayne money or he’d have gone broke buying gas by now. Not when it’s clear what Tim meant when he told Jason that Bruce wasn’t right after Jason’s death, wasn’t okay, and it’s not that Jason didn’t believe it, but it’s different seeing it right before his eyes.

It makes the pit seethe, the way Bruce has failed to pick himself up and be the head of the family that Dick needs, that Damian needs, that he fucking needs.

He’s their fucking father, he doesn’t have the right to break down like this.

Not when there’s already an empty spot carved out in the heart of the house, and someone has to make some pathetic attempt to hold them all together before the frayed edges cause them to unravel.

Tonight, that means sitting in the cave and keeping tabs on the comms, ready to provide backup if need be. Batman and Robin are out tonight, and small mercies that Batman hasn’t turned violent the way he did after Jason, because Damian doesn’t need another influence like that in his life when Jason is already teaching him proper gun maintenance as a bonding activity.

(It wasn’t planned, okay? Guns gotta be cleaned, with the amount of time he’s been spending around the manor it was inevitable that he’d catch him sitting on the floor with his weapons disassembled around him and ask what he was doing. Who was he to deny the kid valuable knowledge?)

Nightwing is all the way in Bludhaven tonight, but he’s on comms anyway, mostly to try and fill the silence that gathers too heavily and easily these days as they patrol.

Jason’s bullet wounds are more or less healed, thanks to his pit-enhanced healing, but his knee still twinges obnoxiously when he bends it, which is probably his own fault for stubbornly refusing to wear a knee brace. In any case, he hasn’t put up too much of an argument on remaining grounded. The last thing he needs at this point is to catch a bullet to the skull because his knee decided to give out at a bad moment.

He’s absently leafing through a book of short stories when he gets the alarm, and it takes him a moment to blink at the screen before he processes where it’s coming from.

The book hits the floor with a rustle of crushed pages.

It was his one contribution to the funeral plans, the one detail he’d insisted on.

A sensor, embedded in the roof of the coffin lid.

Just in case. A safety precaution. This is Gotham, after all, you never know who might be willing and able to sneak onto the Manor’s grounds to break into a coffin.

Who might try to break out.

He’s breathing too fast, he realizes distantly, almost hyperventilating, and he concentrates on slowing it down. He can’t afford to lose his head right now.

With the clarity comes rage.

Because right now, some fucking bastard has dared to come onto the hallowed grounds of the Wayne family cemetery, has dared try to dig down and into his baby brother’s grave.

He cannot let himself think of any alternatives, not right now, or he’s going to fucking lose it.

He lets the green rise and fold around him like a shield, sharpening his senses and muting any emotion that makes his hand anything other than steady as he picks up the gun he keeps tucked next to the monitors just in case, striding upstairs, the fastest way to that part of the grounds. He keeps his tread silent as he heads through the entrance way. There’s no way he’s going to put this on Alfred, not until he’s taken care of it already.

But he does make sure to take a comm, tucking it into his ear without activating it. Just in case.

He’s almost to the door when he senses eyes watching him, and his head swivels to see Titus watching him from the entryway. After a moment’s consideration, he tips his head towards the door with a quiet whistle. The dog’s ears flick, and he trots forward to stand beside him at attention, clearly reading something in Jason’s body language that says that he’s not here to play.

Clever dog, he thinks, and double checks his gun is loaded before stepping out into moonlight tinted acid-green.

…

The manor’s grounds are large, and it takes a bit of time to make the trek as he prowls between the trees. It occurs to him eventually, to his annoyance, that it would have been faster if he’d thought to grab his helmet and use the built-in night vision, but the moon is bright enough that it doesn’t make too much of a difference.

Titus jogs along ahead of him, staying in sight, for which a distant part of Jason is grateful. He’s far enough into the haze to not care too much, but he certainly doesn’t want to have to explain to Damian that he got his dog killed. Of course, anyone who lays a finger on the dog will just be giving him an extra excuse to hurt them. As if they were going to be walking off this property alive anyway.

They’re nearly at the copse of trees that wraps around the border of the cemetery when Titus’s hackles go up, and he takes off into the trees with a snarling bark. Jason isn’t far behind, trailing after at a smooth lope until he slips into the shadows of the trees.

Titus is only maybe twenty feet in, slinking towards the shadow Jason can just make out hunched against the base of an oak tree. He slips the flashlight from his belt, teeth bared and a snarl to rival Titus’s rising in his throat.

He points it at the shadow and turns it on full power, letting it blind the miserable piece of filth cowering before him.

Filth is indeed the first thing he sees. Graveyard mud, heavy and dark, clinging to a stained and torn suit. One shoe missing, a leg bent awkwardly and blood staining a bare foot.

The flashlight drifts higher.

Milk white skin beneath the mud, black hair hanging in muddy clumps around his ears. Blue eyes staring back at him, animal-bright and dilated in the brief moment before he flinches back from the light with a cry of pain that pierces Jason to the soul.

His shaking hand closes around the glass before he can even think about it, cutting off the piercing beam and letting it spill out in shards between his fingers. For a petrifying moment as his eyes readjust, he’s sure that when he looks again, there will be nothing there.

“Tim?” he whispers.

He blinks, once, twice.

The lean and ragged figure, tiny, god he’s so small, lowers his hands away from his face, away from his eyes wide and glittering almost silver in the moonlight.

Hands, mud-covered and torn. The red of his shredded fingernails is sickeningly dark in the broken light.

He’s vomiting before he even feels the bile making its way up his throat, the sound not quite covering up his little brother’s broken keens.

Chapter Text

Any amount of time could pass within that clearing, and Jason’s not sure he would even notice. There’s nothing left in his stomach. He’s shivering, the chill of the autumn wind sinking into him even past the leather of his jacket.

His hands are shaking, sending fragments of light flickering unnervingly around the small clearing. Tim’s eyes aren’t focused on him anymore. He’s looking into the shadows beneath the trees, gaze scanning as though searching for something.

Jason takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Tim,” he calls softly.

Blue eyes snap back to him, but there’s no real recognition in them. Jason takes a hesitant step towards him. He tilts his head, watching him curiously.

Jason stares right back, unable to tear his eyes away. He takes in the way he’s hunched around his ribs, the way his leg hangs like an afterthought as he leans against the tree. Leaves crunch under Jason’s boots like bones, on top of damp soil like red-stained asphalt. Titus is still growling. “Titus, quiet,” he says hoarsely.

Titus growls louder, hackles raised. Tim’s gaze snaps to the dog, and Jason clenches his teeth, wishing Damian would just get his fucking beast under control so Jason could focus, because he is unraveling at the fucking edges and he isn’t sure he can take the sound. “Titus, shut up!” he snarls, and Tim flinches back hard.

It happens fast.

The instant Tim moves, so does Titus, lunging across the last ten feet towards the boy before Jason can so much as shout, and he feels his heart slam to a stop. It’s every horror movie jumpscare he’s ever seen packed into a moment, and he knows something terrible is about to happen.

His hand is half-raised, useless in front of him, when Titus skids to a stop, barely avoiding crashing into the other boy, and he’s - wagging. Furiously.

He whines, and Tim, eyes wide and moving as slowly as though in a dream, reaches out an unsteady, bloody hand, resting it on top of the furry head. His fingers twitch stiffly, like they want to scratch the soft ears, but can’t remember how.

Jason finally remembers how to breathe, and once he does, he can’t stop, lungs sucking in the chilled air so fast they can’t possibly be absorbing any of it.

There’s no green this time to wrap himself in.

He needs - he needs his dad.

He fumbles for the comm in his ear, taking three tries to activate it. “Bruce,” he wheezes. “Dad.”

There’s a single, stretching moment of silence before several voices are speaking at once, his brother’s voices rising in concern, before Bruce’s voice cuts clean across the rest. “Hood? Report!” he commands sharply. Jason’s chest loosens slightly at his panicked but firm voice, but his head is still spinning from lack of oxygen, and it takes him too long to answer. “Jason, where are you? What’s going on!?”

“Come home,” he finally manages to choke out. “Now.”

He switches off the comms before anyone can try to demand any more answers. He doesn’t have any, isn’t even sure if this is - if this is real.

Could he have finally snapped? His pit-mad brain given up on reality entirely?

He’s moving forward before he can let himself think about it. He needs to know, needs to touch, if this is a lie, some fucking twisted illusion, he needs to know.

Tim lifts his head to look at him with wide blue eyes, Jason reaches out, and -

His hand makes contact with a muddy cheek, soft and warm and solid beneath his palm, and Jason makes a cracked sound from somewhere deep in his chest.

Before he knows it, he’s clutching at his little brother, curses spilling from his lips as he presses their foreheads together. The flashlight slips from his grip, winking out with the crack of plastic against rock as it hits the ground, but Jason doesn’t care, barely even notices. Tim makes a small, confused noise, but doesn’t flinch away, lets Jason sweep dirty hair back behind his ears, lets his fingers seek out the pulse in his throat, thrumming too-fast and so very alive. “Tim, Timmy,” he rasps. “You’re here, you’re really back, you’re - how the everloving fuck,” his throat strangles the words, the impossible, endless questions.

Tim’s skin is chilled to the touch, and he latches on to that. In the face of so many things he has no answers for, this he can grasp.

It is cold out, and Tim is wounded and confused, and he needs to get warm. “Alright, baby bird,” he whispers. “I’m going to pick you up, okay? I don’t think, um. I don’t think you should try to walk on that leg.”

He remembers the way it lay at an unnatural angle after the car left him sprawled on the ground, the way the streetlights had seeped into the alley and illuminated his broken and motionless figure, the way Jason had known as soon as he saw him that it was too late, and shudders, swallowing back another round of bile.

Tim doesn’t say a word. But he flinches, whining, when he goes to wrap an arm around delicate, fractured ribs, and he flinches too, stuttering out a stream of soft apologies as he tries to find a grip that won’t hurt him.

He screams anyway when he finally scoops him up. It’s only the desperate will not to cause him anymore pain that keeps Jason’s numb limbs from giving out and dropping him at the sound. If you put a gun to his head, he couldn’t tell you what he murmurs as he starts to walk, only that he keeps up a steady stream of soft words as the trees recede behind him, Titus jogging along beside them.

Tim whimpers into his neck with every jostling step, no matter how smooth he tries to keep his stride. He’s limp in Jason’s arms, tucked in against his chest, not making a single attempt to hold on back.

It makes Jason’s heart clench, the trust that he won’t drop him. He doesn’t know if his little brother’s head is just so fucked up that he’s forgotten basic self-preservation instincts or not. He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse if he has.

He doesn’t look down at the body in his arms the whole way home.

The manor’s warm light washes over them a momentary infinity later, and he croons another apology at the whine that rakes across his ears when he shifts his grip to push the heavy door open. He steps into the foyer, and pauses.

For a moment, all he can think about is the fact that he’s going to get graveyard dirt all over the rug for Alfred to clean up.

Footsteps sound briskly, heading their way, and he blinks. He’s not sure if he just lost time or not, Tim’s soft puffs of breath a steady pattern against his throat.

“Master Jason, would you like to explain exactly what is -” Alfred makes it two steps into the foyer before he falters, face losing all color. He actually staggers, hand fluttering up to clutch at his chest, and Jason wonders terrifyingly if he’s about to watch his grandfather have an actual heart attack. “Master Timothy?”

Tim twitches, tilting his face away from Jason to look. Alfred inhales sharply, and his eyes snap up to lock with Jason’s.

Whatever he sees there, it’s enough to make him unfreeze. “Oh, my dear boys,” he says shakily, coming closer. He spots Tim’s torn-up hands, a soft noise leaving his throat as he reaches out to lightly brush a strand of hair away from his face. A moment later, he’s summoned a handkerchief from somewhere on his person, and is carefully and tenderly dabbing at the thin coating of grime and soil that covers the smaller boy.

Jason doesn’t look down to see if Tim shows any signs of recognition. “He’s still injured, Al,” he croaks. “His leg and ribs, dunno what else.”

Alfred blinks rapidly, spine straightening and face sharpening into something analytical as his eyes scan over the kid with purpose this time, a look that reminds Jason suddenly, startlingly of Bruce.

“Let’s get him to the cave,” he says, and Jason is relieved to be able to simply let his feet follow the elderly butler without thinking.

The stairs down are rough, no matter how careful he tries to be, and by halfway down Tim’s ragged hand has come up to clench around Jason’s jacket, even though Jason knows that must be almost as agonizing as the grinding of his broken bones.

The hand finally releases when Jason lowers him carefully onto a cot in the medbay, and Jason staggers back a step, giving Alfred room to work.

His chest and empty arms feel cold.

It’s worrying how quiet Tim has fallen. He still hasn’t said a word since he found him, but he was at least being vocal.

Jason doesn’t think he’s made a single sound since they entered the manor. He watches Alfred and Jason with those same wide, seeking blue eyes. Every time they land on Jason, he feels like he can’t breathe until they flicker away again, the question in them one he has absolutely no idea how to answer.

The rumble of the batmobile sends a swirl of relief and a whole new kind of tension churning in his stomach. “I’ll just -,” he says to Alfred, and flees before any response can follow him.

The car whips around the curve of the cave, barely braking until it’s already sliding into its spot. The driver’s side door opens before the car is even fully stopped, and Bruce leaps out. He has enough self-control to stalk towards Jason instead of sprint, but he can tell it’s a close thing.

He realizes, in the very short period of time in between the car door opening and his father reaching him, that he has absolutely no idea what he’s supposed to say.

“What happened?” Bruce asks sharply, voice too tight to be all Batman and too rough and commanding to be all Bruce as his eyes scan over Jason.

His hands come up like they’re going to pat him down for injuries, but Jason jerks back before he can stop himself. Bruce freezes instantly, his shoulders tensing even more. “Jason, report,” he says urgently. “Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head. He feels...odd. Dreamlike.

There’s dirt on his arms.

He blinks, and Robin’s appeared like a wraith, katana in hand. “Answer Father’s question!” he commands forcefully. His eyes zero in on Jason’s jacket, and he goes deathly still. “Where is Pennyworth?” he asks, voice abruptly flat.

Jason follows his gaze down, and, oh. There’s blood and soil smeared across his jacket, pressed into the creases where Tim gripped the leather. “Medbay,” he murmurs thoughtlessly, unable to tear his eyes away from the stain.

Bruce stiffens like he’s been electrocuted, and Damian takes off across the cave like a shot. Jason realizes his mistake too late, always too late. “Wait,” he gasps. “Wait, Damian, don’t go in there -”

Too late.

Jason reaches the frozen boy in the entrance to the medbay just a few steps ahead of Bruce, hears the way the footsteps behind him stagger. He drops an arm across Damian’s collar, drawing him back protectively, as though there’s a threat he can protect him from and not simply the terrible, bloody hope of something that is and should not be.

“I don’t understand,” Damian says in the smallest voice he’s ever heard from the kid.

Tim lurches forward off the stack of pillows Alfred has piled behind his back, reaching out with one partially bandaged hand. “Dad,” he cries, hoarse with dirt and death and pain but still agonizingly understandable.

Bruce lets out a cry like he’s been gutted.

Jason turns to look at him. He’s braced with one hand against the doorframe like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. He’s taken off the cowl, and his face is ashen, the other hand clamped tight over his mouth as though holding in a scream.

Tim’s brow furrows, and horrifyingly, his eyes seem to be filling with tears. “Dad,” he says again, cracked but insistent.

Bruce makes another low, wounded sound. His hand is trembling as he lowers it from his face, fingers stretching out like they want to reach out in kind, but his other hand remains locked white-knuckled to the doorframe.

Alfred’s own eyes are suspiciously bright as he stands beside the cot. “I have already run his DNA against our system,” he says softly. “So far it would appear, against all reason and expectations, that our Master Tim has returned to us.”

Bruce breaks. He staggers across the room, his knees hitting the floor beside the bed with a thud. “How -?” he whispers raggedly, and Tim flings himself forward, wrapping his arms around his shoulders with an open clinginess that he’s rarely allowed himself to display before. Bruce shudders as though the arms are molten metal, but his own come up automatically, enfolding the boy in his protective grip. He’s so much bigger than Tim is, Jason can barely see the kid where he’s tucked against the broad chest.

“I do not understand,” Damian repeats, stronger this time. He looks up at Jason with huge, bewildered eyes. “Todd, explain!”

Jason can’t figure out if he wants to burst into hysterical laughter or if he wants to smash something at how completely incapable he is of meeting that demand.

“He, um,” he clears his throat, but he still sounds like every cigarette he’s ever smoked has come back to haunt him when he answers. “He must have climbed out, he,” his voice wavers. “The sensor in the coffin lid was set off. I found him in the trees, next to the cemetery.”

Bruce twitches sharply, his arms tightening, and Tim lets out a quiet sob.

“I’ve contacted Dr. Thompkins,” Alfred says softly. “He still bears at least some of his injuries from - before.”

Bruce twitches again. He slowly draws back, gently releasing the boy, though it looks like it takes great effort to do so. He doesn’t make any effort to detach Tim’s arms from around his shoulders, just shakily moves from the floor to the bed so Tim doesn’t have to stretch as far. His face is ghostly pale, and he stares at Tim in transfixed awe.

Jason thinks he’d be unable to tear his eyes away even if every rogue in the gallery suddenly appeared in the Batcave.

Damian shifts, and Jason lets his cold hands fall off his shoulders as he steps towards the bed. “Timothy?”

If Jason didn’t know any better, he’d say he looked almost scared.

Tim turns his head where it’s tucked in against Bruce’s neck. He seems to study Damian briefly with hazy eyes, before turning away again.

Damian’s face crumples, and Jason steps closer before he can think better of it. “Does he not remember me?”

“He’s pretty out of it, baby bat,” he says quietly. “I don’t think he recognized me either.”

Jason glances at Bruce, even though he already knows he’s not going to find any assistance. Their father might as well not have even noticed that they’re still in the room, still holding Tim like he expects him to turn to ash any moment.

He lets out a slow breath through his nose before putting a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “I think you should go change your clothes and get cleaned up,” he tells him. “Dickiebird might even be here by the time you get back, if you don’t rush.”

Like that will actually slow the kid down. But anything that might buy him a few more minutes to just breathe, he needs space to fucking breathe.

Damian hesitates for a second before nodding, a single quick jerk of his head. “I will return in ten minutes,” he says like a threat, a promise of violence if everything is not exactly as he left it when he gets back. He spins on his heel and stalks off towards the showers without a backwards glance at any of them.

Tim’s eyes have slipped shut, and without his bright blue eyes visible, he’s far too still and pale. Bruce’s fingers have settled on his wrist, pushing aside some of the bandages to rest directly on the skin.

It is only the knowledge that if there weren’t a pulse there, Bruce would be screaming, that allows Jason to lean back against a wall and let his mind sink back into an empty haze, avoiding the thoughts that want to strangle him like vines the moment he acknowledges them.

It’s nine minutes that he doesn’t notice passing before he hears the sound of a car roaring down the tunnel into the cave.

He pushes himself off the wall and slips out, feeling slightly more ready to intercept Dick than he was his father and younger brother. Or possibly he’s just not present enough to care.

Dick’s shitty little Volkswagen swerves just enough to avoid rear-ending the batmobile before skidding to a stop. He’s thrown on a jacket over the top of the suit and his cowl is gone, leaving his alarmed face an open book as he sprints over to Jason.

“How many traffic laws did you break getting here that fast?” Jason snorts.

“I was already on my way, I was going to surprise you guys,” Dick answers automatically, zeroing in on his bloody jacket. “Are you hurt? What happened? I heard you on the comms and then you just went silent, I thought - ”

“Tim’s back,” Jason says.

Dick’s face goes perfectly blank.

Jason can feel a headache brewing at the back of his skull.

“What are you talking about?” Dick asks flatly. “That’s - what are you talking about?”

“He’s in the medbay.” Jason jerks his head, as though Dick might have forgotten where it is. “Alfred and Bruce are with him.”

The color has drained out of Dick’s face, and he sways slightly. His expression is doing something complicated, flickering between confusion, horror, bewilderment, and terrible, aching hope. He opens his mouth, closes it again.

“Damian is getting changed. He needs - I don’t fucking know.” Jason resists the urge to laugh, utterly devoid of humor. “I don’t know. You.”

Dick’s eyes flicker to the medbay and back to him. He sways again, uncertainly, like he wants to run and see for himself but doesn’t know if he should. His eyes linger on Jason’s face.

Jason can’t even imagine what it looks like right now.

“Fucking go,” he snarls between gritted teeth, and for once in his life, his brother listens without argument.

He stays planted where he stands, listens as Dick’s footsteps reach the doorway behind him.

A strangled gasp, a raw cry filled with so much emotion Jason feels like he shouldn’t be listening to it.

He can’t be here anymore.

So he leaves.

…

He sits with his fingers pressed into the grass between his crossed legs. His ankles are going numb, but he doesn’t move.

He really doesn’t know what he expected to find by coming here.

It’s what he knew it would be: an empty grave.

There’s loose dirt in clotted piles around the headstone, a sinkhole where the displaced soil has caved in on itself.

Gouges where fingers dug into the mud, where they dragged a terrified boy out of the ground. He feels like if he lay his own hands in the hollows, he’d be able to feel the panic and agony soaking in through his palms, a miasma of it layered across the ground like poison.

It’s lucky that there’s nothing left in his stomach, though there’s still a small puddle of bile next to him, seeping into the grass.

He hears the footsteps approaching, which means they want him to hear.

Dick flops down next to him, fortunately on the side he didn’t vomit on. His limbs are loose, exhausted, but also light.

There’s none of the heaviness weighing him down the way there was the last time they were in this position.

“Leslie set his leg,” he offers. There’s a strain to his tone as he says that, but it lightens as he keeps talking. “The internal injuries are mostly gone, it’s pretty much just the bones that still need to heal. She says there’s no sign of a head injury.”

Jason tilts his head towards him, heart jumping. “No head injury?”

Dick smiles, and it looks a little like crying. “Head’s fine. She, uh. She thinks the reason why he’s not talking, and why he’s so - ” he waves his hand vaguely, “is just...trauma. Shock. He’s…confused, and his mind’s trying to protect itself. But there’s nothing physically wrong with his head as far as she can tell. She thinks he’s going to be okay. At least - you know.”

He does know.

He stares at the pile of shredded grass his fingers have torn apart, and wonders what the fuck okay is supposed to look like.

“She got any clue why?”

Dick sniffs, lets out a shaky laugh. “Her best guess is that someone upstairs thinks we’re really funny.”

That jars loose a sharp bark of laughter from buried somewhere under his ribs. His shoulders shake with it, and don’t stop shaking.

His face is damp, and he’s not sure how long it’s been that way. “He’s really gonna be okay?”

Dick presses up against his side, and he’s got tears streaming down his own face. “He’s going to be okay,” he says softly, tangling their fingers together and tugging gently. “C’mon, Little Wing,” he murmurs. “It’s cold out here. And…morbid.”

“You’re morbid,” he mumbles, and lets himself be pulled to his feet.

…

Someone’s pulled a second cot up against the bed, clearly for necessity, as Jason is reasonably sure that those beds were never designed to hold Tim’s weight plus Bruce, Damian, a Great Dane and Alfred the Cat.

Bruce has positioned himself at the head of the bed, letting Tim use him as a pillow without straining his ribs. His head is tipped forward, nose buried in Tim’s silky, freshly-rinsed hair, and he’s definitely going to have a kink in his neck when he wakes up.

Damian is curled against his uninjured leg, one arm stretched out across him to rest a hand on Titus, who thumps his tail softly on the bed as they approach. Alfred the Cat is curled up in Tim’s arms. Jason can hear the sound of purring from several feet away. Damian’s eyes watch them narrowly as they approach.

“Did Bruce actually say you could have them in the cave?” Jason whispers.

Dick has already got his phone out, and he can see out of the corner of his eye that he’s snapping photos with a focused intensity that goes above and beyond his usual collection of blackmail material.

In honor of their matching red-rimmed eyes, Jason doesn’t even tease him about it.

Damian’s glares at him. “He will allow it,” he hisses back. “Contact with animals encourages recovery. I will send him the studies. Besides,” he sniffs, “Alfred and Titus have missed Timothy.” He shuts his eyes again, clearly satisfied that his word is final.

Jason nudges Dick sharply with an elbow. “You’re sending me those pictures.”

Dick grins, eyes shiny. “Already did.”

When Jason glances up, his eyes meet Bruce’s. Blue eyes are soft and warm and awestruck, and Jason’s breath catches.

His father raises an arm, the one not currently wrapped around his little brother’s delicate, living form, and reaches out towards them. “Jaylad,” he whispers. “Chum.”

Dick doesn’t give him a chance to hesitate. He presses a hand between his shoulder blades, pushing Jason forward until his knees hit the edge of the bed, and he’s forced to pick his legs up and kneel on the bed to avoid jarring it and risk disturbing Tim. Bruce instantly takes advantage, wrapping an arm around him and tugging him down until his head is resting on his chest right next to Tim’s.

“We can’t all fit on two medical cots,” Jason mumbles begrudgingly, not resisting in the slightest as Dick pushes his legs aside to give himself room to fold himself in along with them.

“Yes we can,” Dick says smugly, throwing an arm over his ribs and effectively pinning him in place.

Bruce makes a soft sound, pressing a kiss to the crown of Jason’s head. “My boys,” he whispers. “All my boys.”

Jason reaches across him, fingers finding the gap in the bandages around Tim’s hands. His pulse flutters under his fingertips, steady and strong, and Jason lets his eyes slip closed.

Yes. All of them.

As it should be.