encrypted batfam text

[overlyprecocious]

Dick and I are joining the Alliance. if anyone needs to know.

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[mostdangerousbird]

[ Precisely at 20 minutes, Tim enters through the front door with a duffel bag. The time was mostly to get himself together, but he had to fill the extra time. So he packed - his bo, a baseball bat he keeps under his bed at the Belfry, throwing darts - and changed into what passes for workout gear on the street.

He expected to see an entire rack of knives. Faced with only a mat, Tim’s hand tightens on the strap of the duffel and forces a bemused expression that gets nowhere near his eyes. ]

Is this where you tell me that you’re the weapon?

[reneger]

You say it like it's a joke, but you know damn well I don't need anything in my hands to be classified as a weapon.

( with a wiggle of his brows that's supposed to be playful. jason kicks himself away from the wall and puts down the water bottle, so he can make his way over to tim. )

What'd you bring?

[mostdangerousbird]

Calm down, Stalker Jersey Danger. You can take every guy at the bar.

[ It's just automatic. Not only from the shifts he takes at the younger Jason's bar, but - habit. De-escalation, humor.

Less for Jason, and more for Jason's benefit. Tim's brought a lot of weapons. It's like bringing the entire track team as your date to prom and finding out your buddy's gone stag. If he doesn't joke, Jay might pay attention. ]

Everything in the Belfry that wasn't nailed down. I thought we could run it like a break-in, with an appropriate amount of gear throughout the room.

[reneger]

Apartment's already well-stocked. Add any more and it'll start looking suspicious. Or Kyle'll stab himself reaching into a drawer. Either way.

( might be funny to watch kyle fuck up that badly, but that's beside the point.

jason reaches for tim's duffel bag. less to be snoopy, more so he can put the bag full of toys down and away for a moment. )

[mostdangerousbird]

I know, but if I'm the one being tested, I want items I'm most comfortable with. My bedroom isn't stocked with your knives. Not that I can't throw them.

[ They get familiar with certain weights and sizes.

(God, the way he has to force himself to let Jason take the bag off him.)

He does, but he doesn't want to. It's off, somehow. Unnecessary actions stand out. ]

Kyle has a Green Lantern ring. There's no excuse.

[reneger]

I've got a Green Lantern ring. Funny, ain't it?

( because on what world would a ring have swooped in from fuck if he knows where and chosen jason? ha. but he does have one, on the middle finger of his left hand, that he knows tim's seen before. the whole engagement joke and all. and he's getting vaguely familiar with toying around with it.

not that it's all that relevant right now, aside from using it as a distraction. jason takes the bag and drops it down to the side out of the way. reaches an arm out and wraps it around tim's shoulders to yank him forward into a hug. )

Hey, shortstack.

[mostdangerousbird]

[ The hug is less than one-sided, because Tim gets his arms between them deliberately and forces space between them. He could've done more to stop it - could have treated it like the beginning of a grapple and started the fight like a sneak - but this gets the point across without shoving or yelling. Just coldly enduring it. ]

Don't do be an asshole. I'm fine.

[reneger]

( protest noted, but jason doesn't let go. he's not pulling tim forward either, just leaves the arm around him. )

I know you're fine. I'm not.

[mostdangerousbird]

[ Tim sags, but doesn't drop his arms. He can't tell if it's true or not. Like it could be true - it's true on multiple levels - but there's no Jason Todd map that tells him exactly what he's not okay with.

But Tim apologizes anyway. ]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dredge up bad memories.

[reneger]

You didn't.

( not anything jason doesn't find himself stopping to think about occasionally on his own. not anything jason didn't already know was fucked up. tim drops a little, and jason's grip loosens a little more. doesn't let go, but gives tim plenty of room to move away if he feels like he needs to. )

But I'm sorry, too. Not about the memories or the fucked up shit I couldn't do jack about, ( because he knows tim would hate jason apologizing for things he had nothing to do with. things he couldn't help. ) but for being an obstacle instead of helping.

[mostdangerousbird]

That's the same thing.

[ Tim slips away as soon as he feels the hold (hug) break. He's not ... the ... worst at hugs. He's never been wholly at ease with them, worse when they're disrupting his ability to pretend to be fine. (Physical contact always fucks up his ability to pretend to be fine.)

And... he kinda wants to flex his autonomy about not being touched right now. He doesn't want to be hugged.

Tim will go unzip the bag and startly neatly unpacking it on the floor. ]

You're not an obstacle. You let me stay here sometimes; you treat me like a human being. You're still apologizing for things you couldn't do jack shit about.

[reneger]

( tim moves away, and jason shifts to lean back against the wall. watches as he starts going through his bag full of miscellaneous weapons, lips pressed together tight as he - tries to figure out how he wants to word this. what's the right way to say what he's trying to say. jason knows he doesn't need to, knows tim's already forgiven him as much as he can, that he's never held it against jason anyway. but jason has. )

I didn't mean now, I meant. . . before. When I came back. I could've been better. ( should have been better. in hindsight, jason can see all the points where his life turned for the worse. talia told him not to go back to bruce, that he remained unavenged, and he'd listened. he'd planted a bomb on the batmobile. thought revenge against bruce was what he needed, when it was never going to fix anything. ) I took all my crap out on you 'cause I needed Bruce to see he shouldn't be having fucking kids playing soldiers out on his battlefield. I should've known that it didn't matter what I did to you. I, ( his expression pinches tight, pausing for a moment to reassess his words. ) Talia was the one who told me you'd taken over as Robin. I saw pictures of you out there, smiling, an' it broke something in me. Not that it was you. That it wasn't me. That I'd died and it felt like it didn't even matter. I know better now. But I'm still sorry.

[mostdangerousbird]

[ Tim’s motions get even more fastidious when Jason tries to draw it out in the open. A minefield isn’t any less tricky when you know it’s a minefield. ]

Jay.

[ He doesn’t look over because, well, he’s afraid that this is somehow the wrong move. Doesn’t change anything, but he won’t let a misread expression screw it up. ]

I knew you didn’t mean now because you haven’t been an obstacle now. I don’t think it was your fault. Bruce’s. Talia’s. Other people.

[ Jason’s mother. The Joker. Tim’s not suicidal. ]

It was a long time ago, and I’ve got more perspective. More than Bruce, that’s for sure. Dick, too. I got replaced with a Robin who tried to kill me, and I was the one who had to see things from his perspective.

If I can give him grace, why wouldn’t you deserve more? Rhetorical question. I had to accept Damian. I chose to forgive you.

[ He gets considerably quieter. Just staring down at a neat rectangle of blunt objects and sharp metal. Surveying it like it’s the story of his life. Maybe it is. ]

It mattered. It mattered so damn much. I followed you and Batman around Gotham, and then I followed you. It was like moving into my hero’s mausoleum.

[reneger]

( jason's not looking at tim either.

turns his face away from him entirely, even, because he doesn't want to see tim's face. doesn't want to see what expression he's got on his face. jason stands by his actions, almost always. stands by killing almost every monster he's put down. doesn't regret his actions after he came out of the grave, doesn't regret the path he went down, except for this one part of it.

he could acknowledge how much of a shithead damian is. or the whole robin replacement chain that jason's been part of, or the part about tim following him, his death mattering. but he doesn't. because that's not what this is about, and he doesn't want to derail himself. )

I was so pissed, 'cause no one was there for me when I needed it. 'cause Bruce's response to me having. . . problems was to tell me I was fucked and bench me 'til I got help or whatever. ( planned on benching him for good was jason's take on it. there was no getting better for him. jason was at his best when bruce pulled him, he's only gone downhill from there. )

I should've been there for you. Instead of being so fucking focused on hurting him I should've focused on being better than him. That's on me. What I did, regardless of whatever shit led to it, that was on me. I did it. I hurt you. ( how much different would it have been, if he'd ignored talia's don't seek him out. if he'd gone back home, if alfred had gotten his hands on jason before he'd gone so far down the path of revenge there was no coming back from it. if he'd just--if he'd had someone to lean on, just a little.

how much better could shit have gone for tim if jason had recognized that was his whole damn problem all along and got back at bruce by proving he could be that for him. )

[mostdangerousbird]

[ Tim’s face is flat. His hands are curled into fists on his thighs: this is hard for him. To be blatant and honest with opinions that Jason could use to sneer. How dare Tim have sympathy for him. Think he can empathize with him. The tilt of his face is reluctant, eyes and chin pointing a 45 degree and to the floor. His eyes are closed. Tim doesn’t want to see Jason either. ]

You were his child being thrown into shit you never should’ve had to deal with. He was the one who should have gotten you help. Should’ve gotten me help. I’m not going to lie: I could’ve used your support. I would’ve given anything for someone to understand when I wanted revenge. He teaches us all this - praises us when we’re clever and violent and deceptive - and then when we can’t shut down every emotion permanently, we have to claw our way back into his good graces.

And I have to do it, every time. I hurt you, too. I didn’t reach out, and I knew you wouldn’t kill me. You could’ve killed me in the Tower, but you didn’t. I knew it wasn’t about me, and I knew that you were troubled. I knew where you were, and I was increasingly familiar with the gray area that you had to carve out for yourself between his morality and reality. Sure, I was under orders to not engage. I disobey orders all the time, but not for you for too long. We both needed support.

[ Tim sighs heavily. ]

You can’t have missed that we get along when he’s not here. You are a better person than him. You apologized.

[reneger]

I was fucked up long before B got his hands on me.

( not like it's a secret. and it's not as if tim wasn't, either. hell, they've all got that in common, don't they? all aside from dick. they were all fuckups, broken in their own way before they'd put on the R and started following around batman. bruce should have been more supportive. his support should have been more than just "firing" his kids when their shit got to be too much to handle. or outright telling them they're broken. who the hell even does that without doing it to intentionally fuck people over? bruce wayne, apparently.

but that's not on them, and not anything they really need to dig into either. tim knows, jason knows, they don't need to rehash their issues with bruce. )

It shouldn't've been on you to be better than me. It should've been on me to realize what an idiot I was being. I'm sorry I wasn't there to support you, to tell you I get it when shit got rough. When B was being an asshole, when Dick was too caught up in his own bullshit. To tell you it's okay to feel shit, an' to tell everyone to lay off when you were uncomfortable.

( he raises his head, but still isn't looking towards tim. focuses on the doorway instead, like he's - considering running out of it. )

I wasn't there for you then, but I'm gonna be now.