Effortless Smile

Jason knew this was a mistake before he even walked in the door.

No, scratch that. He knew it was a mistake long before he walked in the door. He was prescient like that.

Not enough, apparently, to keep his dumb ass from walking in the fucking door.

“We’ve set aside some office suites for the programs,” Tam Fox was telling him, efficient and brisk. “They’re kind of old, sorry. Most of our general office spaces were swallowed up by WayneMed and WayneTech in the redesign after the quake.”

“Shit, that’s fine,” Jason nodded along. “It’s youth programs, not, like, flight simulations or anything. As long as we got some space and computers and junk we should be okay.”

He ignored the tightening in his chest as he walked through the glossy glass panelled corridors of Wayne Enterprises. This sort of environment was not exactly familiar to him and unfamiliar territory tended to wind his inner assassin right up. Unfamiliar territory got you killed.

But fuck, he’d run out of excuses after the tenth… twentieth? Fuck had he lost count? After pulling one Bat after another out of trouble for the last two years he finally had to grudgingly cave; they were family, he wasn’t interested in killing ‘em anymore and they were practically falling over themselves trying to welcome him back into the fold. Even Bruce, which Jason couldn’t deny, hit the tiny, moving target of his feels with deadly accuracy.

As part of his… well, Bruce called it re-acclimatization but Jason thought of it as de-feralization, he’d been invited to try out a day job of sorts in the family business, i.e., Wayne Enterprises, the money machine for a significant chunk of the US GDP. A place even pre-dying Jason Todd had never, ever thought he’d be suitable for.

But Bruce had been the cunning, master strategist that he was. He’d waxed as poetic as an emotionally constipated Bat could possibly wax about how there were programs and jobs within WE that would suit Jason eminently, varying skill sets and all. He’d finally managed to strike a vein of interest when he mentioned the charity arm working with at-risk teens in the most hard-luck areas. Those were the kinds of kids Red Hood was frequently running into, making sure they had food and soap and shelter, making sure the endless, hungry maw of Gotham didn’t just swallow them whole as it was wont to do. The microscopic level intelligence he collected on the streets rivalled any amount of social service surveys, census’ and other data. He knew where the kids were, where they usually found safety, the kind of shitty cost-benefit analysis they grappled with day after day as they decided what they could trade or risk for a warm bed or a warm meal. They talked to Red Hood. He knew them. He helped where he could.

This, Bruce had told him, was the other side of the coin of what they did. The Bats punched criminals and put them away. The Wayne’s made sure there were systems in place to keep potential victims out of harm’s way to begin with, maybe even preventing some would-be rogue, fed up with the endless unkindness of the world, turning to the solace of crime and power. Making sure kids had safe places, that they had options to get educated, find decent, paying jobs, stability, safety. Jason knew all the little things eventually tallied up, good and bad. It was an attractive idea to have the power and money to add a little good weight to the common scale.

“Uh, sorry if this sounds like a dumb question,” Jason interrupted her spiel carefully. “And you’ll pardon my language, but what the fuck am I supposed to actually do here?”

Tam, to her credit, wasn’t at all phased by the question. “We’ve had several youth programs running through Wayne Enterprises in the last few years. Our programs for the very young – school-entering age kids and the like, typically do very well. So do our scholarship programs for the academically inclined. However, there’s a huge swathe of youth – say, thirteen to sixteen – living in poverty whom we’ve never had a successful, long term project with that isn’t, say, a food program. We start them up, they run for a few years, then interest fizzles or council funding shifts and it all collapses. We need to know why this is happening. Was it lack of interest? Did we use the wrong tack, wrong sell? Did we focus on the wrong area, chose the wrong charities to partner with? That’s part of the problem, see? We can’t just throw money at it. We have to work with other charities and city councils, and with the community at large. Otherwise there’s no lasting change. Money can’t build a society; it just helps it run efficiently.”

“You know a lot about this, don’t you?” Jason surmised.

“My sister’s a social worker,” Tam shrugged. “She’s on the front lines out there. Some of what she rants to me at the dinner table sinks in. This is… it’s not like you have to come up with an idea that’ll save the world. We need someone who can look at a system and find out where we’re going wrong. Like a mechanic.”

“Or a detective,” Jason mused. Well played, Old Man.

“Or a detective,” she echoed, just arch enough for Jason to think maybe she knew a lot more about the Wayne’s than most generally did. She didn’t elaborate, but keyed open a door. “Ah, here we are. It’s a little… neglected?” her voice trailed off in surprise.

Jason peered over her head. “Okay, I’m all for minimalist décor, but this seems a bit overboard.”

Four walls. Some closed doors off to the side. There were sad, dusty wall sockets and empty shelf sockets bolted evenly into a sea of beige. One sad landline sat on a rickety card table, tucked against one wall, ashamed of itself.

“I’m sorry,” Tam hastily sorted through her stack of papers. “I’m sure I put in a request to maintenance to outfit the room. I’m really sorry, it was supposed to be all set up this morning!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he gave her a rueful smile. “It’s not like I got a team ready today. Still gotta hand pick ‘em. I got my laptop. This is all I’ll need for now. Once I’ve picked my interns, they can help me outfit the place. It’ll be a good whatdoyoucallem, bonding exercise.”

“If you’re sure…” she agreed slowly. She handed him a phone book worth of paper. “Here. How-To guides for logging onto the system and manuals for using the various software packages. Don’t worry, they’re pretty intuitive. Phone tree for the various departments; it’ll be on the company drive as well, once you get on there. Temporary security pass, cafeteria card since you’re on the executive tier, orientation checklists, there you go, and you’ll need to fill out these forms if you want access to the assets – company cars, petty cash account, that sort of thing. I’ll send an intern up to get your photo for your permanent pass. Is there anything else you need?”

Jason was staring at the pages. “A bullet to shoot myself with for agreeing to this?”

“They’re on a six to ten-week back order and Mr Wayne’s personal assistants get first dibs, sorry,” she replied with perfect seriousness.

Jason snorted. “Then I’m good, thanks.”

She left him with an admonition to call if he had any questions.

Jason sighed. Yep, his regrets were strong, and only getting stronger. He squared his shoulders and raised his chin. He’d survived the Joker, the League, Gotham and Batman’s frankly alarming idea of a sex talk. He could handle some damn paperwork.

After two hours without even being able to log on to the intranet and trying his damndest not to go down and put the fear of Red Hood into some snotty little IT drone worker, Jason would have taken on every Rogue in Gotham if it meant he didn’t have to suffer one more minute in this beige hell.

“You foul, evil, demonic hellbeast,” Jason muttered at the laptop, frustratedly pouring over the manuals he’d been given. “Sent from the deepest fucking pits of hell to spread hellfire and damnation, you complete and utter fucker.”

“Uh, excuse me?”

Jason jumped and nearly pulled… well, totally not the .37 that he hadn’t smuggled in with him because that was against all kinds of policy. He kept his hands firmly where they were and turned to assess the enemy infiltrator.

Small, bright blue eyed, long, glossy dark hair that hung in long bangs on either side of his face. He was carrying a camera that looked almost heavy enough to count as a blunt instrument but was probably good for one blow only.

Fuck. He’d nearly drawn on some intern. An inordinately pretty intern, Jason admitted. The only flaw he could see on that face was a cracked spider web of scar tissue on one cheek, which pulled his mouth upwards slightly on one side. Come to think of it, those cheekbones weren’t quite symmetrical either. The kid had clearly taken a hard knock at some point. He wondered who the hell had had the balls to take a fist to a face like that on a body that small.

Then again, Jason reasoned, this was Gotham. Jason had met half a dozen people today at Wayne Enterprises with eye patches, missing fingers, burns and other miscellaneous brands that marked them lifers of the craziness that was Gotham. Jason might have his issues with Bruce, but even he couldn’t deny the man did everything he could to alleviate the suffering of the victims of crime in the city, usually by giving them jobs.

“Sh-uh, sorry,” Jason tried for awkward to cover his laser scan of the kid. “Just trying to work out how to log on, y’know?” he sheepishly waved at his laptop.

The intern smiled gently. “Been at it for a while? We usually get the first death threat by hour three, according to my statistical count.”

Jason snorted. “Long enough for that, I suppose. You here to take my mugshot?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” the intern blushed and waved the camera. “Well, obviously. I’m, uh, T-Tim. Um. Tim Drake.”

“Jason Todd,” Jason held out a hand.

“Oh, I know. I mean, I don’t know you,” Tim hastily corrected, flushing. “Well, I sort of do… well, anyway, Ms Fox told me who you were. She says you need a security pass? And maybe a publicity shot or two if you’re going to put your profile on the youth programs database?”

Shit, Tam hadn’t mentioned that. Still, Jason guessed it made sense. “And you’re the staff photographer?” Jason asked curiously. He could be. Wayne Enterprises had everything .

“Oh, no way,” Tim laughed. “I’m a general intern. I’m, like, part of a pool of entry level gophers. Have you ever heard the term ‘low man on the totem pole’? Well, I’m not even that. I’m the little bit buried deep under the ground.”

Jason felt a reluctant smile tug at his mouth. “And you got stuck taking pictures of my ugly mug?”

“I go where I’m told,” Tim shrugged. “Honestly, I might as well be the staff photographer. I get staff picture duty all the time. Word got around that I know my way around a camera. It’s kind of a hobby of mine.” Then he frowned. “And you’re not ugly. Who said that? Their nose must be about twenty feet long.”

Jason snorted. “Quit trying to butter me up, intern. Where do you want me?”

“Uh… over there, by the window should be good,” Tim idly rubbed his scarred, misshapen cheek. “We can make use of the natural light.”

Honestly, this all sounded a bit much for a security pass, but Jason complied. It was a break from his fucking failure at IT, anyway. He held his patience for a half a dozen shots.

“You can smile a little, you know?” Tim said idly.

“Yeah, I don’t usually smile for the cameras much,” Jason shrugged uncomfortably. It wasn’t like he could explain to an intern that the only photos taken of him in the past few years had been surveillance photos. The sensation of being viewed through a lens wasn’t a positive one for him.

“Yeah, I get that,” Tim nodded. “Took me a while to like having my picture taken too, you know, after,” he waved at his battered face.

“How’d it happen, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Termites,” Tim replied promptly.

Jason’s brow wrinkled. “Termites?”

“Termites,” Tim nodded. “In my defense, when they said the shed had termites I thought they meant the shed, not the tools. When you’re swinging a ten-pound sledge at an old garden wall and the handle is basically the same tensile strength as honeycomb, the whole ‘equal and opposite reaction’ side of physics is a bit merciless. So, apparently, is a ten-pound chunk of graphite steel flying backwards at high speeds. They really should put warning labels on those things, you know? ‘Check For Termites’.”

Jason stared at him, open mouthed.

Then he caught the gleam of humour in Tim’s eyes.

Jason burst out laughing. “Oh my god, you little shit! You’re totally fucking with me!”

“I am, in fact, totally fucking with you,” Tim nodded solemnly. “And,” he took a shot. “Seems like you can smile for the camera after all. Look.”

He showed Jason the picture of the digital screen. Jason barely recognized the face in, eyes relaxed, jaw unclenched, teeth gleaming at he laughed. He looked so young. Jason had to stare at it for a moment, trying to reconcile that face with the one in front of the mirror every day.

The dusty landline buzzed shrilly, breaking into their moment. “Damn, hang on,” he picked it up. “Todd.”

“Jaylad,” Bruce sounded way too chipper. “It’s Bruce. How goes your first day?”

“You mean the last three hours where I’ve tried and failed to log on to your seething hellscape of a computer system?” Jason snarked. “It’s gone just swell, thanks Brucie.”

Tim’s expression changed, probably with the realization that Jason was talking with the Big Boss.

“Did you call IT?”

“Wha- Jesus B, what kind of dumbass do you take me for?” Jason replied incredulously. “Yes, I called IT. My first recommendation for the board will be a department wide purge, starting with some little snot named Larry.”

Silence. Then Bruce came back with a reply that sounded way too amused. “How about I come down and give you a hand, sport?”

“What? No!” Jason squawked. “ Not what I was asking for B! Do not come down here!”

“On my way,” Bruce cheerfully ignored him.

“Arg, what a jackass,” Jason slammed down the phone.

“Uhh… I should probably go,” Tim was rapidly backing out of the line of fire. “Um… it was nice meeting you, Jason. And um. Welcome back. To, you know, Wayne Enterprises,” he gave Jason a shy grin.

Despite himself, Jason found himself smiling at Tim’s departing back.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

“DEMON BRAT!” Jason shouted as he stomped into the executive suite, dressed for office work but moving like a predator heading for the kill. “FRONT AND CENTRE!”

“Jay!” Dick poked his head out of a meeting room. “You made it! Uh… I assume there’s a problem?” he trailed off looking at Jason’s furious face.

“There won’t be as soon as I’ve gotten myself a nice pair of gremlin skin gloves! Where is the brat?”

“Your pithy attempts at intimidation will not affect the likes of me, you lowborn peasant!” Damian yelled furiously from the same meeting room Dick had popped out of.

“Come out here and put your money where your mouth is, hell brat!”

“Okay, okay,” Dick, ever the peacemaker, held up his hands. “How about we all go into the nice, soundproof meeting room and have an actual discussion like reasonable people instead of the almost-totally-mental nutcases that we know we are, hmm? I hate to be a giant buzzkill to your death grudge, but your yelling is upsetting the natives.”

Looking at all the wide-eyed faces peering out of various doors and hallways, Jason had to grudgingly concede the point. This civvie gig was fucking tough; Jason was usually free to deal with his problems with his usual brand of subtlety, consequences be damned. Jason got by at WE mostly by pretending this whole debacle was one long undercover mission.

It didn’t help his mood when he stepped into the room to see Damian smirking smugly, at him, arms crossed snottily. Oooh, how Jason wanted to wipe that look of the brat’s face.

He had just the thing. “Where’s B?” Jason asked levelly, taking a seat. “I got a complaint I want to take to HR.”

Some of the smug drained out of Damian. Bruce had been infected by some weird desire to have them all working at the firm lately, which is why his brothers were here. They each had their own assigned departments, though Dickie was only part time at best. Damian’s internship had been a horror story so far. He’d caused half of R&D to quit and go to competitors. Bruce was not happy. Damian was on thin ice and damn well knew it.

Dick groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. “What,” he shot a look at Damian. “Did he do this time?”

“Why do you automatically assume I am at fault?” Damian bridled.

“Because it saves fucking time,” Jason retorted. “That little gremlin stole my fucking team!”

Dick blinked. “What? How?”

“I did not steal anything!” Damian protested, mortally insulted. “The defective one had to leave for a mission for a week. He should not have left valuable resources idle. If he were any sort of leader at all he would have organised assignments. I was merely making use of the assets he wasted!”

“You little shit!” Jason growled. “I did give them assignments! I told ‘em to get the office in working order, sort out the paperwork and make lists of what we needed! I walked back into the fucking main entrance this morning to see my handpicked team schlepping in R&D and not doing the jobs I assigned them because you went in there and fucking lied to them about a change in plans!”

“Damian!” Dick scolded. “Why would you do that?”

“I have repeatedly told Father I need more people in my department. We are woefully understaffed. They were of much more use in R&D than some pithy little social program. Besides, it was only for a week,” he added sullenly when Dick gave him a look. “ My R&D department is making gains on the bleeding edge of technology. What would it matter if some failing basketball league has to wait another seven days to organise a three-person audience match?”

“It matters,” Dick replied before could Jason start yelling. “Because it matters to Bruce.”

Damian clammed up because that was a direct hit.

“And it also matters because you’re treating this like another competition for Bruce’s attention and it’s really not, Little D,” Dick added archly. “Honestly, aren’t you getting a bit old for such childish things now?”

Jason nearly cracked up laughing at the look of impotent embarrassment on Damian’s face. The one thing the little gremlin absolutely hated to be called out on was his perceived superior emotional discipline, or lack thereof. He hated being seen as just a common-as-muck normal kid. Especially by his father or Dick. Jason kind of wished Tim were here with his camera.

“Look, I’m sorry about him,” Dick turned to Jason, winking at him stealthy while Damian built a head of steam up in the background. The brat hated to be talked around too. Dick had his methods when it came to Damian’s behaviour. “Tell your interns they’re free to come back. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t help me get the office up and running,” Jason snorted. “I need furniture installed and everything. It was meant to be a bonding exercise for my crew, but now we’re going to be scrambling to get shit in place for the summer. Maybe I should poach all his interns for the next week, just to even things out.”

“What?!” Damian squawked. “You can’t do that!”

“Hey, turnabout’s fair play, brat,” Jason retorted. “If you’re entitled to all my guys, I’m entitled to yours.”

“I did not take all of them,” Damian was taking this hilariously seriously. “I assigned a general intern to set up the space! It’s their job to do the unskilled labour anyway.”

“You what?” Dick gaped.

“Seriously?” Jason glared at him. “You yanked some poor junior off coffee runs and told them to set up an entire office by themselves? Does the term labour law mean anything to you? Fuck, I give up.” Jason threw up his hands. “I’m gonna go down there now and make sure whatever poor sap you dumped that on isn’t curled up in a ball of despair. If he calls lawyers on us, you’re the one explaining it to Bruce, demon brat.”

“I’ll come too,” Dick agreed. “In case you actually need to calm someone down. You’re not the most soothing person, Jay, no offence.”

“Love you too, Dickface.”

Damian, of course, tagged along so Jason was forced to listen to his increasingly defensive and querulous complaints about how he was supposed to know anything about decadent American labour laws.

“That is not the point, Dami,” Dick said patiently as they exited the elevator. “You don’t dump that kind of responsibility on some kid and give him no guidance or means of asking for help. You know how hard it is to get even a general internship at WE? And how many interns just get asked to leave? The poor guy probably spent the last week terrified he was going to be fired.”

“Please,” Damian sneered. “I’m sure with the average youth’s work ethic in this country, he was fine. He probably spent his time on social media or something. Anyone who can’t take the initiative deserves to be fired.”

“Remind me again just how much Bruce had to pay to get half of his R&D staff back after they all quit en masse, Dickie?”

“Enough so that Damian doesn’t get an allowance until Christmas.”

“Tt!”

“And I’d like to point out that none of this makes up for the week of time my team have now wasted as gophers in R&D when they could have been brainstorming new programs for kids in the summer,” Jason griped. “And I don’t have a fucking office to put them in now… either…?” Jason trailed off as he banged open the door.

It was like a whole different room.

There were desks set up, properly kitty corner so everyone could work and chat at the same time. Each desk had a shelf, a pin board, a phone line and stationery. Along the side of the room a long boardroom table had been set up, currently covered in documents and a laptop, whirring away. Potted plants had been tastefully added to a couple of corners. There was a huge whiteboard spanning the entirety of one wall, bolted tightly.

A neatly set up array of power tools quietly took up space on a spare sideboard.

There, sitting on a set of rolling steps at the extremely tall whiteboard, was Tim Drake. His dark hair was pulled back, showing his marred cheek and his tongue was sticking out slightly as he carefully wrote out an extremely precise calendar grid on one side of it.

“Holy renovation!” Dick exclaimed, looking around.

Tim jumped, threw his marker up in the air and spun around. “Oh my god! You… ow!” the marker bounced off his head. “Where did you all come from?”

“Did you do all this?” Jason was turning around slowly, taking it all in.

“Um… yes? Was it, um, not what you wanted?” Tim asked anxiously.

“Are you shitting me? This is fantastic!” Jason beamed. “How’d you get all this done in a week?”

“Oh, well, it wasn’t too hard,” Tim explained earnestly. “WE has an entire basement of old furniture and stuff. I don’t think they’ve tossed or sold any of their equipment since the seventies. I took measurements of everything in here and drew up a floorplan of where all the plugs and lines were and raided storage until I found bits that fit. I mean, the equipment is all old and stuff but it’s solid. The power tools are mine.”

“You assembled all this as well?” Jason asked.

“It’s not as bad as doing Ikea furniture,” Tim grinned, mouth asymmetrical as the scars pulled. “The whiteboard used to be the design wall in R&D before they switched to smartboards. Supply said I couldn’t set up the computers, sorry, but I did manage to get a fridge, sofa set and a coffee maker for the breakroom.”

“We have a breakroom?” Jason blinked.

“Sure,” Tim pointed. “That door on the left. I set up your office too, Mr Todd, as much as I could. Maintenance agreed to take off the drywall and put in the glass, since they were due to refurbish this floor anyway.”

Astonished, Jason saw a section past the board table was indeed now glass fronted floor to ceiling, with its own complement of desks, shelves and cupboards. They’d even put a discreet nameplate on the door: Jason Todd, Supervisor.

Holy shit, Jason realized faintly. I’m a fucking boss. Like, in an actual business sense.

“What,” Damian was scowling down at the mess on the board table. “Is all this? Why do you have old buzzer discs from the cafeteria?”

“Oh, that!” Tim smiled. “I read the WE office protocols and they said each department had to have a system in place to keep track of whether people were in or out of their designated area, in case of an emergency or something. All the fingerprint scanners and tracking chip ID cards have been taken by the executives and R&D and ordering more would become the burden of this department’s budget, so I thought a lower cost alternative would be better. I’ll show you,” he scrambled down the steps and proudly unveiled the system. “This is a tracking dot,” he held up the tiny circle. “The cafeteria people used to clip them to order receipts as they went through, before they went paperless. When the order was ready the plate, receipt and dot would be pushed up to the collection bar, where it would pass through sensor strips. Once it passed through, the buzzer would light up, you’d go collect your lunch. Same deal here. We put the tracking dot in a plastic lanyard slip with the WE ID card,” he stuck it in the slip. “Then, once anyone walks out of the doors,” he did so. A buzzer lit up red and blinking. “I pasted some sensor strips on the door frame. When they pass through again, I programmed them to go off.” Tim walked back into the room and the buzzer switched off. “I thought we could glue some magnets to the back and stick them on the whiteboard and write names next to them. If the light is on, they’re not in and everyone can see it. It’s much easier than the logon system, you’ve got to go through about three different drives to bring up the list and it only works if people have logged on properly.”

Jason was amused to see Damian silently seething. One of the brat’s biggest complaints so far had been keeping track of the herd of cats that were the R&D engineers, who forgot to scan fingerprints or flash their ID’s onto the logon system all the time. Damian prided himself on being a mechanical genius, but such a low-tech solution hadn’t occurred to him. The brat was no doubt feeling a blow to his ego over it.

Dick was beaming delightedly. “That’s brilliant! Where did Jason even find you?”

Tim darted a quick look at Dick then ducked behind his own long bangs. “I’m j-just a general intern,” he stammered, blushed.

Jason’s eyes narrowed. The sudden change in Tim’s demeanour in relation to his asshole older brother caused Jason’s chest to do funny things. He didn’t like it.

“Really?” Dick leaned in, all twinkling charm. “If you ever want to transfer up to the executive’s admin pool, let me know. We could use some fresh blood; especially someone with your level of resourcefulness.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Grayson,” Damian bristled. “With his technical skills he clearly belongs in R&D. What college did you attend?” he asked Tim with lordly imperiousness.

Tim’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Jason’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck?”

“I merely seek to ascertain what his level of education is so that I might know how much training he will need,” Damian rolled his eyes.

“Dami, I have explained this. You can’t just requisition people like you do pens,” Dick sighed. “Besides, R&D’s over bloated as it is. Are you sure I can’t tempt you up to the admin pool?” Dick asked winningly. Then his eyes scrunched up. “Have we met before?”

Jason’s head swivelled slowly, like an owl in slow motion, to give his brother a look. He did not just trot out a fucking line like that in front of everybody, did he? The pity Jason felt for all of Dick’s various exes was indescribably high in that moment.

Tim looked baffled by the sudden interest. “Um…” he ducked deeper into his bangs, face red. “I don’t think so?” he mumbled.

“You’re right, who could forget that handsome face.”

Jason felt the steam slowly building. He was actually trying on fucking flattery?

“It is not so handsome,” Damian piped up, and then realized that he’d jammed a verbal foot down his own throat a beat too late, as he so often did. “It is well that scars add character,” he added, in what Jason had to extremely grudgingly concede was a pretty smooth save. “How did you gain it?”

“Safety instructions,” Tim shrugged, still flushed up.

They stared at him.

“You should always read them,” Tim added. “Especially when it comes to things like minimum safe distance and mandatory helmets at the batting cages.”

There was a moment while they absorbed that.

Then Dick and Jason cracked up laughing. Damian wasn’t the belly laugh sort of person, but there was a slight tightness around his jaw that indicated he was protecting his hardass reputation masterfully from the indignity of smiling.

Jason didn’t know what it was about Tim, but every time he saw him, Tim managed to make him smile.

“Oh my god, you’re a damn riot,” Dick wiped tears from his eyes. “Come on, come work in the admin pool, Tam would probably adopt you.”

“As stated, Richard,” Damian said primly. “I believe he will be a fit for R&D.”

And also; yeah, fucking no, Jason was not standing for this fucking nonsense. “Get in line, losers,” Jason clapped a proprietary hand on Tim’s shoulder. “’Cause you’re lookin’ at my new PA. Pay rise and everything.”

Jason burst out laughing at the bug-eyed expressions on everyone’s faces, including Tim’s.

“Hey! Let’s not be hasty!” Dick argued. “Tim might have opinions on where he wants to go.”

“As if anyone would choose filing papers over working in the development centre,” Damian sniffed.

They both turned gazes on Tim, who shuffled back a careful couple of steps.

“Hey! I got dibs, I met him first. So, go off and weep somewhere, losers! Right Tim?” he grinned at Tim.

“That is not an argument for your wishes being above mine, Todd!” Damian growled. “And I shall fight you on it!”

“Bring it on, gremlin!”

“Maybe we should ask Bruce,” Dick got between them, waving his cell phone like a white flag. “I can get him down here in about two minutes…”

Tim looked at his watch and yelped. “Tabling this for now! Whatever I might be tomorrow, today I’m still a general intern,” he grabbed his gear and left at a dead run. “Someone’s gotta go get the lunch orders!”

He left them all in a furious trail of scattering papers.

They all looked at each other.

They narrowed their eyes.

Jason cracked his knuckles.

Then it was on.

The short answer was; Jason won.

The long answer involved Bruce’s ‘inveterate favouritism’ (Damian), Jason’s ‘fighting dirty’ (Dick) and the others being total and absolute, unsalvageable and inevitable losers (Jason).

(Actually, there were certain rules about how long an intern had to, well, intern before they could be bumped up the ladder, so technically Tim was still a general intern. But Jason read the rulebook very carefully and found that he could more-or-less request Tim’s permanent assignment to him if he filled out a bunch of forms, which he did and submitted to Lucius Fox before the other two could do so, so suck it, losers, and remember to get your paperwork in on time.)

And really, he felt the advantage of his victory every day. Tim was, like, this hypercompetent super-organised, bureaucratic badass with a diamond sharp mind and a photographic memory to boot. Before Jason had even managed to reassemble his team from drudgework down in R&D, Tim had managed to do up a budget spreadsheet, organise the records of past youth programs in order of expense, complexity and popularity and he’d cold called an entire phone directory’s worth of youth organisations and educational programs all across Gotham to see what they could bring to the table in terms of partnerships, ideas and resources. The kid was a fucking go-getter, who took every job put in front of him with life-or-death seriousness and complete focus. He even went as far as looking over the team’s contracts and spotting a whole bunch of glaring omissions regarding the benefits and services they could take part in.

Which is how Jason found himself taking a night off from mask-duty and pouring over paperwork late in the evening with Tim with an expense account-paid takeout dinner because Tim was too skinny dammit. He found himself having to ask the question that had long haunted him. “How the fuck did a dynamo like you wind up in an entry level scut work position like general intern, anyway?”

Tim looked up from the papers he was highlighting. “Well, if you want the brutally honest response, I wasn’t supposed to be here at all,” he admitted. “Wayne Enterprises was my fallback option. I was meant to start in a Queen Consolidated business management traineeship in the spring but it kind of fell through at the last minute. Given the length of the waitlist at WE, I’m kinda glad I managed to get any slot at all after applying so late.”

Jason was revolted. “Queen Consolidated? Queen? Really? You’d be fucking wasted under Queen, Timmers.”

“Hey! I worked hard for that application,” Tim protested in mock offence. “What’s wrong with QC?”

“The boss,” Jason answered. “Trust me, Oliver Queen is a giant fucking douche.”

“As if I’d ever actually have to meet him,” Tim snorted.

“You’ve met three of the owner’s sons here at the Wayne Foundation, Timbo,” Jason pointed out. “You’re doin’ all right for yourself.”

Tim’s cheeks went faintly pink. “Damian keeps trying to change my employee contract.”

“I know,” Jason smirked. “And Bruce keeps telling him off for it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Tim laughed.

“I get the internship, but I don’t get why you’re not in, like, college or something,” Jason asked curiously. Jason had been exposed to a lot of genius level intellects over the years and Tim was definitely in that club. “Unless you’re a high school dropout?”

“Oh, no, I graduated,” Tim assured him. “I graduated when I was fifteen.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“Yeah. I would have done it earlier, but I had some health issues that kinda of slowed me down.”

“So how did you wash up here?” Jason asked incredulously.

Tim shrugged. “My parents died when I was fourteen,” Tim explained. “They left to go on a dig somewhere and just… never came back. There was this whole mess with regards to the company and other stuff that needed to be done and there wasn’t anyone else to do it, so…”

“Company…?” Jason brow cleared as the penny dropped. “Fucking hell, you’re one of the Drakes? As in Drake Industries Drakes?”

“Yeah,” Tim said ruefully, absently rubbing his scars.

“Wait a fucking minute,” Jason scowled. “If you’re a Drake Drake, why the fuck do you live in a shithole apartment in Newtown?”

“How did you know that?”

“Employee records,” Jason was never, ever going to tell Tim he’d made it a point to look his up first. “I had to review all the people on my team and junk. What the fuck, Timmers? Shouldn’t you be swanning it in some penthouse apartment somewhere? Or hell, running Drake Industries?”

“Drake Industries doesn’t exist anymore,” Tim sighed. “My father was a better archaeologist than a businessman, it turned out. When they died, the company was already in trouble and a bunch of people took it as their opportunity to take their embezzled funds and run. There was just enough left to pay off the creditors plus a little tiny bit left over. It wasn’t enough inheritance to afford college, it was barely enough to get me my Newtown place and make some headway paying my medical bills. By the time it was all over I was old enough to be an emancipated minor but not quite old enough to get a good job. I worked for a data conglomerate for a while and hated it, I barista’d a bit but it wasn’t very good money. That’s why I was so grateful for the paying internship. This work is… well, it’s a lot more interesting.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Jason rubbed the back of his head, taken aback by this litany of hardship that Tim had endured. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay, really,” Tim assured him. “It was a while ago now and… well, I can’t deny I wasn’t really close to my parents. It sounds a bit awful, I know,” Tim trailed fingers through his hair sheepishly. “But they were always travelling so much, and I was usually at home or in school. Honestly? If I sat down and tallied it all up, I’m pretty sure that I clocked more hours with our housekeeper than I did with my parents. I kind of hate to say it, but the changes I went through after they died had more to do with economics than them not actually being there anymore. I mean, I miss them. I’ll always regret not having more time with them, but, I don’t know,” Tim sighed. “I can’t pretend that I actually knew a lot about them, either.”

Tim looked mostly resigned to the antiseptic nature of his relationship with his parents, but it was also clear that it pained him that they weren’t closer, that their deaths didn’t leave craters in his life, like Jason’s had with his own mother.

“That sucks, Timmers,” Jason reached out and patted Tim’s forearm before he thought it through.

“Not everyone can have a relationship like you and Mr. Wayne,” Tim shrugged.

Jason choked. “Seriously? Me and B have in no way a functional, healthy relationship. Our issues have issues with issues.”

“Well, yeah. I know you fought. I mean,” Tim corrected, flushing. “I figured you must have. Sixteen-year-olds don’t generally run off and join the Kahndaqi Foreign Legion if everything is peachy at home, obviously.”

Jason sighed. As cover stories went for his death and resurrection, the one they’d settled on was surprisingly eloquent and covered a multitude of what-the-hells, even if Jason never, ever wanted to know how Black Adam, of all people, ended up owing Bruce a favour. Probably something to do with Captain Marvel, frankly. Still, people were always so fucking curious about it. About him . It was unsettling.

“But… you know,” Tim continued over Jason’s internal musings. “You’re here. He wants you here. He wants you to be a part of his life, to participate in things that mean a lot to him. That’s… well,” Tim sighed. “That’s a hell of a lot more than I got, that’s for sure.”

Jason found himself caught off guard by this assessment. Past all the anger and struggle, past all the dig-the-heels stubbornness and snarkiness and cynicism even he could recognize as a defensive mechanism, Jason had never actually sat down and squared the circle of Bruce’s acceptance of Jason back into the family. There were all sorts of coldly logical reasons to make sure Red Hood was on a leash and to pull that leash by whatever force could be applied, even sentiment. Jason had always assumed, or at least, always told himself, that he was just another tile in Bruce’s damn mosaic of penances, both real and imagined.

But Tim was right. Bruce had wanted him here. He practically bent over backwards to get him to come here and do a job that could have been handled by any number of bright young things Bruce’s recruiters went all out to collect. Batman might be his way to express his rage, but WE was Bruce’s way to align with his legacy. Sure, it came in second to the cowl, but it was a close second. It mattered to Bruce. He wouldn’t leave it with people…

… with people he didn’t trust.

Tim continued blithely, completely unaware of Jason’s sudden epiphany. “I think it’s good for you, being here. You seemed so… so tensed up on that first day, like you were expecting to be attacked. You never smiled much. But now you smile all the time!” Tim beamed. “It’s a good look on you, you should do it more.”

“Oh yeah?” Jason couldn’t stop his lips turning up if he tried. Willingly showing what you felt was a fatal detriment in the League of Assassins, but Jason was coming to the not inconsiderable realization that he wasn’t with them anymore. Their strictures didn’t have to rule his life. “I got a lot more to smile about now, I guess.”

Tim grinned shyly and looked away, faint pink dusting his cheeks. “I’m glad. You used to smile so much more before. At galas and things,” Tim added hastily to Jason’s puzzled blink. “I’d see you at them, sometimes.”

“Really? I, uh… don’t take this the wrong way or nothing, but I don’t remember you.”

“Oh, we never formally met, really,” Tim grimaced. “I was a really shy kid. I was terrified of having to meet people and stuff. I was probably secreted behind some draping somewhere if you were in the room, praying no one would notice,” Tim flushed harder. “You were also so… confident. I admired it, but it also scared the hell out of me. I wasn’t very well socialized,” Tim admitted sheepishly.

“Really?” Jason’s eyebrow went up. Yeah, Jason could see some shades of shyness in the kid in front of him, but Tim Drake was a stone cold professional when the bullets were metaphorically flying. He faced down intransigent IT workers, stubborn, unhelpful council workers, mad-eyed R&D recruiters and all other comers with total aplomb. Not much intimidated him. “You’re pretty self-confident now.”

“Things happened,” Tim shrugged. “My parents and a bunch of other stuff. At the end of it I decided I couldn’t waste time being afraid. There was just too much to do.”

“Like that,” Jason poked Tim’s marred cheek gently. “How did it happen?”

“Never go to lawn bowls with near sighted seniors whose knitting club members are in the middle of a feud over continental stitching, that’s all I’ll say. Those balls are freaking heavy.”

Jason snorted a laugh. “Seriously, though? How did it happen?”

“Honestly,” Tim looked rueful. “The real story just isn’t that interesting. It’s just Gotham, you know? This city is a hard-luck story generator.”

Jason grimaced. That was absolutely true.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tim added. “It really doesn’t matter. The thing that mattered, at least for me, was that I came out alive on the other side and… and I was a lot stronger. And because I’m stronger, now I can give something back. I can help make a cooking program or technical skills programs, or start-up business classes or any one of a number of things that might help some poor teen fending for themselves to struggle their way to something better; which is something that I never had to do, because of a boatload of privilege that I didn’t exactly earn. I think everyone should have the chance to rise up and make something better of themselves. Like you.” Tim added earnestly.

Jason stared at him as Tim went back to sorting through acres of paper that was keeping their team from their rightful benefits, brow set with determination, mouth upturned with optimism. He felt his heart thundering in his chest, and white-hot wires glowing under his skin looking at Tim’s suddenly perfect face.

Jason suddenly realized he’d just fallen in love.

As a part of re-acclimatization (deferalisation, Dick) Jason was also, in addition to being a Wayne Foundation shill, a more frequent visitor to the Cave. Jason had to hand it to Bruce, when he opened doors he opened them all the way.

Jason didn’t actually make use of the implied permission overmuch. Despite all their strides in repairing what had happened between them, nostalgia was not a happy drug for Jason and he’d sooner not drive down memory lane, even though Bruce clearly wanted to. In short, being in the Cave, with all the associations he attached to it, was still a profoundly unsettling experience for him.

But he grudgingly allowed that access to medical care that didn’t put extra burdens on already overloaded free clinics was a boon and Alfred was the Literal Best, so after his little run in with Killer Croc last week left him planted in the infirmary with a badly gouged leg and a partial drowning, Jason sucked it up and went back for his follow up exam, still limping on a temporary knee brace.

Honestly, the sooner he got back up and running the sooner he could get back out there. Also, he could go back to work. He’d totally pulled a Brucie manoeuvre and made up some shitty story about a bike accident. Tim had taken over the reins without so much as batting an eyelash.

Jason wistfully wished that Tim wasn’t so utterly perfect. Like, there was some flaw, some annoyance, that made him a less-than-stellar person. Then Jason could gently ignore his growing attraction. It wasn’t working. Tim was Tim and grew more attractive every time Jason saw him. It was becoming a problem Jason wasn’t sure how to solve.

Well, there was the obvious way. But Jason’s life was crazy on its best day. Dragging a sweetheart like Tim into it seemed like a really poor expression of affection.

“Hey, Jason!” Dick called over. “You came!” he beamed at Jason from under the arch of his own pelvis, legs turned over backways and arms clearly made of spaghetti with how they were pretzled around him.

Jason stared. “Dickie, what the actual fuck are you doing?”

“Cool down stretches.”

Damian, who was doing perfectly mundane toe touches next to him, rolled his eyes. “He’s found another copy of the karma sutra despite the fact we keep burning his. You are the vassal of all destitutions and depravities, Grayson.”

Yeah, Jason wasn’t touching any of that with a ten-foot pole. Ignoring the pair, Jason made his slightly uneven trek past the practice mats towards the Batcomputer, looking for Alfred and vaguely hoping he didn’t run into Bruce. His eyes flickered to the various trophy cases lining the walls… and he blinked.

Detouring, he surveyed the cases, frowning at what he saw, or rather, what he didn’t see.

“Where the fuck is my uniform?” he muttered to himself. It used to be there at the centre, a creepy and morbid tombstone for his childhood. Now that space was empty.

There were other uniforms; old generations of the Bat, mostly, some of the former-Batgirl ones before she’d reforged herself into Oracle, some old ones of Dick’s Robin get up. But his memorial one was conspicuously absent.

Jason felt weird about it. It wasn’t like he wanted a creepy-ass reminder of his violent death hanging where he could see it. He’d always mocked Bruce for placing it there, as if the ‘good soldier’ moniker he’d slapped on it was something to aspire to. But not having it there among the others felt uncomfortably like being erased.

Hang on, Jason went into the trophy atrium properly and squinted. What the fuck was that?

There was a little glass box tucked away in there, almost invisible amongst the costumes. It contained a camera. It looked like a pricey model, but all the money in the world wouldn’t save it because it had been thoroughly smashed. The lenses were shattered and there were buckled cracks in the casing. It looked like someone had stomped on it.

There was a plaque. There were no dates, nothing. All it said was ‘Never Forget’.

Jason blinked. Never forget fucking what, exactly?

“I had it taken down.”

Jason spun around, reaching for his sidearm that he wasn’t actually carrying out of respect for Alfred. “What the actual fuck old man?” he nearly shouted. “I’ve already died once already, thanks!”

The asshole had the balls to look amused at scaring ten years off Jason’s second life. “Your uniform. I had it removed. I’m thinking of putting one of your older ones up.”

Jason brow wrinkled. “Why take it down if you’re just gonna put more of the same back up?”

“You died in that one,” Bruce’s lips pursed. “And it seemed… impolitic at best to hang that up where you can see it if you’re going to be here more often.”

Jason hunched his shoulders defensively, wrong footed by this consideration. “It’s your fucking cave,” he muttered. “Do what you like to it. It ain’t like I’m living here.”

“I know,” Bruce nodded. “But I still care about you being comfortable here, if it can be done.”

Ugh. Now it was a feelings talk. Bruce was trying, but he was hilariously bad at this. Mind you, so was Jason. Talking about feelings gave him hives. Jason wasn’t sure what the right response was, so he just mumbled. “Whatever.” He cast about for something else, anything else, to talk about. Jason opened his mouth to ask about the camera, but Bruce beat him to it.

“It’s not solely for your benefit,” Bruce added. “My therapist told me it’s not emotionally healthy to deify my perceived failures. Keeping that uniform in sight was unnecessary martyrdom for all of us.”

All other considerations fell away. Jason’s eyes bugged out of his skull as he stared at Bruce’s placid face. “You have a therapist? YOU,” Jason jabbed a finger at him. “The Bat, the poster child for trauma processing dysfunction, who makes an artform about dealing with feelings in the most fucked up way possible, have a THERAPIST?!” Jason's face shut down in a heartbeat. “Dick, twelfth birthday, what was my favourite present and cake flavour?” he yelled.

“You didn’t have a twelfth because you said you didn’t want one,” Dick called back from where he was upside down on the salmon ladder. “Your thirteenth you got a red racing bike and your cake was a Victorian sponge with white chocolate, cream and strawberries. No, you’re not in an alternate universe, yes, he actually has a therapist and yes, I did the alternate universe test too when I found out. Twice.”

Bruce looked put upon by their blatant scepticism. “I am occasionally capable of self-awareness,” he tried.

Dick and Jason both laughed in his face. Damian grumbled under his breath but didn’t actively disagree either.

“I was… in a bad way after you… after you,” Bruce admitted once their incredulous guffaws subsided. “I hit pretty much rock bottom,” he glanced over at the cases. “I… I went through a bad night, told Clark about it; he and the rest of the JL staged an intervention of sorts and I suppose I had just enough self-respect at that point to let them do it. It was bad, Jaylad,” Bruce shook his head. “I was bad. And I would have gotten a lot worse had I not taken some steps to deal with my grief. So, yes, I do indeed have a therapist. I go when I can and listen to her advice when she gives it. That included the uniform. You’re not dead, Jay,” Bruce gripped his shoulder. “I shouldn’t keep acting like you are.”

Ugh, more feelings. But this time Jason couldn’t deflect, couldn’t look away from the vulnerability in his mentors… in his father’s eyes. “A part of me is,” Jason admitted. “A part of me is gone, Bruce.”

“Growing up is about losing parts of yourself so you can grow into others,” Bruce shrugged. “I’m just glad most of you is still here. A lot of the cases I investigate, the families left behind don’t get that chance. I’m inclined to be grateful for it.”

“Hm,” Jason couldn’t reply to that. His throat was too tight. He looked back over the displays instead, eye catching on the camera again. He opened his mouth.

“Actually, I have a favour to ask,” Bruce continued. “About work.” He added, shifting uncomfortably.

Right, work. Jason breathed out. They’d had their quota of feelings for today. Bruce might be in therapy, but that didn’t mean he was any more comfortable with his emotions than Jason was. Still, Jason was enough of a shit to say, “You were just heart-to-hearting to soften me up, you asshole.”

“No,” Bruce looked affronted. “Not entirely, anyway,” he smirked.

“Ha!”

“But I do have a favour to ask,” Bruce repeated. “We’ve invited some of our fellow corporations in for a meet and greet about various youth programs in the city. You know, comparing notes, seeing what’s working, that kind of thing. I’ve got to go to a summit with the JL on the day, so I won’t be there, at least not until the very end of it. I wondered if you might be willing to go in my stead?” he asked hopefully.

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “This smells like executive level shit. No executive shit, that was our deal, remember? I don’t play nicely with idiots in four figure suits. Send Dick, he’s executive.”

“Dick will be there,” Bruce replied. “Damian will probably invite himself along too, since he thinks he should be in training to take it over already.” Bruce rolled his eyes slightly. “But this will be a good showcase for your team’s efforts, Jay. The programs you’ve restarted or created are already functioning beyond our expectations. If we can get other corporations on board, we can help more kids, extend our reach further.”

“It’s only workin’ ‘cause I meet those kids as Hood,” Jason pointed out. “I know what they’re lookin’ for, what they need. It’s not like they can replicate my insider knowledge, B.”

“No, they can’t. But your programs and methods are working Jay. They can replicate those, and the youths will still benefit. Plus, it’s not like we can’t form partnerships. If we act in accord rather than at cross purposes, all the better for the community. If we’re all in step, nobody gets their toes tread on.”

“B, I ain’t much for PowerPoint presentations,” Jason was not whining, okay? It was a legitimate problem.

“You don’t have to spin a yarn or make a pitch,” Bruce smiled. “Brucie Wayne’s never done a spiel in his life. You just have to listen to what they have to say and have a lot of conversations about it. Trust me, if it was hard or required vast amounts of intelligence and preparation, CEO’s wouldn’t be doing it.”

Jason barked out a laugh and immediately regretted it, looking at Bruce’s widening smile.

Fuck, he’s pretty sure he just agreed.

Which is how Jason found himself uncomfortably shifting in an elevator going up to the executive floor. He was wearing chinos and a polo shirt he’d recycled from a brief stint undercover at a country club, by far and away the dressiest clothes he owned. Dick was with him, wearing a suit and tie which made Jason roll his eyes in disbelief. The amount of people who had been strangled by those shitty nooses was legion. Damian was tapping his foot and scowling; he’d been told he was auditing only and was not best pleased he wouldn’t have the chance to show off his works.

“When exactly is B supposed to ride in to this disaster zone and do his fucking job?” Jason muttered. His fingers weren’t clenched around the stack of information packets and data his team had piled on him, but that was only because of sheer, hammered in discipline.

“Around four, he said,” Dick was typing away on his phone and Jason severely doubted it had anything to do with work. “Relax, Jay. It’ll be fine.”

“Leave him be, Grayson,” Damian sneered. “The shaved ape is not in his natural habitat. It’s logical for him to be intimidated.”

“Remind me again, how long did HR threaten to strike for if they didn’t put on more people to deal with the mass exodus from R&D, Dickie?” Jason snarked. 

Dick sighed. “There will be so many muffin baskets going out at Christmas this year. That’s why,” he arched an eyebrow at Damian. “You will be sitting in the back and keeping your mouth shut. Building bridges with people is clearly not in your skillset yet.”

Damian scowled, looking more affronted by the observation than the order.

The doors opened and they marched towards the big boardroom, down a shiny, polished wood corridor, dotted with artwork and a long, scale map of Gotham, and lots more glass fronted offices. Jason appreciated his cramped, but homey, team quarters a lot more than this shiny glass palace. Christ, it must be like working in a damn fishbowl around here.

There were a bunch of people already in the room. Jason had delayed their entrance as much as reasonably polite; not out of fashion, he just wanted to make this ordeal as short as possible.

One of the people he absolutely recognised. “Tim?” Jason frowned as he strode up to the actual goddamn coffee and wet bar this place had. “What are you doing here? And what are you wearing?”

Jason had a loosely enforced dress code for his people, since most of them were scholarship kids with backgrounds in the areas of extreme poverty that they were trying to help. Jason absolutely understood that even with grant money, they weren’t exactly flush enough to afford a work wardrobe. He had no issues with threadbare jeans or ratty sneakers; it helped them blend in when they went out to meet and greet kids in various programs. Tim had always been, at his best, dressy casual, with band shirts and khakis and a frankly alarming number of abominable hipster hats that Jason never failed to give him shit over.

This Tim was a different creature entirely. Blazing white shirt, sharply creased slacks, polished shoes. He wore a fancy vest and a bowtie. His hair was swept neatly back from his face, tied in a neat queue. He looked… well, like a rich white kid, not the down-to-earth, sweet, sharp, dry humoured snarker that Jason knew him to be.

“Still a general intern, remember?” Tim replied wryly. “They heard about my barista experience and basically drafted me to come up here and serve.”

“Oh?”

“Really?”

Jason could feel the twin glares of his brothers on the back of his head. “But I requested you from the pool full time! Filled out the forms and everything. Unlike some other losers. And also…” Jason waved his hands at the froufrou getup.

“I still have to report to my supervisor in the mornings and then I have to go where I’m told. This morning it was this. And this,” Tim showed off his fancy duds. “Is the Wayne Enterprises Catering uniform,” Tim touched a button self-consciously.

Jason, Dick and Damian all looked at each other. “Wayne Enterprises has a catering uniform?”

“Wayne Enterprises has everything,” Tim sighed. “Coffee, tea?” he put on a patently customer service smile. “I have to say,” he added quietly out of the side of his mouth. “I didn’t really miss this very much.”

“What?” Jason asked with mock severity as he was supplied with dark, sweet Turkish coffee, just how he liked it. “You didn’t like dealing with screaming Karens all day? For shame! Where’s your sense of duty, Timbit?”

“I ran out of duty after ducking a day-old cruller thrown by an ultra-Karen,” Tim snorted. “That would have been par for the course, but it ended up impaled on the pressure valve of the espresso machine. I didn’t get there before it blew, and she didn’t even leave a tip.”

Jason laughed.

Then he found himself being hauled away from the bar by a pair of furious, but also caffeinated, brothers who hustled him to a corner to glare at him.

“What is the meaning of this, Todd?” Damian hissed. “You told us Tim had been hired by your office using Father’s bewildering sense of favouritism as your excuse!”

“Favouritism?” Jason gaped. “Remind again what your last name is? Besides, it’s not my fucking fault if you two losers don’t read the rule book and fill out the correct forms to request a permanent general intern assignment, so there.”

Damian growled and promptly confiscated Dick’s phone, angrily punching away at it, no doubt looking at the company policies and probably trying to download the forms off the company servers.

Dick was watching him strangely.

“What?” Jason snapped. Tim was his and the other two stooges would just have to suck it up.

“You laughed, Jay,” Dick’s eyes were shining.

“What?” Jason asked, bewildered. Dick was looking all gooey, which did not bode well for his chances of getting out of here without a hug.

“You laughed,” Dick repeated. “You never laugh. Not like you used to. Not anymore.”

Jason opened his mouth, then hesitated. Dick might be kinda right; he wasn’t really a smiles kind of guy anymore. At best, life might wring a chuckle or two but only when he was feeling deeply cynical or giving someone shit. It wasn’t his fault, he thought defensively. The last few years hadn’t exactly been sunshine and roses, had they? “So?” he asked challengingly.

Big mistake. Dick’s eyes slid towards the corner where Tim was smiling plastically at the corporate versions of Karens who were interrogating him about the drinks menu and why no alcohol could be served. “You like him.”

Oh, fuck no, Jason thought. I am not tripping merrily down this road with Detective Sentiment. “Fuck off, Dickface. It’s none of your business.”

Yeah, no, the idea had clearly taken hold in Dick’s three hopelessly romantic brain cells. “You like him. That’s fantastic, Jay!”

“Why?” It was more a plea to the heavens than a request for clarification.

Dick didn’t have that kind of subtle ear. “Because! You need something else in your life aside from wading through piles of murder victims and violence, Jaybird. Really,” Dick added softly. “We’re worried about you. We wanted you to be happy, to have some things outside of… your regular work as well. I thought being here might help you with that. And it has!” Dick beamed. “You should ask him out! Wait, your schedule is a bit full. Maybe you could take a personal day and go see a movie. Call it a research trip. Oooh, a romantic all-nighter brainstorming session, do people still do those?”

“Dick!” Jason hissed before his idiot brother could announced Jason’s private matters to the whole fucking world. “Shut the fuck up. I ain’t doing squat. I’m his fucking boss, remember? I’m pretty sure there are rules against this kind of thing.”

Dick burst out laughing, much to Jason consternation. “Oh, that’s cute! I forgot about your streak of chivalry, Jay.”

“Whatever streaks I’ve got are way better than anything you got, Dickface, including on my boxers,” Jason snarked his way past his discomfort. “I got statistics from your exes to back me up on this.”

“Okay, ouch ,” Dick mimed a fatal shot to the heart as if Jason wouldn’t aim squarely for his fat head. “Look, Little Wing, seriously, I’m about to give you good news. You are absolutely allowed to date a coworker, okay? Like, legally and ethically. You just have to let HR know so they can mediate if it goes south.”

“There’s a fucking form?” Jason’s face screwed up in disbelief. “Like, Please Tick Your Level Of Intimacy From One Of The Following Options: 1) One Night Stand, 2) Tinder Hook-up, 3) Friends With Benefits and so on. Really?”

“Wayne Foundation is not running a monastery,” Dick shrugged. “People who spend their days together tend to hook up. It’s easier to accept the inevitability than fight it.”

“And just how do you know about this?” Jason’s eyes narrowed.

“From my first internship, back when I was seventeen,” Dick leered suggestively. “Mini-skirts and skinny pants were in .”

Oh, Jesus fuck. Jason was absolutely not going there. He literally turned to do actual schmoozing rather than hear the annals of teenage Dick Grayson, Sex Toy Wonder.

Still, it did give him something to chew over while the meeting was in session. Which was nice because the speakers were absolute shit.

Seriously. Oh, there were a couple of contenders amongst the smaller firms in attendance. Their ideas weren’t original, but they’d function with a bit of polish. However, from all the larger firms, piranhas desperately trying to get a nibble of the kraken that was WE, there were issues. Mostly because their shitty youth outreach offices were treated like a transit lounge between ‘barely passed high school’ and ‘four-year kegger at Harvard’ for all the bigwigs failsons. ‘Heading Corporate Youth Outreach Programs’ was a decent filler on a college application or a resume, after all, and for most of them it was a chance to plant their flabby backsides and do sweet fuck all, because the plight of the poor and disenfranchised wasn’t a concept they really believed was real.

Jason sat, with increasing despair and bleeding from the ears, as such suggestions as Kon-Tiki expeditions for school teens (which neither the schools nor the students could afford), Work Traineeships (by which they meant, they’d work shitty jobs to ‘build character’ without pay), an actual fucking Scholarship Auction (which they couldn’t fucking afford over middle income earners, dipshit!) and putting in an actual, factual, fucking casino (yeah, because that’s a fucking perfect way to take organized crime out of the poor districts).

Fucking hell, Jason was literally entertaining the idea that this was B’s idea of trolling him, their ideas were that bad. He cast a wild-eyed look at Dick, who was seemingly politely focused, but Jason wasn’t fooled – that was Dickie’s stage smile, calcified on his face. Even Damian, who had been more interested in whatever arcane chaos he was summoning on Dick’s phone, flickered his eyes towards the speakers with disgust writ large on his face.

By the time they reached some halfwits predictably half-baked idea to teach everyone in the Narrows to code using big, shiny textbooks that incidentally came from said halfwits start-up company, Jason had had enough. He’d had enough for six thousand lifetimes, and he was only on his second one.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to stop you right there, uh,” Jason hesitated because it’s not like he was going to waste precious brain cells remembering the names of all these milquetoast clones.

“Maximus Latrelle,” Dick murmured out of the corner of his mouth, so hey, score one of Dickie’s tolerance of these shitheads. Or maybe he was just logging them in his cop brain as potential criminals; it wasn’t like that wasn’t probable.

“Latrelle,” Jason continued, barely missing a beat. “Like, dude, I hear what you’re sayin’ about gaming and data sorters and all that… stuff, but I think you’re missin’ a coupla minor obstacles to your grand vision here.”

Latrelle drew himself up, affronted. “I’ve studied coding at school for years now and it’s the hottest industry in town. I get that it’s not as impressive as cooking classes or big siblings like you’ve been doing,” he sneered. “But it’s a chance for kids to move out of the slums and into a condo in San Francisco, if they apply themselves. What boy wouldn’t want to learn how to make his own video games?”

Jason held up a finger. “First of all, aside from your giant and expensive textbook you’re looking to hock to these kids who sometimes don’t have two dimes to rub together, they’re gonna need equipment. Schools in these districts? They’re all still pen and ink. They gave up trying to put in anything more than a tiny computer lab in any of ‘em. You know why?” Jason raised his eyebrows. “Crime. Capital. Of. America. It's a funny coincidence, but in a desperately poor region of the city where addiction and food scarcity are just rife, a lot of shiny new equipment seems to get stolen. A lot. Like all the time. It’s just so weird, you know, you’d think the two were connected.”

“So,” Jason smirked. “So, all your in-school learning plans? They won’t have the computers to learn on and while I admit I know nothing about coding, I’m pretty sure you can’t do it without some equipment. Oh, and keep in mind that these kids can’t do that at home either, see above reasons. So there goes the early phase of your plan. Next, literacy. You know what literacy is right?”

“Of course!” Latrelle was bridling.

“Right. What was the percentage of literacy at your boarding school, Max?”

“ Maximus,” Latrelle snapped, flustered. “And what do you mean, percentage? It’s a damn school! We were all literate!”

“What were you, thirty, forty students to a class?” Jason asked idly.

“Brentwood has a strict policy. No more than ten students per teacher,” Latrelle scowled. “I’m sorry, but what does my education have to do with anything?”

“Because, Max,” Jason smirked. “Literacy rates in Crime Alley? They’re like… what, seventy percent? And I’m pretty sure that’s an optimistic estimate. It’s probably closer to sixty-five.”

“What?” Latrelle gaped. “But that’s impossible! Universal education is nationwide!”

“Yes,” Jason nodded. “And, well, no. What you gotta understand here, Maxie, is that while private schools are swimming in endowment money, public schools have consistently had their funding cut in Gotham for the last… thirty years or so? Yeah, let’s call it an even thirty. So that’s at least three generations of kids stuck with a very small number of schools in those districts able to service people who can’t afford platinum tuition. The zoning is fucking mental , let me tell you. And class sizes? Let’s just say if you end up in a classroom with less than a hundred other students crammed into the same room, wherever they can find space, you’re one of the lucky ones. So yeah, a lot of kids get matriculated out with barely more than basic literacy skills. The teachers pass ‘em, because failin’ ‘em means holding ‘em back, right, and they don’t got the space for that. In addition to that , all the public schools in the poor districts are the dumping ground for what passes as social services. They get the traffick victims and the immigrants and let me tell you, Max my man, if a native English speaker can’t get a basic education in that environment then ESL kids ain’t got a shitshows chance in hell.”

Latrelle's mouth was opening and shutting.

“Your cute little Code Gotham program has a coupla teething problems, is what I’m saying. It assumes these kids have basic literacy skills and access to high tech equipment and will somehow, somewhere, scrape up the money for your three-figure coding manual textbook because for some reason, while you want kids to learn coding you seem to object to paying for it out of your deep, deep pockets, which is kinda of weird philosophy, you know, for an outreach program.”

Latrelle had gone maroon. “W-We can’t be expected to subsidise everything,” he argued. “They’ll get dependent! They need to learn to pull themselves up by the bootstraps!”

“What, like you, Young Master Trust Fund?” Jason did his best and snootiest Alfred impression. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t pay for your startup selling lemonade on a street corner, kid. And also?” Jason added when Latrelle swelled up and went purple. “There’s been an at home coding program running out of the Gotham Public Library for the last seven straight years. You can do it on your phone, which all kids have, it comes with videos and makeup literacy programs and it’s free. One hundred percent, not a penny asked. Trust me, kids who want to learn code in Gotham are way out in front and ahead of the curve. They’ve made community apps, Arkham breach warning systems, local social networks, all of it. I’m sorry, but all the poor brown kids are way ahead of your Brentwood ideals there, Max. Even if you could get your program up and running and get kids interested enough, who the fuck is gonna scrape up that kind of scratch for something they can get for free?”

Latrelle shot him a look of seething humiliation and hatred. “How do you even know any of this?”

“How do I know all of this?” Jason asked. “Really? Mostly because my team and I went down and scoured the East side, right to left, top to bottom, that’s how. We talked to people; kids, social workers, residents, volunteers, the whole shebang. We asked ‘em what they needed instead of raining half-baked ideas down on them from on high. Who did you actually talk to amongst your target demographic? Did you check what other programs were in place? Did you ever stop and think that maybe the kids aren’t looking for a ticket to unaffordable housing in California? Maybe they got family here, friends. Maybe they’re not looking to leave, but for a better life right where the fuck they are. It’s our job to help them with that. And let me tell you this, Maximus ,” Jason leaned forward. “It’s really fucking hard to pull yourself up by your goddamn bootstraps if you can’t even afford fucking shoes.”

There was a seething, awkward silence after this as it dawned on the rest of the suits in the room that they should have done more homework with regards to their youth outreach brainstorms.

“Well said, Jason,” Dick said mildly, scribbling as if he was taking notes and not doodling dicks across the page.

Damian snorted.

Tim, invisible at the wet bar, was blank faced and staring at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

They were all clearly holding in belly laughs.

Ha! Jason thought triumphantly.

But no, there’s always one jackass that don’t know how to be beat. Latrelle Senior rose to his feet, lips pursed with displeasure. “Yes, thank you for that… constructive critique of our modest little prototype program,” his lips curled like he was being forced to be polite to the pool boy. “As you say, there are one or two teething problems, as I’m sure every program has, even yours. But my son's slightly overambitious plans aside, he is not wrong about the subsidizing factor. We cannot be expected to bear all the costs from these programs, surely.”

“Surely, yes,” Jason said levelly. “The Wayne Foundation does.”

“Oh, we can’t all be held to that lofty standard,” Latrelle Senior snorted. “Besides, your... father isn’t exactly known for being prudent with his money.”

Jason felt rather than saw Damian’s eyes slowly rise from the phone screen, staring unblinkingly at Latrelle Senior, like a snake. Dick smiled exceptionally widely, driving the point of his pen about ten layers deep into his pad.

“Surely you can see how dangerous pouring that amount of money into these programs is,” Latrelle continued, oblivious. “My son was right; you give a man money and he’ll keep coming back for more. He’ll never have the drive to earn it himself. There’s a saying I think applies to this. Hunger is a wanderer. Don’t you agree? If people are hungry, they move. We want them to move; up and out, above their birth, out of their circumstances. We can’t just feed them what they dream for; it's better for them to earn it, surely.”

What the fuck load of shit was that gibberish? “So, you’re saying we should tell them what to do, but they should be paying for it?”

“Well, why not?” Latrelle replied pompously. “As you so succinctly pointed out, we do have the benefit for better education. Our refinement and their drive could make for a winning combination. There’s no satisfaction in picking up pennies from the street, Mister Todd. There is satisfaction in earning your own paycheck.”

“So, we dictate where they go and what they do, and they just have to do all the legwork? Like slavery?” Jason said archly. “You think any kid with more than two brain cells is gonna buy even a shovel load of that shit?”

“Hardly slavery,” Latrelle rolled his eyes. “It’s not like they’d be working for free. And let me tell you something, young man; in my experience, kids don’t know what they want. They’re looking for somebody, anybody to tell them what they want. We can provide that service to them, for which they will be grateful, I’m sure.”

“No offense,” Jason snorted. “But you haven’t met many Gotham teens, have you?”

“I can prove it,” Latrelle smirked. “You there! By the bar!”

Jason whipped around to see Tim, who had been stacking a wheeled tray with empty used coffee cups, raising his eyebrow in the crosshairs of Latrelle’s pointing finger.

“Come here for a minute,” Latrelle ordered peremptorily.

Tim dubiously came out from behind the trolley. “Yes, sir?”

“Now then young…?”

“Tim,” Tim told him dryly, name badge on full display.

“Tim,” Latrelle gave what he probably thought was a friendly smile. “You were born in Gotham, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you live in…?’

“Newtown, sir.”

“Excellent, excellent. Good enough for our purposes,” Latrelle said jovially. “Now, if I was to give you a grant of, say, ten million dollars to do whatever you wanted with in order to improve Gotham, what would you do?”

“Hmm,” Tim’s head tipped back carefully. Jason knew that look. That was the Tim Is Processing look.

“See?” Latrelle said triumphantly as no answer was forthcoming. “He doesn’t know. None of them know. They look to us to find out what they want, as I said.”

“Hold on,” Dick protested. “You can’t just drag some poor random guy in front of a crowd of strangers and expect him to give you a five-year plan on the spot!”

“But he doesn’t even have a vague idea of what to do with that sort of money,” Latrelle beamed triumphantly. “Like I said, we can’t just give it to them. They need guidance, not capital. If they want to get what they want for themselves, like I also said, hunger is a…”

“Excuse me,” Tim turned to face Latrelle mildly. “I did have an answer if you’d let me finish.”

Latrelle blinked. “You do?”

Dick raised his eyebrows. Damian looked up from the phone.

Jason sat back, smirking. He’d been in brainstorming sessions with Tim. This was going to be epic.

“I’d build a road,” Tim said, still mild as milk.

“A road?” Latrelle repeated flatly. “What kind of road, pray tell?”

There was a long silence, slightly too long to be graceful, where Tim stared speculatively at Latrelle, before he spoke. “Permission to go and get a visual aid? The explanation is complicated.” Tim was ostensibly asking Latrelle, but his eyes were on Jason.

“Go for it. Need some help?” Jason replied.

“No, I should be fine. Give me two minutes,” Tim took off at a run.

He was back a minute and a half later to a chorus of bangs, a “What are you doing?!” from the receptionist at the entrance hall, and proceeded by about eight feet of canvas under glass that was the scale map of Gotham he had apparently taken clean off the corridor wall. “Sorry, sorry, excuse me!” he apologised as he steered his awkward cargo into the room with a couple of bumps and scrapes. Suits around the table scattered out of the way as he wended fully into the room and unceremoniously dumped the sixteen-foot-long map onto the long boardroom table. “Okay.”

He then proceeded to kick off his shoes and clamber onto the table and map itself in his socked feet, reaching out as he did so to casually steal a marker from one guy's breast pocket.

Then he got started. “Gotham,” he gestured grandly. “The old hellmouth herself. South Island, Mid Island, North Island. Now, we’re not really interested in Mid Island or South Island; I mean, Chinatown and Old Gotham could use a little help on the outreach front, but their residential median income is comfortable enough. The North Island is where we’re all looking, agreed? Okay, now,” Tim crouched down. “We got the Aparo Expressway, running North-South to the interchange, right on the coast road.” He marked it with one long line. “We got the Kane Expressway running east-west over the edge of the North, heading for the Trigate. Then we’ve got the Schwartz Bypass that bisects Burnley and meanders its way down to the Commerce Street Highway and eventually to Brown Bridge. Like so,” Tim carefully followed the lines of the road with the marker. “So, what do you see here? A big black hole of major infrastructure here at the Crime Alley and Bowery sides of town. The streets are narrow there, they can’t get trucks through. They used to get trucks through, though. Before the interchange cut everything south of it off, this area south of the Basin used to be a thriving rail, road, barge and cargo depot for the attached warehouse district. It’s been abandoned since the Quake because people were worried about contaminants. Not quite worried enough to evacuate all the poor people living in the Bowery and the Alley, though,” the venomous stinger was jabbed and withdrawn so fast that most of the people in the room weren’t even sure they’d been stung. “Anyway, they finally finished the environmental survey there and lo and behold, no contaminants. There are literal factories, still fully equipped, just sitting there collecting dust because their truck access was cut off when the Kane Bridge interchange was reworked.”

“Now then. Oh, excuse me,” Tim shamelessly acquired another marker in a different colour. “If I had ten million, I’d build a road from the site of the old warehouses and the rail terminal, and branch it north like so,” he drew a careful line along the rail track to meet up with the Bypass, and also south,” he drew that in as well. “to cut across the Sprang and join up with the Aparo and Commerce Street. Like a little side artery to the main artery. Not just any road, mind you. A wide, smooth, truck ready road with lots of space to pull into various drives with ease. No traffic lights, just roundabouts for easy flow, and more importantly, no tolls, which means trucking companies will prefer it over paying congestion taxes to get to the Trigate.”

“Well, that’s…” Latrelle Senior looked baffled at this confident and well-reasoned response.

“How does that help anyone?” Latrelle Junior sneered.

“Glad you asked, Max,” Tim said sunnily. “Like I said, there are rows of old factories here, factories and warehouses. We used to be a food processing centre for the East Coast, which of course you know, being educated at Brentwood. Canning, bread factories, candy, all that stuff. It’s kind of ironic the areas once known for feeding the whole state are now a food desert, don’t you think? All that area, all the inherent, useful infrastructure, had all their access cut off by city planners who weren’t very forward thinking about people being trapped in slums. You bring back that access, you bring back businesses. You bring back the factories. And what will those factories need? Why, they’ll need a workforce, preferably local, and would you look at that,” Tim circled the east side of the North Island with sarcasm in every line of his marker. “All the districts with the highest rate of unemployment and the lowest rate of job growth right there for the taking. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people living in the Bowery who don’t want to work for villains or gangs; they’d take more boring employment if the exit interview isn’t a bullet through the head. And kids who are never going to afford college? Paid apprenticeships are a thing, people. You can step right out of high school and go work at the local canning depot for a few years, save up your cash. It’s not Google, but it’s a steady income, a boatload of technical skills, health insurance and membership in a union. Oh, and that’s the other thing. Once you’ve got people being employed, what do you get? Why, disposable income, naturally!” Tim beamed. “So how do we solve a problem like people having money? Well, I’m guessing the area will start to look a tiny bit more attractive to the average entrepreneur. After all, with all the commerce and legitimate businesses and steady employment, you get things like security infrastructure; streetlights, cameras, extra police on the beat because they may not protect a beggar, but they will protect the money. The streets will be safer, insurance premiums for storefronts will go way down so the number of start-ups will go way up, because now you’ve got yourself what’s called a market folks. The Bowery Dollar. And once you’ve got a market, and security, and prospects, you get funding for things like schools and galleries and business loans for restaurants and bars, you get real estate developers eyeing up the place for apartment blocks because double income households get things like home loans and they’ll want to be close to where they work. The standard of living will go up, education levels will go up, the wealth index will go up and all that money moving around will generate more again for the lucky corporations wise enough to own the road and buy up the lease rights and the rail rights.”

“Ten million dollars, and you’ll have a money generator for ten times that by the end of the decade,” Tim smirked into the Latrelle’s flabbergasted faces as he jumped down. “With back taxes and government grants, probably more again than that. I know you think hunger drives people, Mr Latrelle, but it doesn’t drive excellence. Confidence does that. Being able to sleep at night without worrying about paying bills, not tossing a coin on whether to see a doctor, if you can find one, being able to commute to work easily and quickly and not drag yourself to whole other island halfway across the city just so you can pick up groceries for dinner and risk getting mugged at midnight every step? That’s confidence. You free people from all that hunger, all that fear and it’s amazing how far they’ll go. After all, you have that and look how far you went. In short, Mr Latrelle,” Tim shoved the markers into Latrelle Senior’s chest sharply, forcing him to awkwardly scrabble for them. “Young people do know what they want, and it’s the same damn freedom from fear and burdens and poverty that every other damn person on Earth wants and we know how to get it. My advice to you is to rethink your philosophy on that score. If you want to keep people too quiet to protest, then keep them hungry by all means. You want to make the world better? You want to get richer? You want people to buy what you sell? You want people to move? Then you damn well better start building roads.”

Latrelle and the rest of the room jumped at the razor edge iciness from what had otherwise been a mild and pleasant recitation.

Tim went from snarling to demure in a heartbeat. He gave them all a mild smile. “Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go and get the lunch orders for you all. I’ll be back soon,” he said cheerily, before turning and marching back to the trolley and wheeling it calmly out of the door, totally oblivious to the drop jawed stares he was getting.

“Hey, Tim, wait up,” Jason got up and out of his chair and hurried after him as a cacophony of voices boiled up behind him.

Tim winced slightly and turned around, looking sheepish.

He caught Jason’s eye.

They both burst into great, heaving howls of laughter in the middle of the corridor.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Tim was literally crying with laughter. “I know I shouldn’t have but…” he dissolved into wordless giggles.

“Are you kidding me?” Jason picked him up and swung him round. “Did you see the looks on their fucking faces? That was the best thing I’ve ever seen, Timmers, hands down. I’m gonna get the camera footage and submit it for the Oscars. Best Righteous Burn – Long Format.”

Tim laughed again, smile crooked and joyful.

“That was fucking amazing. You’re fucking amazing, Tim,” Jason declared, still holding him up in his arms.

Tim smiled. “I’m nowhere near as amazing as you, Jason,” he shook his head.

You are , was on the tip of Jason’s tongue, but suddenly that wasn’t enough.

He leaned forward and kissed Tim.

And Tim? Tim kissed him back.

They parted as the elevator dinged at the end of the corridor. Tim’s eyes darted towards the sound.

Suddenly his whole expression changed. It tightened; his mouth turned down. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have,” he mumbled wretchedly. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.”

He grabbed the trolley and took off down towards the service corridor like ninjas were chasing him.

“Tim, what…?” Jason was left holding out a hand, bewildered.

“Jaylad, there you are!” Bruce emerged from the elevator, looking Brucie fresh. “What did I miss?”

Jason couldn’t answer him.

Okay, so Jason fucked up. He egregiously, absolutely and totally fucked up.

Usually that wouldn’t be a problem, because he was a fuck-up fucking prodigy. He had a PhD in Fuck-Upology. He can fix it; he had the practice.

Only, Tim wasn’t letting him.

Jason should have gone to see Tim at his apartment over the weekend. The fateful meeting had been on a Friday and Jason had been stuck with the suits the rest of the day while they hammered Tim’s proposal back and forth ad nauseum. Some other intern had come back with the lunches and Jason hadn’t seen Tim again.

He’s spent the rest of the weekend researching for an ongoing Red Hood case, keeping an ever-frequent check-in on his phone, specifically his team’s group chat. Lots of chatter from the kids but Tim was unexpectedly silent. Jason had thought really hard about going to knock on Tim’s door, but ultimately decided that was just over the line of inappropriate. Especially since he would see Tim on Monday.

But on Monday, Tim never showed. Jason waited impatiently until about eleven before contacting the head intern herder; she told him Tim had been stuck on document courier runs all day. When Jason complained he was supposed to be assigned to his office, the manager lady said Tim had volunteered to be the daily runaround since it had been a while since he’d taken a turn. He could go back to Jason’s office on Tuesday after the intern roll call.

Jason grudgingly thanked her and went back to brooding about it. He did his best to be there for his team, but it was difficult because they’d started, at Bruce’s request, to crunch the numbers of Tim’s brilliant road proposal because that was the kind of shit that Wayne Enterprises could make actually viable and since the idea had come from Jason’s team, they should get the credit for turning it into reality. 

It was a giant coup for their little youth outreach program, but it was hard to keep from thinking about Tim when Jason was forced to see his brilliance everywhere he looked.

There was still nothing on the group chat by the end of the day; even when other members of the team tagged him. Usually he’d get back to them straight away.

Eventually, Jason gave in and sent Tim a text.

Can we talk? Tomorrow @ ten?

Jason waited and sweated and practically pounced on the phone, still only halfway into his armour, when he got a reply that evening.

I’ll be there.

 Well, it was a response at least. None of Tim’s vivacity came through on it. Heavy hearted, Jason shrugged on his mask and tucked his civilian woes away, reminding himself as he fitted his helmet that this right here was his actual job. The one at WE was just playing pretend.

Jason had long had his predilection for nervousness beaten out of him, but he was tense and sullen as Tuesday rolled around; so much so that he told his team he was going to be wading through budget shit and not to disturb him unless something caught fire - and even then, it would have to be a big fire. 

He closed his office and made a show of chipping away and the necessary, boring organizational stuff. His eyes strayed to transfer papers he’d tucked away to one side. Since Tim’s slog through general internship was coming to an end, he could be permanently hired by a department. Jason had had the forms ready for weeks; both as an ardent wish and a pre-emptive strike against his brothers.

When ten rolled around, there was a knock on his door.

Jason looked up and then tried not to visibly deflate.

Bruce wasn’t the person he expected, or wanted, to see.

“Hey there, Jaylad. Working hard or hardly working?” Bruce said cheerfully.

Jason sighed. He knew Brucie was an act and he was meant to be grating. It was all on purpose. Knowing it didn’t make him any easier to be around. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Jason shrugged. “What can I do you for, boss?”

“I haven’t been down here,” Bruce replied. “Thought maybe I could get the nickel tour.”

Jason sent him a look of despair.

Bruce winked. “Your initiatives are the word on the street; I figured it was time to go down and see how my money was being spent.”

Right, that was part of the act too. Bruce had to swan around after successes, asking dumb questions and generally trying and failing to look like he was involved in the process. The rumour mill would grumble about Brucie Wayne trying to look clever and take credit for someone else's hard work again and yet another layer of lacquer would be applied to Bruce’s daytime mask. “Anything you say, boss,” Jason rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “You’re overspending for a nickel, though.”

So, Jason took him through the space and their ideas board and introduced him to his team, who were in varying stages of being starstruck. Bruce was good at engaging with people, so he’d ask his stupid questions and get them to start explaining things, getting a bunch of pertinent information about their lives as he did so. 

Jason fretted impatiently as the visit wore on with no sign of Tim at all. It was close to an hour and a half later he was finally able to herd Bruce out the door, and Tim still hadn’t shown. He checked his messages, and nothing. He asked his team and they all responded in the negative, though they did all mention seeing Tim heading for the intern department through the lobby in the morning.

Jason called down to his supervisor. No, Tim hadn’t gone home sick. No, she’d sent him up there as promised at nine-forty-five. He’d come back down soon after saying that Jason hadn’t had any work for him today, so he was gophering for the mail department again. 

Jason thanked her dully and hung up. So that was it, then. Tim didn’t want to face him. He’d flat out lied to his manager, something that could have easily gotten him fired, rather than keep his promise to talk.

Jason tried not to let that sting. They hadn’t been a couple. They hadn’t even been friends. They’d never had anything outside of work. Tim was just a general intern at Bruce’s company, someone who would barely connect to Jason at all had he not literally been forced to take a job there. 

The fact that Tim made Jason smile didn’t mean a fucking thing.

Jason sucked it up for the rest of the day but ended up closing the office down an hour early. He didn’t mind giving his people the extra hour; they’d been working pretty hard. Unlike some people, who didn’t even bother to show.

Still, Jason sulked his way to the elevator, mood too grim to invite friendly conversation with the other travellers. He’d go out and punch some bad guys; that usually cheered him up.

Heading through the lobby, he was suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“Jason! Jason, wait up!” Tim was skidding across the marble, looking frazzled and worn out. 

“Yeah?” Jason asked in a distinctly cool, disinterested voice.

Tim flushed. “Um. I’m sorry. About the meeting. Um.. you were in with Mister Wayne and I didn’t want to just… barge in.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jason said flatly, trying not to get angry, but Tim straight up just fucking lied to him.

“What?” Tim gaped.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jason repeated slowly, his manner taking the vicious edge of someone trying to explain a simple concept to an idiot. “You told your supervisor I didn’t have any more work for you.”

Tim went redder and squirmed. “I didn’t know how to explain what I was doing back there,” he tried to explain. “I didn’t know how long Mister Wayne would be there. I… it was wrong of me. I’m sorry. I did want to talk,” he insisted. “About-”

“She wasn’t wrong,” Jason continued as if Tim hadn’t spoken. “I don’t really have any more work for you.”

Tim went pale. “What?”

“The office is set up,” Jason shrugged. “Procedures are in place; the programs are all organized. I think the team can handle it without an intern running around. We’ll be fine from now on.”

“J-Jason, I don’t understand,” Tim whispered.

“Thank you for your time and effort,” Jason went in inexorably. “We appreciated it. You can go back to the pool tomorrow. I’ll file all the necessary paperwork, so you won’t need to waste any more of your precious time babysitting us.”

“Wait, Jason!” Tim pleaded. “Can’t we please talk about this? Please?”

“You had your chance to talk, Drake,” Jason finally let some of the sizzling anger out. “You had a meeting. You had days to pick up your damn phone. You didn’t do jack shit. I don’t know how it works in the intern pool, but people don’t get onto my team if I can’t trust them to be there, or hell, if I can’t trust them at all. You lied to your supervisor and you just lied to me. How can you expect me to trust you after that?”

Tim’s face crumpled. He looked down at the floor, his scarred face hidden behind the curtain of his dark hair. “If that’s what you want,” he said in a low, shaken voice. “I’ll go back to the pool. It was a pleasure working with you, Mister Todd.”

“You too,” was all Jason got out before Tim pushed passed him and ran for the main entrance, clearly too upset to speak.

Jason watched him go, heart as heavy as stone in his chest. He’d been right, he knew that. It still didn’t make him feel any better.

“Jay!” Bruce called from behind him. “There you are. I heard you were going early. Need a ride? I’ve got to get home too.” He strode out of the elevators, waving like a maniac.

Jason wasn’t really in a Brucie mood right now. “No thanks, B. I’m good.”

“Are you okay?” Bruce came closer, keen eyes fixed on Jason’s face. “Is something wrong?”

Jason caught a look at his stony, sad expression in the reflection of the glass windows, and looked away again. He dredged up a smile from somewhere. “Chill old man, I’m fine.” His cheek muscles felt as rigid as steel. “My team’s been working hard, that’s all.”

“I know,” Bruce smiled, resting his hands-on Jason’s broad shoulders. “And I want you to know I’m so pleased to have you here Jay, and for all the good things you’ve done here. I always hoped that you might end up working here, you know, back when you were a kid. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Any other day and Jason would have absorbed this greedily, though he’d deny at gunpoint that he’d done so. Now he just felt his face grow stiffer, trying to hold his expression. “Thanks, B.” Was all he could manage, his face a mask of smiles.

He found himself doing that a lot over the next two weeks. He was a tough customer, he could pull himself together enough to be effective at his night job and be credibly engaging with his outreach programs, but the spark of enthusiasm he’d started to build into a fire for the work had gone cold. While Jason still believed their work was important, the days seemed to drag now, and he could no longer summon any joy in going to work.

Worse still, sometimes he’d catch sight of Tim, hurrying along on some intern errand, always darting at the corner of his eye. The minute Tim spotted Jason, he’d duck down and hurry away like hounds were baying at his heels. Jason hadn’t been vindictive, he hadn’t ratted Tim out to his supervisor or given him a bad performance review or anything, but he knew that being bumped down to general rather than being on special assignment had raised a few unkind eyebrows in Tim’s direction. 

Well, there wasn’t much Jason could do about that, even if he admitted the knowledge that he’d somehow damaged Tim’s reputation amongst the interns pained him. It’s not like he could make sure that Tim was assigned elsewhere; that would just make matters worse. No, he had to leave it alone. Tim was diligent and razor sharp; blindingly bright in ways no one could fail to notice. Someone would see him and raise him up.

Someone else .

Jason gritted his teeth and lived with that thought.

Honestly, Jason could probably safely say he’d been deferalized at this point. After two excruciating weeks of seething emotions and walking on eggshells he came to a decision. He’d make sure all the summer programs went ahead, make sure his people got the raises and promotions they were due, then he would tell Bruce that WE just wasn’t working for him. He’d tried it, he’d experimented with the life, but Jason had a lot less tolerance than Bruce in pretending to be something he wasn’t.

He wasn’t some young gun looking for a hopeful future. He was an old soldier, fighting a war that would no doubt kill him long before time got the chance. Jason had long embraced it with acceptance.

Still, even acknowledging all of this absolutely, the dull ache in his chest just wouldn’t go away. 

And then Damian entered the scene. Damian, mostly through no fault of his own (though definitely some of it was him), had a way of making every situation worse.

From: [email protected] 

To: [email protected]

Re: Proposals

The simulations you wanted checked are complete. Please come down to Lab 26 when available so we can discuss the relevant outcomes.

Regards,

Damian Wayne

Jason stared at the message. That was the problem with being raised by assassins. Everything became… well, cloak and dagger. Jason wondered what the hell required that level of subterfuge.

Still, wise men don’t ignore formerly homicidal baby assassins. Jason picked up his coffee cup, yelled over to his team he was going to a meeting and hied down to R&D.

He found Lab 26 empty, as expected. He found Damian waiting for him, also as expected. Less expected was the presence of Dick, who was looking worried but professional. Not business professional, despite the suit. Nightwing professional. 

Jason had a bad feeling about this. “Trouble?”

“In Gotham? Always,” Dick quipped. “Specifically? No. But Damian came to me with a certain… issue that might involve you as well.”

“What?” Jason looked between the two grave faces. “What issue?”

“Tim Drake,” Damian replied flatly.

Jason grimaced. Yep, definitely a bad feeling. “The intern? What about him?”

“I think he is not who he says he is,” Damian explained.

Okay that Jason wasn’t expecting. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“We think he knows Father,” Damian continued. “And he doesn’t want Father to know he’s working here.”

Jason stared at him and then turned to Dick. “Translation, please?”

“Jay, we’ve noticed… well, Dami noticed, but I agreed when he pointed it out to me,” Dick replied. “Tim’s behaviour is a bit odd. Especially when it comes to Bruce.”

Jason looked between the two of them. “What the actual fuck are you two talking about?”

“We’re saying that Tim, for whatever reason, is actively trying to avoid meeting Bruce,” Dick explained. “You remember that first day when Dami and I met him? The second I offered to ring Bruce he lit out the door as fast as he could go.”

“He had lunch orders,” Jason pointed out. “That’s not exactly evidence.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Todd,” Damian rolled his eyes. “We are hardly going to claim a single observation as evidence. There have been other instances. Like the joint-outreach meeting. Drake was assigned to the room but failed to return once Father came to the meeting.”

“That wasn’t…” Jason hesitated. He didn’t want to admit anything. “That still ain’t very compelling.”

“Then, behold,” Damian held out his phone. “More proof. This was taken two days ago, in the R&D department. I’ve been requesting Drake’s presence there. Watch.”

Jason watched. It was just a floor view of one of the robotics labs. The cameras were good quality enough that he could pick out the tiny figure of Tim, handing out coffees from a tray to the engineers. It all looked above board, until the moment Bruce and Damian walked into the entrance at the far end of the room.

The effect on Tim was electric. He ditched the tray on an empty desk and ducked down, scuttling beneath the immediate sight lines of Bruce and Damian while the engineers all turned to catch the eyes of their boss. Tim literally curled up behind a rolling pedestal of drawers next to the far wall and stayed there until Bruce left, emerging just in time to take complaints from the engineers about where their coffee was. 

Jason stared at the whole scene, totally baffled. “Okay, that was pretty fucking strange.”

“I wasn’t sure either, so I pulled his personnel file,” Dick piped up. “He’s got an exemplary record, except for one tiny black mark - he refuses to go up to the executive suites. Like, he’s either getting someone else to do it if he gets assigned, dumping mail at the reception desk instead of delivering it to the offices or he’s just flat out refused. His supervisor thinks it’s some kind of self-confidence issue. You’ve got to admit, Jay, for someone that smart and dedicated that’s a pretty weird hang-up.”

Jason wasn’t listening. He was going back over all his interactions with Tim.

It happened on the very first day, hadn’t it? Jason had taken a call from Bruce, said something out loud about Bruce coming down, then Tim had rabbited. The more he thought about it, the more he saw it; any time Bruce stuck his head into the office or Jason would mention going up to see him, Tim would be in the bathroom or would make some excuse.

Come to think of it, when Tim’s expression had changed after their kiss, he hadn’t been looking at Jason. He’d been looking over Jason’s shoulder, towards the elevators; right where Bruce was just emerging. 

He hadn’t shown up to their meeting, but he’d mentioned seeing Bruce go in…

Jason felt his bewilderment rise. Why the fuck would Tim want to avoid Bruce? He said as much.

“I can think of a few reasons why someone might not want to catch Father’s eye,” Damian answered, glowering. “The most likely scenario is that he’s met Father before in a less than ideal capacity. Father,” Damian added for emphasis. “Has brushed up against criminals in all walks of life.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Jason held up his hand. “We’ve gone from suspicious behaviour to outright villainy pretty damn quick. What made you jump on the Rogue track?”

“It’s more than just his behaviour. You remember when Croc took you out of the field last month?” Dick asked.

“Yeah, so?”

“Jay, I talked to your team and to HR,” Dick told him seriously. “They logged your sick leave late in the day. Tim told your team and payroll that you were on sick leave hours before anyone was told by any of us. Unless you told him…?”

“... No,” Jason replied, heart starting to hammer in his chest. “What the fuck. You think he fucking knows?”

“He’s been following us,” Damian surmised grimly. “Tracking our movements, perhaps. He may have been sent here at someone else's behest. An infiltrator. My grandfather has deployed such strategies in the past. That’s why he avoids Father. Father might be able to recognize him; his scarring is a fairly unmistakable distinguishing feature.”

“And it keeps nagging at me,” Dick added to this. “I keep getting the feeling I’ve seen Tim somewhere before. I wish it would come to me,” Dick ran his fingers through his hair. “I did have another tentative theory -”

“It’s a stupid one!” Damian snapped.

“- that Damian doesn’t like very much,” Dick continued ruefully. “Maybe Tim looks familiar to me because of Bruce. You know,” Dick added to Jason’s blank look. “Dark hair, blue eyes…” he trailed off.

“Oh, Jesus, really?” Jason moaned. What’s worse is, he could see it happening. Bruce wasn’t particularly discriminating when it came to bed partners and while Jason was a hundred percent sure he took every possible precaution… nothing was foolproof.

“But that is ridiculous,” Damian’s hackles were all the way up. “Why would father lower himself for some lesser scion of the Drakes? Father has more taste.”

Dick and Jason looked at each other. 

“Kid,” Jason retorted. “He really fucking doesn’t.”

Jason turned away from them then, to try to get some equilibrium back. The more they laid it out for him, the more right it seemed. Maybe Tim hadn’t been ducking him. Maybe he’d been ducking Bruce . 

Maybe he was a spy. Maybe it was all just a con. Maybe none of it had been real. 

Worse, maybe it had been. Jason knew how blurry the lines got when you were undercover, working the mark. Maybe Tim had a crisis of loyalties. Maybe he’d drawn back so he could get on with his mission.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“We need to find out,” Jason said flatly, cutting through Damian increasingly strident denials that he could in any way be related to Tim. “If he knows… we need to fucking find out.”

Whatever Dick heard in Jason’s tone was enough to make his mouth tighten in sympathy. “I asked Oracle to look into Drake’s background. So far everything is consistent with what he’s told us.”

Which meant it either wasn’t a lie or it was an extremely well faked persona. 

“Bruce,” Jason said in a low voice. “Bruce is the key. Tim seems sure Bruce would recognize him.”

“I shall give a copy of Drake’s file to my Father, then,” Damian offered.

“No,” Jason shook his head. “I want them both in the same room. I wouldn’t put it past Bruce to obfuscate and take on the case himself. I want to know.” He glared at the other two.

Dick and Damian exchanged a look, which didn’t do many favors' for Jason’s temper. Still, Damian said “Fine,” and reached for his phone. “Pierson,” he said calmly to whoever picked up. “Send Drake to the eastern filing room, if you please. I need to find the paper drafts of the old XMR4-2 engine specs. Something is off in our simulations. Tell him I’ll meet him there. Yes, thank you.” He hung up. “Well? I’ve done my part. I’ll keep Drake where he is. You go and collect Father.”

“Aye, aye,” Dick saluted jokingly. “Come on, Jay.”

They jogged to the nearest elevators and were able to get an express car to themselves. “Little Wing,” Dick asked softly. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” Jason grunted. His blurry reflection in the chrome of the elevator showed a stone blank expression. “I mighta spent the last few months with some plant trying to charm me. I’m super.”

“We don’t know that’s what it is, Jay.”

“Yeah, but with our lives? The odds aren’t good it’s not either,” Jason said wearily. 

“I’m sorry,” Dick said after a while. “I know you liked him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jason said flatly. “He isn’t the first. He won’t be the last. It’s just how it is, Dickie.”

“We could be wrong, Jay,” Dick persisted. “This is all circumstantial. Hardly an airtight case. Just… keep that in mind, yeah? Nothing has been proven yet.”

“No offense, Dick,” Jason snapped. “But I’ve never had the luxury of optimism.”

The elevator dinged. Jason stalked out the second the doors opened, leaving a morose Dick to trail behind him. 

“Yo, B,” Jason blew past this week’s PA and stuck his head into Bruce’s office. “Come with us a sec. We got someone we want you to meet.”

“Jaylad?”

“Come on, Bruce, tick tock!” Jason called over his shoulder as he left. 

He let Dick make their lame excuses to Bruce as they went back down to the archives. Jason could feel his adrenaline spiking, blood roaring in his ears. Even without looking he knew he had his Red Hood face on; this was just another mission, another job. His emotions were distant, boiling but disconnected from him. Or, Jason was trying to disconnect them.

All this time, something in him seethed as Bruce and Dick went back and forth behind him. All this time, Tim had been keeping secrets from him. It was just a con, though, and it turned into just another shitty case, made even shittier by the fact that Jason had nearly fallen for it.

Tim and his goddamn secrets. 

He’d been keeping them the whole time, hadn’t he? He’d made a game of it. He had a new story for his scars every time someone asked, but no one ever got the truth out of him about them. 

Something about that thought snagged on his otherwise streamlined mission mind. Something about those scars tugged at Jason. He was so caught up on teasing out whatever instinct was waving a tiny flag that he nearly jumped when Bruce laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Bruce asked. There was a certain Batman firmness to his jaw that meant he was really asking is there trouble?

“Yes,” Jason snapped, then stumbled over his own mission mind. “No. I don’t fucking know, B, but we’re going to find out. I don’t think there’ll be a fight involved if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Hn,” Bruce raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you can tell me what’s going on?”

“Don’t want to bias the conclusion,” Jason shrugged. “Just trust me, okay?”

Bruce looked over his face worriedly. “Okay.”

God, it shouldn’t be that easy. After all the shit Jason had pulled? There was no way he deserved that level of benediction. It caused a terrible, lurching sensation in his chest that he had in fact earned Bruce’s trust back, and now he was going to use it against him.

Too late for regrets now. Jason needed to know. 

They made their way to the archives floor, which was a honeycomb of rooms stacked wall to wall with filing cabinets. There weren’t any new ones being filled these days thanks to the paperless era, but they kept all the old R&D plans down here on the basis that some engineer’s crazed, four am, caffeine bender fueled crackpottery might prove useful to Batman one day. God knows, that’s where he got most of the ideas for his equipment. The floor was kept cooled for preservation purposes and was mostly kept dim. No one actually worked the floor.

Up ahead, there was a light. “Keep looking, Drake, it must be somewhere in here,” Damian's voice rang out. “I’m going to go check if our help has arrived.”

Damian came out of the file room and nodded grimly. “Good, you’re here,” he spoke loudly, probably for the benefit of Tim. “Right this way, gentlemen.” He beckoned them into the room.

Jason didn’t see Tim at first. There was a shuffling sound, but all Jason could see was a wall of metal filing cabinets taller than he was. There were literal rows of them, marching back to the end of the room, like the world's most boring library.

Bruce opened his mouth, but Dick grabbed him and shook his head, pressing a finger to his lips. They walked up to the first row of cabinets as Damian yelled. “Drake! Over here!”

“Coming!” Tim yelled back. There was a metal on metal thump and then quiet footsteps.

Jason sucked in a quiet breath, bracing himself.

Tim came out into the corridor between the rows, saying. “Did you-”

He stopped when he saw them.

He went white.

But that wasn’t the thing that shocked Jason. 

When he turned to look at Bruce, Bruce had gone even whiter.

“What the fuck?” Jason blurted.

“It’s you…” Bruce breathed.

Tim was backing away, mindlessly and fearful. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he croaked.

Jason felt an unexpectedly visceral tug on his heartstrings at the devastation on Tim’s face. It made him hesitate, which was unfortunate because Tim, clearly in a full panic meltdown, darted in some thoughtless attempt to hide. His body slammed hard into a row of file cabinets….

Which toppled. 

And hit the next row.

The whole room suddenly turned into the least fun game of dominoes ever conceived. Bruce, Dick, Jason and Damian were suddenly dodging falling, heavy metal filing cabinets, unable to hear each other shout over the cacophony of metal hitting metal hitting metal. They were pros at dodging life’s heavy swings and managed to scramble, scuttle and somersault to safety while the landscape around them turned into a bureaucratic dystopia. Jason frantically tried to sightline Tim one he’d found a safe spot.

He found him.

Tim was a hunched little figure, tears pouring down his face, his expression saturated with humiliation and naked fear. “I’m sorry,” he choked out when he saw Jason looking at him. “I’m sorry.” Then he turned and fled towards the other door.

Suddenly Jason was sorry too. All his most cynical suspicions about Tim felt about as bulletproof as candy glass after actually seeing his face, remembering how he’d inspired so much joy in Jason. He had forgotten that Tim Drake, no matter what else he was or might be, was a person who wanted to help people. No one was a good enough actor to carry that level of kindness with such fidelity. “Tim, wait!” Jason took off after him. “Tim!”

Tim had a head start and Jason was clambering over some of the mess, which cost him valuable seconds. By the time he’d hit the doorway and gotten into the corridor the elevator doors were already closing. 

Cursing, Jason loped for the stairwell, banging his way in and taking the stairs three at a time, trying to outrun the express car. He was peripherally aware that someone was following him, but Jason was too intent on catching Tim before he bolted to care. He was dogged by the terrible feeling he’d just made a huge mistake, but he wasn’t sure what the fuck mistake it actually was.

Grit toothed and sweating, Jason exploded into the lobby in time to see Tim bolting for the entrance, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was fleeing with everything he had. “Tim, wait!” Jason shouted.

But it all went awry. Jason sprinted for Tim, nearly slalomed into a gaggle of workers coming out of the ground floor café, braked and made to dodge around them and was promptly rear ended by Bruce, who had been right on his heels. 

Jason wasn’t a lightweight, but neither was Bruce. They both staggered, they both tried to correct and they both ended up bouncing in opposite directions trying to avoid hitting anyone else which meant they both ended up in unceremonious heaps on the floor.

Jason then learned about the downside to a daytime alter ego. They were suddenly swamped with well-intentioned people trying to help the Big Boss and said boss’ son to their feet after their ignominious pratfall. Jason sprang up and went to give chase, but Bruce grabbed his arm before he could take off, face set in an odd grimace.

“Easy there, sport. Guess that’s why they say no running in the lobby, right folks,” Brucie gave a plastic laugh that nonetheless led people to a few chuckles of their own. Bruce’s face was a fascinating study; Jason could literally see Batman and Brucie vying for control.

But they were in public. They couldn’t mask up here. Bruce Wayne was the rich, empty headed playboy, Jason was his wayward, taciturn prodigal son. Neither of them had any reason to be chasing a random intern like dogs after a fox. That kind of thing made it to the evening papers in their world.

Fuck.

Jason withstood the next ten minutes of reassurances and glad handing with ill grace, seething inside. He’d been so fucking stupid. He’d been so disappointed in the idea of Tim lying to him that he’d jumped on the first impulse he had. He should have dug deeper; been the detective he’d been trained to be. 

Fuck, he really was a fucking screw up.

Damian and Dick joined them and affected their escape from the crowd. They all piled silently into the elevator back up the executive suite. The minute the doors were shut Bruce turned to the three of them, all Batman. “Name?”

“Tim Drake,” Dick answered promptly. “Do you know him?”

“Drake,” Bruce punched a wall. “Of course.”

“Bruce, what the fuck?” Jason burst out because that little display of loss of control was actively unnerving. Bruce was… well, he seemed flustered, if you could ever apply that adjective to Batman. 

“Who is Drake, Father?” Damian asked, eyes keen. “An enemy?”

“No,” Bruce said softly. “Not an enemy,” his voice was heavy. “Or if he is, he’s probably earned it. He’s someone I’ve been looking for.”

“What the fuck?” Jason was getting a bad feeling that Dick’s secret paternity conspiracy was gaining more ground. “Who the fuck is Tim Drake to you?”

Bruce flinched. “That’s not important. You three, handle things here and don’t draw any more attention. I’ll take care of this.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Jason snapped. “Tim was my intern. I want to know what the fuck is going on here!”

“Jason, please,” Bruce turned beseeching eyes on him. “Please, just let me handle this for now. I’ll tell you everything soon, but you have to let me handle this.”

Jason was taken aback. Bruce was pleading with him. Bruce Wayne didn’t beg. A stone of anxiety lodged in Jason’s gut. Whatever their connection was, it was a profound one. 

“We’ll hold down the fort,” Dick broke in, ever the peacekeeper. “But we expect some answers from you, B, and we’ll need them soon.”

“Yes, of course,” Bruce nodded. “I’ll tell you when I can.”

The doors dinged open and Bruce hurried away, Batman on every step on his stride.

“Okay, everyone just saw that, right?” Dick said to the other two quietly.

“He looked… guilty,” Damian said slowly.

Jason felt the stone in his gut grow heavier, wondering what Gordian tangle could possibly tie Bruce and his everlasting font of guilt to Tim.

And why Tim seemed so scared of Bruce.

Jason lasted a whole, distracted, brooding hour in his office before giving up and heading for the executive level to see Dick. Bruce had, predictably, fucking vanished to do… whatever the fuck it was he needed to do. 

Jason’s mind was spinning, trying to parse out what possible connections there could possibly be between Bruce and Tim. There was no evidence that Bruce had ever actually met Tim. He hadn’t known his name, which by itself was a huge fucking red flag. Why was Bruce looking for someone whose name he hadn’t even known? Why was Tim trying so hard to avoid him?

Why had Tim looked so devastated when finally faced with Bruce.

Jason bumped into Tam on the executive level on his way to Dick’s. “Hey, Tam?” he asked as he passed her door. “Can you get me a file from the personnel drive?”

Tam looked up from her paperwork. “Yes? Whose?” she asked. “Please don’t tell me it’s Tim Drake.”

“Bruce already asked, huh?” Jason sighed.

“Bruce asked, Dick asked, Damian asked. Now that you’re here I’m entitled to a free soda,” Tam snorted. “Seriously? What is the deal with Tim? He’s one of our most hard-working interns. Best Queen cast off when ever got, though that bar isn’t high.”

Oh yeah, Jason remembered that. Tim had said he wasn’t even supposed to be at Wayne Enterprises or the Foundation. Jason couldn’t believe he’d forgotten it; that would have been a snarl in his supposedly perfect theory of Tim being an enemy infiltrator. “Look, it’s a family thing, Tam. I can’t really explain it yet. Hell, Bruce still has to explain it to me,” Jason added, aggrieved. “Forget about the file, I’ll go see Dick.”

He didn’t, as it turned out, just see Dick. He and Damian were cross legged on the floor of Dick’s office, apparently at an impromptu Zen retreat.

“What else?” Damian asked Dick.

“Elephants,” Dick murmured.

“What else?” 

“Cotton candy.”

“Don’t focus on the background noise, Grayson,” Damian muttered. “Focus on the people. Who is there?”

Dick frowned. “My parents… fuck, I lost it,” he shook his head and opened his eyes. “Every time I see my parents the rest of it blurs out.”

“Well, if it helps, you’ve fucking lost me too,” Jason broke in, bewildered. “What is this, the New Age Club?”

“Cease your ignorant prattling, Todd,” Damian snapped. “I am using advanced hypnosis techniques to aid Grayson in recalling where he might have seen Tim before. It may offer some clue as to his identity. He keeps going to the circus,” he added sourly. “Your mind is as focused as a three-year-old on a sugar high,” he complained at Dick.

“Thanks for trying, little D,” Dick ruffled the growling little gremlin’s hair. “I’m still sure I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

Jason looked over at Dick’s whiteboard, where he’s set up a pretty comprehensive investigation board, the contents of Tim’s personnel file disembowelled and spread across it. Jason stared at Tim’s photo, taken from his file. He was there on the glossy, his face blown up to poster size and smiling.

Jason’s chest hurt.

“What have you got?” Jason asked. “I did a little background checking and compiled a facts folder. There’s not much,” he admitted. 

“We haven’t got much more,” Dick shrugged, rising to his feet. “Tim Drake is a born and bred Gothamite with an exemplary record. His parents were Jack and Janet Drake, the late owners of Drake Enterprises until their kidnapping and murder. Tim was mostly at boarding schools until age twelve. Then his parents took him overseas to, presumably, go to school there. After their deaths he was sent back to Gotham and was made a ward of the state. He was emancipated last year at sixteen, according to his file. Not surprising, sometimes it’s just easier to let the stable ones make their own way because the system is so over capacity. I called the references on his internship application, they all say pretty much the same thing; dedicated, hardworking and razor sharp. I did checks on his references too; so far it all looks on the up and up.”

“Much as I hate to admit it,” Damian added grudgingly. “After checking over his work performance at the Foundation thoroughly, I cannot find any suspicious activity linked to him. No sign of surveillance, hacking or corporate espionage. He didn’t show undue interest in anything we were doing; his phone currently has nothing on it that would indicate he was spying or passing information to anyone.”

“You hacked his phone?” Jason raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, it’s not just the phone,” Dick snorted. “Damian actually took a DNA sample and ran it.”

“You’re shitting me!”

“As expected,” Damian replied to this levelly. “He is in no way related to the Waynes.”

Jesus. Okay, it was one big theory off their list, but wow Damian really had no compunctions about crossing lines. “Relieved to have no competition, brat?” Jason smirked.

“He’d hardly have been worthy competition,” Damian snuck his nose in the air.

“That’s a yes?”

“That’s a yes,” Dick nodded while Damian bridled. “Honestly, Jay, I’m stumped. I can’t see where the intersect between Tim and Bruce could even be. He was taken overseas when he was twelve by his parents and we’re not sure where he went, so that’s a possibility. The Drakes were murdered on a dig after a kidnapping. Batman wasn’t involved in that case, though he did end up bringing the murderer to justice, it was later, on an unconnected matter.”

“Was Tim with them?” Jason scowled.

“Unclear, but reports generally indicate he wasn’t,” Dick shrugged. “The Drake’s seemed like pretty hands-off parents. Tim’s been in some prestigious boarding schools. That seems to have been their MO with him.”

“There is a vague connection between their former company and Wayne Enterprises,” Damian pointed to the scribbled notes on the board.  “In that Father’s company acquired many of Drake Industries assets in the fire sale after its collapse. But that’s hardly unusual. Father pays more than he ought for failing companies in Gotham in order to spare the outgoing workforce hardship. There’s no indication I can find Drake is interested in regaining his family’s company. His presence at Wayne Enterprises appears to be largely circumstantial. He was recruited to work for Queen Consolidated, but they were forced to end the traineeship program over a funds scandal. Drake applied to WE almost at the end of the cut off period.”

Jason shook his head. It was all consistent with what Tim had told him. So where was the damn connection? Why was Tim so eager to avoid Bruce? Why had Bruce been looking for him? “And you can’t remember where you saw Tim before, Dickie? Even with Damian’s mind games?”

Damian snapped ‘advanced recall techniques!’ even as Dick shook his head. “It’s really bugging me. I keep feeling like I’ve seen him before.”

“I don’t suppose either of you dorks thought to do the obvious?” Jason asked dryly.

The other two stared at him.

Jason rolled his eyes, and then walked over to Tim’s photo and slapped his hand across Tim’s scars, so they were hidden from view. “Now try, Dickie.”

Dick squinted at the unmarred view of Tim’s face. His eyes widened. “I got it!”

Damian gaped. “That worked?”

Jason snorted. “The downside to being a detective is we’ve been trained to look for distinguishing characteristics above everything else. Dick associates Tim with the circus and he hasn’t been there in a while. Therefore, it’s possible he met Tim before his face got messed up. Remember this one, kid, next time you go off about how I’m the least of you in terms of detective skill,” he added to Damian’s gaping mouth. “So?” he turned to Dick.

Dick was rubbing his temples. “This is gonna sound strange, but I actually met Tim twice. Once,” Dick’s mouth turned down. “Was on the day my parents died. He was just a little kid, three or four years old. We used to go out before the show and do some patter with the crowds. I met him then. I remember Tim. He was a cute kid, real polite. I told him I’d do a quadruple flip, just for him,” Dick smiled at the memory. “The other time was about five years ago. I was back at Haly’s again.”

“You went back to the circus?” Jason asked sharply. “Why?”

“B and I were fighting,” Dick shrugged. “Like, it was so bad we weren’t talking to each other. I was living in Blud, and I heard Haly’s was closing down. I went back there just to look it over. One last hurrah, you know? Tim found me there. He never introduced himself, he just popped up out of the woodwork and told me that Bruce needed me to come home. That he was in crisis,” Dick looked uncomfortable. “I kind of blew him off. I was still mad at B and I figured that this dark haired, blue eyed kid was his latest project. I was a bit mad about that too, on your behalf, Jay. I was so short with him that Tim ran off. I looked for him after I’d cooled down a bit, but I couldn’t find him.”

“And the fact that a boy knew your biggest secret didn’t make you suspicious, Grayson?” Damian scoffed.

“He never mentioned Batman, or Robin,” Dick ran his fingers through his hair. “Just Bruce. I was still mourning Jason, and still mad at B. I guess my mind simply refused to make the connection.”

Jason looked at the timeline that had been carefully marked across the bottom of the board. “Five years ago,” he said slowly. “Probably right before he got taken overseas by his folks, yeah?”

“Sounds about right. Why?”

There were different kinds of detectives. The Bat Family boasted quite a few archetypes.

Bruce was an armchair type. He thought about the problem, came up with the right solution and then most of his job was combing through the evidence that would prove something he already knew. He would run the risk of twisting facts to fit theories, except Bruce was always, aggravatingly right.

Dick was the network guy. He knew people who knew people who knew people. When he was trying to find someone, or taking apart what could have happened, he would find someone, somewhere with whatever obscure piece of knowledge or intelligence he needed until he’d assembled the puzzle and had the picture in front of him. He was the Grandmaster I-Know-A-Guy detective. He risked betrayal a lot, but he also had a lot of friends holding up his safety net.

Damian was a mathematical machine. He didn’t waste time on messy emotional motivations for crimes, his ability to deduce came from understanding the pure physics of human interaction. He looked at the data, subtracted this from that, added this and divided by that. He could calculate odds and variables in the blink of an eye. He was, like his father, usually right, though every once in a while the messy chaos of an emotional response would upset his numbers.

Jason was all concrete-and-clay. He was the flatfooter, the one who would go out and pound the streets, walking and talking and comparing what he got told. He was called the least of the detectives in the Bats because his way was laborious and took longer than the others, but even Bruce couldn’t deny Jason’s cases tended to be meticulously detailed.

Also, Jason had one quirk the rest of them didn’t have. Sometimes, randomly, all the facts would run together like quicksilver in his head and he was able to make a giant intuitive leap with almost no data and certainly no proof. It drove Damian nuts when he did it because it looked like nothing more than a wild guess, but he was always, one hundred percent right. Bruce had tried and failed to train up the phenomenon, but it was usually so random that all Bruce could do was train Jason to listen for that ephemeral instinct.

Looking at the timeline, looking at that year when Tim would have been twelve years old and frantically seeking out Dick because he was trying to help Bruce, suddenly it all ran together in his head.

“I got it,” Jason intoned, voice soft and flat. “I know what the connection is.”

“Jay?” Dick’s voice had a worried edge. There was an unparsable note in Jason’s voice that didn’t bode well.

“We have to go to the Cave,” was all Jason said.

They got back to the Manor in record time. Jason refused to answer any questions for an increasingly strident Damian, until Dick quietly asked him to stop. He kept his eyes on Jason’s white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. He knew what Jason was like when his moods took him like this. They wouldn’t get an answer out of him until he was good and ready.

Dick didn’t know what conclusions Jason had come to, but he had a shrivelling sensation in his gut. Whatever this was, it was going to be bad. 

The sensation didn’t abate at all when Alfred met them at the door. The old butler looked pensive; something he generally only did when a crisis was in full swing. “Good afternoon, young sirs. Please come out of the rain.”

“Hey Alfie,” Jason said in a low voice. “Is B in his Cave?”

“He is, Master Jason,” Alfred replied promptly and then hesitated. “He was very… distracted. Dare I ask if something is the matter?”

Jason breathed out. “No. But Alf? There might be, shortly.”

Alfred nodded slowly, taking the warning to heart.

Jason led the way to the grandfather clock in the hall, marched down the steps like a soldier, the other two trailing in his wake. When he reached the Cave, he didn’t pause but blitzed straight past a surprised Bruce where he saw at the Batcomputer and into the trophy alcove, metaphorical thunderhead building over his head.

Bruce looked grim. “What are you doing here?” he asked even as Jason ignored him going past. “I told you to hold down the fort.”

“You’ve literally set up the company so that it can run without a Wayne being there,” Dick pointed out. “Jason’s made a break in the case. Have you found Tim?”

Bruce’s lips pursed. “No,” he conceded grudgingly. “As of an hour ago, Tim Drake resigned from his position as part of the intern staff. He hasn’t returned to his apartment and he’s switched off his phone. I’m researching where else he would go.” His eyes kept darting to where Jason had gone, tension tight across his shoulders.

“Seems you don’t know Tim Drake,” Jason’s sneering voice came out of the trophy alcove. “Let me tell you a story about him. The first day I met Tim Drake, he took my picture. He was the only intern, apparently, who knew his way around a camera.”

Jason stalked back out of the alcove, got right up in Bruce’s space and then slammed down a shattered, damaged camera onto the Batcomputer’s console. “Never Forget. What, precisely, are you trying not to forget, B?”

Bruce’s face crumpled, looking at the sad, damaged camera.

“Holy shit,” Dick breathed, slowly going pale. “Holy shit B, what did you do?”

“What is this?” Damian picked up the camera, bewildered.

Bruce looked from one face to another and slumped. “It would probably be easier if I just showed you.” He turned to the computer and, after about eight separate password protections, accessed what looked like an archived video file. 

It was a snippet. It started in media res, and was clearly taken from Batman’s cowl camera, in a lonely spot with heavy rain pouring down. 

It showed Jason.

“Wait a fucking minute,” Jason scowled. “That ain’t me. That date’s all wrong. I was still dead then.”

“It’s not you, no,” Bruce agreed. “It was Clayface, pretending to be you.”

That became more apparent as the fight went on. The faux-Jason taunted Batman about the real Jason’s death. Batman’s movements were weirdly erratic and impulsive. His swings were wild and imprecise where they were usually filled with cold power. Clayface was getting under his skin.

But Batman, even in the midst of an emotional upheaval, was still a better fighter than most. Even Jason winced when Batman on the video managed to land a shattering blow on Clayface - literally, his Jason-mask came off in tiny pieces and a couple of those pieces might have actually been teeth.

Usually, normally, that would be the end of it. Clayface was clearly not going to get back up after a blow like that.

But Batman kept on going. 

Punch. Punch. Punch. Again, and again, blows and kicks rained down on the prone Clayface. The hapless villain seemed startled by the violence, and tried to curl up to protect himself, pleading in a slurred voice for Batman to stop, he was sorry , just please stop. 

Batman didn’t stop. Clayface was suddenly out, defenceless, definitely unconscious and the blows still came down. Jason felt his insides turn to ice. He’d never seen that kind of unthinking rage from his mentor before. Batman hadn’t said a word, but the blows came, and came, and came.

“Father…?” Damian sounded uncertain and incredibly young. Even as inured to violence as he was, he was just as shocked as the rest of them.

Dick put an arm around him, white to his lips.

Then, impossibly, it got even worse.

“Batman, stop! Stop! You’re killing him!”

Jason felt every muscle in his body turn to stone. He knew that voice.

The rain was still pouring down and the camera footage was badly framed, so the next couple of seconds were a blur where they couldn’t tell what was happening. There was a scuffle, like someone had tried to tackle Batman or was tugging at him. Batman’s POV swung around, disarming the intruder by rote. A camera, its strap flying toppled between them and was kicked away hard.

“Please ," a voice pleaded softly. “Jason wouldn’t want this. Please!”

It was Tim. he was wearing what looked like a homemade Robin costume. It wasn’t armoured; it looked like a gymnastics uniform cobbled together with a homemade cape. The mask looked like one of the copies that got sold over the internet. He was soaked to the skin, tears running down his face, mingling with the rain.

“Jason’ is DEAD!” The howl from Batman made them all jump. “My son is DEAD ! NO MORE!”

Then Batman, clearly deep inside a mental breakdown, swung his hammer of a fist, hard.

Blood sprayed. Some of it splattered the camera. Tim vanished from view as Batman swung the same fist a second time. Then drove it in a third.

Then he reared back and appeared to see what he was swinging at. Tim lay in the mud and rain, mask askew, face clearly deformed, jaw all wrong, bone shards sticking out of his cheek and bleeding profusely. 

The camera view dropped down abruptly as Batman appeared to collapse. He was crying.

Hell, he was flat out sobbing.

The camera view went dark as he buried his face in his hands. The next view they had, minutes of sobbing and moaning of Jason’s name later, was a limp Tim being gathered into Batman’s arms, his whole body shaking in time with Batman’s sobs and Clayface stirring feebly in the distance, between them all a broken, shattered camera.

The feed cut off.

Jason made it to the trashcan before he threw up.

Bruce knelt beside him as he dry heaved the last of it out. “I’m sorry, Jason,” he said, voice small.

“You’re apologizing to me?” Jason croaked when he could talk again. “To fucking me?!” Jason grabbed him and shook him. “What about Tim? You fucking maimed him, you bastard!”

“I know,” Bruce grabbed Jason’s clenched fists on his shirtfront. “Believe me, I know.” The guilt in his eyes could have been seen from space. 

“Damian,” Dick’s voice broke through the tension quietly. “Can you run upstairs and get Alfred for me? Tell him to bring some water.”

Damian hesitated, but for once didn’t argue. With one last uncertain look at them all, he went upstairs. 

Dick flopped down on the chair Bruce had vacated, face blank. “Wow. I don’t even know what the hell to say.”

“I do!” Jason said furiously. “You asshole, why didn’t you track Tim down before this? What the fuck took you so long! You should have helped him!” Jason jabbed a finger at Bruce’s chest. It was easier to focus on the anger than the other, wobbly, wavering, nebulous feelings he had over seeing Batman - Bruce - sobbing over his death. For a long time the root of Jason’s Pit-induced worldview had been buried deep into the idea that such a thing had never actually happened. Of course, he’d known for a while that it was all brainwashing bullshit from people with their own agenda, but knowing it and seeing it, visceral and real like that, were two very different things. 

“I tried,” Bruce sat back, slumped and defeated. “Believe me, I tried. But you must understand, I was in a dissociative fugue after it happened. I… remember the event, but the memory feels so distant that it’s almost like I’m watching it from the outside. Then I blinked and I was sitting in the shower in the cave. I was still in my armour; the water was freezing, and Clark was there. He said I’d been in there for hours. Alfred had summoned him. Apparently there were reports that Batman had carried an injured boy - a John Doe - into Gotham General, but I have absolutely no memory of doing it. By the time I was composed enough to even reckon with what I’d done, Tim Drake was gone. I believe his parents paid to have the hospital records erased, probably because questions would have been asked about their predilection for leaving their son home alone for long periods of time while they travelled. Such chronic neglect coming to light would have gotten social services involved and the Drake’s weren’t prepared to deal with a scandal of that magnitude. I searched everywhere, Jason. The trail went cold.”

Jason punched the Batcomputer console with an angry fist.

Dick was still blank faced. “Is this why you have a therapist?”

Jason whipped around to look at Dick, then back at Bruce. “Holy shit, that’s why?”

Bruce nodded. “It was one of the conditions set upon me by Clark and Diana. They were the only two members of the Justice League who knew the full extent of what I’d done. I confessed all to them and showed them what little footage there was. I offered to give up the cowl,” Bruce added, shocking both of them. “I hadn’t killed, but I’d committed a wilful harm to an innocent, a child no less. I could not allow that to pass unacknowledged. Diana and Clark, after much thought and deliberation, concluded that my giving up Batman would ultimately do more harm than good. They put me on a… probation, of sorts, instead. I was monitored. I got therapy. I had to give them progress reports. At the end of it they reviewed everything and deemed my remorse and strides in improving some of my… emotional dysfunction to be proof that I was still worthy of the cowl. I couldn’t forget, though,” Bruce sadly brushed his hands over Tim’s broken camera. “I could never let myself forget.”

“Jesus, no wonder Tim looked so fucking terrified,” Jason ran his hands over his face. “I’m amazed he can be within ten miles of you.”

“How did you find him?” Bruce asked curiously

Jason shrugged uncomfortably. “He was my intern. Apparently he was meant to go work for Queen but had to take a fallback job at WE when it fell through.”

“What is he like?”

Jason looked over at Bruce. The older man’s eyes were hungry for knowledge. “He’s a Robin,” Jason shrugged. The words came out of nowhere, but they fit. “Stubborn, dedicated, resourceful. So fucking smart he can take your breath away.” Jason hesitated and then added. “He made me smile,” in a soft voice.

“Holy shit, you’re right,” Dick broke out into a strained laugh. “He’s such a Robin.” 

“Excuse me,” Damian grumped from where he was returning with Alfred and water bottles in tow. “But there is only one Robin and it is I.”

“He said A Robin, not The Robin, brat,” Jason snarked and took the water bottle. “And he fucking earned it, even you have to admit that.”

“Tt,” was as close as Damian was going to come to agreeing.

“So, what do we do now?” Dick asked, taking his own bottle from Alfred. “I mean, what even was your plan once you found him?”

“Master Bruce likely intended to make his amends to the young man, if he could, Master Dick,” Alfred looked over Bruce and nodded to himself. “I believe that might be… closure for both of them.”

“I’m not having much luck,” Bruce ruefully pulled himself to his feet and offered Jason a hand up. “He hasn’t gone home. He quit his job at the Foundation. He hasn’t left Gotham, but he also hasn’t contacted anyone or gone to any of his usual haunts.”

Jason thought that through. This new information had given him a new understanding of Tim and what drove him. He’d even said it on the day Jason had met him. Welcome back. He’d know who Jason was then, had known what happened to him. Hell, he knew Jason was the infamous Red Hood and Tim still admired and respected him.

I think everyone should have the chance to rise up and make something better of themselves. Like you.

Tim had known he was Robin. Had admired him for that. Had loved him. 

Shit, he’d loved Jason so much that he’d dedicated his life to good works for the sake of Gotham. He could have been making six figures at some high-end software company or be a world class photojournalist or anything he damn well wanted, because his brains would take him anywhere. He’d chosen to start at the ground somewhere where he could give the most.

 In Jason’s name. I’m not as amazing as you, Jason.

“Jaylad? Are you alright?” Bruce’s voice came at him as the epiphany filled him like a fine wine.

“Yeah?”

“It’s just,” Bruce reached out and bemusedly brushed one of Jason’s cheeks. “You’re smiling.”

Jason nodded. “I know where to find him, B. I know exactly where he’ll be.”

This was a proper Gotham downpour, that regularly soaked the city but always failed to clean it. Stone and slate were caked with a layer of soft grime, like batter. Wood swelled and groaned in the endless moist. Anywhere with earth and grass turned into a sodden, muddy mess.

In the graveyard, you got all three. Jason picked his way carefully through the labyrinth of tombstones, his boot heels sinking a quarter inch into the mud where they landed on it. He was heading deep into this particular bone orchard, near to where the original churchyard had been before there were too many dead to bury there. The nearer he got to it, the more beaten down old cloisters and remains of the old walls he found, as well as old trees, twisted up and knotted with age, leaves glistening.

Despite the rain, it was a nice night. They were right at the edge of the cloud cover, so a brilliant, crimson hue painted one edge of the horizon, shading the world in soft reds, oranges and pinks as the sun pulled the blanket of clouds over its head. This place would usually be forbidding, but now it was a colour saturated tapestry, more melancholy than intimidating. Jason might even go so far as to say it was peaceful. 

He stopped at a gravestone, newer than most in this place. Bruce must have paid a small fortune to have it placed here in the historical section, where it wouldn’t be dug up or disturbed. Bet he kind of regretted the money spent now, because it turned out you couldn’t take out anything that was put in here. 

HERE LIES JASON TODD

Beloved Son

Resurgam

That last line always made his inner sense of irony snigger a bit. Technically, he’d done just as instructed. 

“I used to come here and talk to you, you know.”

Jason spun around.

It was Tim. He was huddled against another headstone, ringed by Gothic angel statues, knees drawn up to his chest.

His skin was so pale in the rain. It made the scars on his face look more vivid than they really were. Jason flinched to see them. “I figured,” Jason said roughly when he could find his voice. “You bought me flowers on my birthday. We checked your bank records,” he added when Tim frowned, puzzled.

“Oh,” Tim flushed. “Of course. It wasn’t just your birthday, though. I used to come up here all the time. Just to talk.”

“Oh yeah?” Jason moved carefully and slowly over to Tim’s position, worried that he’d spook. “About what?”

“Just… stuff,” Tim said, flushing slightly. “Things that had happened to me since last time. Stuff that was happening in Gotham. Updates on how Bruce was doing, that sort of thing,” Tim looked awkward. “I moved boarding schools a lot. My parents were always looking for the most exclusive, where I could make the ‘best connections’. The joke was on them; I never stayed in any of them long enough to really make friends. You were like a friend. One that was always available to listen. I know,” he muttered. “It’s kind of pathetic.”

Jason didn’t think it was pathetic. He thought it was sad. He could well imagine a lonely, lost Tim coming here and putting flowers on the grave of his hero and then just talking about his day because there was literally no one else to tell. In response he shrugged out of his jacket and bundled it around Tim’s soaked shoulders. “I don’t mind. I think that’s kinda… sweet.”

Tim hunkered down in the jacket. “I guess he told you.”

“Yeah,” Jason croaked. “He told me. Fuck, Tim I’m-”

“Don’t,” Tim sighed. “Just please, don’t. I never… you’re not responsible for what happened. I don’t want you to carry that with you.”

“It's a bit late for that, Timmers,” Jason sighed. “You walked into that fight because you were tryin’ to protect my memory.”

“I walked into that fight because I was a dumbass twelve-year-old in a crappy, cosplay version of a Robin uniform, thinking I could somehow measure up,” Tim said harshly. “As if I could ever be that good.”

“You were,” Jason insisted, gripping his shoulder. “Tim, you absolutely were. It’s Robin’s job to remind Batman where the lines are. I had to pull that man’s cowled head out of his ass often enough. You… you saw what needed doing and you didn’t hesitate. You knew you were in over your head and playing well out of your league and you went in anyway. You saved Batman’s soul. What the fuck Robin has ever managed even half as much as that? Even me.”

“Oh,” Tim said after a while. “Oh,” he dashed at his eyes. “I’m glad you think so. I missed you, you know? I missed you so much when you died. I used to follow Batman and Robin all over Gotham with my camera, taking pictures. You were so… you were everything I wanted to be. Brave and kind and confident. People never forgot about you or ignored you. You wouldn’t let them. And then you were gone, and I missed you. Every single day.”

Jason couldn’t speak past the tightness in his throat. 

“It seems a bit silly now, talking to your grave,” Tim sniffled, smiling tremulously. “I mean, you weren’t actually there.”

“I was,” Jason replied hoarsely. “I was for a little while. Long story,” he added at Tim’s look.

Tim's eyes darted to the scars on his knuckles. “I… oh.”

“Yeah, reeeeally long story,” Jason said wryly. “I’ll tell you sometime.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Tim smiled. “You’re here now. That’s what matters to me.”

Jason found himself smiling back. “I’m glad.”

Tim flushed and looked away. “I’m sorry I bailed on you, you know, after we… after. I just saw Mr. Wayne and I flat out panicked. All I could think of was to get away.”

“I don’t blame you, considering,” Jason murmured, tightening his grip in Tim’s shoulders. “Sorry for springing him on you. That was a shitty thing to do.”

“I knew when I joined Wayne Enterprises that I’d be taking that risk. It was bound to come out, sooner or later,” Tim added morosely. “I guess I was hoping for later.”

“Hell, you shouldn’t have to meet with him at all,” Jason snorted. “You got every right to be scared of him after what he did.”

“Scared?” Tim’s brow wrinkled. “I’m not scared of Mr. Wayne.”

“Then why did you run?” said a new voice.

Tim jumped and Jason cursed. “What the fuck, old man? I said I’d handle this!”

“Damian got impatient,” Dick shrugged from behind Bruce as the man in question walked up.

“Me? You were the one to-!”

“And Tim isn’t just owed an apology from Bruce,” Dick continued smoothly over Damian’s huffy defensiveness.

Tim looked them all over, baffled. “I’m not owed an apology. And I’m not scared of Mr. Wayne!” he added indignantly. “I’m really not!”

Bruce took a seat at the edge of the grave whose stone they huddled against, long trench coat fanning out like a cape. “I’m glad to hear it, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t owed an apology from me. You have to look at what I did to you every time you look in the mirror, Tim,” Bruce’s face was suffused with regret. “You never should have had any wound inflicted on you from my hands. You were a child. I wasn’t mindful of the edge I was falling off. It shouldn’t have taken your blood on my hands to make me realize it. I’ll never be able to make adequate amends for it, but I am sorry, Tim. More than you will ever know.”

Tim sighed. “See, this is why I didn’t want you to know. I don’t want to be one more burden you carry around with you. I don’t want to be some fetish object for your guilt.” Tim ran his fingers through his wet hair. “I don’t care about the scars. I wasn’t ever angry with you over them. How could I be? You saved my life.”

Jason blinked.

Bruce blinked.

Damian spoke up. “What, exactly, do you mean by that, Drake?”

“I mean,” Tim explained. “That if I’d never gotten hurt, I’d never have been in hospital. And if I’d never been in hospital, they never would have found the cancer.”

Rain hissed down into the silence that followed. Jason couldn’t enjoy the rare treat of Bruce’s jaw hanging open, because he was pretty sure his own was scraping the grave dirt.

“Acute lymphocytic leukemia,” Tim soldiered on. “Stage four, teetering on the edge of stage five at the time of diagnosis. I was always a sickly kid and my parents were never around, so nobody really noticed. I thought aching bones and overnight nosebleeds were normal. When I got treated for this,” Tim fingered the scars. “They found a bunch of other health issues, ran some tests and then it was literally a coin toss whether they even bothered with treatment or just moved into palliative care, it was so advanced. My parents ended up whisking me to Switzerland to an exclusive health facility. They felt so bad about not noticing that they actually stuck around to be… well, parents. For a little while,” Tim shook his head ruefully. “It didn’t take. As soon as I had a routine going, they took off again. Still, they called me a lot more afterwards, that was nice.”

Jason wasn’t sure what the fuck he could say to that.

“Are you still sick?” Dick asked worriedly.

“No, it went into remission when I was fourteen,” Tim assured him. “Same year my parents died, and the company fell to bits. That was pretty much the only good news I got that year. Besides, being stuck in a hospital all the time was great for my schoolwork. I was able to matriculate out before the money dried up, which was useful in the long run.”

“So, uh, there you go,” Tim finished awkwardly into Bruce’s unwavering stare. “Yeah, I had to have some reconstruction and dental, and yeah, I have to live with the scars and yeah, I also eventually lost my spleen to the cancer, but I’m still alive. I think that’s a pretty good trade, at least on my end. I can’t decide for you what you should feel guilty about, Mr. Wayne,” Tim told him firmly. “I forgive you, if you need to hear the words. I don’t need you walking around wearing a hair shirt for my sake. That doesn’t make me happy. If you want a penance, how about trying to live a long and happy life? You’re still a hero of mine. You all are. That’s all I want from you.”

Bruce blinked rain out of his eyes, threw his head back and laughed until he cried.

“Father?” Damian looked genuinely alarmed.

“It’s okay,” Dick assured him. “He has to let some emotional steam off or he’ll literally burst.”

“Look at what you’ve wrought, Drake!” Damian glowered over the body of his prone father. “I expect you in the office early tomorrow so you can begin making up for this!”

“I quit. Didn’t I?”

Damian rolled his eyes. “As if we would let your resignation stand. R&D, first thing, 8am.”

Okay, benediction from the demon brat was hella rare and all, but Jason wasn’t going to let this blatant attempt at poaching slide. “Hell no, he ain’t going to R&D. I need him in outreach!”

“You rescinded your permanent request, Todd! He is free for the taking!”

“One, don’t say it like that, that’s creepy,” Dick ruffled his hair. “Two, executives get first crack, check with Tam if you don’t believe me. Three, HUGS!”

Tim yelped as Dick leapt over Bruce and enveloped him in a hug so huge that Jason was caught up in it.

“What the fuck, let go of me you loser!” Jason snarled, fruitlessly trying to work his way free.

“Is this normal?” Tim asked from the other side.

“For Dickface?” Jason muttered.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Damian had crossed his arms, valiantly defending his dignity.

“Best just to let him get it out of his system,” Bruce advised, chuckling, but more himself now. The Dark Knight had a lightness about him that hadn’t been there before. The unexpected revelation that he’d inadvertently done some good, while not erasing the harm in his mind, was an unexpected and welcome consolation.

“Spoilers; it will never, ever be out of my system,” Dick declared gleefully, finally freeing them so Jason could rise and pull Tim up with him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you properly again, Tim. You’re something special, kid.”

“Thanks Dick,” Tim replied shyly.

“I agree,” Bruce came forward and placed his hands on Tim’s shoulders. “A most worthy Robin. Your time might have been the shortest, but your legacy is more profound than you will ever know. Thank you, Tim.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

“At this stage, I think you’ve earned the right to call me Bruce,” Bruce ruffled his hair. “The people who have seen through our masks are very few. Most of them support us in various capacities. I’d like you to consider joining that team, if you’re amenable. You have exceptional talents. You will be compensated handsomely if you do.”

“Bruce?” Tim’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes?”

“You’ve already paid off my medical bills, haven’t you?”

Bruce smiled at him. “One or two.”

Tim opened his mouth, but Jason slung an arm around him. “Give in gracefully, Timmy. Trust me, you’re not gonna win that fight. Nobody ever does,”

Tim sighed.

“Can we all get out of the rain now,” Dick asked, stamping his feet. “The sun has set, it’s wet and cold and I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m hungry.”

“Pennyworth is expecting us,” Damian looked over Tim speculatively. “I’ll tell him to expect a guest.”

“Why do I get the feeling I’ve just lost control of this situation entirely,” Tim asked plaintively.

“You three go ahead,” Jason told them. “I need to talk to Tim for a minute.”

Bruce blinked and opened his mouth, but Dick jumped into the fray before he could stick his foot in it. “No worries Jay, come on you two.” He shepherded them away to Bruce’s puzzlement and Damian’s disgust.

Jason waited a couple of beats, because all the Bats were shameless eavesdroppers, before turning to Tim.

Tim was looking at him expectantly, bathed in a halo of falling rain, hair plastered across his face, scars white and pink on his pale face.

He looked beautiful.

Jason’s tongue felt too thick in his mouth. “Uh… shit, standing over my own grave ain’t exactly how I thought I’d do this,” he started, sheepishly shuffling his feet. “Look, Tim. I, um, I like you, okay? You make me smile. I haven’t had a lot to smile about in the last few years and you, you never once failed to make me smile, ever. I know I don’t really deserve it after I cold shouldered you, but I really want… I think…” Jason stumbled over everything he wanted to say.

Tim grabbed him by the shirtfront, pulled him down and kissed him. “Sorry,” he said breathlessly, drawing back. “I thought if I said anything I’d say it wrong. I’ve loved you forever, Jason,” Tim confessed. “You make me smile too.”

Jason felt an unstoppable upswell of pure joy. His feet must be barely touching the ground. His heart was as light as a feather. His face was split in two, he was smiling so wide. “Love you too, Tim,” he declared huskily. “I love you too.”

And kissed him again, smiling the whole time.