Jason always stopped to listen. On most days, silence was a relief— nobody home, no one to run into. No questions. Get in and get out. He didn’t come to the manor if he could avoid it, and he never wanted to talk. Silence meant he wouldn’t have to.
Today, it was suffocating. Jason stood on the doorstep for a few seconds, listening for footsteps, voices, any movement at all, but there was nothing. No violin from upstairs either, but then there wouldn’t be. Not anymore.
He started towards the living room, yelling as he went.
“Hello? Anybody?” More silence. “Look, I know you’re in here. Your bike is parked outside.” Jason poked his head down the path to the kitchen, but that was empty too— dim and abandoned. Maybe Alfred was out.
He pulled his phone from his sweatshirt and called, hoping he could follow a ringtone. Nothing. He hit the voicemail he’d been getting for days.
“This is Tim Drake. I’m not going to make a statement. I want to be left alone.”
Fine. Jason could search the house if he had to.
“You know you can’t hide from me in here, right?” Jason knew the manor, better than he wanted to admit most days. “You might as well tell me where you are.” Tim’s backpack was lying on one of the couches, half-open with paper spilling onto the cushions. Jason could see the light of his phone inside. His own name faded out as the screen went dark.
“Tim, come on, I’m just—”
Worried. He was worried about the last kid left standing in the empty house, after everybody else was gone. Three days since Dick’s death, and Jason knew how he felt— like he was six feet under again, banging bloody knuckles on a lid that wouldn’t open— but that was him. He wasn’t part of the family anymore. He and Dick weren’t close.
Tim was different.
He wouldn’t pick up his phone. Jason had only seen him on the news, forcing his way up the Wayne Enterprises steps through a crowd of reporters, stony-faced and silent. He hadn’t seen Red Robin either. Radio silence. No location, until today.
So yeah, Jason was worried. And he didn’t know if he could help (he didn’t even know if Tim liked him, really), but he figured he would try. In his experience, pretty much anything was better than being left alone.
Of course, he would have to find him first.
“Tim!” Jason turned the living room corner and almost tripped over him— he was lying on the hallway floor, staring blankly at the ceiling. Even when Jason came in, he didn’t blink at all. His chest was moving up and down, but that was it.
“Tim?”
“Hey.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m lying on the floor.”
“Right.” Jason leaned back against the wall, certain that Tim would explain when he felt like it. After a few seconds of silence, he did.
“I almost died here once.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Yeah. I tried to make it to the cave, you know, but I was bleeding pretty badly, and…” Tim closed his eyes for a few deep breaths, then opened them.
“Dick found me.”
And there it was. Jason sat down next to Tim, back against the wall, and drew his knees up to his chest. He could imagine the scene easily enough— that was one of the downsides to living with a whole clan of vigilantes. It happened. He’d run that drill from both sides himself.
“Tim,” he asked, as gently as he could. “Why are you on the floor?”
Tim didn’t answer at first— just bit at his lip, still staring at the ceiling above them. “How honest do I need to be right now?”
“What if, just this once, we said a hundred percent?” Jason ran a hand through his hair. “It would be a nice change, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Tim closed his eyes again, hesitating. “I just— I was scared. When I was lying here the first time. I didn’t think I was going to make it, until Dick—” He trailed off again.
“I really didn’t want to die,” he finished. “I was kind of hoping if I laid here long enough, I would remember what that felt like.”
When Tim opened his eyes, tears ran down the sides of his face.
“I’m so tired,” he whispered.
“Tim…”
“And I know I’m not supposed to question if— if all of this is worth it, but I—” His voice was shaking. “I just wanted to save people. That’s all I wanted.”
“I know.”
“So why can’t I ever—” Tim turned his face away from Jason, towards the empty wall. “Why couldn’t I—”
Christ. Jason sat quietly for a few seconds, desperately searching for something to say, but he came up empty. There wasn’t much you could say.
“Tim—”
“I know I’m being stupid.”
“You’re not.” Jason was sure of that, anyway. He wrapped his arms around his knees. “But just so you know? Being dead isn’t any better.”
“That figures.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
“And just for the record,” said Tim, “I’m not going to… do anything stupid.”
“That would also be a nice change.”
“Ha.”
Jason lay down next to him, looking up at the ceiling. “You know I do this too sometimes.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, except I—” Jason let his knees fall flat on the floor and extended an arm, leaning sideways. “Just like that. And I’m dead.”
Tim looked over curiously. “How do you know?”
“I shouldn’t,” Jason admitted, “but you know he records everything.” And he never deleted a second, no matter how gruesome it was. It was like he was punishing himself, Jason figured, or maybe punishing Jason. Bruce must have realized he would find it eventually.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.” Jason still didn’t know if he regretted it. “Sometimes you get low, you know? And it was right there.” He pulled his knees up again. “It’s not important. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Tim went back to staring at the ceiling. “He’s not talking to me right now.”
Of course he wasn’t. “Well I was thinking you could ride with me for a few days. We can go get dinner.”
“I don’t know if I—”
“And you can help me with this cool drug bust. I was going to shoot everybody involved, but if somebody was there to stop me…”
“That’s kind of a low blow.”
“I’m comfortable with that.” Jason stood up slowly, stretching. “Come on. I can help you up.”
kiragecko 