#Johnny 13 in a enemies to lovers relationship with Red Hood. Not Jason. Just Red Hood.

[stealingyourbones]

“Pissing all by yourself handsome?” Red Hood turns with a jerk to look at the person who just entered the 7/11 bathroom on the border of Crime Alley at 3:32am. A sickly grey skinned teenager stood in the bathroom. His nasty oil stained leather coat covering his wrinkled white t and black pants with far too many belts holding it up, leaned against the doorway of the bathroom. His hole ridden biker glove covered hands crossing his chest right below his glowing green skull necklace. The half lidded green eyes looking through his straw blonde hair and smug smirk of the ghastly bastard enforcing Red Hood’s choice to pull out his gun and fire at the fucker.

[violetsmoak]

Tabula Rasa [3/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183281/chapters/47879533

Blanket Disclaimer:

Summary: Tim and Jason have known they are soulmates for years, though neither has said anything about it. Tim thinks Jason doesn’t know, and is just trying to live with it. Jason thinks Tim knows but doesn’t care, which is fine with him, he thinks the soulmate thing is a crock anyway. But one night, a minor mishap forces them to confront the issue head-on, leading to a series of events no one could have predicted.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #danger #enemies to lovers #i’ll protect you #soulmark tattoo #soulmate aversion

First Chapter

Author's Note(s): Low and behold, plot, and not just Tim whump. (Although there's definitely a big hit of that, too)

________________________________________________________________

Jason maintains that he doesn’t run. He just makes a well-timed exit.

Out of Gotham.

He meets up with Roy and Kori who are in Key West of all places and convinces them to do something on the other side of the planet. Somewhere dusty and without reliable communication technology, where he hopes they’ll end up being abducted by aliens again.

It has nothing to do with wanting to ignore the whole soulmate thing, or the nagging flickers of guilt he experiences for having been an epic douchebag to Tim, who he now knows gives a shit about being soulmates.

Which isn’t Jason’s fault.

It’s not on either of them that Tim got stuck with Jason or that Jason had to make clear where he stood on the issue. There’s nothing worse than giving someone like Tim false hope.

“Not even breaking his heart?” Kori asks, cross-legged on the couch in her trailer, hair flickering above her like a crackling fire. She ended up getting the story out of him within a day because she’s Kori and lying to her feels like slapping a kitten or something.

“First, I didn’t break his heart. Second, if I did, he’ll get over it,” Jason insists. “And it’s better it happens now than let him mope about it for the rest of his life. At least this way he can put an effort into findin’ someone who actually cares.” Kori tilts her head to one side and presses her lips together. “I mean, it’s not like I want the kid dead anymore, but I’m not lookin’ to make friends or family or whatever with him.  And at the end of the day, he’s a decent person and I’m not, so there’s that, too.”

Jason ruins everything he touches—case point, the soulmate he’s already tried (and temporarily succeeded) to kill.

“It sounds as if you already care more about the mate of your soul than you wish to admit,” Kori remarks.

“He’s not my mate.”

“No, not with that attitude.”

“You think I have an attitude? Because I don’t want anything controllin’ my actions or my destiny? The idea isn’t supposed to bother me?”

“I did not say that. But you are looking at the whole thing from just the one angle.”

“You’re tellin’ me it doesn’t bother you?”

“It does not. But I am not you, and matters of the soul are a subjective issue,” she says and leans forward. “You always have a choice, Jason. There are many who have been linked by fate yet choose not to be together. You have seen me and Richard.” Jason’s eyes flick to the creeping pattern of blues and greens that wrap around Kori’s wrist. “Xhal may have decreed we be together, but we decided it was best not to. We have different values, different understandings of the world and relationship—and we both have deep commitments outside of ourselves. That is why I believe the universe ensured he also has Barbara.” She smiles, gentle but sad. “We choose to be mates of the soul from a distance. And I am content with this. It gives me…freedom, in a way. But that decision was made after a long bit of thought and much discussion. Not because we disliked the notion of fate.”

“That doesn’t mean I need to do the same,” Jason points out, a little stiffly.

“No. It does not. But whatever you feel, you and Timothy have a bond. And you are knowingly cutting it off without giving it a chance, something which no doubt does him harm.”

“Not as much as it would if I were around him.”

“You do not know that.”

“Uh, yeah, I do.”

“Very well.” Kori’s brow furrows. “I will not argue with someone that has set their mind to something. I have given you my views on the matter, or rather concerning your mate and your own self-worth. Do with them what you will.”

And she strides out of the trailer; Jason sees a burst of flame outside suggesting she’s flown off.

“And what’s your take on this?” he grumbles, glancing at where Roy’s been sitting the whole time, fiddling with what might have been a DVD player once but now more closely resembles a miniature drone.

“Not my circus, not my monkeys,” Roy grunts around a screwdriver in his mouth.

Jason rolls his eyes.

“Although,” his best friend continues, putting down his tools, “don’t you think by avoiding Gotham, you’re pretty much letting the whole soulmate thing decide how you’re living your life? How’s that different from fate or destiny or the Giant Spaghetti Monster?”

Which Jason can’t summon an argument against.

He hates it when Roy makes sense.

It’s another day of procrastinating before he throws up his hands and says, “You both suck and I’m never comin’ to you for anything ever again.”

“Just call ahead next time,” Kori hums. “Stella is teaching me to make carne asada and I will require another test subject.”

“We’ve only needed to get the fire extinguisher twice,” Roy adds, and Kori nods proudly.

“You two disgust me with your domestic bliss,” Jason informs them before he leaves, although seeing them has made him feel somewhat better.

His friends are an excellent example of a successful relationship despite not being soulmates. Kori’s embodiment of joy was the perfect balm to Roy’s garbage pile of a life. Rejected by his soulmate, his addiction, losing Lian…

Actually, now that he thinks about it, Roy’s life only really started on its downward spiral after Jade ghosted him.

There’s something worrying about that knowledge, but Jason doesn’t examine it too closely.

He heads back to Gotham, a little chastised and a little wary, but determined to keep giving fate or Xhal or whoever the finger. If anyone asks (and no one does), he’s not back to the city because of Tim, but because he still hasn’t figured out who put the contract out on Johnny Lino.

It’s nagging at him more than the death of one of his informants usually does. The trail went cold almost immediately, nothing beyond the traces of a sniper in the opposite building. He’s calling it a coincidence for now, although he’s mentally earmarked it for potential problems in the future if anything else like this happens.

Maybe Johnny just got too big for his britches and pissed off the wrong mobster. One with access to the quality hitmen he couldn’t afford.

Two nights later, when he stops into a club that’s the front to a high stakes illegal poker game, he decides it’s no longer a potential problem, but an imminent right-the-fuck-now problem.

He’s there to collect his percentage from a few of the guys around the table, but once the door closes behind him, he’s suddenly getting ambushed by a table for people with knives and no qualms about dying.

Jason has never liked killing people; it’s something that occasionally has to be done, in the same way a cop sometimes has to pull his service weapon. Certain people in particular—serial rapists and pedophiles and the Joker—are part of that ‘it needs to be done’ category. Thugs like this are just small-time losers with bad judgment, so he’s not really aiming to kill any of them.

Immobilizing shots and the like.

Which is why he’s a bit concerned when he goes to interrogate the bastards about what’s going on, and the guy he reaches for suddenly starts foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling back in his head.

“What the fuck?” Jason jerks backward, glancing at all the rest and finding that they, too, are now convulsing and twitching as the life leaves their bodies.

Cyanide, he realizes when he leans close to his guy’s mouth and detects the smell of almonds. Again, I say, ‘what the fuck’?

It’s the second time a visit to an underling has resulted in death.

Something’s going on in his house, and he doesn’t like it. Maybe the trip to Florida wasn’t a good idea just now; he needs information, and he needs it now.

Except, when he canvasses the streets between Park Row and Byron, he discovers quickly that his people aren’t talking. The girls that are usually so chatty cross quickly to the other side of the streets, the hustlers on the corners are suddenly all on breaks, and the bodega clerks simply beg him to leave their shops, they have kids, you know?

The only one that will talk to him is Rhonda, one of the prostitutes that has been there longer than the rest. She’s a raw-boned woman with leathery skin and bleached, teased blond curls; once, a john tried to act out a rape-murder fantasy on her and she tasered him in the nuts until they burned off.

He’s not sure how much of that’s true, but if anyone could pull that off, it’s Rhonda.

“Someone put a price on your head, baby,” she informs him when he tracks her down, taking a long drag of a menthol cigarette. “Someone scarier than you.”

“Not possible,” he replies, trying to inject some of his usual cockiness into the words.

“There’s always someone scarier,” she informs him gravely. “Lotsa girls and runners gone to the new player. They says he’s gonna protect us better than Red Hood ever did, offer us a bigger take. More of our money in our pockets. Even gonna keep the kids safe better than you could.”

“Which you don’t believe, or you’d be jumping that bandwagon.”

“I believe what I sees, and I ain’t seen this guy,” she replies. “But he did send those Pike bastards outta here, runnin’ with their tails between their legs. Last I heard, they got picked up by one of the Bats before they set much on fire.”

“Which Bat?”

“Red Robin, I think.”

I guess I owe him for taking care of that particular headache.

“He’s pretty decent for a mask,” she adds. “Always comes down here when you ain’t been seen for a few days. He a bit softer—never leaves anyone crippled—but the alley stays safe when he comes by.”

Jason scowls inside his helmet. He didn’t come here to talk about his replacement.

“What do you know about this new guy, then?” he asks, redirecting the conversation back to his current problem. “The one trying to move in on my turf, not the wannabe Bat.”

“Oh, no, honey, that’s all I’m givin’ you. Anyone hears I told you even that and I’m in trouble. But I hear you ain’t the only one having troubles with him. Penguin’s stepped up his muscle a lot lately.”

“I guess that means I’m going clubbin’,” Jason says, and hands over a few hundreds. It’s more than the information she gave him is worth, but she’s got a kid to feed. “Take a night or two off, Rhonda. Could be a hard few days.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” she replies and pockets the money, slinking into the shadows.

The next stop on his list that night is the Iceberg Lounge. As usual, Penguin doesn’t intend to be helpful in the beginning.

“I assure you I have heard nothing of this newest player,” he croaks after Jason goes through the obligatory routine of threats and a show of violence. “But then, a good portion of my clientele has absconded to the Hungry Ghost these past weeks.”

“The what?”

“A new club—little more than the front for a brothel. But rife with rumors and scandal.” He smiles his oily little smile, the one that Jason’s broken more than once since he was thirteen and has to fight down the urge to do again now.

“It’s not like you to be so calm about this. You’re usually more of a control freak over the information game.”

“The wheel never stops turning, Hood. There’s a reason I’ve been around longer than anyone else in this business. It’s knowing the proper time to stand and fight…and the proper time to move out of the line of fire. I will still be here when the dust settles.” The man grins wide, showing yellowed teeth. “But from what I hear, you might not be.”

 “That a threat?” Jason growls, hand moving to his holster.

“An observation. And don’t look like that, do you really think I’d dirty my hands on someone like you?” Penguin sniffs. “I am remaining Switzerland on this issue.”

“Switzerland, huh? So armed neutrality?”

“Indeed.”

His cold eyes following Jason as he takes his leave—and knocks out a few bodyguards that try to make a move on him as he goes.

“What the fuck?” he asks for the third time in as many days, absently rubbing the back of his left wrist. “How does Penguin not even know what’s going on?”

“Since he’s trying to stay alive,” a voice replies, and Jason almost—almost—jumps when he notices the shadow leaning over a nearby fire-escape. Red Robin materializes fully into the light but remains a conspicuous distance away from Jason. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”

Tim’s tone is careful.

“I didn’t exactly put it on MySpace.”

“MySpace hasn’t been around since 2009.”

“Yeah, well, I was dead that year, so sue me for not knowin’ that.”

He expects a reprimand or a bit of tooth-grinding like he always gets when he makes oblique jokes about his death. But Tim just shrugs. Which seems…off, somehow.

“A week ago, all the major players were sent packages,” Tim informs him, going back to the subject at hand.  “Heads, hands, and hearts of their top lieutenants, and a warning to wait for orders from the new boss in Gotham.”

“So basically, someone took my schtick and went the extra mile,” Jason suggests.

And is trying to edge me out of my own business.

“B is monitoring the situation. It hasn’t spilled into the civilian sphere yet, so he hasn’t deemed it an immediate threat.”

“Of fuckin’ course not, it’s not his head the new guy wants on a pike!” Jason growls, somewhat irritated by this, but also a bit surprised. Bruce wouldn’t be leaving the matter alone if he thought Jason was in any actual danger; maybe, for once, he understands Jason can handle it.

Doesn’t explain why the kid’s here tonight, though.

“So what are you doing here?”

There’s a slight squeak of leather as Tim shrugs. “Protection detail. We’ve all been assigned to keep an eye out if whoever this is makes a move on one of the bigger names. I’m on Penguin tonight.”

“Capes guardin’ criminals,” Jason snorts. “The irony of that never gets old.

Tim doesn’t answer. No witty rejoinder, no impassioned defense of Batman’s credo.

“Still, at least you’re doing something,” Jason allows, somewhat grudging. “And you’ve been busy with the Pikes, from what I hear. I was savin’ them for a rainy day, but I guess it’s a headache I don’t have to worry about now.”

He expects Tim to display some kind of reaction to that, even if it is dark sarcasm.

“It’s my job,” he says instead, in a way that makes Jason frown. But not as much as he does when Tim shoots a grapple line and takes off without another word.

Well, that was weird. But…okay? I guess?

Tim didn’t mention anything about their soulmarks; didn’t even bother bringing it up. Clearly, he took Jason’s message to heart and is trying to be professional. Which is also good. Not a lot of people can handle rejection with any sense of maturity.

A little cold, but it’s Tim. He’s not as emotive as Dick is, anyway.

Jason puts it out of his mind, ignores that tiny flash of wrong that crops of when he thinks about the younger man’s behavior. Which doesn’t happen all that often, since he’s too busy running down his list of contacts trying to find out who exactly the new player is in Gotham.

In theory, he could go to the other Bats for information—could go to Oracle, if he butters her up a bit. She still has a thing for cinnamon buns from that place on 4th, it wouldn’t even be out of his way…

But he’s not really keen on talking to any of them right now, and not to put too fine a point on it, this is his business. It’s bad enough they’re even on the periphery of the case already.

⁂

Two days later, tracking a snitch that’s been avoiding him causes him to stumble upon a weapons deal going down in Tricorner. No local colors, but from the gear Jason calls mercenaries.

Red Robin’s in the middle of it, outnumbered by a lot and outgunned by more, and Jason throws himself into the fight without thinking too much about it. It’s what anyone in the Family does, after all, no need to ascribe any meaning to it.

Red grunts an acknowledgment—that he sees Jason and won’t accidentally break his jaw with his bō—and they settle into their usual fight pattern. Jason’s always found this all too easy—there’s something about fighting back to back with another Bat that’s just instinctive, whether it’s Dick or Damian or even Bruce.

But with Tim, it’s always been more than that. They work together like gears in a clock.

He always shied away from attributing that to their soul bond, because that would mean having to acknowledge it. Better to think it was because Tim obsessively stalked Jason when he was Robin and that Jason learned everything he could about his replacement’s style when he and Talia were planning his big return to Gotham.

But it’s out there now, isn’t it? They both know, it’s not a secret.

Just like Jason knows after several minutes that there’s something still off about Red.

Half his attention on his own fight with his own portion of the goons, Jason can still observe the other vigilante’s movements. Red is telegraphing his moves more. Nothing these brainless thugs would notice, but someone with Bat and League training could spot from a mile away. There’s a languidness in his movements like he’s not entirely present in the moment, and a lack of care in his attacks.

Jason watches as Tim takes a running jump, kneeing one thug in the chest and knocking him to the floor, then using him as a steppingstone—steps down harder than usual, dislocates the shoulder—twists and grabs the next nearest thug by the arm. Holding him, he hobbles him in the knee, then follows up with a kick to the head.

As the bullets fly, Tim tucks and rolls between two more assailants, sweeping the feet out from beneath the third, who stumbles, allowing Tim to weave beneath his outstretched arm and the gun he has pointed at him. Bowing his back into him, Tim tries to go for an elbow to the solar plexus, but the guy is shooting now even as he struggles with Tim.

Usually, he’d be attempting to ensure those shots remain nonlethal, but this time he doesn’t seem concerned with it. It’s by sheer chance that several of the slugs only hit the fourth guy in the shoulders, at points that Jason dimly recognizes as close to fatal.

Tim’s assailant is still shooting, they’re still struggling, and even as Tim twists and tries to get it out of his hands, bullets nearly hit Jason as he’s in the process of clotheslining his own opponent.

“The hell, Replacement?” he snaps as he ducks the wild spray of gunfire.

Tim ignores him but has apparently lost patience. He digs a birdarang out of his bandolier, slamming it into the meaty part of his opponent’s leg. There’s a shriek of pain and the guy crumples around the wound, then Tim whirls around and brings him down hard on the floor. As the fifth man comes at him, Tim breaks his nose and shoves him toward the sixth man, who he kicks in the chest, then backhands the last guy, using him as leverage to snap a kick at his buddy.

The guy goes flying backward, and Tim throws the final thug down on the floor, smacking him face-first against the hard pavement with enough force that blood pools around his head.

It’s quick, efficient, and merciless, and if it were anyone else the sheer beauty of the takedown would impress Jason.

Except, this is not the way Red Robin fights. Tim is always efficient, yes, but there’s a certain amount of force he always holds back. No matter how quick and brutal the fight, he takes the extra effort to avoid critical injuries.

That wasn’t there tonight; hell, he almost got Jason shot.

“What’s with you?” Jason demands when they are surrounded by feebly twitching bodies and Tim is calling in the GCPD to deal with the remaining contraband.

“Nothing you need to care about,” is the mild reply.

“I fuckin’ care if it gets me killed!”

“Then maybe you’re not as good as you think you are.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The tone isn’t the dry, snarky confidence Red Robin usually uses to deliver a line like that. It’s robotic and toneless and weary. Jason only remembers him sounding like that after Batman’s supposed death, when no one believed him about Bruce still being alive.

Wait. Did something happen while I was away?

“Christ, kid, who died while I was gone?” he demands.

“If we’re done here, I have a report to write,” Tim replies without answering the question, and is already walking away.

“Yeah, fine! You do that!” Jason shouts after him. It’s not like he actually cares for the answer.

And yet…

The whole thing bothers him.

Kid’s going to get himself killed, and it’s not even something I can blame Bruce for.

Mostly because he’s almost certain he has something to do with Tim’s mood. He might have overestimated Tim’s ability to handle rejection by his soulmate.

Which is disappointing, because of all the teenaged clichés he expected the younger man to fall prey to, giving up on himself the first time he faces rejection?

Typical rich boy. Got everything handed to him, so when someone tells him ‘no’, he has an existential crisis. Well, whatever. Screw him. It’s none of my business.

Though that assertion is easier said than stood by.

⁂

The next morning, Jason is still feeling uneasy about the whole thing. He didn’t sleep well, just tossed and turned for four hours before he gave up and went a few rounds with his punching bag. He decides to calm himself down another way and heads for the café he sometimes frequents that does tea almost as well as Alfred’s.

The place looks like a bar, but instead of alcoholic beverages, there are exotic teas and fancy cold drinks on display. It’s early enough in the day there aren’t more than two or three other patrons. Usually he comes in later when it’s packed and bustling and easy to disappear into the crowd; today, he appreciates the silence.

In the back corner, a television is on, broadcasting the morning news. The screen switches to a conference and, of course, it’s Tim fucking Drake front and center. Talking up something to do with his Neon Knights thing.

And it looks like Vicki’s up to her shit again.

The intrepid thorn in the collective side of the Family is needling Tim about his personal life. He’s deflects everything with his usual smile until Vale brings up Tam Fox.

Tim’s face is always so composed when speaking to the press, his smile rivaling Brucie or maybe the Mona Lisa for secretiveness. But as Vale’s questions veer toward the subject of soulmates—and Tim’s apparent lack thereof—it’s as if a thundercloud has taken residence on the teen’s face.

When Vale ignores Tim’s third polite side-step of her questioning, he jerks as if a physical snap takes place inside him.

“The last time I checked, this conference is about increasing funding for underprivileged students, not about my personal life,” he says, tone frigid. “And in case your many years of reporting haven’t drilled it into your head, no comment means no comment. If that continues to confuse you, maybe I should replace it with ‘fuck off’.”

The TV censors bleep it out, but you don’t have to be a lipreader to know it’s what he said. As the press clamor, Tim then stalks out of frame, which—

Shit.

Jason is both impressed—because even he never managed to do that when he had to deal with the press as a kid—and disquieted. Because Tim Drake doesn’t lose control like that, not least of all where the public might see it.

What the hell.

Jason heads back to his current safe house, wondering if maybe this might be something he should tell someone about. He doesn’t have to get touchy-feely about it, but he might drop a hint or two to Dick, or to Alfie, or someone who gives a shit about Tim.

They can have, I dunno, some kind of intervention or whatever white hats like they do in situations like this.

All thoughts of that vanish, however, when he turns the corner and notices a crowd gathered outside the building where he’s been staying. Large plumes of smoke are billowing above it, and there are a firetruck and two police squad cars parked out front.

What the…?

Jason hurries over and stares up, dumbstruck, to see a chunk of the edifice missing.

The spot where his bolthole used to be.

Someone firebombed the place.

Murmurs rise up all around him.

“I heard the guy living there was cooking meth, and it blew up.” 

“Nah, there was a terrorist holed up in there. Probably didn’t set the timer on his bomb properly.”

“This fucking neighborhood.”

“I know, right?”

But Jason barely synthesizes the information, so fixated on one thing.

Someone knows.

Maybe they don’t know about him—he’s never come out of here without either a mask on or a hoodie or hat—but someone must have seen Red Hood come to this place. He’s swept for bugs and cameras, so there’s no way they’ve got a visual on him, but somehow they knew that was his apartment.

It’s too precise.

Which means his other places might be compromised, too.

Jason turns and walks away from the building, thoughts racing.

He wonders furiously about who it could be, who knows about his boltholes. Roy and Kori, obviously; he told them in case anything ever happens to him or if he doesn’t contact them for a while. He’s got a list of Roy’s in Star City and the tropical hideaways Kori’s come to enjoy over the years. They all call it insurance, but it’s a way of checking up on each other.

He could see the Joker figuring it out, but the gradually escalating attacks on Red Hood are too subtle for that maniac. Jason doubts they’ve seen the end of him since he made his last disappearing act, but this isn’t him. The clown likes an audience, likes to be noticed. These attacks are being done from the shadows and required a lot of planning.

Could be Talia, since he’s sure she’s been keeping tabs on him even long after they parted ways. She’d see it as leverage, as protecting an investment even if it didn’t give her the returns she expected.

And the Bats, of course, but none of them is the type to send a message with explosives, even when they’re all at odds.

It looks like Jason will have to lie low for a bit, watch his territory from the shadows. Deep surveillance.

He heads for his apartment in Crime Alley, which should be safe enough; he never goes anywhere near it when in uniform. Jason can regroup from there, remote-access surveillance from the moment before the safe house was bombed, check on the other boltholes from afar and—

And run straight into Tim Drake.

The kid’s bundled into a winter coat, but it hangs open, revealing the clothes he was wearing during his news conference meltdown. He’s missing the suit jacket, and his tie is loose under the collar of his shirt, carrying a plastic bag from the bodega down the street. Jason can see what looks like a week’s worth of ramen and TV dinners through the flimsy plastic. 

All of which only serves to magnify that expression of absolute defeat on his face. That shifts into careful blankness when he recognizes Jason heading toward him.

The sight of him is the cherry on the top of Jason’s already shitty day.

“No,” he snaps, stalking forward and shoving a finger at Tim. “Fuck you. I’ve got enough of my own shit going on, I don’t have time to deal with your…all of this.” He gestures at the remains of Tim’s billionaire playboy costume. “What the hell are you even doin’ here, anyway?”

Tim sighs, weary. “I live here. Like…a block away.”

And it’s a measure of how messed up this new player in town has Jason that he actually forgot that tidbit. It makes him angrier to have it pointed out to him.

“Of fucking’ course you do! You’re everywhere else, why not my neck of the woods now, too?”

“I’ve lived here for a year and you never said anything,” Tim points out.

“Yeah, well, I never ran into you before, did I?”

He doesn’t add that that was before their whole soulmates thing got yanked out in the open.

“Being off-planet helps with that, I always figured,” Tim says blandly, and shoulders past Jason with all the strength of a sleepwalker.

Which just rubs Jason the wrong way.

He feels like he’s being dismissed, feels guilt that he doesn’t want to be feeling, and is still raring for a fight. Jason snaps his hand out and roughly pulls the other man around to face him; he expects a fist to block him, or for Tim to shove him off. Instead, he simply sways a bit on his feet like he’s trying to find balance.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

“What the hell is your problem, Drake? Don’t tell me you’re sulkin’ about the soulmate thing? Is this the reason for the lame-ass robot impression you’ve been doin’ lately?”

Tim’s expression doesn’t change. “I honestly haven’t had the time to think about it. There’s a lot of work to keep me busy.”

“Right, forgot, you’ve got to be the perfect clone of B to get him to notice you. Guess that tanked today, huh? Newsflash, kid, you weren’t the first to be replaced, and I’m bettin’ you won’t be the last. Go get a life.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Tim replies vaguely. “It would be easier to do if you stayed away, though.”

“Yeah, well, my life would have been a lot easier if you didn’t exist!”

There’s a breath of heavy silence in the wake of that sentence.

Jason’s fury fizzles out like a candle doused in water the minute the syllables pass his lips. Right away, he wants to take it back, because of the way Tim nods, his expression slamming into a wall of resignation that gives Jason an uneasy feeling at the back of his neck and a pit in his gut.

He backtracks. “Look, that’s not what I—”

Whatever convoluted explanation he was going to dredge up is lost, because at that moment two things happen near simultaneously: a gunshot rips through the ambient noise of the night, and Tim jerks forward, suddenly in Jason’s space, shoving him to one side.

Blood sprays across Jason’s face, and there’s a searing hot pain on the side of his neck, that experience tells him is a bullet.

Just like experience tells him the kid now slumped in his arms, eyes wide and still trapped in that awful blank stare took the brunt of the shot—to his head.

⁂⁂⁂

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<3 Violet