#lots of thoughts on how the waynes would be and canonically are perceived in public

[fantastic-nonsense]

I know the "DCU loves talking about chronic adopter Bruce Wayne" jokes are funny, but I honestly don't think normal people in the DCU would talk or think about it all that much. Angelina Jolie has six kids, three of whom are adopted, and they're largely footnotes in conversations about her. Madonna also has six kids, four of whom are adopted, and they're never talked about except in random "Madonna as a Mother" variety articles.

The Waynes are certainly well-known in-universe, but they're not Kardashians; Bruce has no desire to market himself or his family as a public spectacle in a way that would generate that type of press. The most he ever puts his kids in the spotlight is when they attend functions or meetings in his place and when he and Tim sat for that interview after Tim's adoption. It'd be a fun factoid imo and I certainly think Gothamites might joke about it in the way anyone fondly talks about local celebrities, but I just don't see it being a Big Thing people think about all the time

[bigskydreaming]

Headcanon that everyone within the family may think of Dick as the one most in their father’s favor, but Dick is keenly aware that the general public thinks of him as their father’s ‘Consolation Prize.’

After all, when from their perspective he’s the one Bruce raised since he was eight as his ward, with that dissolving when he was eighteen and very little perceived contact between the two of them for years after that, while Jason was adopted soon after being taken in and Dick was then later adopted years after Jason’s death, without any public fanfare.....

What does that look like other than Bruce ‘settling’ for the son who didn’t appear to be his first choice, just chronologically first, once he lost Jason but still needed/wanted an heir, as he was getting older and the general public still didn’t know yet how closely tied Tim was to the family or that it wouldn’t be long after this that Bruce adopted him too?

Now granted, you can definitely perceive the above as overly angsty and not the only way this situation was likely to be perceived outside the family, but my point is more that like.....nobody ever presumes that the general public are overly kind or generous in their views or assumptions about the Wayne family behavior. I just don’t buy that people assumed there was some optimistic explanation for the way things appeared here, or that people just went “oh its probably because the kid who grew up in that house the longest just doesn’t WANT to be adopted by the billionaire and have all the security that brings, and that’s also clearly why he lives in Bludhaven of all places and a shitty apartment building at that.”

I mean, no matter what WE the readers may know of Dick’s personal priorities and how little he cares about where he lives or that Bruce would have willingly paid for him to have a better place to live if he really wanted it, is that what people are most likely to assume, based on appearances?

Anyway, I’m just saying, I bet it bugs the crap out of Dick to hear his siblings casually refer to him as so obviously enjoying favored son status and being the clear apple of Bruce’s eye, as he’s like, cue internal monologue: gee, sure wish I was as confident of that back during the years he seemed to want nothing to do with me.

Like I’ve said before, I think Dick isn’t actually super insecure and his insecurities such as they are mostly revolve around how his family and friends perceive him, not the general public.....BUT I do think that with as high profile as the Waynes are, there’s no way that nobody picked up on how little contact Dick and Bruce had in the continuities where they literally went over a year without even speaking to each other....and like, felt free to draw their own conclusions.

 And I do think this is also part of why I default to thinking a lot of canon takes and headcanons tend to gloss over how shitty Gotham public could be in their views/treatment of Dick. Like just because Dick was basically trained from birth to be able to work a room and entertain people while in their direct presence, that didn’t actually make him ‘one of them’ in their eyes, and I reeeeeeaally don’t think you can actually underestimate the pettiness and jealousy one percenters feel when they see someone they inherently view as lesser than them - as they would’ve viewed both Dick and Jason due to their lower class births - like....’leap frogging’ over them into greater wealth via being taken in by Bruce. 

Like, idk, maybe it just comes from having been a scholarship kid who went to a richy rich private high school attended mostly by the children of senators and hotel-chain owners, lol, but like.......I can not for a second picture Gotham’s upper class actually LIKING Dick or being as charmed by him as they frequently are depicted as, just because Dick knows how to be charming and likable. Like they might play it that way when in public at a gala, for appearances or whatever....but the second he turned around they’d be badmouthing him at juuuuust a high enough volume to ensure he’d be able to HEAR them but not be able to call them on it without it looking like he went back and provoked a scene over something ‘nobody else around them heard them say’ or whatever. Just to make sure that no matter how well he came across in public social settings, he never ‘forgot his place’ or whatever or forgot that they were all too aware of it too.

And also also, it always kinda bemuses me that as much focus as the Court of Owls and Talons get in Dick’s narratives in canon and fic, that we’ve barely ever seen any examination of what the Court retroactively means for Dick’s years growing up around upper class Gothamites who likely included more than a few Court members.....like, we KNOW years later that like, all along there were these people who even without knowing who Batman and Robin were, like, knew Dick Grayson was their ‘Gray Son’ and intended to claim him as their weapon someday, and you can’t tell me that wouldn’t have factored into how they viewed and interacted with a child and teenage Dick Grayson as they attended many of the same social gatherings and functions. OR that Dick himself in the aftermath of the Court of Owls reveal, didn’t look back at his OWN childhood and reflect on how many creepy or uncomfortable encounters he had with various socialites that left him feeling decidedly skeeved out and not a fan of how they were looking at him or things they might have said to him, thinking themselves oh so clever for alluding to things he had no idea about......like, I imagine there had to be more than a few encounters from his younger years that always stuck with him, and after the Court of Owls revelation like....looked TOTALLY different to him, especially if he happened to know for sure that some of those very people were in fact Court members. BUT I DIGRESS.

All in all though it all circles back to the same thought for me.....people might have been polite to Dick’s face when he was growing up, but they most likely had plenty of shit to say the second his back was turned, and I doubt they were afraid to be overheard by him. Especially in his later years, once people noticed how distant he and Bruce seemed to be, and thus perceived that as meaning that nineteen year old Dick Grayson wasn’t as ‘protected’ by Bruce the way he was when he was younger.....meaning the people who were most jealous of Dick’s ‘catapulting’ up the social ladder and eager to knock him down a peg because of that, like....probably would have looked at the relative lack of contact between he and Bruce as far as anyone could publicly tell, and felt emboldened enough by that to up their snide whisper game with shit like gossipping about how oh, the Grayson boy may be back in Gotham again, but we all know he’s just poor Brucie’s consolation prize anyway, why, if he really cared all that much about the boy, he’d hardly have ever let him run off to Bludhaven of all places, without even making sure to staple the advantages and opportunities granted by the Wayne name to him the way he made sure to right off the bat with the younger one.....

So yeah. There’s my angsty musings on how Dick likely is perceived by Gotham public at large, and how his interactions with them - especially when NOT around Bruce and Jason and the rest of his family....probably very much does not match up with what they assume public perception of Dick is, given that in their eyes ‘everybody loves Dick Grayson,’ but in Dick’s experience ‘everybody may be charmed by Dick Grayson while he’s doing his best to be charming,’ but don’t mistake that for acceptance. Not when Gotham’s public are just as likely to dismiss him as the second choice Wayne heir and consolation prize to make themselves feel more important/elevated than him the second their own insecurities have them feeling intimidated by the wealth, power and prestige Dick does actually share in by virtue of being part of Bruce’s family.

[violetsmoak]

Tabula Rasa [1/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183281/chapters/47822500

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: #a lie #bright vivid colours #danger #enemies to lovers #soulmate aversion #soulmark tattoo

Canon-Compliance: Follows the New Earth continuity, with elements of New 52 (ie the ones that don’t completely contradict everything that happened pre-Flashpoint). Ignores Rebirth completely. So, up to about 2016 in terms of publication dates? Robins War happened, but Red Hood hasn’t met Artemis or Bizarro, and nothing bad has happened to Roy ffs! 

Beta Reader: I'll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

“Three cheers for the happy couple!”

The south wing ballroom of Wayne Manor erupts with the raucous shouts and applause of a hundred and twenty reception attendees. Tim’s congratulations get lost in the din, but he does catch Dick’s eye and flash him a thumbs up.

Seated at the high table, his older brother leans in and kisses his bride, which causes more cheering and catcalls from the guests, and makes the normally unflappable and newly named Barbara Gordon-Grayson blush.

Tim turns away and pastes a smile on his face as the Davenports, a senior couple and two of Wayne Enterprises' most influential shareholders, approach him.

Time to be ‘on’ again…

A generous mix of family friends (most of whom are vigilantes or heroes), and GCPD officers, fill the ballroom. These are interspersed with a few Haly’s Circus performers, and the requisite number of elite guests required by the Society pages of the Gotham Gazette.

Bride and bridegroom sit at the head table with their respective entourages, engaged in animated chatter. Babs and her maid of honor Alysia dissolve into laughter as Dick says something to Damian, who scowls and turns redder by the minute. The Gordon family is there, the Commissioner conversing in stiff politeness with his ex-wife Barbara, and Bruce is in full “Brucie” mode. In the background, Alfred directs the hired staff with his usual decorum and efficiency.

Across the room, Cassandra drags Stephanie over to the dance floor. At a smaller round table near the bride and groom, Duke just misses being speared with a fork by his girlfriend when he tries to sneak a piece of Izzy’s cake. Helena flirts with both Luke and Kate and Tim’s sure Selina is somewhere in the house stealing something to lure Bruce over to her place later.

It’s rare to have so many members of the family together in one room, and so Tim does his best to ignore the lingering dismay at the glaring absence in their numbers.

Dick and Babs look at each other now and again, like they’re the only ones in the world, and he makes an effort to find it adorable. He bolsters the jovial front he’s been wearing all night, reminding himself that his happiness for his brother and new sister-in-law isn’t something that needs faking. It took so long for them to sort everything out between them; it goes to show that being soulmates doesn’t equal an automatic perfect relationship.

I know that better than anyone.

It’s just getting more difficult with every passing hour to maintain the graceful Timothy Drake-Wayne façade.

“It will be your turn next,” Mrs. Davenport informs him, while her husband nods along. “Since Richard and dear Cassandra have found their matches, you’re the only one left.”

Tim’s smile becomes a little more forced. “Well, there is Damian.”

The demon brat looks as if he swallowed a mouthful of peppercorns as Brucie leans over and ruffles his hair, laughing his raucous fake laugh.

Now I’m glad Dick didn’t ask me to be his best man, or I’d be the chump stuck up there.

Not that he was that upset when he heard the news.

Tim’s distanced himself enough from the loss of Robin to accept Damian needs as much help as they can offer if he is ever to be a ‘real boy’. Little gestures like this from Dick are part of a larger plan. And it was endearing, in a way, to see the kid stomping around in the weeks leading up to the wedding, trying to check off a list of best man duties he’d printed off the internet.

And dissolving into teenaged fury when innocent things went wrong or when the groom teased him by flouting what Damian considered ‘according to convention’.

And then there was that bachelor party he organized…

It would seem extreme trampoline parks were a thing; also, getting banned from said parks within an hour for trampolining while drunk was a thing.

“Yes, but he’s still so…young,” Mrs. Davenport says, bringing him back to the present. Tim perceives how she hesitates on the best word to describe the youngest member of the Wayne family.

“It’s fine, you can call him a prepubescent terror. I always do.”

“Oh, Timothy!” Garish laughter as if he told the most hilarious joke of the season. “You are such a character. Why haven’t you found your someone yet?”

Tim catches sight of Steph once again, dancing with Cass and looking carefree and blissful and in love. And this time it’s a bit harder to experience only joy for his siblings, more of a struggle to fight the pang of hurt and jealousy that rears its head.

“You’re almost eighteen,” her husband remarks, interrupting his thoughts. “Most people find their matches much younger. Eleanor and I met when we were fourteen.”

“Oh, it was a beautiful summer in the Hamptons.”

“And it seems like youth today are finding each other earlier every year.”

“My sister and Stephanie didn’t,” Tim points out, only somewhat strained because that one still stings.

He and Steph had been together for most of their teenage years. She hadn’t possessed a soulmark, and Tim’s…would lead nowhere. He truly loved her, and if things were different, he knows they would have had a happy future. Lots of people whose marks don’t match are.

But then the day Spoiler and Black Bat met, they’d shaken hands, and everything fell into place. He’ll never forget either of their eyes—Steph bemused as her mark appeared for the first time and then exploded into color across her forearms; Cass puzzled until she realized what was happening. Then her face became an open book of joy rivaled only by how she looked when Bruce told her he intended to adopt her.

Faced with their happiness, it was only natural that Tim took a step back, much as it hurt to do.

“Perhaps your soulmate lives in another country,” Mr. Davenport suggests; it is clear he is not picking up on Tim’s reluctance.

“Oh!” his wife cries. “You should go on that television show they have now! You know, the one where they try to help you track down your match? I can’t remember the name, but it’s something like The Amazing Race or the Bachelorette.”

“Perhaps yours is younger than you. That happens sometimes.”

“Yes! May-December relationships aren’t that uncommon with your generation, I hear.”

“Or maybe they’re dead,” Tim suggests, and though his tone is light and friendly, his words shut them up in an instant.

Because if very well could be true.

Tim’s never shown off his mark in public, and he told Steph that exact story when she asked all those years ago. At the time, he wasn’t even lying.

Soulmarks develop around puberty and last the duration of the lifespan of the shorter-lived partner. Some people are born with several, the way Dick was, and some only share platonic or familial bonds, like Alfred and Bruce. Others have none at all. When a soulmate dies, the mark associated with them vanishes.

That’s because most don’t come back from the dead.

Still smiling at the now cringing couple, Tim takes his leave, letting them stew in their faux pas as he wanders toward the bride and groom’s table. He’s reached his limit.

Not wanting to crouch down in the middle of their group, he gestures until his brother sees him and makes an excuse to Babs. She’s following his gaze, offering Tim a worried look, but he smiles and shakes his head, trying to telegraph ‘It’s nothing. Go back to your celebration.’

Dick is red-faced and his eyes brighter than usual when he gets to Tim; people been plying him with generous amounts of alcohol all day. “Hey, Timmy, what’s up?”

“I think I‘ll make my way out,” he replies. “Do a bit of patrolling and then turn in.”

“Tim…”

Dick’s expression becomes concerned, and Tim shifts in discomfort.

“Someone has to be on the streets while you guys are slacking,” he jokes. “You know it took an Act of Alfred to get Bruce to take the night off, right?”

(It was also pointed out that if any of big players had planned anything tonight, probability and precedent suggested they would try it at the Gordon-Grayson reception.)

“You don’t have to do that! I’ve already got one brother missing.”

“Consider this my wedding present. You get to stay and enjoy your party with the rest of the family.”

“You’re just trying to worm your way of giving us a real gift,” Dick accuses, but the words lack malice. With a surreptitious glance around to ensure they aren’t being overheard, he lowers his voice and asks, “Are things getting bad again? Do you need to talk? Because Babs won’t mind if I duck out for a bit.”

And he’s always doing this, checking in with Tim, even years after it’s been an issue.

There’s a distinct possibility Dick has noticed how uncomfortable the atmosphere is making him, despite him doing his utmost to hide it, to keep from casting a dark cloud over the festivities.

And Tim should be okay.

Bruce is back from having lost his memories, Damian’s stopped his determined attempts to sabotage or kill him, his relationship with Dick is almost normal again, he has his team and place with the Titans, and there hasn’t been a major crisis in Gotham for about a month which is a record.

Yet he still feels raw and exposed, ill at ease in his skin.

Bruce has been questioning him a lot more, criticizing the way he handles not only cases but projects at WE. Tim worries there’s less time for him to recover between being Tim Wayne, CEO, and Red Robin. And the Titans are getting to the age where many of them want to strike out on their own or pursue more civilian interests—jobs and schools and a normal life. He respects that, even if he doesn’t understand it.

He has never had a normal life, and never will.

But he does have more and more days now where he looks at himself in the mirror and wonders how he’s supposed to keep doing this forever. Can’t figure out how Bruce has managed it for so long. Tim suspects he’s becoming little more than his daytime public persona and his nighttime alter ego.

Who exactly is Tim Drake?

Instead of voicing any of this, though, he musters up a comforting smile for his brother and assures him, “There’s nothing to talk about. It’s like every day. Just one step at a time, right?”

Dick’s expression clears then, and he nods, relieved. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“And Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“Congrats.”

“Aw, thanks, Timmy.”

A bone-crushing hug later, and Tim’s car peels out of the estate parking garage, still ignoring the growing pit in his stomach.

He returns to his apartment in the Theater District, shedding his suit and tie in a pile that Alfred would have a coronary over if he were there to see it. Jumping in the shower, he scrubs himself of any traces of his cologne or other identifying scents he might have picked up at the reception and tries to get himself back into a clearer headspace.

He pauses for a moment at the sink, trying to shake off the lingering, bone-deep exhaustion. Several prescription bottles line the mirror—various sleeping aids, most of which don’t help anymore (but the rebound insomnia of stopping them isn’t worth the trouble). These days it’s only the heavy-duty sleep narcotics that work when he needs to turn his brain off for a few hours.

Among the personal pharmacy are several combinations of anti-depressants he tried in the past few months. Most of the time he powers through it, the way he’s done his whole life, but in recent weeks Tim’s noticed things getting hard again. The helpful alerts he sets on his phone don’t always convince him to leave his bed and even video games lack the usual draw. He sometimes gets lost in his head for hours; on bad nights, he hesitates a second longer before shooting a grapple line or dodging a knife. In rare moments, he considers his sleeping pills a little too much consideration, at which point he calls Dick or Connor. Talks to someone so he isn’t so alone.

As he dries off, Tim stares down at his right wrist, examining the complicated knotwork design emblazoned there. Swirls of crimson and gold loop in and out of each other, before cutting off along his forearm.

Everyone has a soulmark, an arrangement of swirling shapes across their skin; each is distinctive to the individuals bonded by them. They first appear when a person is in the general vicinity of their soulmate, manifesting as a colorless pattern of darker and lighter shades of melanin. Those patterns fill with bright, rich colors upon physical touching one’s mate. When pressed together, they interlock in only one way and retreat when contact stops.

Soulmates who have reciprocated bonds sport their marks in full and everlasting display. The sight is both beautiful and frustrating to see, even on his family, as he’ll never experience that himself.

His mark might be a stunning amalgamation of scarlet and gold, twisted into a mandala upon his wrist, but it will never be permanent. While it’s been a while since Jason’s made any energetic attempts to kill him, Tim’s resigned himself to living without a completed bond; tolerance is about the only thing he can hope for from his predecessor.

Finding Steph when they were younger had been a joy and a relief. Her not having a mark meant they both had a chance for a fulfilling connection. Until Cass.

Tim forces himself to stop dwelling on it and shoves the bleak thoughts down behind the wall he puts everything uncomfortable and not cohesive to whatever task he’s given himself. Instead, he busies himself with covering up his mark using the spray-on cover that doesn’t fade with water or perspiration, only coming off when scrubbed with a special soap. One of Bruce’s earliest and more practical inventions, since Brucie Wayne and Batman couldn’t have a soulmark in common.

Bruce covers his pretty much all the time, but Tim’s only been covering his when he suits up. He lives his life in disguise, he doesn’t want to hide such an important part of himself when he’s off the clock.

He heads down to the lower levels of his Nest, gets dressed while having the computer scan for trouble. The program calculates probabilities for where violence will crop up, where he should begin his patrol. He hopes for a busy night, something to distract him from his convoluted thoughts.

As usual, he intends to start his rounds off in Tricorner, and then go through Chinatown—which is when he notices movement on a camera that concerns him.

A familiar gleaming scarlet helmet.

Red Hood.

He debates with himself for several minutes.

On the one hand, it’s his regular patrol territory; on the other, seeing the other vigilante tonight, while his mood is already so low, isn’t something he wishes to contend with.

He clenches his fist.

He knew of Jason Todd for a year before discovering the second Robin was his soulmate. By the time he wanted to do anything about it, the older boy was dead, and Tim consigned to grieving in secret.

Then Jason came back, but it was almost worse than him being gone because he hated him. Without having ever met him.

Even now that he’s mellowed out (sort of), Jason appears to reserve more dislike for his successor than anyone else in the family, not counting Bruce and Dick for obvious reasons. Red Hood and Red Robin have run into each other enough in and out of costume that there have been ample opportunities for Jason’s soulmark to make itself known. That Tim has seen nothing close to resembling it means one of two things: either the other man hasn’t developed his mark yet, which is possible albeit rare, or he has, and like Batman, always keeps it covered.

Which says more than enough about his sentiments on the matter.

Between Jason refusing to acknowledge their connection, or just not being aware of it, Tim prefers to believe the latter, if only to make himself feel better. There’s no point in bringing up the soulmate thing at this juncture. He decided years ago to respect the status quo, for the simple reason it’s less painful than the alternative.

All that being said, he doesn’t enjoy watching Jason get in trouble, even more so when the situation is avoidable and he’s near enough to help. At the moment the big idiot is courting a potential gang war.

Sometimes protecting someone means protecting them from themselves and their bad choices, I guess.

Static crackles through the comm in his ear, and then he hears Batman’s low growl. “What’s going on in Chinatown?”

“Why am I not surprised you’re still listening to the comms at your son’s wedding,” Tim sighs. “Nothing. I’m handling it.”

“Are you sure?”

“B, I’ll help A drug you every day for a week,” he threatens. “And you know we both can and will find new and interesting ways of doing it.”

There’s a huff on the other side of the line. “…Noted. Reach out if you need backup.”

“You’ll be the first.”

“You’re lying.”

“Wow, you must be a detective or something,” he deadpans. “Red Robin out.”

Jason is the last person he wants to run into right now, but Tim’s also been cultivating a few informants there and he can’t have that jeopardized.

Looks like I’m going to Chinatown. Hope Lynx is in a good mood…

He wonders if tonight he’ll end up getting beaten up, or just insulted. He’s not even sure which would hurt more.

⁂

Jason goes flying out of the upper story of the restaurant, followed closely by a very tiny woman wielding a very big sword. She reminds him of Cheshire, with a shade less lethality.

Actually, if it were Jade, he would end up critically injured when she lands on him, using him as a cushion against the pavement. He manages to turn his body to land in a way that won’t break his back—though his right side will be a giant bruise tomorrow—and scrambles to his feet.

This is one of the reasons I avoid Chinatown.

Things never go well for him here, especially not since that thing with the Su family. It’s just better to avoid the place. But before that, he and the Ghost Dragons at least used to get along—professional courtesy and all that, along with an unspoken agreement not to step on each other’s toes. 

That’s over, apparently.

All he’d wanted to do was ask some questions. One of his stool pigeons passed him some information on a human trafficking ring; according to him, it was based on Chinatown. It would seem sex slavers were luring young women over to the United States with the premise of work and accommodations.  Then, upon arrival, the girls were hauled into a life of sexual servitude.

Jason didn’t even go in guns blazing this time or wearing the helmet. Just a domino and a hankering for some barbecue pork bun.

So, either someone tipped them off what I was coming around for, or this kid in the mask has something to prove.

There’s a slow curl of heat moving up the back of his left wrist and up his arm, and his first thought is he’s been cut. Except while the sensation is familiar, it isn’t the liquid warmth of blood.

The woman moves fast, and a beat later her sword is swinging downward. Jason’s hands fly to his holsters, thinking he’s going to have to break out the guns after all when there’s a clang.

Suddenly there’s a bō staff in front of his face, catching the sword inches before it slams into Jason’s nose.

Ah. And there’s the other reason I avoid Chinatown.

Because in the past year or so, it’s been part of the patrol route for a certain Timothy Drake.

A.k.a. his replacement.

A.k.a. Red Robin.

A.k.a. his soulmate.

No wonder that warmth in his hand was familiar; the soulmark must have reacted to the younger man’s approach.

After a brief tussle, there’s the sound of a grapple line firing, and then Tim flies upward, ridiculous cape fluttering, still holding the struggling woman.

Her sword stays on the ground.

“Oh, hell no,” Jason growls, because this is his business, damn it!

When he reaches the roof where Tim’s carried off Jason’s would-be-murderer, he notes they are standing close together, conversing in rapid Cantonese. Jason’s rustier at that than he’d like, but he gets the gist when the woman stalks right up to him and begins yelling and gesturing.

Then she shoves him and pushes away; a smoke bomb goes off, and then she’s gone.

Tim makes no move to go after her.

Which, seriously?

Jason stalks over, looming over the shorter man and touching his hand to the still holstered gun in his belt in an implicit (and mostly baseless) threat. He’s always amused at just how much of a height difference there is between him and his replacement, and tonight he makes a point of lording it over him.

“You guys looked awfully cozy there, Timbers.” Which shouldn’t bother him, but he can’t fight a twinge of irritation. “Care to share with the class what your little tête-à-tête was about?”

The cowl covers Tim’s face, but Jason can imagine the judgemental stare.

“She said your poking around her territory will jeopardize her investigation into the sex traffickers.”

“Her investigation? She’s the damn head of the Ghost Dragons!”

“Yeah, and she’s also an undercover operative sent by Hong Kong PD, which I’m only telling you, so you don’t decide to go and kill her for apparent crimes.”

And that was not what he was expecting.

“How do you know this?”

“She told me. She’s one of my CIs.”

“And you believed her?”

“Cass looked into her for me. She’s legit, even if she’s a little…unorthodox.” Tim’s head tilts to one side, considering; with the cowl it makes him look like his avian namesake. “You’d think you’d appreciate that.”

“On the list of things I don’t appreciate, you showin’ up while I’m chasin’ a lead is one of them,” Jason growls. “Don’t you have a party to be at?”

“I ducked out early.”

“Well, that’s lame.”

“Not as lame as someone who ignores the fifteen invitations he was sent.”

Ah, and now they’re back on familiar ground.

“Pfft, I’ve seen enough Brucie to last me several lifetimes.”

“Yeah, but it was for Dick. All you had to do was show up—” his mouth twitches here; Jason can’t tell if it’s amusement or irritation, “—in jeans, even.”

“I’ve been dead once; I don’t need Alfie murderin’ me for that big a faux pas. And somehow I doubt Barbie would appreciate if her wedding photos included Dickiebird sporting a swollen eye.”

Tim sighs. “What are you fighting about this time?”

“Other than the usual stuff? We’re not. But I’m sure he’d put his foot in it at some point and need a nice bit of cognitive recalibration.”

“And you, the perfectly innocent party in all this, would happily provide that?”

“Call it a civic duty.”

Tim shakes his head, but Jason thinks it’s done in amusement this time, instead of exasperation.

“I don’t know how she can settle for that birdbrain,” he continues. “How does she stand bein’ around him so often without wantin’ to punch him in the face every time he opens his mouth?”

“Maybe not every time.”

“Point still stands.”

“Well, they’re soulmates,” Tim says vaguely, distant like he’s not paying attention to what he’s saying. He fiddles with his wrist computer, giving no indication that he is aware of anything else.

Jason’s pretty sure that’s not the case.

After all, he’s practiced in the art of pretending not to feel how his soulmark warms the closer he stands to Tim. There’s no question Tim’s learned to do the same.

It might be hypocritical of him, but that makes him angry somehow.

“As if that explains it all,” Jason sneers. “Come on, Replacement, I thought out of all of them, your whole logical-scientific-question-everything-Klingon-mind wouldn’t go for that hokey soulmate crap.”

“Vulcan.”

That brings him up short. “What?”

“It’s Vulcan culture that’s more focussed on logicality and empirical data-gathering. Klingons are more combat-oriented and tend toward more aggressive means of…” He trails off when he realizes Jason staring at him. “What?”

“You complete nerd,” Jason tells him. “No wonder you left the wedding early. I bet socializin’ with normal people probably stressed you right the fuck out, didn’t it?”

Tim gives a noncommittal shrug.

“Havin’ a soulmate doesn’t mean people should be together,” Jason goes on, filled with the sudden need to hammer home this point. “Look at all the examples from history—Cleopatra and Antony, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Bonnie and Clyde—” He ticks the couples off his finger. “They were all soulmates and they all either made each other miserable or got each other killed.”

“You can’t apply a few historical anomalies to every soulmate pair,” Tim counters. “Life circumstances skew the data.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that fate shouldn’t decide if people will magically work out!”

“That’s not…” Tim appears frustrated, at last, putting down his wrist computer and clenching his jaw. “It’s not supposed to work out magically. It’s about finding the person who completes you. You still need to work at it. It’s not all magically going to fall in place, and you’ll be happy forever right away. Even soulmates don’t get to live perfect lives.”

Ain’t that the truth, Jason muses, considering Tim.

“Sounds like you want a soulmate,” he points out, a little stiffly, and what the hell possessed him to say that?

He wonders what the kid is going to say now, or if this is the day their careful pretense, the lie of not knowing gets shattered.

Luckily, though, Tim avoids opening that can of worms.

He takes a step back from Jason, looks away and mutters, “It’s not relevant to the Mission.” Which is a total cop-out, but Jason will take it. “Anyway, if you’re done causing trouble here and riling up the gangs, I’ll take my leave.”

“Wish you would.”

Tim shoots him an unimpressed glare—or at least, that’s what it seems like to Jason. “Don’t make me come back here. And for god’s sake, at least call and congratulate the happy couple.”

He grapples away rather than allow a witty retort; Jason watches him go with a scowl. Once he’s sure the other vigilante is gone, he tugs the glove off his left hand, frowning at the whorls of crimson and yellow retreating down his forearm and back to his wrist.

His soulmark appeared one night a few evenings before the Garzonas incident. Jason vaguely remembers swinging through an alley to escape yet another argument with Bruce and knocking out a bunch of thugs threatening a kid. He’d been so buzzed on adrenaline and fury he hadn’t noticed the warmth in his wrist. He only caught sight of the mark itself when he returned to the Cave.

And then he spent the night wondering if one of the assholes he knocked around was his soulmate. It wasn’t a comforting idea, and he’d decided then and there to cover up the mark and forget about it. The disappointment about his potential soulmate had been a contributing factor in a long line of shit the universe decided to dump on him that sent him to Ethiopia. If he was linked to scum like that, he wanted to be as far as possible from Gotham.

It never even occurred to him to imagine the kid in the alley was his match. Hell, it didn’t even register when he discovered that Tim Drake had been following Batman and Robin around for years.

Only that day at the Tower, when Jason made his first move against Batman and attacked his replacement, did he finally make the connection.

His mark reacted the minute they were in the same room, spreading across his skin and swirling about seeking its partner. Jason had been so far gone with rage that the sight of it had made him angrier, made him hit harder—because if he didn’t meet Tim before, it meant their bond hadn’t been strong enough to keep him from making the biggest mistake of his life.

It meant he was supposed to meet him after being ripped apart and rebuilt as a weapon.

Luckily, or not, Tim was unconscious before the manifested completed, sneaking out from beneath the long green gauntlets of Jason’s fake Robin suit.

And if he did happen to notice before passing out, the kid hasn’t said anything about it.

Probably hates me and doesn’t want to acknowledge the universe’s idea of a shit joke.

Jason doesn’t blame him. Soulmates are a crock of shit anyway, and Tim’s better off without being tethered to him, and vice versa. They should keep pretending.

Because Jason doesn’t get to be happy.

And Tim deserves better than him because Tim—as much as he’s a pain in the ass—is good.

“And on that note,” Jason murmurs to himself, putting his gauntlet back on, “time to play the villain.”

The tip he received put him in the Ghost Dragons’ crosshairs—which means someone on his payroll is making a move, either against him or against someone else.

Time to find out for sure.

And no more moping over this soulmate crap.

Johnny Lino is the head of an investment company that’s just a front for his money laundering. He’s been passing the Red Hood information about his clients for the better part of a year now, ever since Jason put the fear of Hood in him. Quite a feat, considering the man’s a few inches taller and broader.

Jason finds him in a condo off the Diamond District, watching the Knights game and stuffing his face with pretzels.

Ponzi schemes don’t buy manners, I guess.

“Johnny,” he greets in a clear, would-be friendly manner that has the older man choking up his most recent handful. “Long time no see. Got a bone to pick with you.”

He expects there to be some mumbling and groveling, a few bald-faced lies that require the generous application of foot to face and the reassurance that everything in Jason’s sandbox is back to the way it should be.

So, it surprises him when Johnny scrambles for something that Jason notes too late is a panic button. All of a sudden, half a dozen masked men in combat gear and carrying assault rifles are busting through the door.

“That’s a bit of an overreaction to some conversation, don’t ya think?” Jason asks, throwing himself into action to deal with the interlopers. Bullets fly and knives slice toward him, but in five minutes he’s standing in the ruins of the room with six unconscious men.

And one dead one.

Johnny’s got a neat hole in the side of his head, from one of his hired muscle’s guns, Jason presumes.

“And doesn’t that say a lot about the quality of hired muscle in Gotham these days?” he grumbles, kicking at the body. “Can’t even trust your own people not to shoot you by accident.”

He can hear sirens, knows a neighbor or someone has called in the noise and heads for the fire exit before anyone can link him to the scene. That’s all he needs is the big Bat thinking he pulled the trigger in there.

And damn it, the giant bastard was one of my best sources. Now I’ve got to find someone else.

The encounter bothers him.

He’s had people on his payroll get shifty before, but it’s been his experience that there’s more of a prelude before the attempt to stab him in the back. They try to run or talk their way out of it; it seems Johnny went all out, trying to take out the Red Hood, all because of a bit of questionable information.

If he was so desperate to hire a kill squad rather than answer some well-deserved questions…

Maybe it’s not me that spooked him.

He thinks back to the shot that killed Johnny, remembers the angle it hit the head, and where the exit wound was. The opposite direction from where the thugs entered—from the window.

“There was another shooter,” he realizes.

A quick visit to the building opposite confirms his suspicion: the scrape where someone set up a tripod, bullet casing rolled to one side.

It wasn’t Johnny afraid to talk to the Red Hood—someone else feared he would.

Question is, were they worried he’d talk or worried he’d talk to me?

⁂⁂⁂ 

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<3 Violet