Chapter Text
Navigating the apartment took some doing. There were boxes still strewn around, half unpacked, and tidying up after himself had never been one of Tim’s favorite things to do so he’d always left it to the last minute, which was fine normally, but now—
“Living on your own again, huh?”
Tim grimaced, hobbling on crutches with a bottle of water awkwardly held in one hand. He hated crutches, had more than enough experience with them to know how to use them, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. It was slightly different, actually needing the things.
Red Hood sat on his windowsill, looking around at the still mostly bare apartment that had been Tim’s home since shortly after his return from captivity. “What the fuck did you do to your leg?”
“Did you want something?” Tim asked, more or less flopping back on the couch and grimacing as his broken leg was jostled. It had been a bad break. He still got nauseous if he thought about the moment it had happened, the wrong landing and the way it had sounded as he—
He unscrewed the cap on the water and took a drink, made himself not press down on the top of his thigh to soothe away phantom pain.
Red Hood took off the helmet, leaving Jason’s face unmasked. He climbed fully through the window and closed it behind him, drawing the curtains down before turning and regarding Tim with one eyebrow raised. “How long are you benched?”
“Too long.” Another thing that Tim very much did not want to think about. “How long have you been in town? I hear you’re back at the manor.”
“I hear you aren’t.” There was something very pointed in his tone.
“I can live alone, I’m basically eighteen.”
Jason’s other eyebrow joined the first, climbing towards his hairline.
“Close enough to it,” Tim said. “Surely you of all people know why I’m staying away.”
With a shrug, Jason flopped down next to him on the couch and grabbed the remote for the television, switching it on. “Do you not have a PS4?”
“Why would I have a PS4?”
“Can’t believe you think you can live alone.” The words were darkly muttered as Jason settled on a cartoon and made himself comfortable on the couch. Tim stared at him for a moment, confused, before letting it go.
It wasn’t quite comfortable silence, but it was as close as Tim had gotten lately. His relationship with Jason was strange. Better on a professional level—Red Robin to Red Hood—than personal. It was hard for Jason to let old resentment slide and it wasn’t like Tim was ever going to forget being attacked and overwhelmed by him, not so long ago. There wasn’t the ease between them that there was between him and Dick, but the heated animosity he and Damian exchanged was missing too.
“You all wrote me off,” Tim said, finally. “After Bruce—”
“I don’t think you want to play this game with me,” Jason said, voice raised in warning. He was tensed up all over.
Tim bit his tongue, holding back the flood of words he’d been about to unleash, and nodded. “No. Probably not.”
Jason dug around in his jacket and pulled out a USB, tossing it over to Tim carelessly. “Case files. Catch up, lend us your detective brain while the rest of you is busy being useless.”
“Wow,” Tim said, because it hit a little bit close to home. Particularly close to some of the things that Tim found himself thinking to himself, late at night when his leg was sore or he just couldn’t sleep.
Jason glanced over at the leg, wrinkling his nose. “Seriously, how long?”
“Months.” The word was almost lodged in his throat. He didn’t like to think about it. “Fracture went right up the bone. They put a pin in.”
Jason stared at the brace around Tim’s thigh thoughtfully. “Bruce really let you out on the streets that quick?”
“I didn’t exactly give him a chance to give his opinion.”
It had been his decision. His own stupid decision. He had lost condition during his captivity, had barely noticed it at the time. Once he’d been back in Gotham he’d thrown himself completely into being Red Robin again, straight back to where he’d left off. It had helped work through some of the anger.
Now, he was still angry, but he got to direct some of it inwards instead.
“I was an idiot.”
Jason grunted, pushing himself to his feet. He glanced around the apartment again. “Go back to the manor, fool.”
“I’d really rather not,” Tim said, mildly. “I still can’t quite believe you’re back there.”
Jason shifted in place, looking over to the drawn curtain over the window. “I have a place.”
He probably had at least five, knowing him.
Tim smiled. “Alfred said you moved your stuff in.”
“Some stuff,” Jason said, jerking the curtain up so he could reach the window. “Not all of it. I barely stay there.”
Considering the how soft the expression on Alfred’s face had been, Tim was pretty sure Jason was lying through his teeth.
Things had changed while Tim had been gone.
There was a knock against the window and then it was slid up and Robin poked his head into the apartment. He gave it and Tim a disparaging look and then fixed his attention on Jason. “Hood, hurry up. We’re patrolling.”
Tim stared between them as Robin closed the window with a snap and disappeared, leaving Jason sighing and slipping his helmet back on and shrugging at Tim.
“I gotta go,” Jason said. “If I leave him alone too long he’s gonna go casing my safe houses again for his damn toy and I have some shit hidden there I don’t want Bruce to know about. Fucking tattletale.”
Tim stared blankly as Jason disappeared out the window, unable to find the words to even begin to ask the many, many questions that bombarded him.
Jason and Damian?
There was an uneasy feeling in his gut.
Things really had changed while he’d been gone.