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Tim never realized when he started to fall for the Red Hood. It was slow, agonizing and suddenly all at once. Calling him the Red Hood made him feel safe. It took away the fact that he fell for Jason Todd, the man who tried to take his life several times, the man who slit his throat with no remorse, the man he had loved since his prepubescent days, when he did not even fully understand the meaning of love.
Maybe he still does not know the meaning of love, though Tim felt that this was the closest he could come to knowing what love is. What is the meaning of love to someone who has never tasted it?
But in the confines and security of his mind, he can call him Jason all he wants. Something he was sure he won’t ever be able to say aloud. Some days he wishes Jason had took his life, maybe he would feel sad after doing so, Tim didn’t know. He is sure Jason can handle the death of someone like him, who tried to steel his rightful place but batman’s side, by his father’s side.
It was a miracle that he lived to see the day again, and maybe he is a bit mad that Jason didn’t try hard enough to kill him. But that’s for only him to know. It would certainly spare him the heartache he was facing right now.
He knows Jason can’t love him. Maybe he could, in another world, another life, but never this one. There was too much to be said between them, too much of practically everything. The near murders, the jealousy, being Jason’s replacement. God he hated that word, but he understood why Jason would use it. He was never a match for him.
Tim can admit that what Jason did wasn’t the best thing one could do. But given his situation and the lazarus madness, Tim understood. Maybe he understood it a bit too well. He could forgive it. Tim wasn’t going to give into the delusion that he was ever a match for the title of robin or a son that Jason had been.
Batman needed a robin and he delivered one, whether he was good at it, he neither cared nor he wanted to know now.
Once he had cared, when Dick treated him like a little brother instead of someone he couldn’t even look in the eye, when batman treated him like a son instead of a soldier. It had made him feel wanted. He finally felt that even he can have a family and it was all taken for him. And as much as Tim wanted to hate them for it, the problem was that he understood dammit. He wasn’t even a replacement, he was a stand-in. He wasn’t sure which he hated more, to be replacement or a stand-in.
After Damian being given the mantle of robin, after it being snatched from him, he had no doubt about his position in this family. He doesn’t know if he should stop referring them as his family, when they have stopped treating him like one.
Maybe that was when he started to fall for one Jason Todd. Jason never hid what he thought about Tim. He gave away his feelings easily. It was refreshing that someone could finally look him in the eye, but Tim knew Jason didn’t think very highly of his replacement.
That is why he was surprised, when one day, Jason on his own will came to ask Tim some intel on the local drug cartel, all the while using his name to refer to him and not the deserved nickname. Sensing his chance to finally make things better between them Tim readily gave the information.
It then became a usual occurrence between them. Jason asking him some inside information of crime deals around Gotham he knew Tim kept tabs on and Tim helping him on the comms sometimes.
After sometime, they even started going on patrols together on some days. However bad Tim’s relationship with everyone in the batcave had become, he was at least somewhat happy that Jason was slowly but surely warming up to him. His gruff manner had not dissuaded Tim one bit, he was used to it at this point.
But the small gestures of kindness is what led Tim to his demise. Bringing him coffee after Tim had had a hard day, threatening to tie Tim to the bed to sleep if he was appearing particularly overworked, having his back when fighting, making a sincere effort to talk to Tim kindly and trying his best not to remind him of being his replacement. It was nice.
Maybe Jason was doing it to ease his guilt of almost killing a kid, but Tim wasn’t complaining about this new development. Fuck, he would not admit it, but it made him feel euphoric to the core that Jason was putting in an effort to mend their tenuous relationship, trying to right his wrongs.
Deep down he knew this wasn’t because he cared for Tim or anything, but he wanted to feel accepted by his family, the family he stole. But Tim was past caring at this point. Sue him, he was selfish like that.
He just hopes that this is not something ephemeral, a whim and Jason continues to treat him the way he does now. He knows his hopes will be dashed, life has never kind to him that way.
Everything he has ever hoped for in his life has made him miserable in the end, one way or the other. Hoping to have a loving family, hoping to be loved, wanted, cared? In his mind and heart, he knows he is selfish and wants too much.
He understands he is hard to love.
He has spent his entire life this way and he will not start deluding himself now. He knows perfectly it’s his childhood crush speaking but beyond all possibilities, he hopes.
For the sake of his poor selfish heart, he hopes.