Work Text:
I remember the first time I saw the Drake kid. Shoulda seen him years before that, truthfully, given the Drakes' ties to the old man, but they weren't all that interested in their boy, except that they knew they had someone to take over the Family business when they decided to retire and live the life of leisure. Or when the two of them kicked it thanks to some new lead accessories, helpfully supplied by a rival Family; which is what turned out to happen. Anyway, little Timmy Drake was all of 13 when he came to live at the Manor, and looked all of 10, but he already had a kind of sharpness in his eyes, like he could use'em to cut through the masks and shadows and find the beating heart of a man. It wasn't a feeling I was comfortable with, even then, when I had less shadows to cut through, but I was used to having my soul peeked at; old man Wayne did it all the time. Difference was that Wayne was looking for things he could use, loyalty and cunning and a certain kind of heartless; this kid… he was just *looking*, like he could figure out what kind of man you were if he watched you long enough. It was bad enough when Wayne did it, but I could deal because I owed the old man, and anyway, he was my boss. I didn't have any reason to put up with it from some spoiled, sheltered little pretty boy though and I'd headed right over to give the kid a piece of my mind.
"What are you staring at?" I'd growled, too close, two and a half feet taller, and twice as big besides and the kid just looked up at me, calm as a picnic in July.
"You're Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne's right hand man."
That was disconcerting. It wasn't like I wasn't well known or anything; Wayne didn't pick guys up off the street and give'm jobs normally, and I was pretty good at putting fist to face when the situation called for it, so my name got around, but far as I knew, nobody but Wayne, me, and old Alfred knew how much work I did for the boss. Wayne was touchy about the subject, since his last right hand went off and moved to Bludhaven to run operations there without so much as a by your leave, so I didn't push the issue. And anyway, I had enough on my plate without people hassling me for being so high up in the Family when I was still pretty much a kid myself. I'da thought the Drakes told him about me before they went and sang their swan songs but as far as I could tell they never discussed business with the kid at all, much less business that they shouldn't have known.
The whole thing'd made me twitchy as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs and while Wayne was busy talking to Alfred about where to store the kid and his half dozen bags, I dragged him off to a corner to talk, "Who told you that?"
I was doing my best mean-bastard impression, which was pretty good even then, because I *am* a mean bastard, but damned if the kid didn't just smile a little, "You did, just now."
I'm pretty sure that's when I started to fall for him.
*********
It got pretty obvious right off the bat that the kid knew all about the Family business, even though by all rights he shouldn't have known a damn thing, and that he didn't approve. That boggled my mind for a while, 'cause the Drakes hadn't been one of the big Families, but they'd been steady and strong and with Janet and Jack at the helm they'd done some damage to the competition. Then I figured out that they'd pretty much left the kid to his own devices and somehow he'd come out of it with a moral compass that would'a done a boy scout proud. It was probably all those books he read when he wasn't occupied with something else, all kinds of philosophy and science and mysteries where the boys in blue were the heroes and nobody saw how the law could screw an innocent man just as well as a guilty one. Gotta give Drake credit on that one though, he lived in Gotham, same as the rest of us, and he knew that sometimes the only justice you could expect was from whatever Family you were tied to. I'd say that's why he stuck with us so long, nevermind how he got to thinking that Grayson, Wayne's prodigal son, hung the moon for all that nancy charity stuff he got up to when he wasn't bashing heads, but the truth was Drake stayed for one damned reason after he turned 18 and could'a gotten out of there scot-free and that reason was me.
Shouldn't have encouraged him, I knew I shouldn't have, right from the start. There was no way it was gonna end pretty, no matter what my stupid dreams said. I couldn't give up the only thing I'd ever been any good at; or working for the only guy who'd ever looked out for me and he couldn't give up on those damned morals. The hell of it was that I didn't even want him to. So yeah, the idea of us together, working to make the Waynes' the biggest, meanest Family in Gotham until we ran the whole place and nobody dared cross us? That wasn't gonna happen in a hundred years of wishing and in the end I let it go on too long to spare the kid any pain when it finally came time to let him go.
It wasn't even like I was putting anything past old man Wayne either; he knew everything that went on in his house and he had to know all the times I stayed in when I said I was going out, and sat debating that fancy philosophy crap with Drake instead. He couldn't have missed how we'd play these games of chess that lasted *weeks*, because I'm stubborn as hell, and ruthless too, and maybe I might have studied new tactics some, 'cause there was no way I was going to let a goody-goody like Drake beat me at a game of war without a good fight. Hell, he was the one who told me to teach the kid how to fight and that right there was the stuff of a thousand temptations. The thing was that I wasn't trying to seduce Drake; I just… couldn't give him up. Not until it really mattered; and by then it was way too late for him to forgive me.
See, he was too damn bright for the Family. Not just in brains, because it takes a lot of those to run a Family, no matter what the mooks down at the cop house think. No, he was bright like angels in stained glass, clean and pure and so beautiful it cut. Stayin in the Family would kill part of him, or get him killed, and after watching him sleep next to me after our one damned night together I couldn't let it happen, no matter how much I wanted him. So I made myself memorize what he looked like, smiling soft at his dreams and as happy and at peace as I'd ever seen him, and then I pushed myself out of bed and pulled on the old mean bastard mask as hard and tight as I could.
I've spent my whole life angry, it seems, hating one person or another as they give me cause, and I've never seen a reason to change it. People are heartless and they'll screw over their own mothers if it gets them ahead; so I've had a whole lot of practice despising them. But I've never hated anyone as much as I hated myself when I snarled at the kid and told him that he might be a half decent lay, but he sure as hell wasn't worth the time I'd spent on him and he was stupider than a sack of rocks if he thought I'd waste any more.
It worked just like I knew it would, hitting him in the one spot where he didn't have armor or logic to protect him. I'da felt a lot better if he'd hated me for it, even a little, but Drake could never find fault in somebody else when he could find one in himself first. He believed every cursed word I said like it was God's truth and I think I hate myself for that most of all. Pretty sure he had his stuff packed before I'd even finished dry heaving up whatever tiny bit of soul I had left in me after that scene and I had run to make it to Wayne first.
I expected old man Wayne to fight me on it, to do whatever he could to keep that amazing damned mind on the Family's side. I offered to do whatever dirty jobs he needed done, even wet work, which I'd been avoiding like hell since I knew the kid wouldn't have looked at me ever again if he'd found out. Didn't matter what I did then, I was damned either way, least if I convinced Wayne to let Drake go I'd get something worthwhile out of it. Wayne made me swear to it, and of course I did, but after seeing his face when the kid told him he was going, I think the sly old bat had been planning to let him out of the Family from the start.
He knew just as well as me that there are some people you don't keep in the shadows. Some you gotta let shine.
*******
By the time I heard through the grapevine that Drake was joining the boys in blue, I was already working for Kerr, Wayne's big rival and one psychotic SOB. And while Drake was gaining a reputation for being one hell of a straight cop, with wits sharp enough to cut steel, I was getting a rep for being an angry, ruthless, made-man who left the Waynes cause the old man didn't have enough of a blood-thirst for me. Nobody but me and Wayne, and old Alfred of course, knew that I was under Wayne's orders to play mole in Kerr's Family and find out what the bastard was up to, and take him down too if I could.
Wayne always played things close to the vest but his cards got even tighter in then, and I could only guess at what he was up to. He never went after the kid though, even when Drake busted his boys left and right and nearly got the little brat Damian too. I figured that Wayne kinda liked the idea of a straight cop in Gotham, especially one he helped raise, so he made everybody leave the kid alone. Me though? It was open season on Jason Todd. Had to make it believable after all, right?
Anyway, things got real messy for a couple of years and when the dust settled I was one of Joe Kerr's favorite goons and I had more blood on my hands than I really cared for. It was past time to cut Kerr's laughing neck, to my mind, but Wayne insists on keeping things 'civil' when he can, by which he means ripping apart a man's rep until he doesn't have a leg to stand on or two pennies to rub together. So there I was, asking for help from the only person left in the world that I care about and risking both our lives in the process.
Problem was that I couldn't get the information I needed from anyone else; all of the other cops I knew were either under Wayne's thumb or Kerr's and both sets would have dropped me in Gotham River with a new set of shoes before telling me anything. Granted, the kid wasn't above sending me to the big house for a few decades, but I figured if he had any evidence he thought they could convict with, he'da come for me a long time ago. Still, he's one of the smartest guys I know; he knew that giving a guy like me pictures of Two-Face Dent talking to one of Wayne's pet cops wasn't gonna end well for Two-Face, and as dedicated as he is to the idea of court justice I figured he'd tell me to get lost.
Even after meeting him and getting the pictures, I wasn't sure why he'd done it. Drake hadn't compromised once since he left the Family and he had more reasons than one not to want to give me a damn thing. Maybe it'd been that weird visitor we had, looking and sounding just like me, only he'd had the luxury of throwing his heart right out at Drake's feet and leaving it there for me to clean up after, provided I survive the rest of the week.
******
The plan was pretty simple, use the pictures to get Two-Face to flip on Kerr, and use the evidence he gave me to get Kerr tossed in jail for a long damned time. Wayne'd take over Kerr's business and I'd go back to the fold like a good little mole. Simple as it was I never thought it'd work out, Two-Face is called that for a reason, but staying on Kerr's good side is in his best interests at the moment and unlike most of Kerr's flunkies, he's not nearly as stupid as he looks. So I wasn't really surprised when the plan went side-ways on me, and in a hurry.
Turns out Drake wasn't the only one out there taking pictures and somebody got some of me and the kid together when we'd met to make the hand-off. Now there I was with a gun to my head and one seriously ticked off lunatic ranting about how you can't find good help these days.
Somehow I knew it was gonna end like this, in a dirty warehouse with not a soul left in the world who gives a good goddamn about me, but like I've said before, sometimes you just gotta do what you've gotta do, and nobody was really giving me a choice on this one.
I was about two seconds from asking them to just put a bullet in my head already and get it over with; when I heard something I never thought I'd hear again. For a heartbeat I thought I'd bitten it already, but then I realized that if I was hallucinating Drake's voice I sure as hell wouldn't be imagining him saying, "Everyone freeze! Put your weapons down and your hands in the air. Joseph Kerr, you are under arrest for the murder of Harleen Quinzel."
Everybody just stared at him, that crazy smart, insanely brave kid, for what seemed like a full minute, and then Kerr started to laugh and I started to swear and try to figure out how I was gonna get him out of there. You'd think, after playing chess with him for so long, that I would have known better than to think that was it, but all I could do was picture that pretty face with a bloody smile and dead eyes and I lost my head a little.
Lucky for me Drake was doing enough thinking for both of us, and Kerr stopped laughing real quick when a dozen more boys in blue showed up. Now I was happy I wasn't going to get a new hole in the head, but winding up in jail wasn't a terribly attractive prospect either so I was laying odds on how many bullets I'd take if I made for the door when the kid appeared at my side and said all sharp and hard, "Let me do the talking Todd, and for God's sake don't try and make a run for it. I've got everything under control."
Two hours later I found myself on the friendly side of a police desk nodding like I knew what the hell was going on while Drake spun the fastest, neatest line of bullshit I've ever had the pleasure to hear. According to the kid I'd been giving him the inside word on Kerr's business for over a year and I was that confidential source he'd been telling the boss about on the Quinzel case, evidenced by the pictures they found at Kerr's place when they showed up to arrest him. Everybody in the Gotham underground, and a lot topside too, knows I'm hell on anybody who'd hurt a woman so it was a believable story even without the pictures, but with them, and Drake's rep as the cleanest cop Gotham has ever seen and I was practically one of the boys.
It wasn't until Drake dragged me to his car that I got it together enough to realize what the hell he'd just done to me. Grabbing him and pinning him to the car probably wasn't the best way to get my head on straight and find some answers, but damned if it didn't feel good anyway, "Damn it Drake what the hell were you thinking back there?! You know what's going to happen to me now?"
He looked me straight in the eyes and answered just as calm as he had the first time we'd met, "You're going to have to leave the Family. Why do you think I did this all Todd? You were never going to leave otherwise."
Drake didn't even flinch when I narrowed my eyes at him, the kid never did learn to be afraid of me, "You planned this? The pictures?"
"I had them taken. Wayne has to let you go now, there's no way he can bring a police informant back into the Family, *especially* one that's in contact with me, even if you were informing on Kerr. And between the evidence I've got on Kerr already, and what you can tell me from when you worked for him, we'll be putting him and most of his Family away for a long time. You'll have police protection until you testify, even if anyone was stupid enough to come after you with the police and Wayne backing you."
That was news to me and I pushed a little closer, not just because I wanted answers, "Wayne hasn't backed me since you left."
Wrong thing to say and I knew it as soon as his eyes went flat and he shoved me away, "Well he is now. That's the deal I made with him. I got you out from under Kerr and took down his Family, and Wayne spreads the word that you're still one of his sons, even if you are working with the police now."
Clever old bat. I laughed, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I actually meant it, "Old man Wayne's the one who sent me to work for Kerr in the first place. Looks like he played us both this time kid."
There was one thing in all of this that I couldn't wrap my head around though, "Why'd you do it Drake? Why put your neck out there for me?"
He hit me with those eyes again, cutting right to my soul and I had just enough time to realize that he *had* figured me out after all before he'd grabbed me and I was tasting bad station coffee and *Tim* and feeling like maybe this job turned out alright after all.