Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

​​It all starts with Bruce. With a name he doesn’t recognise, half-lost to the roar of the car’s engine. Tim sits in the passenger seat, staring idly through the window, and lets the name roll past, waits for someone to respond through the comms. When they don’t – when the line stays silent except for Bruce repeating the name again – he starts to wonder, a little irritated, who exactly Bruce is speaking to. Red Robin, Bruce keeps saying, over and over, a little firm and a little sharp and far too worried. It’s supposed to grab attention, the way he calls, to hook someone back into reality.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t work on Tim, not at all.

Distantly, Tim wonders who would ever give Robin such a prefix. Robin is Robin. That much is simple and known. And there’s only one Robin at the moment.

The third one. 

Him.

“Hey, focus.” Bruce snaps his fingers, and their eyes meet in the rearview mirror. The whole world narrows to that reflection, if only for a second. When Bruce looks away and returns his attention to the road, Tim can see the entirety of himself there in the mirror – his silhouette slumped across back seats, weak, frail. He looks completely different than normally, but he is still the same person, somehow. He doesn't give it much thought. 

“Stay with me, Robin. Red Robin. Tim.”

Ah, he wants to say. Yes. That explains it.

Tim nods and purses his lips, thinking. His suit is red. No, it’s mostly black, actually. Or it looks that way in the dim dashboard light. He doesn’t remember it ever being this dark. But red is there, threaded through it, spreading across his chest and arms.

Red. Yes, it makes sense. It must. Bruce is pragmatic like this. He likes calling things for what they are. And if he’s wearing red, it surely means he’s Red Robin.

But does that mean there are other Robins? A Blue Robin? A Yellow one, perhaps?

Tim closes his eyes with a sigh. He doesn’t know the answer to that.

He doesn’t know much of anything, to be honest. The last thing he knows for sure is being dragged into some video call with Bruce. Something about Red Hood, finally getting him for good. The rest is blurry. 

Tim blinks at the road ahead, at Bruce’s reflection in the mirror, and for a second he almost expects to see his bedroom behind him instead of Gotham’s streets rushing wildly past.

It happened yesterday. It must have.

That doesn't explain how he found himself in Gotham, in Bruce’s car, speeding in an unknown direction. Is it because of adrenaline? Did he come in such hurry that he somehow lost all the details? When Tim tries to trace it back, he finds nothing. Just confusion. It makes him feel stupid. Useless. There’s a hollow space where the memory should be. His head feels light, and when he shifts in his seat, the movement makes him dizzy.

He presses his fingers to his temple, thinking. The gap doesn’t close.

Yesterday. It was yesterday.

The argument between them is still fresh. Tim ignores Bruce calling his name again, the sound overlapping too neatly with the memory, the same tone, the same urgency. Robin. Tim. Focus.

The voices stack on top of each other until he isn’t entirely sure which one belongs to now and which one belongs to then.

Tim closes his eyes for a second.

“Tim!”

Someone else’s voice snaps him out of this reverie. He doesn’t recognise it, not really.

The voice reaches him before his feet are even steady on the ground, before the loud whirl of the car’s engine finishes echoing off the Cave’s high ceiling. It resonates with him more than anything, strangely, immediately resulting in Tim’s head snapping to the source. Something about this voice is different, the way it grabs his attention, cuts through the white snow in his head, through the annoying ringing in his ears. It’s sharp and deep and pleasant, and Tim hates that it sounds raw with fear. Fear for him, perhaps. Why else would it speak his name in such a tender way, breaking on the vowel, if not to make his own stomach twist with similar worry? 

For a moment, one wild moment, he wonders if he’s dying and no one’s been brave enough to tell him yet, if there’s blood pouring out somewhere he can’t see and feel, if this is what it sounds like when somebody watches you go. 

He turns forward, maybe a little too fast, because the Cave smears into streaks of dark shadows and cold blue lights. Tim grabs the edge of the nearest chair to keep himself from falling, fingers digging into the cold leather, and blinks until the worried shape in front of him turns from a blur into a man. 

Broad shoulders. Dark hair – with a streak of white in the middle, a bit of silver dusting his temples. He wears similar colours to Tim’s own, except there’s more kevlar, more leather, a red bat across his chest. Another Red Robin, Tim thinks with a frown – so much can only add to his confusion. Besides that, he has absolutely no idea who that man is. 

His brain recognises him as a stranger. A stranger, and yet his pulse lurches at the sight, his heart beating louder in his chest. 

“Tim,” the man says again, a little softer this time, as if he’s suddenly realised he’s dealing with a spooked animal, not a hero. His hands reach for Tim’s elbows, helping him stand straight, and his face is close, too close now. Tim can see the lines carved on his cheek, skin ugly where it scars into almost a letter J, he can see his eyes wide and worried and red-rimmed, like he hasn’t slept in days or like he’s been crying. Tim has no idea if the latter should be possible, so he focuses on what he can tell, instead. Height, probably an inch or two over Bruce. Build, heavier than Dick’s. More muscle than Tim’s reason says a Robin should have. There’s a tremor in his hands. His fingers slide over Tim’s arms like they’ve been trained to do exactly that, like they know where to grab in order to not feel empty. 

Yes, Tim knows for sure now, his own eyes wide and staring.

He has absolutely no fucking idea who this man is.

Yet his body reacts against his own will, melting into the awkward embrace, relaxing, wanting to put his whole weight onto those solid arms. It’s an involuntary reaction, and it startles him so much that he has to take a step back, as if suddenly he’s bracing himself for a hit, like some old instinct telling him that’s what’s going to happen. 

The man stops short in his movements, immediately raising his hands up, showing them to Tim as a gesture of peace. Hurt flashes across his face, and it’s so clear that Tim has to look away. His gaze is pinned to the floor instead, on the smear of tire tracks leading from the ramp, on his own dusted boots planted there, on a drop of blood that wasn’t there a second ago. His skin prickles. His head throbs. 

Tim takes another step back, unsteady, and Bruce catches him in his arms. 

“Easy now,” Bruce’s voice says, somewhere next to Tim’s ear. Whether he says it to Tim, or to the man, he isn’t sure. “He’s disoriented.”

Disoriented. Tim scowls. The word doesn’t feel big enough. He doesn’t know what’s going on, only that he blinked once and woke up from nothing to Bruce’s voice calling him something strange and new. He doesn’t remember anything that happened today. Yesterday, maybe, but then he isn’t so sure anymore. On the batcomputer, there’s a calendar opened, showing today’s date. 

It’s not today’s date.

“Oh, fuck,” Tim says, and his legs give out. He knows he’s not supposed to swear, but no one chides him. Bruce holds him upright, steady, steadier, leading him to sit in the medbay area. Even as he sits down on a gatch bed, he can still see the screens from the corner of his eye. 

It’s not today’s date.

Disoriented, his ass. Tim feels flayed. Like someone has taken a knife to the timeline and started cutting away the years until nothing’s left and he’s seventeen again, young and confused. He swallows, his throat dry. Bruce leaves him momentarily to go somewhere else, but he can feel a pair of hands on his tunic, searching to take it off. Alfred, he realises, based on displeased little hums that leave the person’s mouth. Tim doesn’t stop him, lets Alfred get him undressed, even when he winces from pain that he hasn’t felt, not up until now. 

The stranger is still looking at him. That much he can tell, even without meeting his eyes. The attention is intense, all their gazes enough to bruise.

“Tim,” the man repeats, defeated, sad and quieter now. It’s the way that he says his name that terrifies him the most. The uncanny familiarity of it. There’s ownership in it, and an edge, like he’s used to saying it, into Tim’s shoulder, into his hair, into the hollow of his throat. It’s not how others say it. “Talk to me, babe. C’mon.”

Babe.

Tim cries. The endearment is too much. It's wrong. Confusing. He lets out a full sob before he can stop himself, fingers tightening against green sheets until his knuckles whiten and ache. Something in the man’s expression shatters then. Tim watches it happen in the reflection of a glass of water that Bruce handles him instead of directly, because otherwise he wouldn’t bring himself to look away. He can’t bear to witness it head-on. The man takes another step forward on reflex, hand halfway lifted like he means to touch Tim’s arm, his face, anything, and Tim’s body answers with panic. 

“Don’t,” Tim hears himself say, breathless and begging. It’s difficult to speak. The water he’s supposed to drink spills on his lap and Alfred takes it away. “Please. Just, don’t.”

The man stops. He drops his hand as if Tim had slapped it away. His mouth opens, then closes. Something terrified flickers in his eyes, quickly smothered. When he speaks again, his voice is levelled out by force, down to something that resembles calm. It doesn’t fit his face at all.

“Okay. I won’t. Just… you’re safe, alright? You’re in the Cave. You’re with us. No one’s gonna hurt you. Just breathe. Alfred, do you see anything? He’s clearly not himself right now.”

Alfred’s approach is gentle. This is how Tim remembers him, always careful, kind toward him even if Tim doesn’t always deserve it.

“Can you tell me your full name?” Alfred asks, crouching in front of him. He reaches toward Tim’s face and wipes away blood that’s been apparently dripping from his nose. 

Tim answers because he knows that much. Alfred asks where they are and Tim says Gotham, because they’re in a Cave and it’s a logical thing to point at. But Tim doesn’t know the rest of it. He doesn’t know what day it is, or what he ate for breakfast this morning. He doesn’t remember getting hurt, nor how exactly he found himself in Batman’s car. 

Alfred notes it with a hum. Finally, he asks questions Tim can answer properly.

“Do you have a headache? Nausea?” 

Tim shakes his head. He doesn’t feel anything except for the nervousness, a bit of fear. He presses his fingers to the back of his head and scratches, as if to think, but feels nothing that explains the worry in his chest. Something is itching, but he can’t tell what exactly. It’s too distant to tell. 

A penlight flashes in front of his eyes. Tim winces, squeezing them shut and furrowing his nose. Alfred’s hand moves to hold at his jaw, angling his face to catch his eyes with the light.

“Look at me, Master Tim.”

Tim forces his eyes open.

Alfred watches carefully.

“Oh dear,” he says. Tim blinks when the light suddenly disappears. 

“What is it?” Bruce asks, immediately by Alfred’s side.

“Pupils are asymmetric,” Alfred responds quietly. “Right pupil slightly dilated. The left one is slow on the light reflex.”

“Head trauma?”

“Possibly. Or chemical exposure.” Alfred’s thumb brushes Tim’s face again, wiping at another thin streak of blood. “We’ll need imaging immediately.”

Bruce’s face narrows. He barks something incomprehensible and walks away quickly.

“Master Tim,” Alfred continues, softer now. “Can you tell me who the current Robin is?”

Tim frowns at the question. “Me.”

“And before you?”

“Jason Todd.”

Silence.

Alfred doesn’t miss a beat. “And before Master Jason?”

“Dick,” Tim answers automatically.

“Good. Very good.”

Alfred’s gaze shifts slightly. 

“And after you?”

Tim’s expression goes blank. 

“What?”

The strange man inhales sharply.

“Alright,” Alfred nods once.

Tim doesn’t understand what happens then. Alfred keeps talking but he doesn’t listen. It’s too much. His brain hooks on words like amnesia and trauma, something about temporal lobe. He feels so confused, he can’t even tell where exactly this temporal lobe is. Is it important? He shakes his head in disbelief, but someone steadies him immediately after and tells him to stop moving. 

“...Recent autobiographical memory appears impaired.”

The man cuts in. “How recent?”

Alfred looks back at Tim.

“Master Tim, when you woke up yesterday, what day was it?”

“Tuesday?”

“And what year?”

“2016?”

Alfred closes his eyes briefly and sighs. “There we have it,” he says quietly. “We won’t know the full extent until swelling is assessed. CT scan first. MRI to follow. We must rule out intracranial bleeding.”

Tim’s stomach drops even though he doesn’t feel that much nauseous.

He looks down at his hands when he finally stops feeling all itchy.

They’re covered in blood.

Tim wakes up in a strange room. 

It doesn’t look anything like his childhood bedroom because it’s larger and tidy. But there are things that he finds familiar, like red sheets and pillowcases made from a material he finds pleasant to touch, grey walls that make the room appear darker than it really is. Oh, he suddenly remembers. This is his room. Well, not exactly. This room used to belong to Dick, and since he left, no one dared to change much about the interior. But this is the room that Bruce brought him to in the aftermath of his father’s death and offered him a new place to stay. 

His room. Yes, at the Manor. The curtains are heavy and almost closed, letting in a thin strip of a golden afternoon light. It cuts the room in half and climbs the side of the bed. A stack of files lies on the nightstand. On top of them, there’s his mug with a Superman logo on it, a little chipped, a ring of coffee dried at the bottom. His things. His life. All where he left them, except he doesn’t remember leaving them at all.

Tim blinks at the ceiling and tastes the metal at the back of his mouth. Everything smells tobacco-sweet, but it’s probably the jacket left over a desk chair nearby. Is it his? It looks like something he would wear. There are things that definitely are new, like small picture frames crowding the walls and large bookshelves filled with books he doesn’t recall being interested in, let alone reading. There’s a painting hung over the bed, a rectangle he can make out if looks up, but he won’t bend his neck to see. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sleeping. An hour. A day. Ten years, maybe. Time feels like nothing but an illusion, every answer correct and still somehow wrong. When he tries to move, every limb reports back separately, out of sync, coming back to him slowly from a distance. 

Someone is sitting beside his bed.

The realisation hits him only on the second blink, when the blur in his peripheral vision resolves into more of a clear shape, a man slumped in an old armchair that always sits by the window, now dragged close to bed, its carved wooden arm pressed against the high mattress. He’s half-turned toward Tim, head bent at an uncomfortable angle, chin tucked against his chest as he’s sleeping. One arm is flung over the chair’s side, hand dangling near the floor. The other is closer, resting on the edge of the bed like he fell asleep reaching for something and never finished the motion. Stubble shadows his jaw. He looks tired. 

Tim freezes.

Stranger, his mind supplies. The one from the Cave, so he's someone trusted. But Tim doesn't know him. This is not Dick, not Alfred, not Bruce. Not anyone whose silhouette he knows by heart. 

Tim’s heart stutters in his chest, an unsteady little thump. He doesn’t want to wake him. There is definitely an urge inside him, to flinch, to sit up, to demand an explanation, all snap at the man in quick succession, but his body is heavy and at the same time it's incredibly fragile and he doesn’t know what happens if he does. So he lies there. Very still. Very quiet. He chooses to watch instead. 

The man is sleeping badly.

Tim can tell from the way his lips are turned into a frown, from the tightness at the corners of his eyes even in rest. His fingers twitch in intervals, a little hitch like he’s reaching for something that isn’t there. The hand nearest to Tim’s is bare except for a strip of gauze dressing around the knuckles, stained faintly brown where blood has seeped through and dried. Thick long fingers, scarred in places. Callouses along the palm where a weapon, something, would sit.

And a ring.

It shines in the afternoon light, a small flash at the base of his fourth finger that catches Tim’s eyes and makes everything else disappear. It’s a plain golden ring at first glance, just a band of metal fitted snugly against the skin, but the longer Tim stares, the more it resolves into something more. There are scratches on it, fine lines from years of just existing.

He shouldn’t be looking at it. Out of all the things in the room, out of all the questions stampeding through his skull, this is the least important, insignificant detail. But his mind hooks on it the way drowning fingers hook on a lifeline. It’s easier than thinking about bleeding brains or missing years.

The ring is… pretty.

Ridiculous word, but it is. The light makes it glow soft, not harsh, and the curve looks smooth. It suits the hand it’s on as if the finger just grown around it. Tim’s chest tightens painfully with a feeling that doesn’t have a name yet. There’s something almost gentle and endearing about it, this one rounded circle sitting on a man who looks too dangerous to care about those types of things. Tim finds himself following the shape of it with his eyes, tracing the way it sits against the bone, wondering who put it there. Who chose this man. Who said yes.

Someone loves him, Tim thinks, nonsensically, as if he’s not lying in his own bed with his own pulse racing and body feeling seconds from dying. Someone loved him enough to put this piece of metal on him.

His gaze flickers down to his own hands before he can stop it, as if expecting to find some equivalent there, a matching glint, an answer. All he finds is pale skin and bandages and the memory of them being covered in blood that may or may not have been his. No ring. No mark. The lack of it feels like the punchline to a joke he doesn’t remember hearing.

He swallows. His throat is raw. The sound he makes is weak against the quiet. The stranger stirs.

It’s frightening, how fast he comes awake. One second he’s slack and folded in on the armchair, and the next his eyes are open and sharp, zeroing in on Tim like they’ve been waiting for this exact moment all night and all day. His whole body snaps into readiness. The hand with the ring tightens on the bedsheets as if to anchor him to the world.

“Tim?” The man breathes, rough with sleep and something else, and the way he says it makes Tim’s skin tingle. “How are you feeling?”

That voice again. The same one from the Cave, thick with worry. It hits Tim’s nervous system like a whip. His fingers curl reflexively. His heart bangs against his ribs once or twice, hard. He knows that voice doesn’t belong to a stranger. But his memories do not come when called. They stay buried, obstinate, deep under the swelling and the static.

He tears his eyes away from the man’s face, from the raw relief blooming there, too much, too bright. Lets his gaze drop instead to the ring again, to the circle of metal that glows faintly in the dying-out afternoon light. It’s easier to look at that than whatever he’s supposed to see in this man’s expression. Easier to admire the way the band sits, snug and solid and certain, than to acknowledge the tremble in the hand it encircles.

It’s a pretty ring, he tells himself again, like repeating it might make this moment simpler than it is.

It doesn’t.

“Who are you?” Tim asks, and the silence that follows feels like the room has been emptied of air. Just void.

The man’s breath stops abruptly. That’s the only sign, at first. Then his shoulders draw in, just a fraction, as if the words had knocked something out of him loose. He swallows. His gaze flicks to the wall, then back to Tim, like he’s searching for some textbook answer that could prepare him for this exact moment. When he smiles, it’s a sad smile, trying hard not to be.

“It’s me,” he says, and Tim watches his throat work around the word like it hurts. “It’s– I’m Jason.”

Jason. 

Jason Todd.

The name appears in his brain, loud and clear, and everything inside Tim reacts before he can stop it. A muscle jumping beneath his eye. A pulse stumbling. The faint taste of copper at the back of his tongue. 

Red Hood, Tim realises. Jason. The boy Bruce had to bury, the brother Dick had to mourn. Dick sometimes speaks of him like it’s a shared memory, something precious that belongs to them all. Alfred’s voice always softens on Jason like he’s talking about someone tender and tragic. Someone Tim should know. Someone Tim should love. 

But Tim, he doesn’t belong with them. He remembers the name differently. A dark hallway. A fist flying his way. A hand closing around his collar, lifting him off the ground just enough that his breath turned shallow in his throat. Not a brother. Not a memory–

It explains everything and nothing. His fingers twitch. His lungs forget what to do for a heartbeat too long.

He should say something. He knows that much. Something appropriate for meeting a dead boy alive and grown, seemingly non hostile and even worried about Tim's state. Something that isn’t sorry or get away from me.

Instead, Tim stays silent. He knows what words to avoid, but it doesn't mean he know what to say.

On the chair beside the bed, the man – Jason – sighs.

It’s a heavy sigh, a little nervous. It doesn’t bode well.

“I spoke to the doctors,” Jason says. “And Bruce.”

Jason rubs his thumb along the seam of his jeans, almost absentmindedly. The movement draws Tim’s eye to his hands. Big. Scarred. Familiar in a way they shouldn't be.

"You lost your memory."

"Oh." Tim nods, a little dumb. This much he could tell from the hole in his head.

"But don't worry, we will help you."

"Okay."

“We agreed that you should know about your life,” Jason goes on, “but you’re in a bad state right now. We can’t stress you too much.”

“Okay?” Tim raises his eyebrows, because that sounds ominous and condescending in equal measure. “What’s so shocking about my life?”

Jason huffs, half a laugh, half exhale.

“You’d be surprised, sweetheart.”

The pet name comes out in same strange way it did before. Tim's mind seems to whirl with effort, but no clear memory spits out.

“Do you know what year it is now?” Jason looks at him more directly.

“2026,” Tim answers without thinking. That part is easy. The calendar on the wall says so. "So... ten years, huh? Yikes."

Jason ignores him.

“And how old are you?”

Tim glances down at himself like the answer might be written there. His body is larger than he remembers, more muscle, more scar. His face in the rearview mirror earlier had been unfamiliar, his hair longer, eyes tired. 

“Twenty seven,” he says finally, after a moment of calculation.

“Good. Good.” Jason nods. He relaxes a fraction, like they’ve just passed a test with shockingly low standards. “Do you know who I am now? Do you recognise me?”

“You’re Jason Todd,” Tim says carefully. The facts he does remember feel like artefacts in a museum, roped off and clearly labeled. He will always remember that about Jason. “Robin.”

“That’s only half the truth.” Jason’s mouth twists. “My last name isn’t Todd anymore.”

Tim frowns. That’s new. He tilts his head to the side, thinking.

“Jason Wayne, then? Did– did Bruce adopt you? After?” He grimaces. The missing word, after you came back from dead, stays unsaid between them. “Are we brothers? Step-brothers? Step-adopted-brothers?”

Jason snorts, almost startled.

“Baby,” he says, and this time there’s something soft in it, a real pet name spoken with affection. “We’re husbands.”

The word drops into the room like a stone into deep water. 

“Oh,” Tim says, dumbly. or a second all Tim hears is the echo of it, flying through his empty brain. Husbands. It wrecks havoc there, colliding with old images, Jason’s past as Robin, his future as Red Hood, headlines, bodies - and refusing to make sense. Husbands. This means... “Oh!”

He doesn’t mean to move, but his spine snaps straight, dragging him upright in the bed. Something yanks but not at his brain, not this time. Just the IV line. The thin plastic tube bites where it’s taped to his arm.

Jason watches him like he’s bracing for impact. Tim’s own heartbeat is suddenly everywhere, in his ears, in his throat, in the bruise-coloured smudges under Jason’s eyes.

We’re husbands.

Those words don't fit anywhere. 

Jason clears his throat and reaches into his jacket. 

“This is your phone,” he explains, as if that’s a reasonable follow-up to marital revelation. He holds it out, a simple model in a battered case Tim recalls having without remembering buying it. “You should search through it. Click on things, or something. See if you remember anything. Text your friends. Look through the photos.”

His fingers brush Tim’s as he passes the phone over. There’s a tiny spark at the contact, nothing dramatic, just enough to make Tim aware of every nerve in his hand.

“Your password is your birthday,” Jason adds. “Do you remember it?”

Tim rolls his eyes because if he doesn’t, he’ll break apart. “I didn’t forget everything.”

“I know,” Jason says quietly. “I just… This is something easy. To start with.”

Tim glances down at the screen. The black reflection of his own face stares back, warped.

“But… Thank you,” Tim adds, surprising himself with how much he means it. “Really. I… I’m sorry for acting so hostile. I’m sure you-”

Jason lifts a hand, stopping him. “You got your brain scrambled, babe. You’re allowed to be hostile. I expected worse, honestly.”

Something like a laugh tries to claw its way out of Tim’s throat. It comes out weird.

Jason inhales, sharp, like he’s psyching himself up.

“Oh, and… actually.” His gaze flicks to the phone, then back. “You might want to avoid looking at certain things.”

Tim stiffens.

“Like what?”

“Don’t watch the videos on your phone. Skip folders that seem too weird for you. There will probably a lot.” Jason’s tone changes on the word videos. “And it might be a good idea if you don’t scroll through our messages. It’s good to learn things, but it’s not good to overload yourself with too many… memories. At once.”

His eyes are steady. Pleading, a little. Not for him, Tim understands, but for himself.

Jason hesitates, then sighs. “Actually, we should delete it from your phone.”

Tim’s body goes cold and hot all at once. His fingers clamp around the phone so tight his fingers ache.

“What? No, you can’t do that!”

“Timmy, oh, Timmy,” Jason mutters, half exasperation, half something fond and hurt at once. “I know. I know how your brain works. You want to know everything and you want to know it now. But trust me. Healing is a process. And it’s a slow process. You can’t-”

Tim shakes his head and Jason stops talking.

“Can’t I?” He glares, clutching the phone closer to his chest like Jason already tried to snatch it.

“Give me your phone, sweetheart.”

The endearment is petty, thrown back like a weapon. Jason’s mouth twitches anyway, unwillingly entertained.

“Jason, you- I-” Tim flounders, not entirely sure what his plan was beyond this phone probably holds evidence and all the answers.

“Please,” Jason says, quietly enough that Tim almost doesn't hear him. “Do you trust me?”

“Absolutely not,” Tim fires back, too fast. His cheeks are hot. The truth there isn’t about Jason, it’s about the blank spaces in his own head, the way everything feels secondhand. He doesn’t trust himself not to make it worse.

Jason hums, like he expected that.

“Then it’s more than reasonable to delete those messages.”

“That’s illogical.”

“That’s perfectly logical,” Jason counters. 

Tim’s heart is pounding. Somewhere under the fear and anger, something else glows dimly. Curiosity. The violent urge to drag everything into the light, pick it apart, know. Their messages, their photos, their life, all archived in a device he can unlock with nothing more than a date. It's this simple! Tim can't wait to do this.

He wants to dive in until he drowns.

Jason must see it in his face, because he leans back slightly, as if giving the impulse more room to breathe. His jaw works.

“Look, I'll tell you the simple stuff first, so you're satisfied. Okay?” 

Tim nods, a little eager and way too anxious to hear it.

"We married four years ago. October. You wanted a halloween wedding."

Tim snorts. Jason continues. 

“We have an apartment. You and me. Across the river. You wanted to be away from Bruce, but we come here from time to time.”

“We… live together.”

“Yeah. Duh.” Jason shrugs, one shoulder rising and falling in a motion that tries to be casual and doesn’t quite make it. “We lived together. Past tense. For now.”

The distinction stings in a way Tim can’t name.

Jason continues, patient. “The doctors think- it’s not just them, okay, it’s me too, and Bruce. We all think it’s better if you stay here for a while. At the manor. With Alfred. With people who have dealt with, you know…” he waves a hand around Tim’s head, winces. “Brain stuff. Recovery. I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to screw it up and I don't want to stress you.”

Tim swallows. The idea of staying under Bruce’s roof again, a grown man, back in his old room like some long, complicated orbit finally completing, is equal parts comforting and suffocating.

“Or,” Jason says, forcing a crooked smile, “you can stay in the apartment and I can move out. Crash somewhere else until you’re ready to talk what's next. I’ll bring your things here either way. Clothes, laptop, your weird coffee machine-”

He feels a pang of guilt at Jason's words. As much as he still doesn't believe there's anything between them, no matter whether it's friendship or love or neither, Tim can't find himself to throw Jason out of his own house. He shakes his head and agrees to stay here for the time being. 

Silence settles again, this one less awkward, more tired.

“So,” Jason says quietly. “You stay here. I’ll bring your stuff over. I’ll be around. We take it one step at a time. You get to… re-meet everyone, re-meet me, on your schedule. No pressure. No sharing a bed with a stranger who allegedly used to be your husband.”

The word husband does that water-stone plunge again.

Tim looks down at the phone in his hands. At the familiar case, the hairline scratch on the corner, the smudge of something like paint or grease on the back. Evidence of a life his body remembers and his mind refuses to.

“Can I at least keep the chat,” he asks, voice low, “even if I don’t read it? Just… knowing it’s there.”

Jason closes his eyes for a beat, breathing through something. He sighs. Again, not a good sigh.

“Okay,” he says. “We compromise. I get a new number and we text from there. You don’t open the old one until you’ve had time to get your feet under you. If you do, if you binge everything and fry your circuits, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so’ in the most obnoxious way possible.”

“That’s hardly a deterrent.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jason scrubs a hand over his face. “Timmy… I’m trying not to scare you, alright? The man I am and the man you remember me as are two very different things.”

It feels like there’s more history under those words than Tim can handle.

He nods instead of answering. Jason, mercifully, lets it lie.

“I’ll talk to Alfred about your room,” Jason says, standing slowly, joints protesting. “Make sure you’ve got clothes that fit, chargers, all that. I’ll go by the apartment today and grab some essentials. If you think of anything specific you want, text Bruce for now. Or Dick. Or Alfred, and he’ll pretend he didn’t see it and then get you exactly what you wanted anyway. I'll text you when I get a new card.”

Tim stares at his hands. “And you’ll… go home.”

“Yeah.” Jason hesitates near the door. “I’ll go home. I’ll be back later tonight before patrol, if that’s okay. Maybe tomorrow, if it isn’t.”

“You asking for visitation rights?”

“Just practicing consent,” Jason says lightly, but there’s an uneasy twitch at the corner of his mouth. 

He reaches for the doorknob, but Tim stops him.

“Jason?”

Jason looks up.

He wants to ask a dozen questions about who he was, what they were, why he feels like a crime scene in his own skin.

He says none of that. For now, there's only one thing he needs to understand.

"How did we... You and I- How?"

"One step at the time, Timbit. It's a long story, anyway."

“Fine,” Tim grunts, resigned.

Jason smiles. It's a kind smile. Pretty. Tim likes seeing him smile even though he can't fully understand what's so appealing about it.  

"Take care of yourself, babe."

Then he goes, the door clicking softly shut behind him.

The room feels bigger once he’s gone. Emptier. The painting above the bed looms. The photos on the wall watch him. On his lap, the phone glows, waiting.

Tim holds it in both hands and stares at the black screen.

“We’re husbands,” he murmurs to the ceiling, as if saying it aloud might make it less absurd.

It doesn’t.

He unlocks the phone anyway.

So - unlocking the phone was a mistake. More or less. 

Tim scrolls through his conversation with Dick first, thumb moving on autopilot. It’s mostly memes. Very unflattering selfies or pictures of Bruce made using strange snapchat filters. There's also a lot of screenshots of headlines with increasingly unhinged commentary. Pictures of pets.

Apparently Dick has a bull terrier and her name is Haley. There’s a photo of her in a tiny BatSuit, tongue out, looking too cute. Tim feels… fond about it, maybe. Distantly. Like watching someone else’s life playing in a movie.

He scrolls further up and stumbles over the first picture of a cat.

His cat, it turns out.

The chat is full of him. A sphinx, all wrinkles, ugly and grumpy, offended at the concept of existing. Between one photo and the next Tim understands hat he loves this tiny creature. Half the media he’s sent to Dick is just the cat, either sprawled shamelessly on top of Jason’s chest, buried under blankets with only his ridiculous gremlin face peeking out, perched on a windowsill in a tiny knitted sweater like a true magnificent model he is.

Tim keeps scrolling, waiting for his brain to work. It doesn’t.

He can’t remember the cat's name.

The hole that leaves in his chest is stupidly big for what it is. A cat. He doesn’t remember his own husband, he reminds himself viciously. A pet shouldn’t matter. And yet here he is getting stuck on it, on this nameless, awkward little creature who clearly owns his camera roll and, by extension, his heart.

Tim decides it’s more than enough reason to text Jason. He navigates back to all chats and clicks the top one simply labeled as Jason. That's it. That's his mistake. The messages from yesterday load and before Tim can think himself out of it, he reads through them. 

[Jason, at 12:41 PM]: Morning love, enjoy your day off?
[Tim, at 12:45 PM]: Jay come back homeee I need you
[Jason, at 12:45 PM]: Didn't you get enough of me this morning? Did I not fuck you enough?
[Jason, at 12:46 PM]: Was I too soft on you?
[Jason, at 12:46 PM]: Always such a greedy, filthy thing. Such a brat for cock.
[Tim, at 12:50 PM]: Please? I was asleep so it doesn't count
[Jason, at 12:51 PM]: I'll be home in twenty. I want you on your knees, waiting by the front door.

There are more texts following, but his phone slips from his hand before he can get to them. It hits the floor with a crack. Heat climbs up his throat, all humiliating. Right. He wasn’t supposed to be looking at that. He wasn’t supposed to know. Just as he's about to freak out, his phone chimes and a new text pops up. Tim picks it up and clicks the notification, his hands shaking.

[Unknown, at 8:20 PM]: Hey dear, it's Jason. You can text me here from now on.

Tim lets out a deep breath. A part of him wants to snap on Jason, because he didn't warn him enough. He doesn't even know how to respond. Should he? Jason said to text him if he needs anything, and right now Tim needs all the answers, and then some. He starts with something simple.

[Tim, at 8:21 PM]: What’s our cat name?

The reply comes fast enough that it makes Tim’s stomach jolt.

[Jason 2, at 8:21 PM]: It’s Basil. By the way, I got your stuff. I'll drop it at the Cave and ask Alfred to bring it to you.

Tim stares.

[Tim, at 8:22 PM]: You’re shitting me.

A moment, then,

[Jason 2, at 8:23 PM]: Hey! It’s a perfect name. You chose it.

Tim is still trying to reconcile this version of himself, someone who apparently named a creature like this Basil, when another message comes through. This time it’s an image. His breath comes out shallow and weak without permission, lungs locking up as the loading wheel spins.

The photo loads.

Their cat scowls up at him from the screen, wrinkled face pinched into a permanent frown, ears too big, eyes narrow and dangerous. The sweater he’s in is the ugliest shade of mustard Tim’s ever seen.

He looks perfect.

Tim laughs, helplessly. It bursts out of him unrestricted and sudden. Something in his chest goes warm and sore at the same time.

[Jason 2, at 8:24 PM]: See? You’re making him upset. Also, I’m pretty sure he misses you. He's more pissy than usual.

His fingers hesitate over the keyboard before he writes, slowly, what he believes is true.

[Tim, at 8:24 PM]: I miss him too

The dots appear for a second, vanish, then return.

[Jason 2, at 8:25 PM]: Should I drop him off by the manor?

Tim pictures Jason at some apartment he doesn’t remember, trying to tame this ridiculous cat, and then walk up to the front door of Wayne Manor holding it like this is normal, like they are normal. The image rattles him.

His fingers move before he can think too much about it.

[Tim, at 8:25 PM]: It’s okay. I’m sure he likes it better at home.

Home. That word feels wrong in his mouth when it includes Jason. Or maybe it feels too right, which is worse.

He saves the photo of Basil anyway, and backs out of the chat.

His thumb drifts to the Photos app.

There are many folders, all labeled with precision of someone who has too much time on their hands - dates, locations, little colour-coded icons. Selfies. Rooftops. Cityscapes - pictures taken from high buildings, most of them in the pale blue hour before dawn. There are whole albums for “food,” “idiot (Dick),” “B,” and one simply titled “<3.”

He swallows and doesn’t open that one yet.

Oh. Right.

The videos.

Jason told him not to watch them under any circumstance. After seeing the messages, he's not sure he wants to. His brain imagines something far worse. Tim wonders why that is. Are they too affectionate for him to handle? Too domestic? Some kind of embarrassing montage of couple things he doesn’t remember signing up for? Full-on sex tapes?

The thought makes him cringe. He shoves his phone away and doesn't look at it for the rest of the night.

As promised, Jason brings over some of Tim's stuff, loaded in a large suitcase, but doesn't make any attempt at visiting him. It's Alfred that brings it upstairs the next morning and quietly unpacks it. Tim watches him do it in silence, his eyes half-open, body still buried under the blankets.

After he's done, Alfred comes back with a tray. Tim can't see it, but he assumes it's more bandages, some antiseptic, maybe even a new IV bag. Drugs, too. Breakfast, if Alfred's decided he can eat. 

“How are we feeling this morning, Master Tim?” he asks, opening one of the windows.

Tim licks his lips and clears his throat. He doesn't really know how he feels but tries to be honest.

“Like I got hit by a truck.”

"That would be accurate.” Alfred huffs.

He checks the bandages first, fingertips sliding at the edge of Tim’s hairline and unwrapping them with care. Tim flinches a little from pain, a hiss leaving his lips.

“Still tender?” Alfred murmurs.

Tim nods.

Alfred swaps the IV bag with a click, watches the drip chamber fill, then adjusts it so it’s steady.

“This is only for the morning,” he explains. "You can try walking after it's done."

Tim tries to smile. 

Alfred cleans the wound before fixing another bandage. The antiseptic stings. But the sting is grounding. Pain at least is something he remembers.

Tim swallows, then asks the question that’s been sitting in his mind since he woke up yesterday.

“Alfred.”

“Yes, Master Tim.”

“What happened to me?”

Alfred doesn’t stop moving. He sets the gauze down, pulls the blanket a little higher over Tim’s legs.

“You suffered a head injury,” Alfred says. “A concussion, and a contusion, bruising, near the temporal region. That is why you have the headache, and why you were confused.”

Tim’s fingers curl in the sheets.

“And the memory thing.”

Alfred’s eyes lift to his. There’s no pity in them. 

“Yes,” Alfred says. “Retrograde amnesia. Your brain has, for the moment, misplaced a portion of your autobiographical memory.”

Misplaced. Tim’s throat tightens.

“Will it go away?”

Alfred is quiet for a while, like he's not sure what to say, like he doesn't want to make it worse. 

“Sometimes memory returns gradually,” he eventually says. “Days. Weeks. Occasionally longer.” He smooths the tape down at Tim’s arm. “It may come back in pieces. Smells. Places. People. Or it may not return fully.”

“So I might just... never get it back?”

“I'm sure you will, Master Tim.” Alfred’s hand rests briefly on his shoulder. Warm, firm. “For now, let's make sure you are in a good condition and heal quickly.”

Tim squeezes his eyes shut. The inside of his skull feels swollen, bruised. Like something’s pressing at his brain from all sides.

Alfred resumes with tidying the medical supplies.

“You asked what happened,” Alfred continues. “Master Bruce has pieced together what he could. You were in the sewers.”

“Sewers?” Tim opens his eyes. 

“Yes. It appears you were after the Killer Croc.”

Tim frowns. He doesn’t remember the fight, but his body reacts anyway, a tightening in his chest, a cold flare of adrenaline, like the fear still ghosts in his muscles.

“According to Master Bruce,” Alfred says, “you engaged him alone. There were signs of a struggle at the scene. You were struck, thrown, rather. Several meters, perhaps. Your head impacted a concrete wall. Master Bruce says it's the most possible scenario.”

Tim winces instinctively, hand drifting toward his scalp as if he can remember the moment and live through it again.

“It appears you were concussed immediately,” Alfred continues. He gently guides Tim's hand away from his head. “Disoriented. Bleeding. Master Bruce found you near a manhole, crawling.”

Tim remembers it almost. He remembers being scared, dragging himself somewhere, trying to call for someone in hope they come. Did he call for Bruce? Jason?  

“Bruce found me… coming out?” Tim asks, voice thin.

“Trying to,” Alfred corrects. “He found you at the opening. He brought you home.”

Tim swallows. He tries to imagine it, Batman lifting him, the cape, the car, the Cave lights. He has now fragments, stone pavers, a stench of the sewers dragging behind, a weightlessness like falling, but they don’t connect. Someone cut the film and left the frames scattered.

“And Jason…” Tim’s mouth goes dry. “He brought my stuff yesterday.”

“He did,” Alfred says. “He was very worried. If it makes you feel better, Master Bruce and Master Jason handled the situation. Killer Croc was escorted back to Arkham this morning.”

Tim stares at the wall in front of him.

“Jason didn’t come in.”

“No.”

Tim doesn’t know what to do with that. The absence feels like a bruise that isn’t on his skin. He doesn’t have the memories that would make it make sense, only the sting of it anyway.

“You will be monitored today,” Alfred says. “No patrol. No screens. No work. Rest. Let your brain heal. Let the swelling settle. We will assess again this evening. And again tomorrow.”

Tim makes a noise that might be protest.

Alfred gives him a tired look.

“Now eat. Master Dick will come by later.” 

Dick shows up three hours later, holding a grocery bag and some more clothes. Tim waits for him in the living room, because Alfred has declared to move around the house and explore, see if Tim can remember any of the rooms in case he needs to navigate through them alone.

His hair is damp, curling where it falls on his shoulders. The shower happened after the IV came out, after Alfred made sure Tim is ready to leave the bed, taped it down, said 'good' like Tim was a child who’d behaved well. Then, worse, Alfred had helped him bathe. Worse than that, Alfred had been normal about it. Despite Tim feeling humiliated and too exposed, Alfred had acted like they were definitely worse cases. Which mean there probably had been.

Now Tim sits on the couch with a blanket over his legs and a new headache. He hears Dick long before he sees him. Bouncing footsteps down the hallway. Some laughter - Dick is greeting someone. Then, a whistle of some pop song Tim half-recognises but can’t place. More voices. Alfred, guiding Dick how to act. Then Dick’s head appears, peeking from around the archway with a grin.

“Hey, stranger,” Dick says. “You good?”

Tim’s mouth twists.

“Ten years of my life got lost in the drain,” he says from the couch. “So, no.”

“That’s my brother. Still an asshole.”

He tosses the grocery bag onto the coffee table, narrowly missing Tim’s feet. Something thumps inside.

“I brought gifts,” Dick announces. “Your favourite chocolate. Probably. It’s the one you yelled at Jason for eating last week, so I’m assuming you like it.”

Tim eyes the bag like it might explode.

“You say 'last week’ like that means anything to me.”

Dick frowns. Just a tiny tic, at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” he says. “Right. Sorry. Still recalibrating. But hey! At least you remember your big bro!”

He drops down onto the couch, close enough that Tim can feel the heat of him through the blanket. The cushions dip, setting off a small aftershock that rattles Tim’s ribs.

They sit in silence for a moment. The TV is off. Alfred said no screens, after all. 

“So,” Dick says eventually, kicking his shoes off and tucking one foot under his leg. “How’s the grand reintroduction to technology going? Jason said he gave you your phone back.”

Tim snorts.

“He handed it over like it was a loaded gun.”

“Accurate,” Dick says. “Have you shot yourself in the foot yet?”

“I looked at our chat,” Tim admits. “Yours and mine. It’s mostly memes and pet photos. You send too many dog pictures.”

“Haley,” Dick says, instantly defensive. “Is an angel. She has a tiny BatCape, Tim. Respect her service.”

Tim huffs, it almost counts as a laugh. He unlocks his phone, flips to the conversation, scrolls until a familiar wrinkled little gremlin appears.

“You know what’s worse? Apparently I send you cat pictures.”

“You do,” Dick says, leaning over to look. His shoulder brushes Tim’s. “Constantly. Basil has more outfits than I do.”

Tim stares at the photo - Basil glowering in a purple sweater, sitting regally on Jason’s lap. Jason is half out of frame, just a thigh and an arm and the edge of a smile.

“My husband,” Tim says, the word still weird in his mouth, “and my naked goblin cat. Why do I even have a cat?”

"Well, long story short..." Dick starts, wondering with a hum. "Jason really wanted a cat. You said no. But you brought home the ugliest one you could think of."

Tim giggles. This is something he certainly can imagine himself doing. He stares at the chat, at all the little timestamps. The history, neatly catalogued, like sediment. Layers of himself he can’t touch.

“Who am I?” he blurts.

Dick turns his head. “You’re Tim,” he says automatically. “My baby brother. A little shit, but still my brother.”

“No.” Tim drags his gaze away from the phone, finds a spot over the fireplace to focus on. The painting above is a family portrait, just Bruce and Alfred, brushstrokes thick enough to collect dust. “I mean… who am I now. To you. To… everyone.”

Dick quiets.

Tim presses on, words spilling fast before he loses his nerve.

“I know who I was before. When I was seventeen. The third Robin. The one who solved things and took notes and tried not to get in the way. But there’s a ten-year gap in my head, Dick. That’s almost forty percent of my life. I don’t know how I got from A to… whatever this is.” He gestures vaguely at himself. The sweatpants. The IV bruises in the crook of his arm. The ring on his left hand that he found among the things that Jason brought him and stupidly decided to wear, even if it means nothing for now. 

Dick studies him for a minute. The way his eyes move is like he’s assessing an injury. Tim resists the urge to cover his face.

“Okay,” Dick says slowly. “Small bites. We can do that.”

He shifts closer, foot nudging Tim’s ankle. It’s grounding. Annoying. Comforting.

"Ten years ago, what do you remember?"

"Nothing too crazy," Tim admits. "Red Hood appearing in Gotham. Batman chasing after him, either to lock him up or bring him home. I suppose the latter has happened."

Dick hums, thinking.

“It's more complicated than that,” Dick starts, “Later that year, Bruce went missing. Not for the first time, obviously, but this time was... We really thought he was dead. No body. No note. Everything Jason-related got pushed to the side because I had to step in as a Batman, and you... You went to find him.”

Tim nods. The memory is fuzzy, but there. A knowledge, not yet a full picture.

“You took it hard,” Dick says. “Understatement of the century. You were convinced he wasn’t dead, just displaced. Out of time, out of… something. And you were right, because of course you were, but nobody believed you. We did the whole ‘let's just grieve’ thing, and you did the whole ‘absolutely not’ thing.”

Tim’s mouth twists. That feels true in his bones.

“You left Gotham for a while,” Dick continues. “Chased leads. You spent a year trying to find him. I still don't know where you were. But you saved the world on the way, typical you, but you were… gone. From us. For a bit.”

Tim picks at a loose thread on the blanket. There’s an ache in his chest that has nothing to do with fresh bruises. “And then?”

“And then you were right,” Dick says simply. “You brought him home. That’s the short version. There was a lot of time travel and cosmic nonsense and something about cavemen being involved, but we’ll table that for now.”

That sounds like a lie and a joke at the same time. Tim lets it slide.

“After that, or right before” Dick continues, “you… didn’t want to be Robin anymore. Or, rather I took it away from you. I wanted us to be partners. You were too old to be a sidekick. Do you remember Damian?"

Tim shrugs. He does, but at the same time, he doesn't.

"He's Bruce's son. Popped up right as Bruce went missing. Took over as Robin. And you became Red Robin full-time for a while. Then just… Drake. And Red Robin again. It's honestly complicated. We didn't talk much then. But you stayed away from the family, rightfully so. It's okay now, but it wasn't always this way.

“In the meantime, you mended things with Jason,” Dick adds, a tiny smile tugging at his mouth. “Very aggressively. There were shouting matches. A morally questionable team-up with the Outlaws. Then more shouting. Then… not shouting.”

“Then we got married,” Tim says, because that’s the part that has a ring to it.

“Then you got married,” Dick confirms. “In Vegas, which Bruce still pretends he’s chill about, and also here a few weeks later where Alfred made everyone wear real suits and say real vows so he could cry and invite half of the people he knows.”

Tim tries to picture that, Bruce walking him down the aisle, Jason grinning, Alfred with a handkerchief. It's so vivid Tim’s chest hurts and his cheeks burn.

He presses a hand to his side, suddenly aware of the pull there. The dull, deep ache under his skin that moving still aggravates.

“What about this?” he asks, pulling up his shirt a little. “The wound. Is that from… all that? From chasing Bruce? From… later?”

Dick’s eyes flick down to his chest. His brow furrows.

“You’ve always had a scar there. You never told me the story.”

Tim looks down, fingers hovering.

“Always?”

“Okay, not ‘always,’” Dick amends. “For the last couple of years. You started wearing thicker shirts and Jason started glaring at anyone who mentioned it, so I figured it was not my business."

Tim grimaces. Curiosity gnaws at him.

“Do I have all my organs?” he asks.

Dick blinks.

“I- what?”

“I’m serious.” Tim pushes his shirt up just enough to see the scar again, the yellowing bruises that bloom around it like bad flowers. “Do I, like… have both kidneys? A liver? Lungs? I feel like someone should give me a list.”

“Tim, I’m not exactly sure-”

“So you don’t know.”

“No, smartass, I don’t know your organ inventory by heart.”

Tim chews his lip. “We could… text Jason,” he says cautiously.

Dick hesitates. “You sure?”

“No,” Tim says. “But I want to know.”

Dick nods, like that’s the answer he expected.

“Okay. Big brother Dickie will assist with your medically concerning inquiries.”

“Never call yourself that again.”

“Too late, I just did.”

Tim opens Jason’s chat. There's a few messages, mostly Jason wishing him good day or good night.

[Tim, at 1:13 PM]: Weird question but do I like, have all my organs

He stares at it, then adds,

[Tim, at 1:13 PM]: Like. In my body

Dick leans in, eyes wide. “You’re going straight for the thing, huh.”

“Shut up.”

The dots appear almost immediately.

[Jason 2, at 1:13 PM]: Define “all”

Tim’s stomach does something unpleasant.

There’s a long pause this time. Tim can almost see Jason reading, running a hand over his face, choosing a level of honesty.

[Jason 2, at 1:14 PM]: You’re missing a spleen, babe.
[Jason 2, at 1:14 PM]: You have been for a while.
[Jason 2, at 1:14 PM]: Before we got married. Long story. Not my story to tell unless you say it is.

Tim stares.

“Missing a spleen,” he reads aloud, flat.

Dick chokes.

“Dude. You didn’t tell me you were spleen-less. That’s, like, family-level info. I could’ve been making so many jokes.”

“Yeah, that’s probably why we didn’t tell you.”

Tim turns to his phone.

[Tim, at 1:15 PM]: I don’t have a spleen???

Jason replies with a single emoji, the little grimacing face, and then,

[Jason 2, at 1:15 PM]: You’re very functional without it, I promise.

Tim lets his head fall back against the couch. The ceiling above him is high and ornate and faintly water stained in one corner. “I’m thirty percent less complete than I thought I was,” he mutters.

“One, that’s not how percentages work,” Dick says. “Two, you’re still Tim. With or without spleen. Three, I’m texting Jason that I’m offended on your organs’ behalf.”

He actually does it.

[Tim, at 1:16 PM]: Hey, it's dick. wow rude. i thought we were close enough to know

Jason’s answer comes a moment later:

[Jason 2, at 1:17 PM]: Tim made me promise not to tell you because you’d get weird about it
[Jason 2, at 1:17 PM]: thank you for proving him right

Tim can’t help it. He laughs. It’s a sharp little burst that hurts his side and loosens something in his chest at the same time.

The sound is still dying out when another person appears in the room.

Bruce doesn’t enter so much as materialise. One second the doorway is empty, the next there’s a massive shape in it, broad shoulders, cozy sweater instead of kevlar, bare feet instead of boots, but still somehow Batman.

“Alfred said you were in here,” Bruce says, voice softer than the cowl version, but no less gravelly. There are new lines around his eyes. Or maybe they’re old and Tim just never noticed. "How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

He looks at Dick first, then Tim.

“I'm good,” Tim says. His voice comes out thinner than he’d like. "You should have announced yourself."

“I own the house,” Bruce counters. “But you’re right. I’m… relearning boundaries.”

It’s so absurdly self-aware that Dick makes a strangled noise.

Bruce crosses the room and lowers himself onto the couch. He sits on Tim’s other side, leaving just enough space that Tim could pull away if he wanted.

Tim doesn’t. His shoulder brushes solid muscle and the faint smell of Bruce’s soap, clean, unscented. Underneath it, coffee and almost wet smell of the Cave.

For a moment, nobody talks.

Bruce lets out a breath and, very carefully, drapes an arm along the back of the couch behind both of them. It isn’t a full hug. Tim can feel the radiating heat of his father’s body, the weight of his presence, and somewhere deep in him a little kid uncurls a fraction.

“You’re crowding,” Tim says, because the alternative is leaning into it and crying.

“I’m aware.” Bruce grumbles.

Dick snorts.

“He’s in a mood,” he tells Tim. “He’s been trying to keep everyone else away. Like some weird bat-dragon hoarding treasure.”

“I am not a dragon,” Bruce groans, dragging a hand down his face.

“You literally sleep on top of a pile of gadgets sometimes,” Dick says.

Tim lets their bickering wash over him. It feels… normal. Having a family. Different than before, but normal.

“Others?” Tim asks quietly, cutting through. “You said… everyone else?”

Bruce’s arm tenses behind him, then relaxes.

“They want to visit,” he admits. “Damian, Cassandra, Stephanie, Barbara. They’ve all been… concerned.”

Tim pictures them as names on a list, then as the hazy impressions his memory grudgingly offers - small pieces.

“I’ve asked them to wait,” Bruce continues. “To give you space. Fewer variables to process. Fewer expectations pressing on you while you recover.”

Tim’s throat tightens. “They’re not variables,” he says. “They’re… my family.”

“They’re both,” Bruce says softly. “And you are allowed to take this in small steps.”

“I can’t keep them away forever,” Tim says, a little hoarse.

“I know.” Bruce’s hand twitches, then settles, as if resisting the urge to ruffle his hair. “They’re impatient. Stubborn. They love you. It will be… difficult.”

Dick grins.

“Steph’s already plotted, like, three different infiltration routes. Cass is actually respecting your wishes. Barbara, on the other hand, keeps asking me for medical updates like every ten minutes.”

Tim’s chest aches. “I don’t remember them the way they remember me,” he admits.

“That’s okay,” Dick says immediately.

“It isn’t,” Tim says. “To them.”

Bruce shifts, his voice dropping even lower. “They know. They will adapt. We all will. You don’t owe us being fine.”

Tim stares at his hands. At the faint shaking in them. At the ring. At the phone, screen dark now, still warm from Jason’s messages.

“Two days ago,” Dick says, nudging Tim’s leg with his own, “you and Jason came over for dinner. You brought Basil in a bat sweater. It was okay, you know. Jason helped Alfred with dishes even though he yelled at him not to. You stole half my fries and pretended you didn’t. Then you kissed Jason on the back porch where you thought we couldn’t see. Your cat got lost, too. We spent the afternoon searching for him.”

Tim’s heart jumps. Bruce scowls at the memory.

“You were happy,” Dick says, simply. “You were tired and overworked and worried about twenty different things, but you were happy. That’s who you are now, too. Not just a kid, not just Robin. You're still Tim, and it's more than enough.”

Bruce’s hand finally moves. He rests it lightly on Tim’s head, weight barely there, easy to shrug off. Tim doesn’t. He leans back, just a little. Enough that he can feel them on either side. Dick warm and fidgety. Bruce solid and still. The fire pops quietly. Sometime later, somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock chimes the hour.

His stomach still aches. His head still swims when he thinks too far in any direction. His past is a gap. But for the first time since the accident, Tim feels something like… orientation. Not comfort. Just the knowledge that, here, in this house with these ridiculous, damaged people, he is not floating entirely on his own.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Small steps.”

“Baby steps,” Dick chimes.

“Small steps,” Bruce agrees.

Days pass strangely at the Manor. There are no sudden flashes of memory, no dramatic collapses in hallways, no more mentions of traumatic brain injuries. Instead, Tim collects himself in crumbs.

He learns he likes his coffee disgustingly strong and a little too sweet, because his body makes it that way without asking his brain. Three spoonfuls of sugar. No milk. The first morning he stands in the kitchen, staring at the mug in his hand, and realises he’s done it on autopilot.

“You always do that,” Alfred says, flipping pancakes. “You claim the sugar helps you think faster. I suspect it is simply an excuse. You like energy drinks more, but Master Jason helped you out of this habit, rightfully so.”

Tim drinks it. It tastes right. That scares him a little.

He also learns he’s terrible at sleeping. Even when he’s exhausted, he doesn't want to sleep. He drifts off in fragments. Twenty minutes here. Forty there. The first night Alfred catches him wandering the hallway past 3 A.M., he doesn’t scold.

“You used to patrol rooftops at this hour,” Alfred says quietly. “Your body has not yet realised it is permitted to rest.”

Alfred guides Tim back to bed. He doesn’t sleep.

He discovers people look at him like he’s both fragile and dangerous. Bruce doesn’t let him be alone for a second. Dick, on the other hand, treats him like someone learning to walk again and uses it as an excuse to make him laugh. Jason avoids him entirely and relies on texts, which tells Tim more than conversation would. Alfred treats him exactly the same as always.

He meets everyone properly over the next few days.

He meets Cass first. She just appears in the doorway of the gym while he’s sitting on the mat, legs stretched out, trying to see if his body remembers what his brain doesn’t. When he stands, she tilts her head, watching.

“Hi,” Tim says. He feels clumsy. “I’m… you know who I am.”

Cass nods.

“Tim,” she says, simple.

Her voice is softer than she looks. Or maybe he just never heard it enough before.

He likes being around her. She doesn’t ask him to remember things. She doesn’t fill the silence with stories of the person he was. She just watches him walk, spar, talk, and occasionally tells her own thoughts.

Later, Tim learns that she likes to dance. She shows him a video from her latest ballet performance. At some point, the camera suddenly moves away from the stage and lands briefly on the audience, on Bruce sitting rigidly in his seat, clapping carefully. Next to him is Tim, smiling at the stage. The sight of himself feels strange but it feels good.

Next comes Steph.

She kicks his door open with her foot on day seven, balancing a tray of snacks and a laptop under one arm.

“Room service!” she announces. “You look like you haven’t made a single bad decision in days and I’m here to fix that.”

She drops the tray on his bed, flops down like she owns the place, and grins up at him.

“So,” she says. “On a scale of one to ‘who the hell is everyone,’ how lost are you?”

“Eight,” Tim says truthfully. “Maybe nine.”

“Perfect.” She pats the bed. “Come on. I made a PowerPoint of everything you might want to know about everyone.”

She has, in fact, made a PowerPoint.

Tim laughs so hard he has to lie down.

They spend the afternoon with her narrating old stories. None of it is unpleasant. Steph skims over trauma, keeping the focus on the ridiculous - the time Red Robin accidentally got trending on social media because of some seemingly sexy photos, all his ex boyfriends, the prank war she and Jason waged over his coffee machine.

When she mentions his wedding, she pauses. “We’ll save that for later,” she says gently. “Small bites, yeah?”

He nods, grateful.

She also insists on painting his nails and, when he hesitates, adds, “Hey. You don’t owe past-you loyalty. If you hate anything I tell you past-Tim liked, you can veto it. You’re allowed to be different.”

That sticks with him long after the polish dries.

Damian makes himself known one day, at breakfast.

He slides into the chair across from Tim. A dog flops down under the table with a groan, massive head landing on Tim’s foot. The second pet - Alfred the cat, circles twice and curls up against Tim’s other ankle.

“The animals like you,” Damian observes. “They either have a poor taste or consider you weak enough to be their next victim.”

Tim blinks.

“Nice to meet you too.”

Damian studies him for a moment. He reaches into his school bag and pulls out a stack of notebooks. They’re meticulously labeled in tiny handwriting. Batman/Robin Cases: Past Year. Active Rogues: Current Status. Intel Summary: (STUPID) League Stuff. He drops them in front of Tim with a thud.

“I compiled these in the event that you refused to rest,” Damian says. “But given the circumstances, they will serve as a reference. Father says you will not return to the field until you are cleared. However, your brain may as well remain useful.”

Tim runs his fingers along the spines. Something in him lights up at the sight of neat columns of notes, diagrams, colour-coded tabs.

“You made me case files,” he says, a little stunned.

“I made Batman case files,” Damian corrects. Then, grudgingly, adds, “You are… It would be inefficient to leave you uninformed.”

Damian insults him at least three times a day. But he also knocks on Tim’s door at sunset and says, “I’m walking the dog. Are you coming, or what?”

They walk the manor grounds in long, looping circuits. Damian points out where the new fencing is going, where the wild rabbits hide, where he’s hidden training dummies in the trees. He also, unprompted, tells Tim about patrol. About Batman and Robin, about rooftops and close calls and quiet nights when nothing happens.

“You disapprove of some of Father’s methods,” he says, tossing a ball for Titus. “You and Todd are infuriatingly aligned on certain issues. I find that moderately respectable.”

“Jason and I agree on something?” Tim asks, trying to keep his voice even.

“Unfortunately,” Damian says. 

Tim finds he likes watching Damian paint. The kid, a teenager, now, taller than Tim recalls, is calmer with a brush in his hand. His insults soften by ten percent. He still critiques Tim’s colour choices, but there’s something almost fond about it.

“Your composition is chaotic,” Damian says, arms splattered with blue. “But not without potential.”

“Thanks,” Tim says, rolling his eyes. “That’s exactly how my therapist described me.”

“You need a better therapist.”

The days settle into a pattern.

He wakes up late, because his body is still catching up. Alfred feeds him. Bruce lurks at the edges of rooms, pretending to read reports while obviously just… being there. Dick drags him into the gym and talks about Barbara. Cass steals him for naps. Steph shows up with new TV dramas to watch. Damian drops more intel. 

And every morning, without fail, his phone buzzes at around 8 A.M.

[Jason 2, at 8:01 AM]: Good morning, my love.
[Jason 2, at 8:01 AM]: Have a good day.

Always that, at minimum. Sometimes Jason adds an extra line or two.

[Jason 2, at 8:00 AM]: Good morning, my love.
[Jason 2, at 8:01 AM]: Have a good day.
[Jason 2, at 8:02 AM]: Do you need anything? I'll be working till 5 today, but then I'll be free to get you anything you want.

or:

[Jason 2, at 8:00 AM]: Good morning, my love.
[Jason 2, at 8:03 AM]: Have a good day.
[Jason 2, at 8:03 AM]: Took Basil to the vet yesterday. He bit me AND the vet and then bit me some more. He sleeps on your pillow now. Poor thing. Here's a photo.

or:

[Jason 2, at 8:00 AM]: Good morning, my love.
[Jason 2, at 8:00 AM]: Have a good day.
[Jason 2, at 8:02 AM]: It's B's birthday soon. We usually buy him something stupid but it's your call. I'm thinking a gun this year. 

Tim reads every one.

He doesn’t always answer.

Sometimes he types and deletes responses three times over. You don’t have to call me that becomes how is Basil doing becomes a blank screen again. He stares at the blinking space cursor until his chest aches, then locks the phone and shoves it under his pillow like that makes the messages less real.

When he does reply, it’s small things.

[Tim, at 8:23 AM]: let's just buy him a funny shirt

or:

[Tim, at 2:20 PM]: send me a nice picture?

Jason always obliges. He sends photos of dusty boots, Basil sitting amongst plants, whatever he's cooking or eating, sometimes even a selfie. Tim saves all of the photos, mostly out of habit, but never listens to the voice messages Jason sends nor watches the videos. He’s not ready to hear that voice in his ear again, not when it still curls around strangely in his memory. He only lets the messages stack up quietly, a two columns of blue and mostly grey. Bruce sees him staring at his phone one evening and says nothing, just rests a hand lightly on his shoulder as he passes.

“You don’t have to respond to everything,” Steph tells him, when she calls him on Tuesday. “But you’re allowed to, too, you know.”

Cass just looks at the screen once, looks at Tim, and sighs.

At night, when the manor is quiet and all the ghosts settle in their separate rooms, Tim lies in the dark and scrolls through the morning texts again. They’re all variations on a theme. Good morning, my love. Have a good day.

He doesn’t remember falling in love with Jason.

But every day, in these small ways, Jason makes it obvious that he remembers loving Tim.

And that might be the thing that scares Tim most, how much he finds himself wanting to grow into the version of himself that deserved those texts in the first place.

​​Of course, Tim gets bored of this routine quickly. He thinks about all the work he could be doing. Reports. Audits. Something useful, productive. Something to fill the space. He doesn’t like not doing anything. All he does in the evening is scroll through his phone, either looking at his vacation photos or reading old notes, mostly filled with grocery lists. 

It’s already late when Tim gets back home after a run, smelling like rain.

Late enough that the rest of the family have long gone out, leaving the Manor utterly dark. Inside, the air is warm, too warm, heavy. Coming home sticky, drenched, almost feverish from the heat, it always makes him feel a little on edge. That much he knows about himself, and it's nice to see that some things never change.

Tim drags himself across the floor toward his bedroom, body sagging under its own exhaustion, knees almost buckling. His mind is already halfway to sleep, picturing the relief of falling face-first into the mattress, shoes and all, but his body refuses to let him.

He’s too soaked with sweat, his skin tacky under his clothes, his hair plastered damp against his forehead. His legs ache from the strain of climbing the stairs all day, or sitting on the couch for so long, muscles wound tight. His lips are bitten raw from worrying, swollen and ugly. They’ll get chapped and gross the next day. He can’t bring himself to care.

His chest feels heavier than it should, thick with something he can’t quite exhale. He could call it a normal night, convince himself this is his new routine, nothing worth mentioning. But the truth is, to call it normal would be a lie. He should be out, helping the others, doing something that actually counts. 

Tim strips in silence, without thought. He sheds the rest of his clothes in stiff motions, kicking them into a corner where they collapse in a heap, sticky and clinging no longer. He doesn’t look at it, doesn’t care if his shirt creases too much. His fingers fumble with the knobs in the bathroom, clumsy with fatigue, and the pipes creak. The cold water bursts first, making his teeth clench, and then the heat surges, rushing almost to boiling. Tim doesn’t bother adjusting.

He steps into the spray and lets it hit him, spreading across his shoulders, streaming down his chest and stomach until the tile below is slick and hissing with steam. Tim rests his forehead against the wall, eyes shut, breath tearing in through his teeth. He doesn’t touch himself. Doesn’t scrub right away. Doesn’t move at all. Just stands there, taking the weight of the water like it might strip him bare, like it could show whatever past clings beneath his skin. 

His hands twitch at his sides, wanting to make fists, still wanting to do something, to run until the noise of his breaths matches the pounding in his chest. Instead, he is forced into stillness. The water burns and freezes by turns, searing his raw knuckles, setting over the old bruises blooming across his ribs. Tim starts to scrub only when he can’t stand it anymore, dragging soap over his body until his hands ache with the effort. He scrubs until his skin is raw, until it feels too much swallowed by the heat. Steam swallows everywhere else, thick enough that he could disappear inside it, thick enough that he almost hopes he will. 

Afterward, Tim moves through his routine without much care. He towels himself dry in rough, distracted strokes, leaving his hair dripping, damp curls clinging to the back of his neck. He pulls on whatever is the nearest, sweatpants, an old shirt that smells faintly of dust. His body still buzzes, still awake. There is no name for what it wants. No room for it, either.

In bed, Tim scrolls through his phone, opening and closing apps without really checking them. News. Email. Surveillance updates. Group chats. One message from Dick asking to postpone their meeting, left on read. A few memes from Steph, ignored. He opens a blank notepad and writes nothing, just stares until the screen dulls and goes dark, reflecting only his face back at him. He goes back to the photos, almost closes the app.

He already looked through everything, and he still hasn't got his memories back. Well, not everything, actually. There are still pictures of Jason in his gallery, that are too much to look at, and a video folder he's been told not to touch. Tim clicks it, out of curiosity, maybe. 

All of the thumbnails are black. Rows and rows of nothing, each little rectangle identical, time stamps and file sizes the only difference. It’s strange, he is way too competent for this to be some kind of mistake. The videos aren’t very long. The shortest is a little under thirty seconds, the longest almost two minutes. Bite-sized, short. It should make them feel less intimidating. It really, really doesn’t.

Tim clicks absentmindedly on one near the middle, not expecting too much. He doesn’t know anything about Jason, besides that he loves cats and is no longer evil and somehow he managed to convince Tim into marrying him.

The video opens to a blank screen. The first ten seconds are just that – dark, nothing, not even an audio. Tim realises it’s muted, a little crossed-out speaker icon glowing in the corner.

He taps it without thinking.

It's a mistake.

Sound slams into him.

A loud cry rips through the quiet of his room, so sudden and loud that Tim jerks. His thumb fumbles with the volume, nearly sending the phone flying as he scrambles to crank it down. His pulse goes wild. His skin prickles. For one disorienting heartbeat he thinks someone’s in the room with him, crying from pain.

Then his brain catches up.

It’s a video of them.

Fucking.

The word arrives in his mind awful and true.

The screen is a mess of motion at first, the camera shaking as it moves to the side. There’s a blurred impression of skin, of sheets, of too-close light smearing across the lens. Then a hand, big, familiar, Jason's, reaches in and rights it. The image steadies enough for Tim to recognise his own back. Bare. The line of his spine a pale, clean curve. Shoulders tense. His body is braced on hands and knees on a mattress he imagines only as abstract white, here, it’s rumpled and shadowed, his head pushed in between the pillows.

Tim watches his own muscles flex when he shifts. It feels like looking at a stranger wearing his skin.

A large hand appears at the top of the frame, gripping the back of his neck, dragging his head up so he's no longer drooling on the pillows. The fingers move, possessive, sliding down slowly to rest over the slope of his shoulders, then lower still. They stop at the curve of his ass and squeeze, hard enough that even in the dark Tim can see the skin answering, blooming red where those fingers hold on.

The whine that leaves his past self’s throat is unmistakably his. Half-gasp, half-beg. He feels it echo in his own ears now, like a curse.

“Fuck. So tight for me. You like this, slut?”

Jason’s voice. Low, rough, right next to the mic. There’s a hint of a laugh buried in it, but it’s ruined by how wrecked he is, breath uneven.

Heat punches through Tim, violent and bright. His ears burn. The word slut is like a slap and a caress at the same time. He doesn’t know what to do with the fact that he apparently liked hearing it. That somewhere, sometime, he taught Jason to call him that.

“Jason. Please, Jason–”

His own voice answers, gasping, spilling the name over and over like a mantra, like the only word that he knows how to say. He sounds absolutely insane. Gone.

The camera moves again, the angle shifting, Jason fumbling with it in the middle of everything else. For a handful of seconds the screen is just motion and noise. A slap of skin, the creak of the bed, the rush of ragged breathing. Tim’s imagination fills in more than the picture does.

It’s not as explicit as normal porn is. The focus is bad, the light too dim, the frame slightly off. But the purpose is unmistakable. The rhythm, the way Tim rocks forward with each thrust and still drags himself back for more, the breathless little sounds he makes, those betray everything.

The camera dips lower. Tim holds his breath, every muscle going rigid. The footage stutters, showing only quick flashes, the slope of his lower back and ass, the shadowed hollows where his body opens, the slick shine of skin where they fit together. 

He drops the phone.

It slips from his hand, clatters against his chest, bounces off the blanket, and hits the mattress with a flat thud. The screen goes face-down, next sounds muffled. For a second the room is nothing but the phantom echo of his own voice, looping in his head-

Jason, Jason-

-and the heavy pound of his heart.

Tim shrieks.

The sound that tears out of him is high and ridiculous and absolutely genuine. His whole body jerks away from the phone like it bit him. He kicks out instinctively, sending it skidding farther across the bed until it bumps into the headboard.

It takes him a few minutes to claw his way back into himself.

He sits there, hunched over, breathing like he just sprinted across rooftops. His face is hot. There’s a burn behind his eyes that he refuses to acknowledge. His palms are damp. His heart is beating out of his chest, choking him in his throat.

His body hasn’t gotten the memo that he’s horrified. He can feel the heat low in his spine, the uncomfortable insistence of arousal pressed against the inside of his sweatpants. That makes it worse somehow. Like he’s betraying himself. His nerves remember things his brain has lost, and of all other things, they’re choosing that to be loyal to.

He scrubs both hands over his face, fingers digging into his eyes until all he sees are stars.

It’s just a video, he tells himself. Just a sex-tape. It doesn’t mean anything about you now.

Except it does. It means there is a version of him, recent, who not only knew Jason, but trusted him. Gave himself over in ways Tim can’t imagine doing with anyone. Who let himself be touched like that, talked to like that, and responded by saying Jason’s name like it was the only word left in the language.

Tim wants to crawl out of his own skin.

He reaches for the phone again, cautiously, like approaching a gun. The video is still playing when he flips it over. The sound is a faint, a mix of him and Jason breathing like an echo from another life. He stabs at the screen with his finger until it stops.

The image freezes on a blurred frame of his own ass, glistening with sweat and lube and god knows what else, Jason’s hand around his waist.

He tips his head back against the headboard, staring up at the ceiling. His heart is still pounding. The ghost of Jason’s voice curls behind his ribs, refusing to leave.

"You like this, slut?"

Tim shuts his eyes. His cheeks burn. He spends a while just breathing.

In. Out. In. Out. 

He lasts maybe ten minutes before the humiliation turns into anger.

Not at Jason, exactly. At himself. At the version of him that let this happen and then had the audacity not to leave a manual. At the present-tense him who has no clue how to react to any of it.

His hands move before his brain can talk him out of it. He flips the phone over, clicking his way into messages on muscle memory. 

[Tim, at 9:42 PM]: WHAT THE FUCK YOU PERVERT

He hits send.

The moment it leaves, panic lances through him. He wants to throw the phone across the room, to run, to feign coma. Instead he locks his jaw and watches the screen.

Jason replies quicker than Tim thinks is fair.

[Jason 2, at 9:43 PM]: Hello, my love. I see you’ve discovered our little collection.

Tim makes a strangled sound.

[Tim, at 9:43 PM]: our little collection ? ?

As if they’re post stamps. Or rare coins. Not… that.

[Tim, at 9:43 PM]: LITTLE??? JASON, THERE ARE HUNDREDS

He sends it before he can soften it to something sane like several.

The dots appear, disappear, then appear again.

[Jason 2, at 9:44 PM]: Hush, dear. I told you not to watch them, did I not? And yet you decided to act like a brat.

The word brat hits something low and electric in him that he absolutely refuses to examine. His face is red. His fingers spasm over the keyboard, deleting three different replies before one survives.

[Tim, at 9:45 PM]: I have MEMORY LOSS. I was INVESTIGATING.

The three dots come back almost at once.

[Jason 2, at 9:45 PM]: You were investigating your own ass on my dick?

Tim stops breathing.

He throws the phone onto the bed like it’s suddenly molten and then immediately dives after it, grabbing it back with shaking hands, as if someone might walk in and see the message just floating there in the air.

[Tim, at 9:46 PM]: YOU CANOT JUST SAY THAT TO A BRAIN INJURY PATIENT
[Jason 2, at 9:46 PM]: There you go. You remembered you’re a little shit. Prognosis improving already.

He types, erases, types again quickly.

[Tim, at 9:47 PM]: i hate y

The answer comes back like Jason was waiting for it.

[Jason 2, at 9:47 PM]: No you don’t.

Tim glares at those three words longer than is reasonable. Another message pops up before he can force himself to reply.

[Jason 2, at 9:47 PM]: Did you like it? Which one did you watch? The latest one in the office?

Tim’s soul leaves his body.

[Tim, at 9:48 PM]: WHAT THE FUCK JASON
Tim, at 9:48 PM]: HOW MANY ARE THERE? WHOSE OFFICE?
Tim, at 9:48 PM]: NO, don't answer that

He fumbles, hitting send with his knuckles.

[Jason 2, at 9:48 PM]: Answer the question, Timmy. Did you like it? Be honest. You can say no, and I will never ask again.

He reads it ten times.

The nickname. The be honest. The very casual, horrifying implication that there are enough videos to sort into latest at the office and god knows what else. Parking garage? Rooftop? Shower? His brain supplies possibilities in a rush.

He can feel his pulse in his throat. In his fingertips. Lower, annoyingly.

Tim stares at the text box. He types no. The word sits there, small and wrong. His thumb stops before he hits send.

He deletes it. He swallows, hard. His cheeks are hot. Shame and want tangle in his chest, indistinguishable.

He types, with hands that tremble just enough to annoy himself.

[Tim, at 9:51 PM]: Yes

He stares at it.

Then, before he can talk himself out of it, he adds a second message.

[Tim, at 9:52 PM]: I hated that I liked it

Both go at once. Two pale blue bubbles floating up into the chat, little traitors.

The reply takes longer this time.

Long enough for Tim’s heartbeat to drop from nervous to an absolute fire alarm. Long enough for the sick, swooping lurch of what if he doesn’t answer to start at the base of his spine.

[Jason 2, at 9:55 PM]: Thank you for telling me.

Tim blinks at the screen.

Another bubble arrives.

[Jason 2, at 9:55 PM]: I’m not mad at you for watching them. I’m worried. That you’re pushing yourself. That you’ll see things you’re not ready to see and decide you hate me for it.

Tim swallows around the lump in his throat.

[Tim, at 9:55 PM]: i don’t hate you

It feels dangerously close to a confession.

[Jason 2, at 9:55 PM]: I know. You’d use more punctuation.

Tim snorts, helpless. A new message follows immediately, like Jason is afraid if he waits, Tim will retreat.

[Jason 2, at 9:56 PM]: For the record, you’re allowed to like what you like. Even if you don’t remember learning to like it with me. You’re allowed to be freaked out and turned on at the same time. I’m not going to judge you for that. Or punish you in any way.

The word punish sends a shiver through him that has nothing to do with fear, but Tim absolutely skips past it.

[Jason 2, at 9:58 PM]: I meant what I said earlier. We go at your pace. If you want, you can delete every video. If you want, I’ll keep them somewhere else and never mention them again. If you want, someday, we can watch them together and you can yell at my questionable camera angles.

Tim stares at the last line a long time. He doesn't answer, this time.

[Jason 2, at 10:00 PM]: No more solo viewing parties for now, okay? 

Tim makes a face at the screen.

His stomach flips.

Tim throws the phone down onto the bed again, but this time it’s more like he’s putting distance between himself and the weight of his own decisions than fleeing a crime scene. He flops back, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes until the afterimage of the chat burns red and white behind his lids. He feels terrible. Absolutely terrible.

He doesn’t remember their wedding. Their history. Their first kiss. Their first everything.

But he remembers, now, what his body does at the sound of Jason’s voice. What it did under his touch.

Silent, in the quiet room full of someone else’s life, Tim listens to his heart pounding and tries not to think too hard about how easy that answer had been.