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It’s a split-second decision.
Jason sees the gun, judges the caliber, and decides to take the bullet. Why not? It won’t be enough to pierce his armor, but the impact will probably break a rib, maybe two—and that will be worth a visit from Tim.
So Jason lets the nobody mid-level dealer who thinks he’s so slick, hanging back while his friends face Jason directly, shoot him.
The bullet hits like a truck. Jason feels the pain of impact. Imagines he can hear the crack of bone. Has the breath knocked out of him.
All of that, he expected. The sharper, deeper pain that blooms on his other side half a second later?
Not so much.
For a few racing heartbeats, he thinks he missed one—there’s another gun, a better one, someone hiding better than the genius who broke Jason’s ribs—and then he realizes.
It’s not his pain.
Shit. Shit shit fuck, Jason let himself get shot and the pain bled through the bond and distracted Tim, who was also in a fight because this is Gotham and there’s always a fight, and Tim got injured—for real injured, not a measly broken rib—and—and—
And it’s Jason’s fault.
Fuck.
He’s officially no longer having fun.
He ends the fight he’s in (bang bang bang and that’s three dead dealers who will never break his rules again) and…hesitates.
Jason wants to run straight to Tim. He wants to swoop in and save him, make up at least a little for getting him hurt in the first place.
But he’s got Tim’s voice in his head saying You know ignoring your wounds instead of treating them makes you a liability. Reluctantly, he admits to himself that running all over Gotham aggravating his broken ribs won’t do Tim any favors. Especially not when he can still feel the strain in his wrists and arms that means Tim’s still fighting, wielding that bo staff of his with force.
Jason’s already gotten Tim seriously injured tonight. He doesn’t need to make it worse.
So he doesn’t run off to find Tim. He switches his helmet’s internal comm to one of the Bat channels and says, “Oracle.”
“Red Hood,” she replies after only the most miniscule hesitation.
“Red Robin needs immediate extraction,” he reports directly. Usually, on the rare occasion he contacts the Bats, he makes them ask why he’s calling, just to be a jackass. But the world is going fuzzy on him, and he has the sickening feeling Tim’s running out of time. “He took some kind of major wound to the torso, and his fight’s ongoing.”
Bruce would ask a million questions, but Babs is better than that. She’s silent for a few (very long) seconds, but that’s just because she’s getting shit done. When she comes back, all she says is,
“Nightwing’s on his way. ETA four minutes.”
Okay. Okay. Four minutes is a small eternity during a fight, but Gotham’s a big city. That’s a hell of a lot better than it could be.
“Thank you,” he says.
Oracle’s pause this time is probably because she’s surprised. Jason doesn’t think he’s thanked any of the Bats (except maybe Tim) since he came back.
…Has he thanked Tim? All those times Tim’s shown up to help him, to bolster him through the bond and speed his healing with skin contact…to give him the hug Jason was too embarrassed to admit he needed…has Jason ever thanked him for it? Even once?
Or was he too busy playing detached to show even a lick of gratitude for his soulmate? His soulmate he might’ve just gotten killed?
Fuck.
“Do you need extraction?” Oracle asks pointedly. Ha. Maybe him thanking her made her think he’s dying. (Again.)
“No,” he says. He does have a major problem, but being a selfish dumbass who puts his soulmate’s life at risk isn’t something backup can help with.
But speaking of his soulmate…
“I’ll meet them at the Cave,” he decides, and clicks out of the channel before Babs can respond. He’s only been to the Cave twice in the last three years, and both times he was brought there by force. He doesn’t wanna know how she’d respond to him visiting willingly.
But Tim doesn’t deserve to go without the comfort of the bond just because Jason doesn’t deserve to have it. It’s his turn to help Tim heal.
*
Tim wakes very, very slowly, marinating in a kind of comfort he’s never felt before.
For some indeterminable stretch of time, he thinks he’s curled up in a cloud.
Then, gradually, his mind clears, and he realizes what he’s feeling is a combination of some really good drugs and the connection of his soul bond. The warmth he’s been enjoying is mostly coming from Jason, who’s spooning him closely—knees bent up behind Tim’s, arms around his waist, face tucked into his neck.
“Wow,” Tim slurs. This feels awesome.
“Tim?” Jason murmurs. “You awake?”
Even though he just spoke a second ago, Tim can’t seem to get his mouth working again. He settles for a sound he hopes is affirmative…and it must be, because Jason’s arms tighten around him and he lifts his head away from Tim’s neck long enough to call, “Alfred!”
Then he ducks back down and says, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Tim.”
“S’okay,” Tim manages. He doesn’t know what Jason’s apologizing for, but he’s sure it’s not anything too bad.
“It’s really fuckin’ not,” Jason mutters.
Tim falls back to sleep before he can ask any questions.
*
So Tim got stabbed through the torso. By a sword. Again.
The good news is, he didn’t have another spleen to lose, so it’s not nearly as bad an injury as it could’ve been. The crazy wanna-be ninja with the sword didn’t get him in exactly the same place as the Widower did, but he got him close enough that the new scar is going to bisect the old one. The empty space where his spleen used to be took the brunt of it.
The bad news is, Tim didn’t do so hot in the fight after getting stabbed, so he’s also got a recently-relocated knee and a fading concussion. Once the drugs start to wear off, he’s in a lot of pain.
Jason stays with him, curled on a cot in the Cave’s medbay, for two full days. During that time, he apologizes to Tim thirty-seven times (Tim counts) and gets in four fights with Bruce.
Tim keeps expecting him to storm out, but he never does. He leaves the medbay to use the bathroom and to shower, and that’s it. When he eats (only ever when Alfred brings food and glares at him), he does so in a chair at Tim’s bedside, eating one-handed while the other remains clasped with Tim’s.
He’s downright devoted.
Tim doesn’t want to question it—he’s too grateful for the comfort of the bond—but he’s worried about all the apologies. Once he’s lucid enough for real conversation, he starts asking why Jason’s apologizing, but Jason always dodges the question.
At least until the end of the second day, when Alfred declares he’s mended enough to downgrade from the major, mind-fogging painkillers to the over-the-counter kind.
Apparently that’s what Jason’s been waiting for, because Alfred has no sooner walked away than Jason gets out of bed.
“Okay,” he says. He crosses the medbay to a chair in the corner, piled with something quickly revealed to be his Red Hood uniform. Revealed because he’s getting dressed, for the first time after staying in Tim’s bed stripped down to his boxer briefs for the last two days. “I’ll get out of your hair. Sorry.”
Tim carefully, slowly eases himself upright…and Jason darts back to his side, half-dressed, to raise the back of the gurney for him.
“Thanks,” he says, settling back against it with honest gratitude. “Before you go, are you gonna tell me what you’re apologizing for?”
Jason grimaces and looks away.
Tim gives him a few minutes, and then prompts, “Jason?”
Jason swallows convulsively. His jaw is tight with some kind of emotion Tim can’t read.
“You got hurt,” he says eventually. “It was my fault.”
Tim’s heart hurts.
“Jason, no,” he says. “It wasn’t—”
“It was,” Jason insists. “You got stabbed like half a second after I broke my ribs. The pain distracted you, yeah?”
Well, yes, but—“That doesn’t make it your fault! It’s just the nature of having a soulmate while acting as a vigilante. It easily could’ve happened the other way around.”
Jason’s jaw shifts. He takes a deep, trembling breath. Eventually, he meets Tim’s eyes again.
“Yeah,” he says, voice low and pained. “Except you wouldn’t’a got stabbed on purpose.”
…What?
Tim stares at his soulmate in silence for several long seconds, trying and failing to kick his mind into gear—to process that.
Finally, giving up on rational thought, he chokes out, “What?”
“I saw the gun,” Jason says. “Saw it comin’ and let it happen. Just like I let that knife get through my guard three months ago, and walked into that concussion two months before that.”
Tim—Tim doesn’t—“I don’t understand.”
“Yeah.” Jason laughs humorlessly. “You also didn’t understand why I kept not treating my injuries, right? Why I kept letting shit get so bad you had to come hold me, let the bond help me heal until I was out of the woods?” He shrugs, a sharp, jerky move. “It’s ’cause that’s what I wanted. For you to hold me. To just…fuckin’ have you, at least for a couple minutes.”
Tim stares.
He doesn’t know what to think. He can’t think. He can’t make sense of this.
“So, yeah,” Jason says eventually, once the silence has stretched on uncomfortably long. “I’m so fucking sorry, Tim. It won’t happen again.”
He takes a step back and starts to turn, and Tim lunges forward on instinct, meaning to catch his arm and keep him here until Tim can figure this out—
But Tim forgot how this whole thing started. Pain flares up and down his side, across his torso, across his shoulders, and his bad knee gives out beneath him.
Fortunately, Jason catches him before he can hit the floor. Tim latches on to his neck.
“Don’t go,” he orders.
“Okay,” Jason says immediately. He sounds shaken. “Okay, Tim, I won’t. Let’s get you back in bed, okay?”
Tim’s everything hurts. He doesn’t argue.
He does, however, shift pointedly over as soon as he’s seated. The gurneys in the Cave are large; there was more than enough room for them to spend the past two days spooning, and there’s plenty of room to sit side by side.
Jason doesn’t take the silent invitation.
So Tim makes it more explicit. “Sit.”
Slowly, gingerly, like he’s expecting Tim to order him away at any second, Jason does. Once he settles, Tim curls his fingers around his wrist.
“I need to think,” he says. He tells himself his voice is unsteady because of the adrenaline from his near-fall. “So just…let me do that, okay?”
Jason nods, but doesn’t speak.
Okay.
So.
Wow.
Jason…has been deliberately harming himself, has been letting himself get injured and then purposely not treating those injuries, all for the sake of getting some temporary, often grudging, physical contact. From Tim.
Okay. Well.
Hm.
Tim—Tim wants to think about this. He wants to be able to dissect Jason’s motives and his own feelings about them, the way he would pull apart a difficult case. He wants to be detached and logical and pragmatic.
He can’t.
A few months after Tim first became Robin, Poison Ivy escaped Arkham. In the process of capturing her, Tim took some cuddle pollen right to the face. He then spent several hours in the Cave, wrapped in Bruce’s arms, being carried—held close and safe, cuddled—while Bruce synthesized an antidote.
Tim enjoyed it. Not the icy, creeping need the cuddle pollen caused in him, but the cure? The cure was amazing. Multiple hours of sustained physical contact, an hours-long hug—it was the best thing ever.
The next time Poison Ivy got out, Tim let her get him with cuddle pollen.
…Then, immediately mortified by his own neediness, he said nothing. He didn’t let Batman know he’d been dosed. Once he and Batman got back to the Manor, he retreated to his room, alone. He spent hours curled up in bed, shivering, muffling his sobs with a pillow. Hours of misery, of hating his own desperation, stewing in his guilt for trying to trick Bruce into giving him affection that rightfully belonged only to Dick and Jason.
He waited until he heard Bruce go to bed, and then he snuck down to the Cave and made his own antidote. He’s studiously avoided Poison Ivy ever since.
With all of that in mind, Tim can understand where Jason’s coming from. It’s not healthy—it is so, so not healthy—but…Tim gets it.
But what to do about it?
First things first.
“I don’t blame you for my injury,” he says. He’s still holding Jason’s wrist, so he can feel how he tenses in response. “It was bad timing. That doesn’t make it your fault.”
“Tim—”
“We’re blaming the asshole who stabbed me, and that’s final,” he says firmly, and Jason subsides.
As for the rest of it—
“That said, you absolutely can’t keep hurting yourself,” Tim says. “Like, that is—that is so far out of the question, Jason. It is not okay at all.”
Jason blows out a breath and tips his head back. “I know. Trust me, I know it’s stupid—”
“Stupid doesn’t begin to describe it,” Tim cuts in. “You need therapy. I’m not even joking.”
Jason snorts. “Probably.”
“No, definitely.”
“Definitely,” Jason admits, and Tim squeezes his wrist.
“The Titans keep a list of superhero-friendly therapists,” he says. “In the know, very discreet. We can probably find you one that won’t judge you for the whole…murder thing.”
“That would probably help, yeah,” Jason says dryly.
“And…you can just ask, you know? If you want a hug.”
Jason freezes. He might not be breathing.
“If you want a relationship,” Tim says, softly, “we can have one.”
Jason takes in a sharp breath. Wait, crap—
Tim swiftly amends, “Not, not a romantic relationship. I think we have a lot of baggage to deal with before that’s anywhere near a good idea. But…we can be friends. If you want.”
“I do,” Jason croaks. “I really do, Tim.”
Part of Tim—the pathetic, sad-little-boy part that’s been mourning his soulmate’s rejection since the moment the bond snapped into place—rejoices at the way Jason sounds near tears. The rest of him wants to wrap Jason in a hug.
His aching side reminds him what a bad idea that would be in this position, so Tim settles for leaning into Jason instead: resting his head on Jason’s shoulder, letting go of his wrist in favor of lacing their arms.
“Friends, then,” he says.
“Friends,” Jason says like a prayer.
Friends. And maybe, someday—once they’re both in a better place—maybe they can be more.