metalogs | two birds on a wire (closed)

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two birds on a wire (closed)

Who: Tim Drake

reneger
What: meeting the bonus big bro (part one)
When: mid-April or whatever
Where: Central City rooftops
Content Warnings: n/a so far

Since the other Tim confirmed that there's not only one but two living Jason Todds here, revived by Lazarus Pits, and then refused to give him too many details, Tim has started reconnaissance on the Red Hood as Robin. So far he hasn't been caught - it helps that his suit has a built-in stealth mode, but it probably helps a lot more that one of his new abilities here makes him incredibly difficult to notice - but he's not thrilled with what he's seeing, either. The Jason Todd he knew. Well, he didn't know him, did he? He followed Robin around when he was in Gotham and he took pictures, and he has stories from the Bats and Alfred and things the Team will say sometimes, but he didn't know Jason Todd. But he knew Jason was Robin, and he was a hero.

What the Red Hood is doing is more difficult to describe as heroic. He's not blind, he can gather that there's a method to it, but it's not the way they - he - was taught to deal with crime, and he doesn't know how to feel about that. He's not sure why the older Tim didn't warn him properly either, why he just dropped him in this with a name to do his own research. Is it a test, or does he just not want to influence Tim one way or the other?

The Jason he ends up approaching on a roof isn't the Jason he's been tracking, but he's a Jason, and he's got a cup of coffee and Tim has a bag of donuts, and he bought extra in case he was really hungry or saw someone else who needed them, so. Somehow, he finds himself landing on that roof and sitting down next to Jason and quietly offering over the open bag for him to pick out a donut.

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Tim - well, Robin, at the moment - keeps half an eye on the same argument Jason's monitoring, not planning to step in until/unless it gets violent. He's been primarily staying under the radar here, stepping in only when necessary. It's half out of an abundance of caution in a new place, half out of an abundance of caution from primarily being trained to work in a group of two at the least.

"I would, but no one ever carries enough cash to tip good in costume. Not a great business model." He settles with one knee tucked against his chest and picks out a strawberry-filled one for himself.

"'cause everyone's pants are too tight."

Really he's speaking about Dick. Only Dick. Look at him and his stupid suit. They're not anywhere where the threat of danger is even close to immediate, so Jason leans forward a bit. Reaches into his back pocket with a hand and pulls out a wad of cash so he can offer a few of the bills over to Tim.

Less to actually pay him (because that's stupid) but more because if he's running with the joke, he may as well keep it up. "You'd think they'd be more prepared. Cash always comes in handy."

Seeing as how they're apparently Committing to the Bit here, Tim takes the couple bucks and tucks them into one of the pockets on his belt. Cause his suit doesn't leave a lot of space, either, but at least he has ways to get around that. Like the belt. "SuperEats thanks you for your support."

He goes a bit quiet after that, munching on his donut. He's not really sure what to say, honestly. What are you supposed to say to the guy who's kind of your brother, but you never really met because he was dead when the family pulled you in? He's imagined conversations with Jason before, but it was never real. This is real, and it's weird.

What he's not telling tiny Tim is that the money he just handed over to him is definitely money he'd gotten from the mob. Or at least the amount is, the actual cash is clean--passed through a few sources, traded in for items, items returned to stores days later, you know. Littler ways to filter income, because Jason isn't looking to make waves yet. But it's fine, what Tim doesn't know won't hurt him. And he doubts he'd really give a shit either.

"Never met you when you were this young. Smallest little bird I've ever seen." Damian's baby bird; even if this Tim looks like he may as well be a little younger than Damian's fourteen. He remembers back when Damian was ten, running around yelling my father this and my father that. Around Jason being an absolute asshole and occasionally almost killing him. "When'd you put on the cape?"

He huffs at that - it's not the first time anyone's told him that he looks small, but it's not gotten any less annoying. He's a perfectly Reasonable height and weight for his age; just because he's not huge or something doesn't mean he's tiny. "A couple years ago. And I'm not that small." And for that, he's not offering over any more donuts right now. Donuts are for big brothers who don't make fun of his size. He finishes his current donut and takes a maple one from the bag to munch on grumpily.

"Nothing wrong with being small." He'd had this conversation with other Tim earlier. But Jason does turn his attention away from the thugs below, head tilting to look at Tim himself instead. They don't need two sets of eyes watching the same shit, and he's not expecting this to go anywhere; he'd been mostly listening for names. Squabbles, he doesn't need to involve himself in. There's no point.

Especially not when he could use the time to throw Tim a stupid snarky grin instead. "You could fit in small places I wouldn't be able to. Vents, cabinets. Duffel bags."

There may not be a point, unless someone's about to get seriously hurt, in which case Robin will step in even if Jason doesn't. Also, having something to keep an eye on gives him a convenient slight distance in the conversation if he needs it.

"I don't really want to fit in a duffel bag. Sounds like how you get murdered. Or suffocate."

"Fair."

This is always the awkward part, isn't it? The how much do they know, how much should I spill part of finding another bat running around making waves. Tim's young, he approached Jason all on his own, which says plenty on it's own. The bit about having the cape for a couple years already is concerning; he's young, looks like he should still be a fresh arrival on Bruce's doorstep. But Junior's timeline is also all kinds of fucked up from what he knows, and he's learned not to depend on certainties. Doesn't mean he likes it. But getting pissed at Tim for existing has never worked out well for him. Not that it was ever Tim's fault regardless.

So he leans over to reach for the donut box instead of running himself in circles.

"But it could make a decent hiding spot. Who'd look in a bag for Robin?"

"Who wouldn't look in a bag that's my weight to see who's smuggling bricks into their location?"

Tim sincerely considers moving the donuts out of Jason's reach because of the whole you're so small thing, but Jason did kind of contribute to their cost if only to keep up the bit, so he'll let him pick out another one. "It's not a great long-term hiding spot."

"That thinking's why you're the genius and I ain't." Or at least why he'll play at it, giving an ugly snort before he's taking a good sized bite out of his bearclaw. The meeting down below gets louder, yelling escalating until one of the kids turns around to make his way straight out of the alley. Jason doesn't get up to follow, he's busy right now.

"Were you tailing me? Or was this more of a happy accident?"

There's yelling, but once again, no one's getting hurt, and some kid leaving a drug dealer isn't something Robin is going to lose sleep over. He tenses a little bit, though, ready to effectively launch himself at the situation if it goes bad.

"Surveilling Red Hood." Who doesn't seem to be this Jason, so it's kind of an admission, kind of not.

"Ah." Reasonable reason to be out this way. He knows whose territory this is: that's why he's stalking it too. To see what Junior is up to, what trouble his lackeys decide is good enough to get into. He made a deal with Junior to keep out of his way if he kept out of Jason's way, but picking fights with small fry in his area isn't technically getting in his way, is it? It'd feel off if he didn't.

Another bite of his donut, before he's just shoving the rest of it in his mouth like a gremlin. Give him a minute to finish biting through it so he can speak without spitting out donut crumbs: "Find out anything useful?"

"Well, all I got was the name to go on, so... I've found out things."

Things that he is not sure how he feels about. Well, not great, definitely. It would be cool if Jason wasn't running a small criminal empire; he just hasn't figured out how to approach this or what to say.

It answers some of his questions at least. If Tim hasn't heard of the Red Hood, he's unlikely to have met Jason after his resurrection. It works in his favor as far as not pissing Tim off goes. He could do it. But at least Jason's fairly certain he hasn't slit Tim's throat yet, because that'd make jumping several steps up from there in a short period of time difficult.

"Fill me in. Where'd you leave off, aside from the alien invasion bit? Where's B and Nightwing an' all that fun crap? I'll fill in what you're missing." To an extent anyway.

He raises an eyebrow at Jason knowing about the alien invasion already, but then it's not that surprising that the other Tim would let people know what's going down on his world. Information given to one Bat usually filters to the others unless understood to be confidential.

"B's offworld with some of the League at the High Court of Rimbor. And Nightwing's running the Team for almost a year now."

Nothing Tim says tells him anything. Rimbor doesn't even sound familiar--but it's possible that it's just because Jason doesn't follow all the offworld crap. He's got enough going on.

"GL said you're welcome to bother him whenever. He's the annoying but slightly less annoying one." Not Hal levels of irritating. But that might also just be because Jason's used to tolerating Kyle. "Which team? Titans?"

"The... Team?"

Okay, maybe it's a touch confusing that they don't have a name beyond that, but everyone knows who you're referring to when you say The Team. At least, the people who are supposed to know what the Team is know what you mean. "The one started by Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy, and Miss Martian?"

The Team. What kind of weird bullshit was Dick Grayson getting into on this Tim's side if the multiverse? Were they trying to sound sneaky and elusive? His brows draw together, visible only because the mask shifts with his facial movements.

"Teen Titans was Robin's original team of sidekicks. Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Speedy, and Aqualad. Superboy didn't come around 'til your time. "

"It might be similar, but it's just called the Team where I'm from. It's mostly covert, so it's harder to track without a name."

Teen Titans also sounds kind of weird, in his professional opinion. Why not just the Titans?

"If it's covert, 's definitely not similar." Jason remembers the OG Titans team; it'd started before him, but he'd been their fill-in Robin once. But it still--gives him zero answers of where Tim's from. When he is. They're different enough it doesn't sound like he'll be able to depend on timeline similarities, so--

"Am I dead? Far as you know?"

"Yeah."

He has his doubts about whether that's really true now, but there's not much he can do about it here. It's not like he can arrange to check if Jason's still dead from another universe.

"Joker?"

He's met a few Jason Todd's at this point, some who haven't died (yet), some who got close but weren't given the reprieve of death and instead had an even shittier time, and the one here. But since they're lacking other shit matching up, he may as well confirm it.

"Yeah," he says before going quiet and waiting for whatever's next. Because for the most part, back home, you can talk about Jason, but you avoid talking about what killed Jason. If someone else brings it up, then the conversation can happen, but you're best off stepping carefully.

He's pretty sure that goes double when you're talking to Jason himself.

He's talked about Joker enough over the last bit of time that he--doesn't feel like getting into it again now. There's only so many times he can relive that before he starts getting bitchier, and he's not intending on getting into shit with this Tim yet.

So he rolls his shoulders, pulls himself up to his feet. "I died, got back out of the grave 'bout half a year later with my head fucked to hell and back. Got picked up by Talia al Ghul, took a dip in one of Ra's Lazarus Pits, and you can probably piece it together from there. The current Red Hood skipped having to dig his way out of the dirt an' went straight from dead to the Pit."

He stands up, too, partly to mirror the action and partly because Jason is pretty big compared to him already without him standing and towering over him while Tim's sitting on the rooftop on top of that.

That sort of follows with what he knew already, except for. Well. "The Lazarus Pit didn't revive you?" If it didn't, then what did?

"No. Couldn't tell you what did either." Jason remembers sucking in a breath of stale air, remembers how much everything hurt, how his body felt like it--well, was dead. He remembers the moments after he'd regained consciousness. Remembers the panic when he realized he was in a very small, very tight box, buried six feet underground with nothing on him to dig his way out. Remembers calling for Batman, and grabbing onto his belt to dig himself out in a rushed panic as he began running out of air. Remembers when he reached the surface, the sheer relief at being able to pull in fresh air.

Doesn't remember much else outside of that until he'd gotten dunked in the Pit. There's a few broken pieces of memory. A hospital. Calling out for Bruce, calling out for his father. Talia hitting him, looking out over the sunset, brief flashes of sitting in a chair doing nothing. But he's got more lost time there than memory, and Jason figures that's probably for the best. That's not time he really wants to remember.

Tim stands, and Jason starts towards the other side of the roof. He's not going anywhere in particular, but he figures Tim will follow him regardless. "Doesn't matter anyway, does it? 've been back for years, whatever did had plenty of chances to undo it by now, an' I'm still kicking."

He hangs back a bit, letting Jason have some space, but still following just closely enough that he's not hiding from the conversation. That's not a lot of information on what brought Jason back to life, and so far this line of questioning isn't that useful if he wants to figure out if his own Jason is alive. He's not like he's going to keep picking at a traumatic experience for questions Jason might not even know the answers to.

He's not really sure what to say - just about anything he can think of feels trite - so he just offers another crack at the now-dwindling pastry supplies.

He'll take another donut. Empty carbs on patrol sounds like a great idea--and he was starting to get a little hungry. Jason takes a good sized bite out of it when he reaches the edge of the roof and looks down to the next building.

"Anyway. Came back from the dead. Spent time with the al Ghul's, then took a training tour of my own. Heard there was a new little bird wearing the R, so I came 'round to investigate. Wasn't very nice about it, but I didn't come back very nice either. Staged a hostile takeover of a lot of the shit underground gangs rampaging through Gotham, 'cause you can't stop crime, but you can control it. Got into other shit too, but that's the basic gist of it."

"What did you do?" Tim asks, because he can't not ask. His older self was careful about not telling him too much about the Jasons, and he's not really sure why. Maybe he didn't want to talk about it, maybe it's a test, to see if Tim can find things out on his own. But there's clearly something that happened, from the way Jason phrases it.

"Does it matter?" It doesn't come off harsh just--tired. Jason has several regrets about the way the first couple years of him back in Gotham went. He's apologized for it, or tried to, a few times. It was messy, he shouldn't have taken any of it out on Tim, on Damian--Dick deserved it a little but not to the extent Jason pushed.

Eyes roll behind the mask, before Jason's shoving the rest of the donut into his mouth. "I started fights with everyone. B, Nightwing, you. Our littlest Robin when he came 'round. I was angry. Felt like I'd been replaced, like B'd learned nothing after what happened to me." Hand emptied of donut, Jason reaches back for Tim. Shoves his palm down onto his head to ruffle his hair. "Won't lie and say I'm over it, but I'm less angry about it now."

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two birds on a wire (closed)

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