none of this is mine, i just like to look back at certain posts. if you like stuff one her on the meh 1 blog. follow,comment and like to the ORIGINAL artists/posters not me. they worked hard on these. they did not me. like something? go to them. Follow? follow them. Comment? COMMENT TO THEM. not me.okay? okay.
Some batfam stans need to chill with the trauma olympics they seem to be running. I see so many Jason antis say “Cass/Duke had a WAY WORSE childhood than Jason!”. I didn’t know it was a fucking competition in the first place?
Usually this seems to be a dig towards Jason stans who always talk about how Jason’s character is often handled in a classist manner — but like, it is? I literally saw a Jason hate post where someone commented “Jason Todd fans try not to talk about classism in a character analysis about him” which is a CRAZY thing to say because classist stereotypes and treatments are BAKED into the foundation of his character and continue to be perpetuated TO THIS DAY.
Is Jason the only one who experienced trauma in his earlier childhood? NO, OBVIOUSLY NOT. But he is still a VICTIM. He is a victim of Gotham City, and he continues to harbour harmful stereotypes which reflect on our own world outside of the comics.
Jason was a child who dealt with an addict mother he watched die. He had a father who was constantly in and out of prison. Then he became homeless on the same streets which turned Bruce into the brooding dark knight he is. Until Batman came along and ignorantly pushed him into the same situation Jason escaped onto the streets to avoid — a corrupt environment which takes advantage of children (Ma Gunn’s School for Troubled Boys).
And this was all before he became Robin and was murdered! I won’t get started on everything Bruce did wrong when taking on a young traumatised child and giving him the unhealthy outlet of punching his problems away.
Did Cass and Duke and Steph and Damian experience awful childhoods which most likely left them with PTSD? Yeah, no question. But it’s once we go “Oh, this character had it WAY WORSE than that other character!” when we start falling into serious and often daft formats of argument which honestly just make you look like an asshole.
request kungpaochicken15 how would the batfam react if they had a partner, but dies (up to your interpretation on how), and then, a person who comes to their earth looks like them (multiverse shenanigans) and they actually experienced the inverse (so like, their batfam partner dies in their world). like the vibe is angst and I will love you in every universe type thing. am I making sense??
content tim drake x gn!reader, multiverse!reader, hurt/comfort, angst, major character death, grief, traumatic loss, survivor's guilt, blood/injiry, graphic injury/blood descriptions, guns, you die in his arms, failed resusicitation (very hard word to spell), obsessive attempts to reverse death, self-blame, discussion of resurrection/cloning, sad pet grieving owner (sorry in advance)
word count 7.k
masterlist | tim masterlist
Tim had calculated the trajectory before the bullet left the chamber. He saw the assassin’s shoulder tense. He saw the subtle change in the angle of the weapon, the fractional adjustment made when the man realised that firing at Red Robin would accomplish nothing. Tim was already moving when the barrel swung away from him.
Toward you.
He knew the muzzle velocity of the modified round. He knew the distance between the gun and your body, the resistance of the reinforced fabric beneath your coat, the likelihood of internal ricochet depending on the point of entry. He knew that he was six feet away and accelerating, one hand reaching for your arm while the other released a birdarang with enough force to break the gunman’s wrist.
He knew everything.
He was still too late.
The birdarang struck the assassin’s hand at the same moment the gun fired. The man screamed. The weapon spun across the warehouse floor.
You staggered backwards.
For one terrible heartbeat, you only looked surprised.
Then blood began blooming through your shirt.
“No.”
The word left Tim before the rest of him understood what had happened. He caught you beneath the arms as your knees folded, lowering you to the concrete so quickly that one of his own knees cracked painfully against the floor.
The warehouse continued around him. Somewhere, Nightwing shouted. Somewhere else, metal groaned as the unstable dimensional generator in the centre of the room overloaded, spilling blue-white light across the rafters. Alarms wailed. The surviving smugglers fled or surrendered or disappeared into the chaos.
None of it mattered. There was only you.
Your eyes searched his mask as though you could see through it. Perhaps you could. You had always been infuriatingly good at seeing him, even when Tim had made an art form out of becoming invisible.
“Hey,” you whispered.
“Don’t talk.” Tim tore off one glove with his teeth. His fingers found the wound, then pressed down hard enough to make you cry out. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately, breathless and frantic. “I know. I know, but I have to stop the bleeding. The round entered beneath the ribs. It could have missed the major arteries. The angle was—”
“Tim.”
“It could have missed them,” he repeated.
Your hand rose toward his face. It trembled badly enough that you could not quite reach him.
Tim caught it and pressed your palm against his cheek.
“We need medical,” he snapped into the comms. “Now. I need an extraction route and a surgical team. Tell Leslie penetrating trauma, lower thoracic cavity, probable damage to the liver or spleen. We have less than—”
A sound escaped you.
Tim stopped.
He knew that sound. He had heard it from people dying in alleys and safe houses and emergency rooms. He had heard it through comms when he could not reach someone quickly enough. There were noises the body made when it began shutting down, tiny betrayals of flesh and blood that no amount of willpower could prevent.
“No,” Tim said again.
Your fingers curled weakly against his jaw.
The dimensional engine shrieked behind him. Light surged over your face, turning the blood at the corner of your mouth almost black.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
Your gaze had begun drifting.
He moved his face directly above yours, blocking out the fractured ceiling and the flickering machinery and the panic consuming the warehouse.
“Look at me. Stay awake.”
“I’m looking.”
“No, you’re not. Focus. Tell me what you see.”
“You.”
His throat tightened. “Good. Keep doing that.”
“You look scared.”
“I’m not.”
It was an obvious lie. You might have laughed on any other night.
Instead, you traced the edge of his domino mask with one blood-slick thumb. “Liar.”
“Save your oxygen.”
“Bossy.”
“You like that about me.”
“I love that about you.”
The word struck deeper than the bullet ever could.
Tim increased the pressure against your wound, but the blood kept coming. It moved between his fingers, warm and impossible, soaking his gloves and the sleeves of his uniform.
Nightwing landed beside him. Tim barely looked up.
“Ambulance is three minutes out,” Dick said.
“Too long.”
“B’s bringing the car around.”
“Still too long.”
Dick crouched, reaching for you.
Tim’s arm moved instinctively, pulling you closer. “Don’t.”
“Tim, I need to check—”
“I know where the wound is.”
“I know you do.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Dick’s expression broke around the edges. That frightened Tim more than anything else.
He looked back at you. Your breathing had become shallow, every inhale catching before it could become complete.
“Stay with me,” he said.
The sentence sounded wrong in his mouth. Too simple. Too desperate. It was not an instruction supported by strategy or science. There was no plan behind it, no contingency hidden beneath the words.
It was only a plea.
“I’m trying,” you whispered.
“Try harder.”
Your mouth trembled into something that wanted to be a smile. “That’s not very motivational.”
“I’ll work on it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” you echoed.
“Yes,” Tim said it like a promise. He said it like tomorrow was a place he could drag you toward through sheer force. “We’ll go home. You’ll complain about the blood on the carpet even though it isn’t our carpet. I’ll tell you I’m perfectly capable of cleaning it. You’ll point out that last time I said that, we had to replace two floorboards.”
“You burned them.”
“It was a chemical reaction.”
“You burned them with chemicals.”
“The distinction matters.”
“Not to the landlord.”
Your eyes fluttered.
Tim squeezed your hand. “Stay awake.”
“Trying.”
“Miso will be waiting.”
At the mention of the cat, something soft and wounded passed over your face. “You have to feed her.”
“You’ll feed her.”
“Tim.”
“You will.”
“She hates it when you forget the wet food.”
“I don’t forget.”
“You forget.”
“I’ll set an alarm.”
“You already have twelve.”
“I’ll delete one.”
You let out a breath that might have been another laugh. It ended in a wet, painful cough.
Tim’s composure fractured.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
He did not know what he was asking you not to do. Cough. Bleed. Leave. Die. There were too many possibilities, and every one of them was unacceptable.
Your hand slipped from his cheek.
Tim caught it again before it could fall.
“Tell me something true,” you said.
It was an old game between you. He had begun it months into your relationship, during a night when he had come home shaking with exhaustion and unable to admit that he had been afraid. You had sat beside him on the kitchen floor and asked him to tell you something true. Not something useful. Not something that could be weaponised or catalogued. Just something real.
Tim had told you that the neighbour’s wind chimes annoyed him. You had told him that you had started leaving your favourite mug in his apartment on purpose.
Back and forth, until the truths became larger.
I missed you. I was scared. I think this is home.
Tim pressed his forehead against yours.
“You steal the blankets,” he said, voice shaking.
“You’re always cold.”
“You sing the wrong lyrics to every song.”
“They’re better.”
“You pretended not to understand chess for three months because you thought it made me happy to teach you.”
“It did.”
“You hate coffee, but you learned how to make mine.”
“Barely.”
“You put reminders in my phone to eat lunch.”
“You ignore them.”
“You adopted a cat without asking me.”
“We adopted her.”
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The light behind them surged again.
Your pupils contracted.
Tim watched you understand. He watched the fear arrive, not for yourself, but for him.
“Oh,” you breathed.
“No.”
“Tim.”
“No. Tell me something true.”
“I love you.”
“Something else.”
“I love you.”
“Stop.”
“In every universe.”
Your voice was fading.
Tim shook his head violently. “No. Not in every universe. This one. You love me in this one, so you stay in this one.”
Your eyes shone. “I would find you.”
“You already did.”
“I’d find you again.”
“You don’t have to. You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
“Stay.”
“I’m trying.”
Your final breath left against his mouth. It was so quiet that Tim almost did not recognise it as the last one.
He waited for the next.
One second.
Two.
Three.
He shifted his fingers to your pulse. Nothing.
“No.”
He pressed harder, as if your heartbeat had merely hidden itself beneath his touch.
Nothing.
Tim tore away the lower half of his mask and sealed his mouth over yours. He breathed into your lungs, once, twice, before laying you flat and beginning compressions.
Dick said his name. Tim ignored him.
Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Check the airway. Repeat.
Your blood coated his hands.
Thirty compressions. Two breaths.
“Tim.”
He heard the Batmobile arrive. He heard Bruce running.
Thirty compressions. Two breaths.
Your ribs shifted beneath his palms. He adjusted the angle.
Thirty compressions.
Bruce’s hand closed around his shoulder. Tim shrugged him off.
“Move.”
“Tim.”
“I said move.”
“You need to stop.”
“No.”
“The medics are here.”
“Then tell them to do their jobs.”
“They can’t.”
“They haven’t assessed the damage.”
“They have.”
“They’ve been here for eleven seconds.”
“Tim.”
“I can keep the brain oxygenated until surgery.”
Bruce knelt across from him. There was blood on his gloves now, transferred from Tim’s shoulder.
“They’re gone.”
The warehouse disappeared. All Tim could see was Bruce’s face and the unbearable pity in it.
Tim swung at him.
It was not a good punch. There was no technique behind it. Bruce caught his wrist easily.
“Don’t say that,” Tim hissed.
Bruce did not let go.
“Don’t say that like it’s decided.”
Dick turned away.
Tim looked down at you. Your eyes were still open.
He reached out and closed them with shaking fingers.
Then he gathered you back into his arms. No one tried to stop him.
The dimensional generator collapsed behind them with a thunderous crack. A wave of energy passed through the warehouse, bright enough to bleach the world white.
For half a second, Tim thought he heard someone screaming his name.
Not from the warehouse.
From somewhere else.
Then the machine went dark.
Tim held you until your body became cold.
There were fourteen known methods of resurrection that had produced verifiable results.
Tim made a spreadsheet.
Lazarus Pits occupied the first row. He documented every recorded use, every psychological side effect, every instance of cellular degradation, madness, memory loss, aggression and spiritual displacement. He analysed the chemical composition of samples he had stolen years before. He ran predictive models using his own post-resurrection medical data and Jason’s.
Your name sat at the top of the file next to the word Subject.
He hated the phrasing. He did not change it.
The second row contained magic. Zatanna. Constantine. Raven. Doctor Fate. Various rituals from texts Bruce kept locked in the cave, including three he claimed had never worked and one he refused to discuss.
The third row contained temporal manipulation. The fourth contained cloning. The fifth involved an alien device currently stored in the Fortress of Solitude. The sixth involved the Speed Force. The seventh involved an experimental neural reconstruction programme once developed by the Justice League to preserve consciousness during deep-space missions. The eighth involved the dimensional generator.
Tim did not sleep for five days. On the sixth, Bruce shut down the Batcomputer remotely.
Tim bypassed the lockdown in fourteen minutes.
On the seventh, Dick came to the apartment.
Miso sat outside the bedroom door, crying.
Dick found Tim at the kitchen table, surrounded by notebooks, three disassembled drives and enough caffeine to hospitalise a normal person. Tim was wearing the same shirt he had worn beneath his uniform on the night you died.
There was blood beneath one cuff.
“Hey,” Dick said carefully.
Tim did not look up. “I found a way to stabilise the cellular decay associated with prolonged Pit exposure.”
Dick pulled out the chair across from him. “Okay.”
“If the primary complication is neurological, there are treatments. Jason’s aggression decreased over time. We could control the initial response with sedation.”
“Tim.”
“The League has a Pit in the Carpathians that hasn’t been used in at least eighteen months. The concentration should be high enough.”
“You know what you told me after Jason came back?”
Tim’s fingers stopped over the keyboard.
Dick continued before he could answer. “You said we didn’t know if the Pit brought Jason back or only changed what was already happening. You said we couldn’t treat it like a machine.”
“I was wrong.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
“Or do you need to be?”
Tim stared at the screen.
Subject. Status: deceased. Proposed intervention—
He closed the laptop.
Dick’s relief was immediate and therefore infuriating.
“That doesn’t mean I’m stopping.”
“I know.”
“I can solve this.”
“I know you think you can.”
“I have solved things that were statistically impossible.”
“I know.”
“I found Bruce when everyone else stopped looking.”
“I remember.”
“I brought him back.”
“You did.”
The anger drained out of Tim as quickly as it had arrived.
His hands began shaking against the table. “Why can’t I bring them back?”
Dick did not answer. There was no answer Tim would accept.
Miso cried outside the bedroom again.
Tim stood automatically.
The cat had been yours first, technically. You had found her beneath a dumpster during a thunderstorm, soaked through and furious at the indignity of being rescued. You had brought her to Tim’s apartment, wrapped in your coat and announced that you had made a small, temporary mistake.
The mistake had slept on Tim’s chest that night.
Now Miso spent most of her time sitting beside the front door. Waiting.
Tim opened the bedroom.
The cat hurried past him, jumped onto the mattress and approached your pillow. She sniffed it, circled twice and settled into the hollow that your head had once made.
Dick stood in the doorway behind him.
“She needs to eat,” he said softly.
“I fed her.”
“There’s old food in the bowl.”
“She doesn’t like that brand.”
“You bought the brand they always got.”
Tim looked toward the bag on the dresser.
He had. It was the same packaging. Same flavour. Same company.
But you had once mentioned that Miso preferred the tins from the smaller shop across town, even though the ingredients were identical. Tim had dismissed the idea as projection.
He put on his shoes.
Dick caught his arm. “I can get it.”
“No.”
“Tim, you haven’t slept.”
“She won’t eat unless it’s the right one.”
“I’ll go.”
“You won’t know which shelf.”
“Send me a picture.”
“I’m going.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
Tim did not have the energy to argue.
They walked twenty-three blocks because Tim could not bear sitting inside a vehicle.
When they returned, Miso ate.
Tim sat on the kitchen floor and watched every bite.
The first notebook began because Tim forgot the sound of your laugh.
Not completely. He remembered its general pitch. He remembered that you laughed louder when you were tired and sometimes covered your mouth when you thought you were being obnoxious. He remembered the shape of it.
But one morning, while brushing his teeth, he tried to replay the sound inside his head and could not make it clear.
The toothbrush fell from his hand.
He spent the next hour searching through every recording stored on his phone.
There were thousands of files. Videos you had sent him, voice messages, accidental recordings from patrol, fragments captured by security systems. He found your laugh in a video of Miso attacking the reflection from Tim’s watch.
The relief made him nauseous. He listened to it thirty-seven times.
Then he bought a notebook.
On the first page, he wrote: You laugh with your entire body when something genuinely surprises you.
He added the date of the video, the location, the precise circumstances and a written approximation of the sound. Beneath that, he documented the way you tended to snort when laughter caught you mid-breath.
The second entry concerned your hands. You have a scar across the index finger of your left hand from opening a tin when you were eleven.
The third, You say “interesting” when you mean “that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
The fourth, You pretend to be asleep when I come home late because you know I feel guilty for waking you, but you always move closer when I get into bed.
Tim wrote until his hand cramped.
He kept the notebook beside him at all times. When a memory surfaced, he captured it before it could disappear.
The exact expression you made when you tasted something too sour. The way you mispronounced the name of a Gotham street for two years because Tim had corrected you once, and you enjoyed irritating him. The ridiculous dancing you did when Miso accepted a new toy. The softness of your voice when you told him he did not have to earn rest.
Some memories were too large to fit neatly onto paper.
The night he told you he was Red Robin. The first time you stitched a wound in his side while berating him for trying to explain the procedure to you. The morning Tim realised he had begun thinking of every future plan in plural.
We could move. We should replace the couch. We might adopt another cat.
He wrote those memories anyway.
By the third month, he had filled six notebooks. By the sixth, there were fourteen.
Bruce found them during an emergency at the apartment. Tim had been injured on patrol and insisted someone retrieve a specific encrypted drive from beneath the bed.
Bruce found the drive. He also found the notebooks stacked beside it.
He did not mention them until Tim was conscious.
“You don’t have to catalogue them to make them real,” Bruce said.
Tim stared at the hospital ceiling. “Yes, I do.”
“You won’t forget them.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“Memory changes every time you access it. Details degrade. The emotional impression can remain while factual information becomes distorted.”
“Tim.”
“What if I forget their voice?”
“You have recordings.”
“What if the files corrupt?”
“We’ll make copies.”
“What if I forget what it felt like when they came into a room?”
Bruce was silent.
Tim turned his face away. “What if one day I can remember being happy, but I can’t remember why?”
Bruce remained beside the bed long after Tim pretended to fall asleep.
Nine months after your death, the dimensional signature returned.
Tim was in the cave when every monitor went white. The alarm sounded less than a second later.
A pulse of energy originated from the abandoned warehouse, matching the unique frequency generated on the night you died.
Tim was already on the motorcycle before Bruce finished telling him to wait.
He reached the warehouse in four minutes and seventeen seconds.
The building had remained sealed since the investigation. Dust coated the floor. Police tape sagged between rusted columns. The generator’s broken remains still occupied the centre of the room, half dismantled and entirely without power.
Blue light flickered above it.
Tim stopped.
The air opened. There was no other way to describe it. Space split vertically, as though someone had dragged a blade through the fabric of the world. Beyond the opening, Tim saw fragments of another warehouse, another Gotham, another night.
A figure stumbled through.
The breach snapped shut behind them.
Tim forgot how to breathe.
You stood twenty feet away.
Not a hologram. Not a clone. Not a hallucination.
You.
Your hair was slightly longer than it had been when you died. There was a pale scar along your jaw that did not belong to the face Tim had memorised. You wore a black coat over battered armour, and one hand gripped a collapsed bo staff so tightly that your knuckles had gone bloodless.
Tim knew that staff. He had designed it.
You looked up. The weapon fell from your hand.
“Tim?”
The way you said his name almost killed him.
Hope rose so violently inside his chest that it became pain. For one impossible moment, his mind discarded every contradiction. Every law of matter. Every month of grief.
You were here. You had come back.
Then he saw the coat.
It was his. Not the one currently folded in the cave. Another version, older and torn near the collar. The left sleeve had been repaired with uneven black stitches.
You stared at him as though he were the ghost.
“No,” you whispered.
Tim forced himself to move.
He drew his staff.
Your expression crumpled. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m not— I didn’t know where the portal would take me.”
“Identify yourself.”
You flinched.
Tim hated himself for noticing that you flinched in the same way. Your shoulders drew inward before you caught them, an instinctive movement you had spent years trying to unlearn.
You gave him your name.
Tim’s grip tightened. “Earth designation?”
“I don’t know.”
“Method of travel?”
“Dimensional displacement device.”
“Built by whom?”
Your eyes moved over him. His mask. His chest. The staff in his hands.
“You.”
The answer hollowed him out.
Behind him, the others entered the warehouse.
Dick’s sharp inhale was audible through the comms. Bruce did not react visibly, but Tim saw the moment he understood.
The stranger wearing your face looked at all of them.
“Where are they?” you asked.
No one answered.
Your gaze returned to Tim. “Where is the version of me from this world?”
Tim could not make his mouth work.
Dick stepped forward. “They died.”
Your face went still. “When?”
“Nine months ago.”
The colour drained from your skin. “The generator?”
Tim nodded once.
You closed your eyes.
When you opened them again, you looked older.
“I’m sorry.”
Tim wanted to strike you. The impulse was sudden, irrational and vicious. He wanted to punish you for being alive. For standing in a place where he had held your corpse. For carrying your voice and your hands and your expressions while knowing nothing of the life he had lost.
He lowered the staff. “What happened to your Tim?”
Your breath caught.
You looked down at the coat around your body. “He died.”
The warehouse became silent.
“He pushed me through the portal before the generator collapsed,” you continued. “He thought it would stabilise if it only had to transport one person. He was wrong.”
Tim studied the stitching along your sleeve. “You repaired his coat.”
Your fingers closed around the torn fabric. “I couldn’t wash it for three months.”
Something in Tim’s chest shifted.
Not healed. Not softened.
Recognised.
They took you to the cave. Bruce ran every test available. DNA comparison. Bloodwork. Temporal radiation analysis. Cellular mapping. You submitted to each one with the numb patience of someone accustomed to letting grief make decisions on their behalf.
Tim watched through the glass.
Your DNA was almost identical. There were twelve minor variations, none significant enough to make you biologically distinct from the person Tim had loved.
You were not them. Tim repeated that fact whenever his mind began betraying him.
You were not the person who left tea beside his computer because they knew he would forget it was there until it went cold. You were not the person who kissed the space beside his mouth when he was too busy reading to turn his head. You were not the person whose blood had dried beneath his fingernails.
You looked toward the observation window. Even through the reflective glass, your eyes found exactly where Tim stood.
His stomach twisted.
“You should go home,” Dick said beside him.
Tim did not look away. “So should they.”
“The breach is unstable. We don’t know how to send them back yet.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep needing to hear it.”
Tim finally looked at him.
Dick’s gaze was tired but steady. “They’re not your version of them.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not their Tim.”
“I know.”
“Neither of you is going to behave like you know.”
Tim turned back toward the glass. Inside the med bay, you touched the sleeve of the coat again.
“I need to ask questions.”
“Technical ones?”
“All of them.”
Dick exhaled. “Try not to interrogate them about their dead boyfriend while they’re still attached to an IV.”
“They need to establish the divergence point.”
“They need a blanket.”
Tim left before Dick could say anything else.
He returned with a blanket.
The alternate version of you stayed in the manor for three days.
Tim avoided you for the first two. He observed instead.
You drank tea now, although his version of you had never liked it. You carried sugar in your pocket because your Tim had a habit of letting his blood glucose drop during cases. You checked every room twice before sleeping. You rubbed your thumb over the empty space on your fourth finger whenever you thought no one was watching.
There had been a ring.
Tim did not ask.
You did not know how to look at him. Every interaction became a collision of instinct and restraint. You would turn toward him when he entered a room, face briefly brightening before grief corrected you. Tim would hear your footsteps in the hall and expect the door to his bedroom to open without a knock.
It never did.
On the third night, Tim returned to the apartment.
Miso met him at the door, scolding him for being six minutes late with dinner. He fed her, changed her water and cleaned the litter tray. He opened his laptop. He read the same line of code seventeen times.
At eleven forty-three, someone knocked.
Miso’s head snapped toward the door.
Tim did not move.
The knock came again.
He already knew.
When he opened the door, you stood in the hallway wearing his dead counterpart’s coat.
“Bruce said you had some of the generator schematics here.”
“He shouldn’t have told you where I live.”
“He didn’t. Your address was saved in my Tim’s files.”
Tim stared at you.
You winced.
“Not this address. The version of it on my Earth. I took a chance.”
“You walked across Gotham alone.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“My version of you said the same thing.”
“And you hated it when they did.”
“Yes.”
“My Tim did too.”
For several seconds, neither of you moved.
Then Miso appeared between Tim’s ankles.
The cat looked up at you.
Your face collapsed.
“Oh,” you whispered.
Miso sniffed the air.
Tim watched her approach slowly, tail low. She circled your boots once. Twice.
Then she rose onto her hind legs and pressed both paws against your shin.
You dropped to your knees.
Miso climbed into your arms as if she had been waiting for you.
A sound tore out of you. You buried your face in the cat’s fur, shoulders shaking. Miso purred loudly and pushed her head beneath your chin.
Tim gripped the doorframe.
“Is she—” Your voice broke. “Is she called Miso here?”
“Yes.”
A sob escaped you, followed by something like a laugh. “Ours was called Pixel.”
Tim almost smiled. “Why?”
“My Tim said naming a black cat Schrödinger was statistically predictable.”
“He was right.”
“So I named her Pixel to annoy him.”
“That would have worked.”
“It did.”
Miso licked your jaw.
You shut your eyes.
“She waited by the door for him,” you said. “For months. I kept trying to explain that he wasn’t coming home, like she could understand me.”
Tim’s fingers tightened around the wood. “Miso did that for them.”
You looked up. The sight of your tear-streaked face struck every wounded part of him at once.
“Can I come in?” you asked.
Tim stepped aside.
You sat on the floor because Miso refused to leave your lap. Tim took the armchair opposite you.
For a while, the cat was the only thing either of you could safely discuss.
Pixel had been missing part of one ear. Miso hated closed doors. Pixel stole socks. Miso had learned to open cupboards. Both cats had developed a habit of sleeping on Tim’s chest and biting him when he moved.
Eventually, the conversation ran out.
Your gaze travelled toward the bookshelves. The notebooks occupied the third shelf. You recognised the handwriting on their spines.
“What are those?”
Tim’s first instinct was to lie. He had become rusty at lying to your face.
“Memories.”
You looked at him. “Of them?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-one.”
Your lips parted.
Tim looked down at his hands. “I started forgetting things.”
“Tim.”
“The neural pathways remain, but details become less accessible over time. I needed an external record.”
You shifted Miso carefully and reached toward the shelf.
Then you stopped. “May I?”
Tim wanted to say no. He nodded.
You took the first notebook. Your fingers trembled as you opened it.
You laugh with your entire body when something genuinely surprises you.
You read in silence. Tim watched your eyes move down the page. He knew every entry contained in that book, every insignificant fragment he had salvaged and pinned to paper.
You turn the shower too hot and then complain that the mirror is fogged. You never remember where you left your keys, but you remember where I leave everything. You use my shirts as pyjamas and insist they simply migrated into your wardrobe.
When you reached the final page, you pressed your hand over your mouth.
“He did this too,” you whispered.
Tim’s body went rigid.
You looked toward him. “My Tim. He wrote things down.”
“About you?”
“Everything. The first notebook started when I was injured during a mission. He said he wanted a record in case the concussion affected my memory.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“It was.”
“What did he write?”
You laughed wetly. “That I always checked whether he had eaten before asking how the mission went. That I couldn’t whistle. That I said his name differently when I was angry.”
Tim knew exactly what you meant.
You closed the notebook. “He made recordings, too. Backups of backups. He said memory was unreliable.”
“It is.”
“I told him love wasn’t.”
Tim looked away.
Miso jumped from your lap and crossed the room. She climbed onto Tim without invitation, kneading his thigh before curling into a tight circle.
You watched her settle.
“How did they die?” you asked. Tim’s hand stopped above Miso’s fur. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“The generator was being sold to a weapons network. We intercepted the exchange. One of the smugglers fired at me.”
You understood before he finished.
“They got between you.”
“I should have seen the change in target sooner.”
“No.”
“I had enough time.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I was.”
Tim looked at you sharply.
Your face had gone pale.
“Different warehouse,” you said. “Different weapon. Same decision.”
The coat hung around your body like a shadow.
“The generator destabilised. We knew there would only be enough power to open the breach once. Ti– He calculated that the field would collapse if it tried transporting both of us.”
“You could have overridden him.”
“I tried.”
“He would have anticipated that.”
“He did.” A bitter smile touched your mouth. “He kissed me to distract me.”
Tim’s chest ached. “That wouldn’t work.”
“It did for approximately two seconds.”
“Then he needed a better plan.”
“He used the two seconds to lock the controls.”
Tim imagined himself doing it. The calculation. The necessary deception. The certainty that saving you mattered more than surviving beside you.
He hated his counterpart for leaving you. He understood him perfectly.
“What were his last words?” Tim asked.
Your eyes filled. “Tell me something true.”
The room tilted.
Tim stopped breathing. “What?”
“It was something we did. When things were bad, or when he couldn’t say what he was feeling, one of us would ask the other to tell us something true.”
Miso lifted her head as Tim’s body went completely still.
Your expression shifted. “What is it?”
Tim stood so abruptly that Miso leapt from his lap.
The notebook fell from your hands.
“Tim?”
He backed away.
His shoulder struck the wall.
You rose slowly, palms visible. “I’m not going to touch you.”
“They said that.”
“What?”
“The same thing.”
Your face drained of colour.
“Tell me something true,” Tim said. “They said it while they were dying.”
You stared at him.
Tim’s breath came too quickly. “I told them they stole the blankets. They told me they loved me. I kept asking for something else because I thought if they were talking, they were still alive.”
“Tim.”
“They said they loved me in every universe.”
Your hand rose to your mouth.
Tim had spent nine months refusing to break. He had cried, technically. His body had produced tears during the funeral and twice while listening to your voice recordings. Those had been biological reactions, brief failures in containment that he had corrected.
This was different.
The first sob hit him so violently that he folded around it. His knees struck the floor.
You moved forward before stopping yourself.
Tim pressed both hands against his face, but the sound kept escaping between his fingers, raw and humiliating and impossibly loud. Everything he had contained since the warehouse tore loose at once.
The warmth of your blood. The silence between your final breath and the one that never came. Miso waiting beside the door. Twenty-one notebooks filled with evidence that you had once existed. All the resurrection methods he had rejected because each one might bring back something wearing your face but not carrying your soul. And now there was something wearing your face, kneeling six feet away, carrying the grief of another Tim.
“I couldn’t save them,” he gasped.
You sank to the floor. “I know.”
“I tried everything.”
“I know.”
“I thought about the Pit.”
Your face twisted with understanding rather than judgement.
“I thought about going back in time. I thought about making a clone and transferring the neural pathways from archived recordings. I thought about rebuilding the generator and searching every universe until I found one where they were alive.”
“You might have.”
“It wouldn’t be them.”
“No.”
“I knew that.”
“I know.”
“I still wanted to.”
“I know.”
Tim dragged in a broken breath.
You were crying too. “I hated him for saving me,” you confessed. “For months, I hated him. I thought he’d made the choice because he believed he could decide whose life mattered more.”
“He did.”
“Yes.”
“He decided yours did.”
“And your version of me decided yours did.”
Tim lowered his hands.
He looked at you fully. Not at your face. Not at the familiar line of your mouth or the eyes that had appeared in every dream he had allowed himself to have.
At you. A person from another universe who had lost someone with his hands, his voice, his tendency to turn love into strategy because strategy was the only language he trusted not to fail him.
“What did you tell him?” Tim whispered. “When he asked for something true?”
“I told him that I loved him in every universe.”
Something inside Tim finally shattered.
You crossed the distance.
He should have stopped you. He did not.
Your arms wrapped around him, and Tim broke against the shoulder of the person he had lost.
But you did not hold him exactly as they had. Your hand settled differently against his back. Your breathing had another rhythm. The scar along your jaw scraped faintly against his temple.
The differences hurt. The differences saved him.
You were not his. He was not yours. For one moment, neither of you needed the other to be.
Tim clutched the back of the coat that belonged to another version of himself. You gripped his uniform as though your hands remembered a body shaped like his.
“I’m sorry,” you sobbed.
“So am I.”
“I miss him.”
“I miss them.”
“I know.”
“I know.”
Miso pressed herself against both of you, purring with the determined ferocity of a creature that did not understand universes but understood loneliness.
Tim cried until there was nothing left in him but exhaustion.
You stayed on the floor beside him.
The breach could be reopened.
It took Tim eleven days to solve the stabilisation problem. He worked with you rather than around you. Your Tim’s notes filled the gaps in his calculations, the handwriting nearly identical but the methodology altered by years of different experiences.
It was unsettling. It was also the closest either of you would come to speaking with the dead.
The portal would remain open for sixty-three seconds.
Enough time for you to return. Not enough time for anything else to cross.
On the final evening, you sat with Tim on the roof of the manor. Gotham stretched beneath you, glittering and bruised.
You gave him a small data drive.
“What’s this?”
“His files.”
Tim’s fingers closed around it. “You shouldn’t give me these.”
“They’re copies.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
He turned the drive over in his palm.
“There are videos,” you said. “Voice recordings. Case notes. Most of it won’t be useful to you.”
“It might be.”
“I thought you’d want to hear him.” Tim looked at you.
“Would you want to hear them?”
Your eyes drifted toward the city. “No.”
The honesty settled quietly between you.
Tim slipped the drive into his pocket. “I might never open it.”
“I know.”
He handed you a notebook.
It was new, its pages mostly empty. Only the first few had been filled.
You opened it.
The first line read, Your Tim loved you enough to choose a universe without himself in it.
Beneath it, Tim had written every detail you had shared about his counterpart.
He made tea and forgot to drink it. He tapped his fingers in prime-number sequences when anxious. He slept better when you were touching him, although he denied this despite overwhelming evidence. He loved you.
Your eyes blurred.
“I thought you should have a record,” Tim said.
You closed the notebook against your chest. “Thank you.”
The portal opened at midnight. Blue light filled the warehouse again.
You stood before it wearing the repaired black coat, the notebook secured beneath one arm.
Miso had been left at the apartment. Tim had not trusted himself to watch her say goodbye. Bruce and Dick waited near the controls.
The breach stabilised. Through it, another Gotham waited.
You turned toward Tim.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. Then you reached forward and adjusted the edge of his cape.
The gesture was familiar. The hesitation before it was not.
“They loved you,” you said.
Tim swallowed. “He loved you, too.”
“Do you think they knew?”
“That we’d meet?”
“That somewhere, this was happening.”
Tim looked into the portal. “I don’t know.”
You smiled sadly. “That’s unusually unscientific of you.”
“I’m working with insufficient data.”
“Liar.”
His breath caught.
You seemed to realise what you had said. Pain moved across your face.
Tim let it pass through him.
Then, for the first time, he allowed the memory to be gentle.
“Tell me something true,” you whispered.
Tim looked at you.
He considered a thousand possible answers. The universe was vast. Death was not a problem he could solve. Memory degraded. Grief changed shape but never completely disappeared.
Love, however, had repeated itself across realities with statistically impossible precision.
“They found me,” Tim said.
Your eyes shone. “Yes.”
“And he found you.”
“Yes.”
Tim stepped forward and embraced you.
Not as the person he had lost.
As the person who had survived losing him.
You held him tightly.
“I hope there’s a universe where they both lived,” you murmured against his shoulder.
“There is.”
“You can’t know that.”
“There are infinite variations.”
“That’s not proof.”
“No.” Tim closed his eyes. “But I have enough evidence.”
You pulled away. The portal began to flicker.
“Goodbye, Tim.”
“Goodbye.”
You stepped backward into the light.
Just before the breach closed, you smiled at him.
It was not their smile.
It was yours.
Then you were gone.
Tim returned to the apartment alone.
Miso met him in the hallway. She sniffed his clothes, searching for the other version of you, before making an offended sound and trotting toward the bedroom.
Tim followed. He changed into an old shirt and climbed into bed. Miso settled against his ribs, warm and heavy.
The twenty-first notebook waited on the bedside table.
Tim opened it.
For nine months, every entry had begun in the present tense.
You laugh. You sing. You steal the blankets.
He turned to a clean page. For a long time, his pen hovered over the paper.
Then he began to write.
You loved me.
The past tense hurt. It did not erase you.
Tim continued.
You loved me in this universe. Somewhere else, I loved you too.
He closed the notebook.
Miso climbed higher onto his chest. Tim rested one hand against her back and felt the small, certain rhythm of her heart beneath his palm.
He would always know how yours had stopped. He would also remember how it had beaten. The rapid flutter when he surprised you with a kiss. The slow rhythm beneath his ear on quiet mornings. The way it raced when he came home injured and pretended he was fine.
Tim had spent months trying to preserve every part of you because he believed forgetting even one detail would mean losing you again.
Now he understood that grief was not a second death. It was evidence of the first life.
The notebooks remained on the shelf. The resurrection files remained encrypted. The data drive from another universe stayed unopened inside the safe.
Tim slept.
In another world, beneath another Gotham sky, you opened the notebook he had given you.
Two people who should never have met carried memories of loves that should never have ended. And somewhere beyond calculation, beyond proof, beyond the cold boundaries of space and time, there was a universe where the warehouse remained quiet.
The gun never fired. The generator did not collapse. You went home together. Miso complained until one of you fed her. Tim worked too late. You stole the blankets. He pretended to be annoyed when you kissed his shoulder and told him to sleep.
In that universe, as in every other, he loved you. In this one, he had simply been given less time.
Summary: You steal a car and uproot your life to escape assured death. Jason chases you.
Tags: unhinged reader, one bed trope, no warnings I think (yet), tell me if I’m wrong tho, cars. Yeah.
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Jason Todd has two prized possessions. His motorcycle, which was more so Red Hood’s prized possession, and was a Kawasaki Ninja H2. It had a red paint job (obviously), extreme speed, and it had brought him all around Gotham. The bike was reliable, sturdy, and had become somewhat of his companion. His other prized possession was his Ford Thunderbird. It was the 1967 model, with the sleek hood, the iconic grille, and a shiny new grey and red paint job. He’d been repairing it in his spare time, and only took it out as a civilian, leaving the vehicle mostly separate from his vigilante life. He’d taken it for drives to the manor or to the mandatory galas he had to attend, and of course the occasional joy rides. Its name was Jane. Both Jane and the Ninja were safe and secure in whatever safe house Jason had brought them to. They were always locked up, with a five layer protective security instalment that had him reassured that nothing would happen to them. It was just last night when he’d changed the codes, double checking the locks before leaving the garage with his baby, Jane, to take a trip to the Wayne Manor.
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After quitting (being fired from) your last job, stealing your boss’s old Rolls Royce, your life had taken a turn for the better. First off, you were rolling in cash. You’d sold about 15 cars in the past three weeks, hitting Park Row, the Diamond District, Cherry hills, and of course Crest hill (mainly the latter), before the rich jerks owning the cars could have a say. You hadn’t hit the Wayne manor, which you had heard was a treasure trove from the guy you sold the cars to, Joey.
Joey’d been giving you finds left and right. Said ya “really had a knack” for vehicular theft. And you did, because you’d broken into the Elliot’s garage, which was pretty much a treasure trove of old expensive cars and an expansive collection of newer models. You had picked out a Shelby Cobra, being more than partial to muscle cars, picked for a couple minutes at the ignition switch with a hairpin, and driven out of the garage, which opened for you automatically. It was that easy!
You turned up the radio, driving through Crest Hill, admiring the polished greenery, clean streets, and the glimpses of big houses hidden through gates. Bastards, they probably had bathrooms as big as your apartment. Bigger, even. Up ahead, a grey car was pulling out of a gated driveway. Ford Thunderbird, you recognized from the shape, but you couldn’t make out the model. 60’s? 70’s? It was a niiiiice car. As you’d mentioned. Muscle cars. Yum.
At the next intersection, you pulled up to the left of it. Guy had the window rolled down, muscular arm resting half out of it. He was looking straight ahead, waiting for the light. He had a cute little dyed patch of white hair at the front of the dark thick curls, or maybe it was vitiligo.
You honked to get his attention, and he turned to look at you, raising an eyebrow. He looked you over, at your newly manicured red nails, silk head scarf, and massive sunglasses. The scarf covered your hair and ears, and the glasses covered half of your face. It kept you slightly disguised, but helped you to blend in with the real owners of the cars.
“Nice ride,” you yelled over the wind and radio. He looked straight ahead, before scratching at his neck and looking back over.
“Same to you.” Ooooo, he had a gruff voice too. Cute. You almost wanted him as much as you wanted his car. Up close, it was even more impressive. You took a peak at the red leather seats behind the car’s frame. It looked recently renewed too, with a fresh paint job and red racing stripes. Sure, the Shelby was nice, classy, expensive. But this guy’s car, was hot.
“Rev it for me?” You asked sweetly, and the man blushed, rubbing at his neck again, before switching gears and pressing on the gas. There it was, the deep, classy rumble. Fuck, you wanted that car. No, you needed it, and you were nothing if not determined.
A honk behind you cut you and apparently also the guy beside you out of your daydreaming, and brought your attention back to the green light.
He sped ahead, and you accelerated to catch up. You drove alongside him, giving him a wink before pushing the speed, and he seemed to follow along, joining the race. The two of you chased each-other down the intersection, and further down some main streets before he turned left to Park Row, and you turned right.
But before that, you’d noted the license plate of the car. R3D-4009
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Jason was in surprisingly the best mood he could’ve been in after leaving the Wayne manor. Usually the visits were filled with dread, and the drive home filled with resentment, but tonight he’d been somewhat…joyful. He hadn’t raced in well, forever, not since he’d last seen Roy, and he hadn’t done it as Jason, as just some guy to a pretty girl in a cute car. Well, at least he thought you were pretty. He could only really see your nose and lips with the coverings.
Usually at a time like this, Jason could make connections. Infer data from what he’d heard and obtained around him. At the manor, Bruce had been talking about a car thief. He and Tim had guessed they’d committed about 15 of the recent motor vehicle theft, including Brucie Wayne’s prized Rolls Royce. Jason hadn’t bothered caring about the info. Car thief’s were the least of anybody’s concerns around Gotham according to him. So what, a couple rich idiots were missing expensive cars they could replace. It’s not like that applied to him of course. Because who would steal from the Red Hood, right?
He locked up Jane before getting ready for patrol, taking out his bike and securing the garage a final time. He ended up on the other side of the city by the end of the night, not bothering to check the garage or the security cameras, instead opting to flop right into the stiff safe-house bed, and to turn off all notifications to prevent any Dick and accompanying parties from annoyances. Because who had the guts to steal from the Red Hood?
Jason woke up around 2 PM. He was comfy, the sun was shining for once, and he was content on not moving much until patrol. After lying in bed for a while, he’d grabbed his phone to doom-scroll cooking videos and check the news.
2:52 AM
LOCK MALFUNCTION. PARK ROW GARAGE.
2:53 AM
UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUAL. PARK ROW GARAGE.
2:57 AM
UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUAL. SMOKE DETECTED. PARK ROW GARAGE.
2:58 AM
UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUAL. SMOKE DETECTED. FIRE DETECTED. DOORS LOCKED. PARK ROW GARAGE.
3:00 AM
UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUAL. SMOKE DETECTED. FIRE DETECTED. DOORS LOCKED. VEHICLE HIJACKED. PARK ROW GARAGE.
Jason tripped on his pants rushing down to his bike.
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Joey had tracked down the license place. The guy had a garage in park row. You’d gotten there around 2 in the morning, and tinkered with the locks for basically an hour before getting frustrated and hitting the thing. Sparks flew off the device, and the door made a gross buzzing and creaking noise before opening up. And there it was. That beautiful, lovely car.
“Oh my lovely. Bet he couldn’t treat you like I can, huh?” Batshit crazy, is what you from four weeks ago would have to say about you now.
You were itching to get in it, accidentally knocking over a bottle of oil which spilled all over the floor. Gross, it got all over your feet. You opened the car door, which was somehow unlocked, and took out a hairpin before noticing the keys on the dash. Seriously? On the dash?
Before your victory could continue however, one of the sparks still coming out of the lock machine thingy landed on the ground near the car. Where the spilled oil was. Where the giant flame now is.
“Oh fuckfuckfuckfuck.” So much for treating the car better than the previous owner.
You sped out of the garage, sighing in relief as you left that mess behind. “Not yo problem!” had become your new motto.
You drove for a little while before parking on a side street far enough away from the crime. This gave you enough time to look a little around the car. It was clean, and had that yummy smell you appreciated on a person. Mint gum, aftershave, something smoky? In the passenger seat, was a duffel, which you were quick to open and root around in. A black sweater, which was huge, but looked comfy, accompanied by some cargo pants, also huge. You threw them in the backseat. Next in the bag was some weird girly looking romance novel. Thrown to the back. Next was…a very large, techy looking gun. Well, rich guys have hobbies, right? And then another guy. And another, bigger gun, as well as a little gun, and a very long gun, a ton of ammo, a really tiny gun which you thought was cute, and then a bunch of knives. Sure had some hobbies, this guy.
You shuffled through the guns in the duffle, before finding a mysterious object, tucked away in the back. It was round, and hard..and helmet like. Maybe he had a motorcycle too? You pulled it out.
“Oh.”
Red Hood. You were holding Red Hood’s helmet. You had stolen Red Hoods guns. His car. His book. And you’d lit his garage on fire in the process.
“Does Red Hood kill people?” You put into your phone browser.
“Yes, Red Hood is a known serial killer, and is responsible for the deaths of…wow that’s a lot of people.”
Your fate had been decided; you had to flee the country and make a home elsewhere. Somehow, leaving behind the car and guns you’d stolen didn’t come to mind.
Thank you for reading!! Hope u enjoyed its not proofread so idk wtf just happened.
Next Part: upcoming, in the meantime check out my art and other fic on my profile!
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Summary: you steal a car and realize it might cost you life. You flee Gotham, Jason chases after you.
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“Pick up Joey, god pick up.” Being about three weeks into your new career, automobile theft, you weren’t totally sure of the right protocol when it came to a crime lord about to murder you.
Joey picked up.
“What’d I tell ya?! Past 8:30 ain’t work hours! It’s me and my girl time ya hear that? Me and my lady.”
“Um-Hi Daphne.” You heard a brief “Hi sweetie” from Joey’s ‘lady’ before he spoke again.
“What’d-you want girl?”
“Look, Joey, I’m in deep shit, I need your help, know anybody who buys guns?”
“Guns? Why’ve you got guns all a sudden?”
“I stole a car from the Red Hood!” You shrieked into the phone. “It had all his guns and stuff in it!”
“You..did…WHAT?!” Oh he was freaking out too.
“You stole from the RED HOOD?! You calling me with those VPN thingies or something right?! SHIT this ain’t my burner! You’re a dead woman! Don’t call me again!”
“But Joey—“
“You best get outta this country girl. Before he finds you. Good luck.”
The phone made a little clicking noise when he hung up. That was it. You had to leave. You drove down to your apartment one last time, stuffing a couple bags with clothes and anything else you needed. This included 100,000$ cash in hundreds from the last car you sold, which was quickly also stuffed in a bag, and some toy cars you had from when you were little. A bright red Ferrari, and a cute teal Porsche.
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The garage had seen better days when Jason arrived. Burn marks on the floor and wall, a broken door, and busted locks. And his baby, his beautiful girl Jane, was nowhere to be found. Jason flopped down in a chair, thoroughly deflated, and opened up the security recordings.
LOG: #324
TIME: 2:52 AM
A figure in a black hoodie and sweats appeared in front of the garage door. Jason fast forwarded the video, watching the unwanted guest eventually punch the keypad in frustration. So much for the ‘safe and secure’ paranoia defence system Jason had put up. The garage doors opened, and the figure jumped around a little in joy, taking their hoodie off.
And there you were, the woman who’d raced him the previous night. Any minor attraction Jason had felt towards you was gone. He watched you knock over the oil, and open the car door. In the car, he recognized his black emergency duffle. His favourite sweater, one of his nicer copies of pride and prejudice, a shit ton of guns, and his helmet were in there! Great, not only did you have his car, but you had his weapons and knew his identity. Furthermore, the keys to the car were on the dash. He didn’t even lock the fucking car, no wonder it got stolen!
He opened up the tracking app next. There were five trackers he’d placed on the car, and two of them were already offline. You’d left New Jersey clearly, and you were travelling through New York. You’d stayed at a hotel through the night. Good, you were close enough that if he left now, he could probably still catch up to you soon.
Of course, the issue with that plan was patrol. He had responsibilities, and a role, and he knew he couldn’t leave so abruptly.
Dialling up Bruce, Jason regretted a fair amount of his life decision.
Bruce picked up after the second ring, and Jason was quick to start talking.
“I need someone to cover my patrol for the next couple of nights.”
“Jason, what—why?”
“The car thief, she got my Thunderbird. The one you were talking about I bet. She was driving a stolen Shelby Cobra last night.”
“The Elliot’s car? I heard about it through Gordon. It’s a she?” Bruce grumbled through the phone speaker.
“Yeah. And I have to go after her. She’s armed, no doubt dangerous, and she has my fucking car, my—“
“Come to the manor, and we’ll figure it out. We can get cops out of state on it, we have the money.”
“No, no cops. I have to go. Cops means there a higher chance of damage to it.”
“Jason, it’s a car.”
He groaned, pulling at the hair at the back of his neck. “It’s not just a car and you know it!”
He could hear Bruce sigh on the other end. The disappointed parent sigh, or maybe the ‘I’m fed up with you right now’ sigh. Either way, he knew Jason had made up his mind.
“Look. She’s already disabled two of the five trackers. I have to go.”
“I’ll get the others to alternate your routes.”
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Jason’s duffle was packed with 2 nights of fresh clothes, some snacks, guns, ammo, knives, and two sets of handcuffs. He had a standard set, as well as a pink, fluff-lined set he’d somehow borrowed from Roy a while back. In another pocket in the bag, was a ton of cash, a fake ID that made him a couple years older than he was, and another mini hand gun. For safety.
Jason took an old Harley Davidson from the manor. It was less conspicuous than his Ninja. He wasn’t going to drive across the interstate as the Red Hood. No, he was just Jason, going on a leisurely bike trip up North. Normal helmet, normal bike, normal guy.
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You’d made it to Vermont just as Jason had left New Jersey, much to his dismay. There’d been a crash, leaving him stuck winding through traffic, which turned a 5 hour drive into an 8 hour drive.
You weren’t really a road trip kind-of person to be honest. You’d been sleeping in and taking hour long lunch breaks. Two days into the trip, and you should’ve been at the border by now. Butttt…sleep was calling, and you hadn’t seen any sign of the Red Hood, so you weren’t feeling all that scared anymore. He should’ve gotten to you when you were just in New York, and his drive was 3 hours long instead. The car must’ve not been that important to him, seeing as he left it unlocked.
After passing into New Hampshire, a brightly coloured motel sign caught your weary eyes, and you decided to pull in for the night. After parking in a little hidden area in the back of the motel, you went to the front desk and booked a room for the night. It smelled a little like mildew, and the carpets had that weird feeling where they stuck to your socks, but a warm shower and a somewhat clean bed was all you were asking for.
The plan of your roadside adventure was to make it to Maine. It was far enough from New Jersey, and seemed quaint enough as a new start. If worse came to worse, then you’d crossover to Canada, and settle in Nova Scotia or something. You’d heard the lobster was great.
Far away from your happy fantasies, Jason was speeding down an empty highway, stewing on his stolen car. He stopped every now and then to check your location. You were at another motel, which was frankly stupid. A day wasn’t enough of a distance when you were on the run. That was like, on the run 101. Common sense 101 even. Jason thanked his fucked up sleep schedule, because it allowed him to break speed limits all the way to a shitty motel in New Hampshire without any accidents.
He’d arrived around 4 in the morning, feeling stiff, hungry, needing desperately to pee, and tired. But none of that compared to the sight of his baby Jane, sitting calmly in an empty parking lot. He thanked the gods you hadn’t damaged it, and ran a hand over the trunk lovingly. He’d got what he wanted. His car back, right? But for whatever reason, he wanted to stay. Find you, bring you back. Get his revenge, whatever that was. He was curious about you. Were you trained, and taunting him, or were you just really fucking inexperienced, and equally lucky?
He stared for approximately 5 minutes before going to the front desk. There, a very sweet old lady gave him a kind smile.
“Hello dear. In need of a room?”
“The grey car in front. What room belongs to the owner?”
“Now dearie, we don’t give out names willy-nilly around here! It’s against the customer protection law.”
Fine, a little lying wouldn’t hurt anybody. He could say she was a friend, or close family. For reasons unknown to him, he blurted out:
“She’s my girlfriend.”
“Then shouldn’t she give you the room number?”
“My phone is dead.”
“Well what’s her name? She gave it to me, you know.”
Jason’s hesitation was enough for the woman to make a conclusion. He knew how it looked. Weird guy, coming early in the morning, asking for a room number of a random girl.
“Look buddy, you can rent a room, or you can get the hell out of here.”
He supposed he couldn’t pull a gun on an old lady, could he? With a grunt, he reluctantly paid for a room and took a key.
He’d get you in the morning.
Thank you for reading! Sorry it’s a little short, but more is coming! They’ll talk tomorrow 😳
A quiet moment in Scotland 💨 No words neededm just a fluffy Highland cow and a little peace after everything ❤️ And so, one of my dreams is a little cottage in the garden and a small, shaggy Scottish cow. And I would name her Price 😅
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