Chapter Text
Tim was eleven years old when he first saw the second Robin.
He wasn't really surprised when it happened. He'd had some suspicion about that since Bruce Wayne had taken in Jason Todd. Dick Grayson had moved to Bludhaven and Batman was working without a Robin so it didn't seem farfetched to Tim that Bruce's new son would become his new Robin.
What did surprise him was how different Jason was from Dick.
They had the same mantle, but there was such a clear difference between them that Tim couldn't people who thought they were the same boy.
Dick had been smooth, fluid acrobatics and light feet. Intentionally or not, Dick's Robin had been a performer. He'd been free and fun.
Jason was all strength and emotion. He made heavy hits with eyes that burned with anger. Whenever he pulled off moves that Dick or Bruce seemed to do without thought, he radiated happy surprise like he couldn't believe he'd pulled it off.
Dick Grayson was everything Tim wanted to be, but Jason Todd was everything Tim wanted from other people. Jason never failed to make his feelings known, whether because there was hatred in his eyes or because his body was loose and relaxed with someone he liked. It was simple and uncomplicated. There was none of the guess work that was so present in Tim's life. Tim never had to guess what Jason thought the way he had to with his parents.
He was all the emotion and passion that Tim had never been exposed to wrapped into one person.
It drew Tim to him like a moth to a flame.
He climbed out of bed more often for Jason's Robin than he had for Dick's. He spent his nights crouched on rooftops and burned through film.
Occasionally, he would see Jason during the day - Tim's parents weren't home often but when they were they were sure to drag their son out to every event possible for the sake of appearances - and those days were always hard for Tim. He wanted nothing more than to speak to him, to do something that would get Jason to direct just a little bit of that emotion his way. He didn't even particularly care whether it was his ire or his kindness.
In the end, Tim was always too scared of Jason treating him with the same indifference as his parents and contented himself with watching from afar
The incident with Batman's tires aside, Jason was good at knowing when he was being watched.
It was a necessity for a kid like him. For a thief like him. He had to know when someone was aware of him and when they were watching someone over his shoulder.
He'd been feeling the prickle at the back of his head since his first few runs in the Robin suit.
At first he'd thought maybe it was Bruce watching him, making sure that Jason was obeying his orders and putting his training to use, but Bruce always seemed to be looking at the world around them instead of at Jason.
Then he'd thought maybe it was one of the criminals in the city, but the gaze didn't have the consistency of someone on a stake out and it didn't really feel like it wanted to harm him.
It was just there.
Jason knew he should have told Bruce about it, but he liked knowing something his mentor didn't.
Most days he didn't feel like he measured up to Dick, much less the Batman. Keeping this one thing to himself, knowing that he had caught something Batman hadn't, made him think that maybe one day he would be as good as they were.
And the longer Jason kept the secret, the more he started thinking of the person watching him as his. They weren't his guardian angel or anything like that, but they were his because they were watching him and they had been since he'd started.
Thinking about them that way triggered a change. Jason started feeling their absence more acutely than their presence, finding himself a bit easier to rile up when he couldn't feel them there. Jason started wondering about what sort of person they were and what their motivations were.
Jason started wishing they would do something more then just watch.
By the time he reached that point, however, it had been weeks since he'd first felt their eyes on him. Jason felt like if they were going to do more then just watch him they would have done it by now.
Jason decided he was just going to have to find them and ask them what the deal was himself.
He didn't want Bruce to find out, though, and Bruce didn't trust him to go on patrols alone.
So he waited.
Tim sat on a wooden crate in an alleyway just off Batman and Robin's patrol route, close enough that he would hear anything in the area they might react to. He was hidden just under the ledge of a building so they wouldn't see him from the roof tops.
He had his camera lifted up, taking some shots of the area around him so he could make sure it was adjusted well for the light. It wasn't usually a good idea to have such an expensive piece of equipment, despite the money his family had his photography equipment was really Tim's only indulgence, in the area but Tim had learned years ago which areas were safe for him when he was taking pictures and which areas to avoid.
He took one more shot, bringing it to even ten test pictures, before lowering it from his face.
He had just begun to flip through the pictures he'd taken when there was a sharp, obnoxious sucking sound off to his left. It was followed by someone asking, "Do you want a smoothie?"
Tim looked up and felt his breath rush of his lungs.
Robin was standing in front of him with a yellow smoothie in each of his hands. One of them was lifted towards his mouth, just far enough away that it wasn't touching his lips, while the other was being held out for Tim. There was a slight, teasing upturn to his lips and a spark of satisfaction in his eyes.
Apparently Tim didn't answer fast enough because Robin added, "It's mango pineapple. I would've gotten strawberry banana, but they're kinda overrated."
Tim didn't really have a brain-to-mouth filter when he was staring down one of his idols, so he said, "Strawberry banana is not overrated. It's a classic. What kind of heathen are you?"
"Did you just call me a heathen?" Robin asked, his smile growing. "Do you even know what that means? You look like you're ten."
"Eleven and a half," Tim corrected. He felt his face heat with abrupt warmth, realizing as soon as soon as the words left his mouth that that wasn't really all that better.
Robin laughed, the sound sharp and delighted. "Aw, you're just a baby."
"You're only fourteen," Tim said, feeling defensive. "That's not that much older then me."
The laughter cut off abruptly.
Robin's eyes widened a little bit.
Tim realized all at once that he'd just made a huge mistake.
"How do you know that?" Robin asked.
Tim fumbled for an answer. He wondered if it would be better to lie and tell him that it was just a lucky guess, but settled for the truth a few seconds later. It was better to come clean to Robin when Tim had control of it then later. "Because I um...know who you are, Jason."
For a minute, he looked a though he was going to deny it. But something in Tim's eyes must have changed his mind, because instead Jason just slumped and his teal eyes went a little sad.
"Fuck, seriously?" he said, his voice low and dejected. "I've only had the costume for three months and someone already figured me out? B's never going to let me out again."
"It wasn't you who I figured out first though," Tim said, because he'd been wanting to be on the receiving end of Jason's attentions for a while and no matter how much he told himself it didn't matter what kind of attentions those were he much preferred the smiling and teasing to this. "I saw Dick Grayson perform before um...before. I was taking pictures of Batman and Robin one day and recognized one of his moves. I figured if Dick Grayson was Robin then Bruce Wayne had to be Batman. Then Bruce adopted you and it was pretty clear who the second Robin was."
"Oh." Jason seemed to perk up a bit, but there was still a lingering disappointment in his eyes. "You're a fan of Dick's then."
"Kind of," Tim said. And because he still didn't really have a filter, he said, "But I like you more."
Jason's eyes widened, clouding with surprise and a hint of awe. "Seriously?"
"Yup," Tim confirmed with a small nod. He didn't elaborate on why, not wanting his desperation for attention to make him sound like a baby.
"That's awesome." Jason stepped closer, holding the smoothie out again. "So do you want this?"
"Sure." Tim reached out, taking the plastic cup from Jason. He lifted it to his lips and took a sip. As he did, Jason crossed the remaining space between them and sat on the edge of the crate with Tim.
They sat in silence for a while before Tim asked, "Shouldn't you be with Batman?"
"I convinced him to let me come out early," Jason said. He stared down at his straw and pushed it around with his finger. "I wanted to figure out who you were. I mean, not you specifically? But I kept feeling someone watching me and I wanted to know who it was."
"Isn't that dangerous? I could've been the Joker or something."
"Nah," Jason dismissed with a shake of his head. "You didn't feel threatening."
"I know four types of martial arts," Tim said. "I could definitely be threatening if I tried."
"You're eleven. I could crush you."
"You're not that much bigger then me," he argued.
"I absolutely am." Jason pointed out, "I've got fifty pounds and a good five inches on you."
Tim couldn't really deny that it because it was true. Instead, he took another sip of his smoothie before asking, "How'd you find me? And how'd you know it was me?"
"I went back to the places where I felt you and started searching," Jason said with a shrug of his shoulder. "As far as knowing it was you, I didn't really? I just had a feeling that I was in the right place."
"You found me on a feeling?" Tim echoed. Jason gave a nod. "That's ridiculous."
Jason just gave another shrug. "B says that listening to your gut is one of the most important rules to being a detective."
They sat there for a while, drinking smoothies and talking quietly. Tim had assumed that if he ever did talk to Jason Todd it would be primarily about Batman and Robin, but they didn't really talk about that at all.
Instead they argued about Star Wars (Jason was horrified that Tim preferred the prequels over the original trilogy). Instead Tim listened to Jason rant about how it was a good thing they were reading Romeo and Juliet in class because he might have had to fight his whole class if they destroyed any other Shakespeare play the way they were destroying it. Instead Jason asked about Tim's photography and Tim moved even closer so he could show Jason the photos he took that weren't of Batman and Robin.
When Jason got up to meet with Bruce, Tim decided to put his camera back in it's bag and head home.
It wasn't as though he didn't want to take pictures anymore, honestly talking to Jason just made Tim want to photograph him more, but that Tim knew no picture he took tonight was going to be as great as the fact that he'd just met and talked to Jason Todd.
He didn't think anything in his life was ever going to rival that.