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iamartemisday · 7 years

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Artsy- Steve/Jane

For @janeyfoster

Happy Belated Birthday! :D

The very first weekend of Jane's very first year of college, she had nothing to do. She'd thought she would. Getting all her pre-reqs out of the way meant she had five pages of math problems, two chapters with critical thinking questions for intro to physics, three chapters of European history, and a whooping ten chapters of Jane Eyre to get through by Monday. Two days of work on paper didn't seem like it could translate to seven hours in practice, but by Saturday morning, Jane's books were stored in her backpack and she had forty eight hours of free time to kill. Sometimes, even she forgot what an overachiever she was.

After getting breakfast she returned to her dorm room and fished a book out of her travel bag. On the advice of an older friend, she'd packed light on the books. 'The workload will eat up ninety percent of your free time and for the other ten percent you'll be unconscious,' she'd said, because clearly, she was not an overachiever.

Two chapters in, the front door opened and in walked Jane's roommate. Darcy Lewis, on first impression, was everything Jane had never wanted in a roommate. She was loud, she left dirty socks on the floor, she ate chips at three in the morning, and that was nothing compared to the friends she brought over. Over time, though, Darcy had proven to be intelligent, studious when she wanted to be, and an excellent listener.

"Jane, what the hell are you doing in this room reading a book when it's Saturday?"

Oh, and she was nosy. That too.

"If I hadn't done all my homework, I'd be spending Saturday in the library if that helps," Jane said.

"You finished all your homework?" Darcy's eyes popped out. "How?"

"Diligence, concentration, and a lot of coffee." Jane marked her place and set the book aside. She moved to the side of her bed. "Did you do any of yours?"

Darcy bit her lip. "Um… ask me again tomorrow night. Anyway, if you've got nothing else to do, you should come with me."

"I already told you, Darce, I don't drink."

"No, not that," Darcy shook her head. "I went to the club last night. I'm talking about the big art show the seniors are putting on. Didn't you hear about it?"

She might've seen a flyer with the words 'Art Show' on the dormitory bulletin board while writing down the date and time the science club met. It was either that or 'Art Film Showing'. Neither would've held her attention for more than a second. She said as much, earning a scoff and an eye roll.

"Come on, it'll be fun!" she whined. "It's not just pretentious modern art if that's what you're thinking. There'll be paintings and sculptures and even some performance art. Ever wanted to see a woman paint a mural using her body as the brush?"

"More than anything in the world," said Jane, picking up her book. It was immediately snatched from her hands and thrown across the room behind her computer desk.

"Please?" Darcy pouted. "We'll get to meet some hot seniors. Maybe even get some numbers."

"Seniors don't date freshman," said Jane.

"Yeah, in high school. This is college! There are students who date their professors!"

Jane raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not saying they should do that, but they do," Darcy dropped all her body weight onto Jane, hugging her tight and giving her enormous, shiny, wobbly puppy eyes. "Pleeeeeeeeease?"

If she wasn't a grown woman, it would be highly effective. Jane would've cracked a lot sooner than she did.

"Okay, fine!" she shouted, shoving Darcy out of her lap. "I'll go to the art show with you."

"Yay!" Darcy rushed to Jane's closet and ripped out half her wardrobe, tossing it to the floor. "Let's find you something sexy and get a move on!"

'I wonder if it's too late to request a new dorm room,' Jane thought.

After an hour of Darcy denouncing Jane's fashion sense and Jane vehemently defending it, they settled on a compromise. Jane would wear ass hugging skinny jeans and strappy high heeled sandals, as per Darcy's suggestion. She would also were a long sleeved shirt with her favorite plaid jacket. Jane was surprised Darcy agreed to that part until they arrived at the art center across campus.

"May I take your coats, ladies?" asked the guy at the check in counter as they were signing in.

Jane shrugged out of her jacket and adjusted the top of her shirt. It was a sleek black and looked decent on her. Not that she put much weight in Darcy's idea of picking up guys, but she was feeling good about herself and that was the most important thing in the end. As they walked down a hallway lined with paintings, Darcy somehow had commentary for every single one.

"I think that one represents the pain of moving forward in life," she said, squinting her eyes at one particular piece. "See the way the shading changes the colors? That soft shade of yellow is like a sunset. Like the sun setting on a life full of passion and regret."

"Darcy," Jane stared at her. "That's a painting of a banana."

The banana sat on a brown table, unpeeled with nothing around it except the artist's name scribbled in the corner like an afterthought.

"Jane, please," Darcy hissed at her. "I'm trying to be artsy here."

They moved further into the exhibit, at a pace slow enough to be measured in negative numbers. Jane had long since spotted Darcy writing in a blue notebook as she sung the praises of another circle with a dotted line in the center. That explained what they were doing here. Darcy color coded all her subjects and extracurricular activities in a marginally successful bid at being organized. Blue was for Official campus blog posts. By the time they got to the sculpture hall, an hour had gone by and Jane's stomach was growling. The welcome sign had promised free refreshments. So far, Jane hadn't seen so much as a water fountain.

"So am I just here to keep you company while you gather blogging material?" Jane asked loudly over the applause from a group gushing over a pair of glasses on a podium.

"No, you're here because we're friends and friends do stuff together," Darcy said, flipping to a clean page. "Also I needed an outsider's perspective. As a non-artist, how do you feel about My Light in Springtime Orange by Ms. Amanda O'Connell?"

Darcy directed Jane to a sculpture of either a swan stretching its wings in preparation for flight or a person doing a demi-plie. There were no facial features and no colors, making the name a misnomer. She tilted her head to the side and the shape didn't change. "It looks like a really big clump of play-doh some kid tried to make a person out of."

"Do you mean that in a good way?" Darcy asked hopefully. When Jane didn't stop frowning, she sighed and moved on to the next piece. "Okay, how about this one?"

It was a sphere on a stick. Literally. That was the entire sculpture. A stick reaching as high as her shoulder with a globe sized ball balanced on the point. How it stayed in place piqued the curiosity of the mathematician in her up until she realized it was probably held together with a powerful adhesive. It might fall over anyway if she gave it a good poke. She smiled at the thought, but backed away. A joke wasn't worth getting sued for property damage.

"That's got to be the biggest lollipop I've ever seen," she said, grinning. "What flavor do you think it is?"

For once in her life, Darcy was not in a joking mood. She grumbled and groused as she moved down the line faster than Jane cared to follow. This blog post must've been super important. The next sculpture wasn't much better than the last. If nothing else, it looked like someone had put actual effort into it. A figure resembling a man of average height embraced a second figure resembling a woman. Neither had hair, but the curvature of the bodies was clearly defined and she could even see fingers on the hands of the man. He held the woman around her waist, keeping her flush against him. His head was slightly bowed with downcast eyes. On closer inspection, his facial features were a tad lopsided, but at least they were present.

"First Time," Jane read from the placard, "by Steve Rogers. Huh…"

"What do you think?"

Jane turned to the source of the voice to find a tall, broad shouldered man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a perfectly chiseled face. In fact, he fit the 'All American classic good looks' standard to the point where he might as well have been copy pasted out of a movie and into the real world. He had his hands in his pockets and a friendly smile on his face. That he wasn't looking down his nose at her like the other art students she'd met tonight scored him points without a single word spoken.

"Um…" Jane took a second, closer look at the sculpture. It was exactly the same as the first time. "I guess it's nice… it's cute how they're hugging."

His smile broke. "Dancing, you mean."

"Are they dancing?" Jane squinted her eyes, as if that would magically turn what was obviously a hug from behind into the Tango. "Looks more like they're just standing there."

"Well, it is a sculpture."

"Yeah, but if the artist was going for dancing, I think maybe it should look more like a dance," Jane said, tripping over her words once or twice. She had only the faintest idea of what she was saying. For all she knew this could be a brilliant work of art on par with the Statue of David. What the hell did she know? "I don't know what 'First Time' means either. First time dancing? First time sculpting more like it, right?"

She laughed to defuse the tension, but as she watched the man's face change from bemusement to genuine hurt, a terrible thought sliced through Jane's heart and stabbed at her brain. She stepped away from the man instinctively, now picturing him pressing dust coated hands into marble (wait, was that statue marble or something else?)

"Wait uh… are you…" Jane pointed at the statue, then back at him. She repeated the action a few more times as he smiled apologetically. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I… I like it a lot more than the sculptures. I really do. It looks like you put a lot into it."

Steve chuckled. "Thanks, but you weren't wrong. This was my first try at sculpting. I'm more of a painter and a sketch artist, but I wanted to branch out."

"I'm really sorry," Jane said again. "Don't even worry about my opinion. I'm so art illiterate I thought Michelangelo was just a Ninja Turtle all the way through high school. My word means absolutely nothing."

"I don't think so," said Steve, glancing back at his work and giving it a onceover. "It really does look like they're hugging, doesn't it?"

"It's still better than the world's biggest lollipop over there," Jane muttered, not expecting him to hear her. Except he seemed to have crazy sensitive ears.

"That would be a statement on the hypocritical nature of a society that preaches individualism while simultaneously encouraging strict conformity to social norms," he recited. "At least that's what Phil told me."

"It just makes me want a lollipop," Jane said, and as soon as the words got out, her stomach whined. "Or anything at all. I shouldn't have skipped lunch…"

"The cafe is around the corner," Steve pointed at the far end of the room, which did not have a sign reading 'cafe this way anywhere.' As if they wanted people to be confused and not know where to go. Maybe that was a statement on the confusion of early adult life in the modern age. "I'd be happy to buy you a cup of coffee. Artists get fifty percent discounts on all cafe items."

That was pretty bold for having just met, not that Jane was complaining. Past the almost artificial beauty he possessed there was something impossibly adorable about this guy. She'd almost completely forgotten he was a senior and well out of her league no matter what Darcy said.

"I'd like that," she said, before her common sense kicked in and demanded she slink away like a proper awkward science nerd. "Maybe you could show me your other artwork or explain to me all the deep social commentary in that one banana painting."

"Or you could explain it to me," he suggested, "because I swear it's just a banana on a table…"

"I know, right?"

They wandered off to the cafe, enjoying coffee and sandwiches and laughing about some of the more bizarre forms of abstract art on display. Once Jane swore up and down that she'd never repeat his comments to anyone (solidarity with fellow artists or something), he'd riffed a piece that was just a deflated football painted purple and a painting of a dot on an otherwise empty canvas.

"You know," he said near ten o'clock when the cafe was about to close, "you have a hell of an expressive face."

And there was the oddest compliment Jane had ever received in her life. "Thank you?"

Steve played with a plastic fork. "I was wondering if you'd let me draw you?"

Jane blinked and said nothing, which seemed to be the wrong answer.

"Just a quick sketch, and you can have it when I'm done if you want," he added hastily. "You've got one of those faces… have you ever thought about modeling for a life drawing class?"

"Isn't that where they draw naked people?" Jane asked, aghast.

"Not always," Steve replied. He pulled his sketchbook out of his bag. He'd taken it out once already to let Jane flip through it, and for all that she knew nothing of art, his drawings were objectively amazing. She'd stand by that as a scientific fact. He took out a few pencils and ignored the cashier shouting for everyone to make their final purchases before they closed in ten minutes. "Turn your head to the side."

Jane complied, choosing to forget that she'd never accepted his request. "Like this?"

"Not so far." He pulled her head forward an inch with one finger. He had warm, strong hands. "That's right. Lower your chin a little… and balance your head on your hand… that's perfect. Keep it like that for about five minutes."

Five minutes didn't sound like enough time to do a proper sketch of a person, even just from the chest up. She wasn't the artist here, though, so Jane kept silent and did as she was told. After two or three minutes, the novelty was wearing off and Jane's arm began to ache. Staying in a position like this could only be comfortable for so long and the clock was ticking. She almost flinched once and prayed Steve hadn't noticed. From the angle, all she could see was the side of his face and it was buried in that sketchbook. His hand moved fast across the page but stayed focused in the center.

"Done," he said a hundred years later. That was how Jane felt before checking the time on her phone.

"Six minutes," she said, presenting the screen to him. "You're not as good as you think."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?" He held up the sketchbook.

Only one person had ever drawn Jane before. The boy who crushed on her in first grade drew her as an astronaut on the moon and gave it to her for Valentine's Day. That would always be one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for her, but once again, Steve Rogers had proven himself a top contender for sweetest guy she'd ever known. Her face rendered on the page was like a two dimensional mirror. The lines of her face, the shading on her neck, even her fingers were flawless. Not that she thought she was some great beauty, but if she didn't know that was her own face, she'd believe he believed it.

"Wow," she said, taking it from him and holding it to the light. "That's… wow."

"You're welcome," said Steve. "Do you want it?"

In response, Jane placed the sketchbook flat on the table and picked up a pencil. She checked one more time that no inner voice of reason was currently active and then wrote her full name and number in the corner before passing it back to him.

"Let's do this again sometime," she said, pushing her chair out. "But I'm not modeling for you naked." 'Yet.'

Steve wore the biggest, happiest grin in the world as he walked Jane back to the lobby where Darcy and a few more artists were waiting. They were grouped together next to the coat check, one girl talking at length about her piece while Darcy wrote furiously.

"So I was trying to capture the pain of moving forward into an uncertain adulthood with the shades of the banana…"

"That is so deep," another artist whispered in awe.

Jane stifled her laughter as Steve helped her into her coat. "See you soon," she said as casually as she could with her heart pounding.

"Definitely," he said, making her blood pump even harder.

By the time he disappeared into the crowd, Darcy had defused herself from the group and linked an arm through Jane's, leading her to the doors. "I have so much material for my blog I think I'll make two posts. I just wish I could've met some of the sculptors."

Jane smiled to herself, warmth spreading from her shoulders where Steve's knuckles had brushed her. If only she'd been wearing a sleeveless top. Lord knows how more intimate contact between them would feel. "Yeah, they're pretty awesome."

#Steve Rogers #Jane Foster #StevexJane #birthday #fanfic

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my-one-love-is-music · 7 years

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I’m the One with the Ghosts in My Head

Summary: When things had finally become to much for Tim, he was ready to end it all. But a certain ghost brought some unexpected joy back into his life and helped change everything.

A/N: Mood Music: “Ghosts” by PVRIS

Also on AO3!

Tim didn’t know when his depression started. Couldn’t pinpoint the exact dates when his thoughts of suicide had cropped up. But he knew the first time that he met Jason. Could remember it all in stunning clarity because it was the moment that changed everything.

Tim had been laying in his bed. It was late on a Saturday night and he was home alone, his parents having left hours before to go to some gala that was being held. He thought that this would be the moment. This would be the chance that he would have to finally end his crappy life and find some peace. The furthest that he’d gotten was to grab the bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet. He wasn’t even holding it, it was just sitting on his bedside table as he stared at it.

“What are you doing?!”

The sudden voice in the unbearable silence that had been pressing in on him, made Tim jump and scramble to sit up in bed. He was worried that his parents had come home early and found him with the pills. He didn’t need their disappointment added to the crushing weight that he was already having to deal with.

But it wasn’t his parents. He couldn’t say that he was looking at a ghost. He couldn’t. It was impossible. And if he even conceded and accepted the fact that it was a ghost that was in his room, he didn’t even know him. Didn’t recognize the boy at all. Was certain that he’d never met him before in his life.

“Who are you? What are you?” Tim gasped, shrinking in on himself.

The boy walked towards him and crawled onto the bed, crossing his legs and perching one of his elbows on his knee so that he could prop his chin in his hand.

“My name’s Jason. And I’m a ghost, duh. What’s your name?”

“Tim.”

“So, Tim,” Jason said, quirking an eyebrow, “just what, exactly, were you planning on doing with that bottle of pills?”

Tim flushed and looked away. “None of your business,” he answered petulantly.

“Well it looked, and I’m sure anyone else who could’ve walked in on you while you made goo-goo eyes at the bottle, like you were planning on taking more than the recommended dosage.”

Tim hunched his shoulders and pulled his knees to his chest.

“Great, I’m depressed, I’m suicidal, and know I’m hallucinating a ghost,” Tim groaned.

“I’m not a hallucination. And take it from someone who’s dead…you really don’t want to end up on the other side of the ground any sooner than you have to.”

Tim opened his mouth to retort. What he wasn’t expecting was for everything that he was feeling, or wasn’t feeling for that matter, to come pouring out. If he was going to hallucinate another person, he might as well go big or go home and make it useful.

“I’m so tired. All the time. Dying honestly sounds like a vacation compared to everything else.” He could feel the tears gathering at his eyes and knew it would only be a moment before he was hiccupping out sobs. “I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I just want it all to stop. I’m so alone and have no one to talk to. Not even my parents. I can’t face the inevitable disappointment that they’d have towards me.”

When he looked back up at Jason he was frowning at him. “Hey…no more of that now, hm? And I won’t let you be alone anymore.”

Tim wiped at his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll keep you safe when things get bad. When your head gets a little too much. You can talk to me and I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

“R-really?’

Jason smiled, sweet and small. “Really. But you have to promise me something.”

“What?”

Jason pointed at the pills. “Get rid of those. It’ll be better if you don’t keep them.”

“Okay.” Tim got up from the bed and grabbed the bottle. He considered just tossing it into the drawer of the table, but knew that Jason would probably bug him about it unless he took it somewhere else. He pushed open the door to his bedroom and walked down the carpeted hallway until he got to the bathroom. He replaced the bottle in its original place in the medicine cabinet and hurried back to his room.

Jason had left his spot on the bed and was currently inspecting the different areas of his bedroom. It was strange to see a ghost or hallucination or whatever he was walking around because even though his feet were where they would’ve been if he was really standing on the carpet, there were no footprints. No sound.

“Your library is terrible,” he said, scowling.

“Excuse me?”

Jason pointed at his bookshelf. “You barely have any fiction and what you do have is lacking the classics. Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Dracula! I can’t believe you don’t own those.”

“Well, I kind of prefer photography to reading,” Tim said, trying to explain, what, he wasn’t sure.

Jason snorted. “Yeah, I saw. You sure have an obsession with Batman.”

Tim shrugged and moved to sit back on his bed. “Batman’s cool and all, but I prefer Robin.”

Jason joined him quickly, sitting opposite of him and mimicking his posture. Tim thought he looked rather intrigued by that knowledge.

“Robin, huh?”

Tim nodded and bit his lip. “Yeah. He’s just so amazing! The way that he runs across rooftops and fights bad guys. He’s not afraid to hit hard and put people in their place. I like it,” he gushed, face flushing.

“You really like him, huh?” Jason asked, grinning.

“Yeah, but…” Tim’s face fell. “The last time that I went out to take pictures, I couldn’t find him.”

Jason’s grin fell. “You probably won’t be seeing him again soon, either.”

Tim furrowed his brows. Took the time to really look at Jason. He gasped and sat forward, leaning in for a closer look even as Jason tried to back away from him. “You’re Jason. Jason Todd.” He felt the tears come back with a vengeance and sniffled. “What-what happened? Who killed you?”

Jason looked somber. “It was my own fault, really. I fell for the Joker’s trap. And now I’m here.”

“B-but why? Why are you here?”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the universe decided that since I could no longer be Robin, it’s my job to help a lost little boy.”

Silence descended between them. Tim sat back, giving Jason more space and they just sort of looked at each other. Accepted that they were there together. It wasn’t until later when the distant sound of doors being opened and closed drifted up to Tim’s room that they came back to themselves.

“Shit, my parents are home!” Tim hissed. He looked frantically between where Jason was still sitting and the door.

Jason sighed and pushed himself from the bed. “I’ll catch you later, Timmy! It was nice meeting you.” He walked over to the window.

“Don’t call me Timmy,” he hissed back.

“Tim? Are you still up?” his mom spoke up from the other side of his door. “I’m coming in.”

“Later, Timmy!” Jason chuckled before slipping out the window.

Tim let himself fall backwards onto his bed in front of where Jason was already waiting for him. He’d just gotten back from an utterly exhausting day of school and all he wanted to do was nap.

“You’re back,” he mumbled.

“Where else am I going to go?” Jason asked. “As far as I can tell, you’re the only who can see me.”

“That just adds to the argument that you really are all in my head and I’m going insane. Maybe I should just be committed to Arkham.”

“Even if I was just a hallucination, which I’m not, that still wouldn’t make you crazy enough to go to Arkham.”

Tim hummed. “He’s getting worse you know.”

Jason sighed. “What’s he doing this time?”

“He’s fighting a little too hard. He’s getting close to the edge of his morals. I think he almost killed one of the criminals he was supposed to take in the other night. He misses you.”

“Isn’t Golden Boy doing anything about it?”

Tim shook his head. “Dick hasn’t been back to Gotham. He’s doing his own thing.”

Jason hummed. “You know, he was my last hope. He was the person who I believed in the most. Because after everything that went south in my own life and the shitty people that I was forced to encounter, he was good. He helped me and he was working to help Gotham. I may not entirely agree with his methods, especially since I’m dead and the Joker’s still alive, but he was making a difference.”

Tim opened his eyes and rolled on his side, pillowing his head on his arm as he looked up at Jason. It was strange to finally recognize just how transparent he was. That he could see the outlines of the frames that were hanging on the wall behind him.

“Maybe you could help,” Jason said, thoughtfully.

“Me?!” Tim asked. “What can I do?”

“You can help.”

Jason made it sound so simple. Almost like the answer should be obvious. It wasn’t.

“How can I help? All I do is follow him around at night and take pictures.”

Jason huffed. “Well you’re obviously good enough to be bounding across rooftops already so that’s a start. But you could become his next partner.”

“You can’t be serious,” Tim said, pushing himself into a sitting position. “How can I help someone else when I’m so messed up myself? Isn’t that a sort of backwards way of going about the situation?”

“You’re overthinking this, Timmy,” he sighed. “As much as I hate for him to take on someone else when he hasn’t done anything as a result of my death, I still think that you could do it because you’re strong. You’re already a survivor because as many times as you’ve wanted to end it all and take those damn pills, you haven’t. You’ve pushed through and gotten to where you are right now. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to handle this situation.”

“But you don’t even know me.”

“Not that well, no. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see how earnest you are and how much you care, even if it’s mostly directed at other people. And maybe, just maybe, this’ll give you a stronger incentive to keep living. As great as these past few days have been just getting to hang around you whenever you’re here, I can’t be the only thing that keeps you around. So go. Be the next Robin or partner or whatever that Batman needs. Bring him back from the edge.”

Tim shook his head frantically, shying away from Jason’s space. “I can’t-“

“You can. And I’ll be there with you. I promise.”

“How?”

“I’ll watch you train. I’ll help you study. I’ll patrol with you. I won’t let anything happen to you. Well, I’ll keep bad things from happening as far as I’m able, anyway.”

“You really think that I can do it?”

“Timmy,” Jason said with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. “You can do anything. And I think that you’re the best person to follow after me. Not literally, but as Robin.”

Tim nodded. “And you’ll come with me.”

“Absolutely.”

Tim nodded again as he thought through everything. “Okay,” he said, pushing himself from the bed. “Let’s go then.”

“Where?” Jason asked, following him to his bedroom door.

“To Wayne Manor. Might as well get started as soon as possible.”

Tim groaned as he fell onto his bed in the early hours of the morning. Jason laughed at him and Tim tried to glare, but it was interrupted by a long yawn. Training was hard. But with Jason by his side and the signs of his own improvement, it had brought a little bit of happiness back into the dark expanse of his life. Convincing Bruce to take him on hadn’t been easy, but Jason just had him keep going back until he couldn’t turn him down.

“You’re getting really good, you know,” Jason said.

Tim shifted, groaning as his sore muscles stretched and pulled.

“Says the guy who just gets to hang out on the sidelines and watch.”

“Hey, I had to go through the same training that you’re getting. B didn’t just let me go out right away. He had to make sure that I was prepared, just like he’s making sure that you’re prepared.”

Tim shifted around until he was under his blankets. Jason laid down next to him, seemingly shining in the darkness amidst everything else. It was both breathtakingly beautiful and heart wrenchingly sad at the same time.

“I just hope that I don’t end up falling asleep in class tomorrow. I have a test.”

“Go ahead and get some sleep. You’ve earned it.”

“You’ll be here when I wake up?” Tim asked, voice drowsy and thick with sleep as he began to drift.

“Of course. I’ll always be here for you.”

The first time that Tim had tried on what would become his Robin costume, Jason had wolf-whistled and told him that he looked good. He tried not to blush too hard and if Alfred noticed as he made a few adjustments, which he probably had, then he hadn’t said anything about it.

“It does look good on you,” Jason said as Tim pulled his shirt back over his head. “Although, you’re still pretty stick-thin. You could use a little more muscle.”

Tim rolled his eyes, afraid to answer since he was still in the Manor.

“You’ll be going out on an actual patrol soon.”

Tim hummed.

“B’s looking better.”

He nodded.

“Master Timothy, if you’re ready, I can take you back home.”

“Coming Alfred,” he said, hurrying to follow the butler.

If Jason happened to linger a little longer behind him, then he decided that he wouldn’t ask about it. He could do as he pleased. He was a free ghost after all. He had every right to look around his old home.

Tim was having one of his bad days. He was tired. And everything seemed tiring. He wanted nothing more than to just curl up in bed and block it all out, but he needed to go and help Bruce. Needed to train because that would mean he would be able to patrol sooner and help him. He was better, but he still had his days. Just like Tim.

Jason found him curled up in bed. The lights in his room were off and he had a blanket pulled tightly around him. He was putting off having to leave as long as possible. He’d probably come to regret his decision, but he couldn’t really care.

“Hey, Tim?” Jason asked softly.

Tim lifted his eyes slowly and found that Jason was already laying down next to him. What he wouldn’t give to be able to reach out and touch. How he wished to have his arms wrapped around him and be held close by the one person who understood him above everyone else. The one person who cared enough about him to bring him back from the edge on his bad days. To give him the strength to keep going even when his mind traced back to the bottle of pills that were still in the medicine cabinet.

Jason smiled sadly, almost as though he knew what he was thinking. “You’re going to be okay. And I’ll be here with you.”

“I need to go train.”

“You need to make sure that you’re okay first.”

Tim sighed.

“If you miss out on one day it’s not the end of the world. Plus, I think it would be fun if the two of us spent the night in. We could watch a movie or order a pizza. Not that I could eat that.”

Tim’s smile was tentative, but it was definitely there. “Don’t say that.”

Jason just shrugged. “I’m already dead. There’s no need for me to eat anymore, or beat around the bush about it, but I can still enjoy a movie or two.”

Tim tightened the grip he had on his blanket. “You’re sure that they won’t be mad at me for taking a day?”

“As long as you let them know that you won’t be stopping by. B probably won’t even notice with everything else that he has to focus on. Alfred might try and convince you to let him bring over a lot of food though.”

“Alfred’s nice.”

Jason smiled wistfully. “Yeah. I think he’s the person who I miss the most. I spent a lot of time with him and he always knew how to calm me down.”

“Jason?”

“Yeah?” he asked, turning to face him again.

“What’s your favorite kind of pizza?” Tim asked shyly.

“Why? Are you going to order it and eat it in front of me?” he joked, smiling crookedly.

Tim shook his head. “No…but I’d like to know.”

“I like everything. Meat and veggies and cheese. It all tastes so good together.”

Tim pulled out his phone while Jason continued to talk about pizza, laughing when he highlighted on the horrors of putting pineapple on pizza. He sent off a quick message to Bruce saying that he wasn’t feeling well and needed a day.

The darkness was still there, lingering at the edges of his mind, but it was calmed. It was staying away thanks to the bright smiles and happy laughter coming from the ghost next to him. And it made him think that maybe for once, everything would turn out to be okay.

He also decided to get pineapple on his pizza just to spite Jason.

Tim stared out over Gotham with wide eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing or that he was actually being allowed to patrol. It sort of helped him to understand why the vigilantes came back night after night. They might get hurt. Bones might break and their blood might run, but if they got to see what he was seeing? It made all of it worth it. Made all of his training worth it.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jason asked at his side.

Tim nodded.

“I’m pretty sure that I had the same reaction the first time that I got to step out on top of one of these buildings, too.”

The wind ruffled his cape slightly.

“Come on, then. We don’t want to keep Batman waiting, now do we?”

Tim matched Jason’s smile and shot off his grapple. He finally took the plunge, but it was a different kind of plunge. One that he would come back from and he wasn’t alone. And Jason would always be there to make sure that he saw the other side.

The first time that Jason didn’t show up when he usually did, Tim thought nothing of it. He just assumed that he was off doing whatever he usually did during the day. He didn’t always spend time with him and he had the ability to pretty much travel anywhere.

So Tim hunkered down and worked on his homework before patrol, feeling more motivated to get things done than he had in a while. Being the new Robin and having Jason around had helped. He felt needed. He wasn’t alone. Even if Bruce had reluctantly taken him on, he still helped people. It felt good to stand above Gotham. Felt good to know that he was helping keep it safe.

He realized how much he liked having Jason’s chatter with him when he was flying across rooftops. It kept the silence at bay. Kept some of his more nasty thoughts from taking over everything and blocking other things out, even if they didn’t come quite as frequently as they used to.

He hoped that Jason would make it back to him soon.

Jason had been missing for a whole week.

Tim had tried to keep himself together. He’d gone patrolling, he’d gone to school, he’d done his homework… He made an effort to get out of bed every day even when the old tiredness began to set in. Even as his bones began to feel weary again and the darkness that had been kept on the fringes of his mind started to cloud his thoughts.

He missed Jason. Hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on him. Hadn’t realized how much he’d come to care about the boy who’d been killed. About the old Robin who he loved to watch fly and loved to take flying with him.

But he’d fought through the week. He’d told himself that he could keep going. He had to keep going, for Jason as much as for himself.

But he also had to consider the possibility that Jason wasn’t going to come back to him. That as much as he told him and had promised him that he would stay with him and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him, something bad was going to happen. Because Tim didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

The sunshine and the fire that had come back into his life and that Jason had brought had dimmed. It had left him. He didn’t know how to find it in himself even when he desperately tried to. Even when he curled up in his blanket that had been there so many times to provide comfort. Had kept him warm when it was Jason who he wanted to envelop him.

That was gone, too. He didn’t have anyone else to turn to and if Jason was gone. If that spark that he’d come to love, that had only been reinforced by his ability to patrol, was gone…then there was no way that he was going to be able to find it in himself.

It was another Saturday. Just like the one when Jason had first appeared. His parents were at another gala. Bruce was either getting ready to patrol or he was already out there, taking care of everything. And just like before, Tim pulled the bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet and filled a glass with water.

He would be hurting Bruce all over again, he knew. He’d be taking another Robin from him, but unlike Jason, he was beyond saving. Had been from the start. Jason had only prolonged the inevitable and he was going to take the next step. He was going to bring it all to an end.

This time, Tim was sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed. He had the bottle of pills held tightly in his hands. If he closed his eyes and thought hard enough, he could picture Jason sitting there, mirroring him. But there was no voice telling him to stop. No ghost looking on in horror at what he was about to do. At what he wanted to do.

He didn’t even realize that he was crying at first. Only noticed when his vision began to blur and tears fell onto the label that covered the orange bottle.

“I’m sorry, Jason. I tried to be strong. I really did. But you’re gone and I…I don’t know how to do this myself. I was never good at living, but you…you consumed me and brought me back to life even in your own death.”

Tim pressed the bottle against his forehead as a choked sob left him. He tried to will the tears to stop, knowing they would just make this harder. Make it take longer for him to swallow them all down. He wondered if it would be just as effective if he chewed them instead.

Taking one last shuddering breath, he twisted the cap off the bottle and looked down at the contents. It would be so easy. He just had to take them and then he could lay down and fall asleep. It would be peaceful. He wouldn’t have to fight anymore. He turned to reach for the glass of water that he’d set out when glass exploded behind him.

Tim ducked his head, listened as the shards tinkled and fell to his carpet.

“Tim!” a panicked voice called out.

His breath caught. Because he knew that voice, but there was no way. Well, there was a way. He’d been privy to it for months, but it was never accompanied by breaking glass.

He turned slowly, not even making it all the way around when his arms were grabbed firmly and he came face-to-face with…

“Jason?” he breathed, sounding every bit as broken as he was feeling.

Jason looked down. Caught sight of the orange bottle that was still in his hands. He made some sort of strangled sound and pulled it out of Tim’s hand, flinging it across the room, spilling white pills in his wake. He sat on the bed and pulled Tim into his arms, holding him close.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never meant to leave you like that. I didn’t even know what was happening. Just that I wasn’t here and I’d left you and you didn’t even know why.”

There was a moment of nothing. The pause before the storm. The silence at the start of dawn.

And then Tim was sobbing. Heart-wrenching, body-wracking sobs as he clung onto the shirt that covered Jason’s chest. And Jason was so big and different, but he couldn’t even care because he was there and he was real and he was alive. And he was holding Tim. Had his arms wrapped tightly around his slim frame and was rocking him back and forth the way that Tim had wanted almost since the first day they’d met and Jason had caught him with the pills.

“I-I thought you were gone. I thought that was it. That’d you’d left me. I didn’t have anyone else. And everything was so wrong without you. I d-didn’t know what to do, Jason,” Tim forced out in between gasping sobs.

“I know. I’m sorry. But I’m here. And I’m never going to leave you again. I’ll move into this fucking house if I have to, I don’t care. B can try and take me away from you all he wants, but he’s not going to get in the way.”

Tim sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He was still crying, but he’d calmed down slightly. He pulled back to look up at Jason who reluctantly let space come between them. “How are you alive?”

Jason got a grim expression on his face. “Apparently there’s this magical pit that can bring people back to life and I became privy to it.”

Tim nodded. “I’m glad that you’re okay. I’m glad that you’re here.”

“Me too. You don’t know how many times I wanted to be able to hold you when you were having one of those days. How many times I wanted to be able to pull you close when we watched a movie or share that pizza. Without the pineapple of course,” he said, chuckling. “How many times I imagined what it would be like to take you out on a date and get to hold your hand and do gross couple-y things.”

Tim ducked his head. He was blushing, but he also knew that he had a pleased smile on his face. He twisted his hands in the fabric of Jason’s shirt to avoid meeting his eyes. “I…wanted those things, too.”

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Tim gasped as he was pulled against Jason’s chest and out of the bed. It took him a minute to fight his way out so that he could see what was going on, his confusion returning when he found Batman standing in his window. Jason was tense next to him and squeezed him in reassurance.

“Calm down, B,” he said, rolling his eyes. “If I wanted to hurt him, he’d be hurt by now.”

“What are you-wait.” He straightened from where he was perched in the window and stepped inside, walking closer to the bed. “Jason?”

“Right in one, Sherlock.”

“But, how?”

“Lazarus Pit.”

Bruce nodded slowly. “How do you know Tim?”

Jason and Tim exchanged a glance. Even though the tension had diffused from the situation, Jason was still holding him close.

“It’s a…long story,” Tim supplied.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Bruce added after a moment.

“That’s a bit of an understatement,” Jason shot back with a roll of his eyes. “We can talk later. I’m a bit tired after racing to get back to Gotham.”

Bruce nodded again and moved back over to the window. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Once Jason nodded, Bruce left them alone and Jason sighed, finally letting the last of the tightness drain from his muscles.

“So what happens now?” Tim asked.

“Now,” Jason said, pulling him over to the bed. “We can get some sleep. Like I said, I’m exhausted. And I could use nothing more than a good cuddle from this great guy that kept me company when I was a walking sheet.”

They shifted around underneath Tim’s blanket several times before getting comfortable. Tim was tucked against Jason’s chest and Jason had his arms wrapped tightly around him.

For the first time in a week, he found that he could rest easy.

“Evening, pretty bird,” Jason said, landing on the rooftop that he was perched on.

Tim huffed out a laugh, grin coming easily. He stood from his crouch and met Jason halfway.

“Weren’t you supposed to be helping Nightwing with something?” he asked.

Jason pulled off his helmet and ruffled his hair. “I was supposed to, but the little brat showed up instead so I thought I’d come find you.”

He snaked his arm around Tim’s waist and pulled him close, Tim’s arms automatically encircling Jason’s neck. Jason leaned down and captured Tim’s lips with his own, their twin smiles making for a very interesting kiss.

The days had gotten easier. Being with Jason helped. And when he had his bad days, Jason was there to hold him close and helped to comfort him. And when Jason had his bad days, then Tim could easily do the same. The darkness was still there, but he had a pretty strong light to help keep it away.

#jaytim #tw: suicidal thoughts #tw: mentions of depression #molim writes #new fic #have a new fic for the fourth day in a row

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