#reverse!robins au

Hehe i loved it. And bonus x2 from a scrambled version of this

"Really?" Jason asked, widening his eyes in faux shock as he helped her to her feet. "Damn. When?"

"At the Tower," she said, as though she could barely choke out the words, "I'm so, so sorry I was right."

Face it, mini-me, you're just not cut out for this.

Jason swallowed. "C'mon, Mask. Let's get you an antidote."

"I should've tried harder," Steph said as Jason guided her towards the medical ward. "I shouldn't have given up after just one fight, I should've fucking worked so much harder to actually scare you off."

She lifted one hand, not quite touching the cheek where the Joker's brand had burned, like she could still see it weeping & raw despite the skin graft and subsequent dip in a Lazarus pool long since washing it away. Like she was afraid touching Jason would burn him all over again.

Acting on instinct, Jason leaned his face into her hand. "I'm right here, Shadow," he said, ignoring the small gasp at the sound of her old name. "I'm safe. Everything's going to be okay, just as soon as we get an antidote into you."

"But you weren't," Steph said, stumbling as she tried to keep up with Jason. She seemed to have forgotten Bruce & Damian trailing behind them. "You almost died, baby. I almost let you die."

"But you didn't, and I'm fine. See?" Jason helped her onto one of the cots, and stepped back to hold open his arms.

Tears dripped down Steph's face. "You're so big now. You shouldn't've... God, Jason, I'm so fucking sorry, you shouldn't have been anywhere near—"

"Steph," Jason said, stepping forward to grab her hand at the same time Damian grabbed a syringe.

"You're not actually my mini-me, you know that right?" Her hands were shaking. "I just don't want you to end up like me."

Jason sighed. "I know, Steph. I know. Now do you want me to do the blood draw or should Dami do it?"

Steph turned, seemly shocked to find Damian on the other side of the cot. "When did...?"

"Short term memory loss," Batman muttered, fiddling with microscope and what Jason really hoped was a sample of Ivy's chemical, not an empty slide giving Bruce an excuse to not make eye contact.

"Damian," Steph decided after a long moment of staring. Damian looked startled. "I trust you," Steph said, holding her arm out so Damian could wipe it down with a disinfecting wipe. "Which is really stupid, and I know it's stupid, but I can't make myself stop. I wish you didn't hate me now."

Damian sighed. "I don't hate you, habibti."

"Don't fuckin' lie to me, Damian."

"I don't."

Steph snorted.

Damian scowled. "We'll table this until your brain is working properly."

"Oh goodie," Steph groaned. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fuck, my head hurts. Can I have an overdose of Advil to go, please?"

"Not until we know how the chemicals are interacting with your system," Bruce told her.

"I can turn off the lights?" Jason suggested.

"Mini-me, you are a godsend. Not one of us bastards deserves you." Damian capped off the last vial and nodded at Jason. Steph didn't even notice when the needle was taken out of her arm. "I cannot imagine what you must've done in your last life to get stuck with us."

"Murder," Jason deadpanned. "So much murder. You better be careful, or you'll reincarnate as me in your next life." Jason hit the switch, leaving only the lights around the med bay's work station to hold back the darkness.

Steph snorted and flopped back on the cot. 

"I missed this," she said to no one in particular. "I shouldn't, I mean, it's awful down here. I hate it. You're all assholes, and hanging around is only going to get one of us hurt. But I'm an idiot who can't let go, so here I am: missing this."

Damian clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. "Welcome to the family."

It does rely on making Jack Drake a thousand times more of a dick than he is in canon. But Jack not wanting to look after his disabled son, Tim getting a stipend to find some sort of accommodations for himself, Tim not letting the Waynes know (because Tim Drake fucking hates asking anyone for help, hates letting other people see his weaknesses, does feel a level of shame about both his new disability & his father’s reaction to it, still thinks that if Tim just works really really hard at it that he’ll eventually regain full mobility in his legs so all of this is temporary, and also the idea of being taken in out of pity while Jason runs around as Shadow… yeah.) And then Damian finds out and is so horrified & worried about Tim (and so incapable of expressing that himself) that Damian’s response is just to immediately rat Tim out to the rest of the family so that Cass & Duke & Bruce can work on getting Tim to move in with them—

OH! Alternatively: keep Jack closer to canon, but he becomes suffocatingly overprotective of Tim. Treats Tim like a glass doll, infantilizes the hell out of Tim, and in the process of “protecting” Tim from any possible danger Jack ends up completely cutting Tim off from every single relationship Tim has. It’s not malicious, Jack’s not trying to be abusive or isolate Tim, but it’s demeaning. It’s humiliating. No matter what Tim says or does, his dad just will not let Tim have any sort of life, because Jack’s seemingly convinced that Tim will shatter into a million pieces if Tim so much as looks at the ground wrong.

So Tim ends up running away. Just empties his bank account over the course of a few weeks, researches available apartments with both functioning elevators & landlords willing to take cash under the table, catches a bus to Bludhaven, and silently hates the fact that the only reason anyone is going to even know Tim’s gone missing is because Jack is definitely about to throw a tantrum about it. And Tim finally gets to use his crutches outside of PT (because Jack would certainly never risk Tim doing something as dangerous as falling down,) and has a landline to call his friends (because private conversations just were not possible when Tim’s dad never left him alone, and Tim had to leave his phone behind to avoid being traced,) and Tim has 2 glorious weeks of freedom (and one pizza party) before going down to get his mail one day and Damian is standing outside of the door scowling. (Tim even thinks he successfully blackmails Damian into keeping quiet about Tim’s new living arrangements, but Tim vastly underestimated Damian’s levels of concern, and Damian’s guilt for both being a terrible brother to Tim when Tim first became Shadow and also being off-world when Tim got shot. This does not improve their relationship much, at least short-term.)

Tim sues for emancipation, because he cannot bear to live with his dad again after the last couple months of coddling. Jack tries to get Tim permanently placed under his guardianship, effectively stripping Tim of the ability to leave even after Tim turns 18. Bruce gets all up in the middle of it, offering himself as a potential guardian given how close his kids are to Tim, his own resources to provide for Tim, his spotless over-a-decade-long record as a foster parent, and Jack’s less than stellar parenting record even before Tim got shot.

The judge refuses to let Tim go fully independent. Tim, somewhat desperately, points out that at 17, his own opinion should matter in this; if the children of divorcees get to have a say in how much time they spend with each parent by the time they’re Tim’s age, then Tim should have a say when he says he absolutely will not under any circumstances be living with Jack Drake again as long as Tim remains disabled. That if they make him go back, Tim will just run away again—and this time, he’ll go further & be a lot more thorough in disappearing. That the only way they’ll be able to stop Tim is to tie Tim down 24/7, and at that point there’ll be a solid case for abuse, now won’t there? (Tim’s plan: get Kon to fly Tim to Hawaii to avoid plane records & cameras, set up a new false identity there.)