#tronkon

“Who are you exactly?” Jason has stars in his hair; stolen and asphalt scented, hollow in substance and yellow when Tim, bratty, dirty, nose bleeding Tim stares at the broken skin of his knees, when he gets picked up by the thief; by someone with gun powder in his veins, a revolver heart up in his ribs, studs in his ears.

“The city calls me Robin,” he mumbles, says: “You’re one of the streets’ ghosts, aren’t you?” and Jason shrugs, walks, says: “I’m a leech. Dead or alive, it’s hard to tell, really.” This city -- it’s like an unconscious, floating body. Underwater, underground, but it doesn’t drown. It’s getting eaten.

Dead or alive.

(It’s hard to tell.)

“Is Robin your name?”

And before the stars in Jason’s hair fall, Tim answers.

“No. It’s not.”

---

Jason’s bed is cold from absence, the bullet that grazed Tim’s thigh leaves a scar that colours Jason’s sheets as if it was a children’s book; Jason gives him a sandwich Tim digs his fingers and teeth into, his jaw hurts with questions and sentences he feels trailing up to his mouth, Jason’s windows are grey with Gotham’s breaths.

“You’re a rich one, aren’t you? From the Heights. How did you get here? Downtown Gotham is a no zone for kids like you,” Jason asks and there’s a gun sloppily lined up in his palm, it touches his wrists.

(His legs are open, his shoulders closed and the stars hang from his ears on strings; the sky was discovered.

Morning broke its fingers.)

Tim didn’t come here to die.

(And Jason is not a threat.)

“Have you heard of Robin?” Robin and -- the rejects. Robin and the fighters. Robin and Oracle and Nightwing -- kids on sale. Kids that have been sold for years.

(No, Batman couldn’t buy them.)

(Neither could crime.)

Gotham did.

“I’ve heard of a kid like you. Hunting for justice? What bullshit. What is your game? Cops and bandits?” Jason snorts and the roof sighs; a girl laughs on the street. Gotham is a pleaser tonight.

(Gotham is what they have in common. The nights, the streets, the clouds.)

Jason’s status.

(Street’s ghosts.)

“We’re neither. You should know.”

Standing up, Jason puts the gun on the table, his feet on the floor, his heart on the lines of Tim’s truths. (The bullets in it click; the wires spread. The asphalt curls.) “Now it’s we’re? Like you and Batman?”

Tim laughs, signs with his neck and skull, signs no and smiles with amusement, with fond thoughts.

(If Jason wasn’t a thief, he wouldn’t be charmed.)

“Batman is on his own. He doesn’t like us, but stopped stopping us a long time ago. We coexist. Help each other, sometimes. Race each other, mostly. It’s -- fun,” Tim shrugs, continues to smile into the space Jason occupies, he’s moving across the bedroom.

And he picks up the belt he stole from Tim’s hips.

“You didn’t fight your way down to the belly for bleeding all over my bed. But you did want to meet me, right? Well --” he spreads his arms and he drags the attention, from knees to the top -- “here you have me. What do you want, Gotham’s Robin?”

Tim’s feet drops to the floorboards like a mouse’s, his socks are crumpled and clogged, dried blood the new pattern. He offers his hand.

“We want the Red Hood.” and --

Robin doesn’t get him; the first night.

Not the second, the tenth, the twentieth.

But Tim gets him; a half a year late.

---

Tim -- Robin, unmasked, hoods down and dominos fallen, Robin and his shoulders showing, Robin in his skin -- is on his bed again, between the sheets instead of on their shapes, with Jason instead of without him, kissing the warmth of Jason’s winter lips; naked and a rider, confidence with a touch of a shy grind of hips, a touch of Jason’s metal fingers on his thighs.

And he stops, stalls, asks: “It’s been a year. Are you alive yet?” and Jason writes the answer on Tim’s knees.