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The first time he sees Stray, after everything, it's from a distance; he's a little hard to make out, sure, but Jason can already tell that what was once pure scrawniness has become a lithe, muscular frame, adorned in buttery leather.
Selina must've finally caved in, then, after he'd died - Stray doesn't look like a kid playing dress up anymore, that's for certain. He's wearing her signature goggles, yes, but it's more than that; he holds himself with a thousand times more confidence than the straggly preteen Jason once knew. He moves like a cat.
Jason turns the other way, ignores the giddy, nervous spark deep inside his chest. He's fifteen again, telling his best friend in the world - a wimpy child in a homemade, polyester catsuit - not to eat all their snacks before he gets home from Ethiopia. Not that he'd mentioned quite how far away he was treading to, at the time.
When he looks back, Stray is nowhere to be seen, and the sun has dipped below the horizon.
"Fuck."
---
The next time isn't quite as uneventful.
He's got some man, a rapist, maybe, an abuser, probably, he can't quite remember, choking under his fist, beefy neck, still snappable, when Stray drops down from the fire escape of a nearby apartment block.
"Let him go."
Rage seeps out of Jason's torso, bubbles into his hands, because this is not - not - not how he'd planned for them to meet again. There's a crack, and the man goes limp in his arms.
He lets go; bares his teeth in a grin. A tiny, barely audible, swish of air draws into the modulator, and Stray's eyes flicker to where his mouth should be.
Hands balling into fists, the boy - he's still a boy, just barely - takes a step back, the corners of his mouth turning down. His right hand twitches towards the whip at his side, almost imperceptibly - and Jason can't do anything but laugh, twisted and cruel through his blood stained helmet.
Shoving the dead man at his feet to the side, he crowds Stray against the wall of the alley, sighs deeply enough for it to be noticeable, wonders what his breath would look like fluttering through Stray's lashes.
He just wants to explain, he really does. Make him squirm a little in the process. But -
Stray kicks him in the balls, and darts up the side of a building, his shoulders shaking slightly.
"That's not what I - that's not what I meant! When I said - let him go."
He covers his mouth, confidence replaced by nausea, and he's gone again, an age before Jason gathers enough wits to chase after.
---
The third time, Stray's the one chasing after Jason, claws outstretched. Yowling, he scrapes them slow and painful across Jay's front, digging them deeper into the kevlar than should be physically possible. It's supposed to be reinforced.
He draws blood.
"What's wrong with you-!"
"What's wrong with me?" he's snarling now, punching and kicking, biting and scratching, "I should've known you'd be a creep. I know who you are."
The pit of Jason's stomach expands down, and down, and down, so that his heart can stay on its journey, falling endlessly out of his chest.
"What?"
He's not been fighting back, but Stray's face is quickly morphing from beautiful to sickening. Punchable.
Because - he knows, and he doesn't care that Jason's alive; sweet little Stray wishes he'd stayed six feet under, clearly, because it looks like he's trying to put him right back.
Jason pulls out a gun, aims at Stray's glowering mouth and.
And then it's his turn to back away, shove the cat off, grip the meat of his thighs as his gun falls to the floor, like they're the only things grounding him. Wishes Stray had killed him, after all.
Maybe that's why he leaves the gun.
---
The next time, Stray shoots him.
It's in the knee, and it's to keep him away from the new Robin. It's this babbling baby with swords, full of anger and self importance, and he doesn't hate it as much as he was expecting to, really.
If this is the best Bruce can come up with, that ain't on Jason.
So maybe he roughed up the last one, the blonde one, a bit. But she was practically the same age as him, and irritating as fuck. He's not going to break a toddler.
It's mostly out of his system, already, the punching walls and screaming and pretending the tracks under his eyes don't taste salty, and he's freaked his neighbours out enough that the universe doesn't seem to think he needs any more punishment via visceral reaction, but.
He thinks he's gonna kill Stray.
"Well," snaps the baby, "Get him, Drake!"
Stray rubs his forehead, like he's realised the way his body straightened at the words means he's not gonna be able to pass this off as anything other than his actual name.
When they were kids, he'd told Jason it started with a T - but even without the lying, 'Drake' is a turnoff. It's a dumb name.
"Yeah, Drake, come get me."
Maybe it comes out flirtier than he'd meant, but hey, even as kids, that'd been part of the shtick. Batman and Catwoman? It sounded made up. Robin and Stray, that was cute.
He's not saying, 'Come get some dick,' he's saying, 'Look what we could've been, if I wasn't fucked up and you weren't a piece of shit.' Regardless, it would look like the former to anyone unaware of their history. Like the kid.
Unless Stray's told him, already. Congrats, you're a little brother! You must never, ever, ever be like the failure who's curled up in front of you.
Drake looks like he hates himself for it, when he shivers.
"C'mon, I'm not that repulsive, am I? All these years, and you decide a little killing is too much for you?"
"What? I don't know you."
"For God's sake."
"Why aren't you shooting at me?"
"Why do you think, T?"
Drake shoots him again. The world fades out.
---
"What's your name?"
When Jason comes to, he's tied to a chair, hands, legs, unmoveable - the helmet's still on, but that'll only be due to Drake hearing about the explosives.
"Why do you hate me?"
Drake whirls towards him, teeth clashing, eyes white with fury - and it is Drake, because he's stripped his costume; he's prancing around in civilian wear. No mask.
It's the first time Jay has ever seen T without his mask, and he's so, so, so beautiful, that all he wants in the world is to cradle his jaw, and cry.
"I would've thought that was obvious, Red Hood," he's not wearing his mask, Jason thinks, again, he's not wearing his mask so he can't chicken out of killing me,
"I hate you, because I hate the Joker."
Jason lets out a broken sob.
"I hate the Joker, I hate his old mantles, I hate Red Hood. You know what I hate most about the Joker?"
Jason shakes his head; trembling, trembling, trembling.
"I hate it when the Joker hurts Robin."
He's in love with Stephanie Brown, thinks Jason. And then, no, he's not, T just doesn't know. He never knew.
"You never knew," his voice cracks on the last word, "I shouldn't have roughed her up, sure - but - you don't know."
T stares at him, hand on that gun. It still has some of Jason's blood on it, from the alley.
"I'm not trying to be the Joker."
He's fucking feeling up the gun, dragging his finger over it, undoing the safety as thoughtlessly as he'd undo the buckle on a belt, edging the trigger.
"Stray, let me take my helmet off."
"I don't like explosions."
"Jesus, fuck, please, T."
T screams, pushes the chair over, tears at the ropes, "Don't call me that! Fuck you! Fuck you!"
Watching, fond, desperate, Jason's head is whirring, soft and slow, the helmet sliding off - and T turns white, his hands springing to his mouth; he runs from the room. Leaves Jay on the floor, strapped to a chair, next to his helmet.