Work Text:
It’s a cloying, nauseating feeling, stirring in his stomach, strangling him from the inside out. The tiger rumbles low in his chest, and there’s a hiss at his nape, and he shakes his arms out as they slide into the sleeves of his jacket. The smell of chemicals and pain cling to his skin, and he wishes he could dull his senses, but that’s not a possibility. It’s never a possibility.
Jason’s back, and the relief is palpable, almost suffocating in its intensity, and he seems fine—he seems okay and whole apart from some bruises and the knife wound in his thigh. Maybe a bit traumatized, maybe a bit artificially apathetic, maybe a bit high on adrenaline and endorphins and concerned over the life of the person who saved his—maybe all of the above, Garfield figures. He guesses. But he’s alive and whole and back in the tower with the rest of them, and Hank has been hovering awkwardly since his arrival.
And Gar—
He’s just painfully relieved to be allowed to hide in his room. He’s relieved to be allowed to hide on the floor, hidden from the door by the bed, and cower as he tries not to drown in his guilt. Jason’s back, but it’s his fault. It’s his fault, again, isn’t it?
He agreed to help him, like he agreed to help Rachel. He agreed to go against express orders, like he would again and again, and he—he keeps putting people in danger. He keeps doing it and he can’t, he can’t—
He swallows the scream that pushes at the seam of his lips, swallows his tears, swallows the anger and the anguish and the fear. He swallows it all back as the door opens and he gets down low, toes his shoe off and reaches under the bed for it, inhaling deeply as his lips stretch, stretch, stretch, and stop—
He’s natural. He’s cool. He’s fine.
“Gar,” Dick’s voice calls, and he surfaces, brandishing the shoe above his head like a victory, grinning at Dick and only letting his smile falter as he catches sight of his serious expression. His hand twitches as it comes down, and he feels bashful and awkward with only one shoe on, the other fisted in his hand, and he turns his back on Dick to sit on the bed, tugging on the footwear like such a thing had always been his intent.
“What’s up,” he says, keeps his shoulders relaxed. The tiger roils in his chest, digging gouges into his ribs, and there’s a hiss in his ears, telling him, “get away, get away, get away.”
“We need to talk.”
He doesn’t answer, just stays still, lets his foot come to rest against the ground again, solid and assuring even though nothing else is. He feels Dick move, hears his steps as he rounds the bed, and he wants to scoot further away, but he stays still, let’s the tiger shudder against his arms, safe from sight in his sleeves, drags in a deep inhale slow and steady, knowing Dick is watching it—is always watching.
“Gar, we,” he trails off, exhales sharply, inhales just as deep. “When I say to do something, it’s to—I’m trying to,” he stops again, purses his lips. “It’s to keep you guys safe. You’re not ready yet, and I don’t—why did you guys do it? Why didn’t you talk him out of it?”
He thinks of Jason’s voice as he proclaims the man, boy, guy, person wearing the Superman shirt saved him from plummeting to his death, thinks of having to watch his face as he falls, slack and tight with terror as he slips and goes down, down, down—thinks of what that visual did, is doing, to Dick.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and the words taste like ash in his mouth. He means them, he knows, he does, but there’s something sour in the words and there’s something familiar in their weight, in the lead in his chest, and Dick’s sitting on the bed, and the weight throws him.
And there’s a hand on his knee, and he wants to disappear. He wants—
“I’m sorry I had to be so rough with you. But you need to understand—”
“Gar, you need to understand that,” Dick whispers, and he feels it like a knife in the gut, can feel his eyes burn, and the guilt is eating him alive. It’s literally eating him alive, and he wants to puke, he wants to vomit, he wants to run.
He wants to run.
He nods because there’s nothing else he can do, inhales deeply and pretends there aren’t tears in his eyes, and Dick breathes a small sigh, squeezes once on his knee, but he can feel it on his throat, tight and suffocating, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t—
“Okay,” and it’s a sigh of defeat and acceptance as he stands up, rounds the bed, and he can feel him lingering at the door, like a brand on his neck, before he’s gone and the door clicks shut, and all that’s left is him, choking on the bed with an invisible hand around his throat and panic in his limbs and he wants to run.
He wants to disappear.
He shucks off his jacket, chest heaving fruitlessly for a breath of air, kicking off his shoes and yanking his shirt off in the same beat, and his pants and briefs only just barely make it off his ankles before his bones are cracking and he’s falling forward onto large paws and the claws scrape disconcertingly against the floor, leaving little white lines in their wake that fade under the brush of a paw. His breaths come easier now, hidden in his own head as he is, and the tiger lets out a rumble that echoes in his chest but smothers itself in the room, and he moves to the wall, presses his flank up against it and feels the coolness, the solidity.
The window is an invitation he desperately wants to take, but the tiger pulls him back, steers him away, towards the door, grabbing clothes in its maw. It wants to run, too, he realizes, as the glass shatters under a heavy paw, and his bag with his clothes falls like a weight down, down, down.
He wants to disappear.
“They can’t go where you can.”
His bones creak and shift, and the door is a flimsy barrier under his body, and he knows, a part of him does, that they don’t need more stress. None of them do. But he also knows that there’s two—three, now—and that as a collective entity, he can’t make calls for all of them. Not right now, not like this, not when every time he blinks, his vision shutters and it feels like black spots are invading his vision and his body aches and aches and there’s blood on his chin and screams in his ears and pleas on his lips, and he’s so, so scared, and he can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t feel—
And then he’s gone.
The tiger stumbles in the stairwell, leaps and bounds down the rest of the way, and he creaks back for a finger print, dropping back down as the door shuts, and it’s freeing—this jolt of electricity through his body and he just wants to run, that’s all he wants to do.
So he does, rounds the building for the bag the tiger dropped, because they’re on the same page for the first time in a long time—to run, to disappear, if only for a moment—and moves.
Except he doesn’t quite like where he ends up. It’s big and wide, exposed, and he feels naked, vulnerable, but the tiger seems soothed somehow, like it wants to luxuriate in the open space, to take off running around the perimeter and rest in the middle. He’s not sure, but he’s not the only one calling the shots, and the building nearby is wrecked and abandoned, stinking of old water and dead rodents, maybe some fecal matter, and it’s not exactly luxury, but it’s better. It’s better than the tower with the guilt and the memory and the acrid smell of pain, pain, pain in every room, in every crevice, on every person.
He’s so tired of being lied to. He’s so tired of not knowing what’s going on. He’s so tired of trying to trust, of trying to balance, of trying to be there for everyone when no one wants to give up the full story. He’s so tired of having to go behind people’s backs, of having to search for things in the dark, of having to listen in when they’d prefer he be deaf, seeing when they’d prefer he be blind, feeling when they’d prefer he be made of stone.
He misses Larry. He misses Rita. He misses Cliff.
He misses his basement filled with his games and his collectibles and his pop. He misses the crunch of snow underfoot and the endless forest surrounding him. He misses the local arcade and the bowling rink. He misses staying put. He misses being in the loop.
He misses having a family dinner.
He misses the feeling of having a family dinner.
He misses feeling like a family.
And there’s anguish now in him, overpowering in its intensity, almost deafening as it rushes in his ears and threatens to numb them for good. He knows that this is his family now—that Dick, Rachel, Kory, and Jason are his family, but he doesn’t—it’s not—
With the original Titans back, Rose doesn’t need him. With Kory back, Rachel doesn’t need him, or want him. With Jason back, Dick doesn’t need him. With the Superman shirt wearing person, Jason doesn’t need him. With each other, Hank and Dawn don’t need him. With Kory and Dick, Donna doesn’t need him. With Gar—with Gar—with Gar—
He doesn’t fit.
The bag shudders at his paws as the pressure builds and builds in his chest and he lets it out, lets the roar take its course, long and low and reverberating so far that he’s fairly certain he sees rats scatter from their hideaways closer to the building. The tiger feels it too, feels the disconnect, feels the way he floats in the nether, untethered and flailing, trying to keep his head above the water.
The man in the edges of his vision doesn’t help, red stained white, gaping cavity, lightning rod loose in limp fingers. He ignores it, settles for laying on the ground, limbs shaking, ribs shuddering, waiting for the panic and the sadness and the loneliness to subside, for the tide to recede so that he can go back to feeling bereft.
It’s better than this.
He knows he can’t be gone for long, knows it like he knows that he can’t breathe around Dick, can’t linger by Kory, can’t spar with Hank or Dawn, can’t leave his stomach exposed to Jason, can’t turn his back on Donna, can’t be in the middle of their group, can’t trust Rachel to protect him, can’t look too closely at the edges of his vision. He knows it, but he idles, uselessly and heartlessly, somehow hoping that the longer he stays as the tiger, the less likely it is that he’ll have to go back, like being the tiger will excuse him from the responsibility he signed up for when he left Chief and his family.
“You are a very stupid boy.”
He swallows bile as he creaks, shifts, flails a hand out and shoves on his shirt as fast as possible, tugs up pants sans briefs and his coat, shoves his feet into shoes sans socks, and shoulders his bag, moving back towards the tower. He knows in the dark of the night, with no phone or wallet, it’s not safe, but he can’t muster up much concern. Fear—yes—there’s plenty of it. He can’t remember not being afraid.
“In life, as in death, he was always afraid.”
And he’s back to dark spots and black eyes and a bruised body and blood in his mouth and he can’t breathe, can’t feel, can’t move, can’t do more than stare before it’s all going dark and all he feels is an indescribable pain as his broken body is launched, sailing through the air in a split second of reprieve before it crashes and he feels it all stop.
The seven seconds afterwards, when he knows his consciousness is slipping, when he can feel his life dribbling away, are the worst seconds he thinks he’s ever experienced. Where every second is a small eternity as he laid there, knowing this was it, knowing he was done for, knowing he would never see anyone again, knowing that no one did anything while everyone did everything—he doesn’t think there’s a worse feeling.
Except for every moment afterwards, where every look burns, where if he doesn’t look long enough, the eyes darken and he feels his breath stop and his lungs seize and he’s back in that house with blood slicking his chin, dying and then again.
The tower’s almost foreboding as he walks back in, takes the stairs again, one at a time without the speed of the tiger, feeling the burn in his legs and in his lungs, almost relishing in it. His eyes close, and if he focuses hard enough, if he stomps hard enough, he thinks he can almost hear Cliff’s footsteps as he comes to get Gar to tell Larry what he wants to eat. If he closes his eyes as he ascends, he can almost delude himself into thinking that after just thirty-two steps, Rita will be behind a door and he can try and tell her a joke to make her laugh even if she can’t come down for dinner. But it doesn’t last, and he knows that what waits for him as he reaches the appropriate floor is Rachel’s hurt and questioning look, Dick’s disapproval, Rose’s silent body, a stranger dying, strangers surrounding him, and the sour, spoilt scent of pain.
The guilt sits heavier and heavier in his gut as he lingers outside the door, and he wants to disappear again, but he already risked it once. He knows he can’t do it again. He knows Dick’s going to blow a gasket when he finds out. He knows Rachel’s going to be hurt because he didn’t invite her again. He knows that the original Titans are going to look at him and wonder why it is that he’s here; why he bothered to come back. He knows Kory’s going to look at him and try to understand, but it just won’t click for her—it won’t click for anyone.
This isn’t the Gar that they know. This isn’t the Gar he wants them to know. He wants them to know the him that smiles and cares and tries to see the best in them all. He wants them to look at him and see someone to confide in. He wants them to see someone who isn’t scared of any of them despite what they can do and have done. He wants to be a source of comfort for them.
He can’t do that if they know him like this.
He inhales, slow and steady, and the tiger prowls in his chest, and it feels like stepping into that cage at the asylum as he opens the door, and his lips stretch, stretch, stretch, and stop—
He’s natural. He’s cool. He’s fine.
There’s no one on the other side, and he doesn’t wait to see if anyone will show, moving to his room and quickly shutting the door behind him. He strips off his clothes, dons something more comfortable that makes him feel a little less like he got quickly dressed after a panic attack next to a rat infested, feces smeared abandoned building. His bed is cold, but it’s soft, and that’s good enough for him as he curls up under the covers, unable to find it in him to care too much about all the other things going on.
There’s a person dying, but there’s nothing he can do. There’s a person healing, but there’s nothing he can do. There’s a girl crying, but there’s nothing he can do. There’s a boy pleading, but there’s nothing he can do. There’s a team fighting, but there’s nothing he can do.
He caused this.
He did this.
It’s almost like it’s for the best that he’s not a part of the gang. Not like the rest, anyways. And he thinks he can be okay with that. He thinks he can learn to be okay with that. He thinks he’ll have to be okay with that—because there’s nothing he can do.
He doesn’t sleep through the night, though, the pain in his chest almost unbearable, and he can’t hear much of anything outside of his room. Shoving himself up, he shucks his clothes with little fanfare, swinging his door open as he falls forward, looks at the tower from his stomach pressed to the floor. It’s cold, and he sticks to the edges, by the walls, moves past the doors and the lights, the empty rooms and the full rooms.
Jason’s in his room, he knows. He can sense the warmth from inside as he comes to a stop just outside of it, can taste it in the air, his stress and his fear and his pain. His bones shift, and he settles down in a pile in front of the door, rests his head on his paws, watches the hall as he starts his silent vigil. The tiger is agitated, he knows, and it seeks to protect, to correct his mistake, and correct it they shall. He settles inside, feels out the tiger, feels out the snake, and retreats, letting himself check out for a bit and get some rest.
They just want to protect him.
They just want to make things right.
When he comes back to, it’s to see Dawn braced in front of Hank, see Rachel with wide eyes, Kory holding her back, and Dick aiming a gun. He can feel his hackles are raised, can feel the door behind him is open, can feel his tail lash angrily as fear and panic and a need to protect surge through him as the tiger opens its maw and roars and the walls shake—
And Dick doesn’t blink as he shoots and he feels the dart pierce his shoulder, feels the tranquilizer flood his system, and the panic surges, and it’s him that roars now, helpless and choked as the tiger shudders and stumbles back, and there’s a presence behind him and someone shouting, and there’s a tight heat slung around his neck, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t—
Rachel is staring at him, eyes wet and wide, and he can see her strain against Kory’s arm, but she’s not doing anything, again, trusting in them, and he hurts and he’s losing his focus, losing his consciousness, and the tightness increases, tries to wrench his head to the side, and he growls and pulls against it.
They won’t be defenseless again, they won’t, they won’t, they have to protect him. They have to make things right.
A second dart hits and he falls, legs shaky, and he can feel the tiger recede, can feel it tremble at the edges of his fraying consciousness, and his hands scrape weakly at the tie around his neck before the darkness wins out and—
And he’s back to dark spots and black eyes and a bruised body and blood in his mouth and he can’t breathe, can’t feel, can’t move, can’t do more than stare before it’s all going dark and all he feels is an indescribable pain. It’s all dark, and he feels warm hands tearing the tie off his neck and a worried voice calling his name, but it doesn’t matter.
None of it matters. Not anymore. Because everything was going dark, and he—they—were still alone.
“You’re killing me, kid,” Larry groans, moving about the kitchen as Gar rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, laughing awkwardly. “Actually killing me—my death is going to be via a ridiculous vegetarian.”
“I’m sorry,” he laughs, shrugging his shoulders as he tucks his hands into his pockets.
“Tofu doesn’t belong in any of this. Literally none of this—kid,” Larry cuts himself off, almost desperately, and he can’t help but laugh, knows that Larry’s going to do something amazing with it anyways, knows it’s going to be absolutely mouthwatering.
“Rita says she’s joining us today,” Cliff intones as he comes in through the doors, and Gar can’t help the warmth that lights up in him and the grin that stretches across his face as he leaps up and winds his arms around Cliff’s neck just because he can, because he knows he’s going to be caught and promptly jostled off, knows Cliff’s going to whirr and grunt in amusement even as he moves past him to tell Larry Rita’s request.
It’s all warm and light, and he feels safe and warm in this house, so big yet so full of all of the love they share, just the four of them—mostly—usually. It feels like home. It feels like somewhere he belongs, like somewhere the people like him and need him and want him even when he’s not necessary, where his attempts to help don’t make things worse because it’s just the four of them and they appreciate what he tries to do with all of his naïveté.
He heads out of the kitchen, blowing a parting kiss to Larry who waves him off with the spatula, muttering again about tofu and how he’s going to just grind it into a smoothie at this point because it’ll be less painful for him, and sings goodbye to Cliff as he pads out. The house still feels warm outside of the heat of the kitchen, and he can feel a longing in his chest he doesn’t know the origins of. His body aches, and he doesn’t know why, but the warmth soothes his muscles, draws his lungs out and in, a pattern of calm breaths as he enters the dining room.
And then there are impassive eyes and a hand flying out, a shot and a dart, and he can feel his eyes widen as he stumbles back, world spinning, tripping and falling, grabbing for a chair to stop the descent before his shoulder hits the ground and he’s out—
Dick looks terrified, gun clenched tightly in his hand even as he tears out of the room after Jason who isn’t there anymore, but Gar remembers seeing the look on his face, the tears in his eyes, and the way everyone was crowded on one side, Jason in the other, all alone. He feels his gut twist, feels his hands shake, as he turns and exits the room as he came, not bothering to meet anyone’s gaze as he hurries to the center console, shutting the door behind him.
The cameras are in every room, and he flips through the previous footage, searching for whatever happened because Deathstroke being in the tower is a terrifying concept, but Jason had been about to cry and that—that is worse. He feels like a failure, having been so caught up in his own guilt that he hadn’t bothered to go and check, to see if Jason was alright, and, clearly, he wasn’t. He hadn’t been. But Gar—he had failed him. He had failed and now he was going to make it right.
The scene in the lounge room, right by the kitchen, takes place in front of him from a bird’s eye view, and his gut churns as he sees it play out. Booze in Hank’s room—that was bad. That was really bad. Confronting a recently recovering addict with his kryptonite? Really bad—but Jason wouldn’t do something like that. He wouldn’t. A picture of a guy—and orange soda bottle—what even were they going on about? What were either of those things about? The crosses in Rachel’s room—he swallows and flips through more footage, looks at a time lapsed version of Jason’s room, standing as if in a trance, gaze fixed out the window, for hours on end. He wouldn’t have, and, frankly, couldn’t have, done anything they were accusing him of. And then there’s Rose in his room, a weird moment of tension at the door, her dancing as he reverts to staring out the window, and then a kiss before Jason’s pulling away and shaking his head, and Gar doesn’t want to put the volume up, feels already like he’s intruding too far, but Rose is yelling now. Rose is yelling, and his hand moves of its own accord to click on the volume and hear her words as she clutched the vinyl record in her hand. And Jason’s so painfully confused and lost as the accusations stab at him and Gar can feel himself right there with him because, seriously—
What was going on?
Leaning forward, he clicks around, searching the room footage with frantic eyes as he flicks through each one, and he can’t find Jason anywhere—or Dick. And Deathstroke, a presence that is completely taking the back burner to everything else, remains absent as well in his searches. So, where was Jason? Had he left? Was he outside?
“Outside,” he whispers, thought popping into his head as he quickly clicks to the set of cameras he hadn’t checked. And he feels his stomach drop as there, in the camera on the roof, shows Jason, and Dick, both perched on the ledge of the building. Jason’s standing, but he’s so close to the edge even if his eyes are on Dick, and Dick is sitting, his eyes trained on Jason, and he’s saying something, but it all feels so private now, and Gar is only watching to make sure Jason steps down, heart in his throat, waiting as the minutes tick by and Jason finally shifts, seems to tilt forward—and he’s grateful Dick tenses and seems to lurch that way for a moment—before he’s stepping back on unsteady legs and stumbling off the ledge, back onto safe ground, and his shoulders are shaking as Dick quickly scrambles up himself and there’s a hug, tight and painful, and the two Robin’s look so broken that Gar clicks off the feed, let’s the silence of the room drown him for a moment.
Jason had nearly jumped, that much was clear, and Dick—Dick was breaking, his composure cracking. And the original Titans, they were all so painfully frayed and fractured. And there’s Rachel, barely clinging to a control she doesn’t possess, angry and violent, and Gar believes she’s good, believes there’s nothing evil about her, but—
But he’s scared.
He’s always scared nowadays.
He knows what he needs to do now, though. First and foremost, he needs to check on Jason. No more putting it off. The nausea is thick in his mouth now, and he knows if he keeps putting it off, it’s only going to get worse. Jason feels unappreciated and blamed and everyone keeps ganging up on him, and where was Gar? Where was he? Festering in his guilt about an event that he can’t change, when he should have been at Jason’s side, telling him he was valued and how happy he is that he’s okay. He should’ve been there, so that Jason wouldn’t have been on that ledge.
He should’ve been there so Jason wouldn’t have.
Pushing away from the monitor after clicking it off, he exits the room, not even disguising the purely animalistic growl that rolls out of him as he nearly smacks into Donna, and his lips curl back over his teeth in a quick flash of fangs before he continues hurrying down the hall, hoping she was still too caught up in herself to process much of what just happened. He was supposed to be remembered as the helpful one, the one there for people. He doesn’t want to tarnish that.
But can he even have that title when he left Jason hanging like that?
Dick and Jason are exiting the stairwell when he rounds the corner, and he doesn’t hesitate before running forward and flinging his arms around Jason, clinging tight, tight, tight, like he’s terrified of letting him go. And he is. He’s so terrified of what’ll happen if he does. He’s scared of not being there for him again because he went down the same road as everyone else in this tower and got so wrapped up in his own problems he forgot everyone else was going through something. He was raised better than that. He thinks he was, anyway.
Jason’s not moving, standing stock still, and Gar can feel the tension in his body, and sheepishness starts to bleed into him as he starts to pull back, but then Jason’s twitching a bit, and there’s a sniffle by his ear before he’s suddenly being crushed almost as tight as he’s clinging onto him.
“I’m sorry,” they’re both whispering, but Gar keeps trying to shush him because Jason doesn’t have to apologize. He hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s him. He’s the one that wasn’t there. He’s the one that hasn’t been there like he said he would be.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he whispers, clutches on tighter. “I’m so grateful you’re safe and here and whole and alive—Jason—”
Jason’s breath hitches and he burrows closer, and Gar looks up and meets Dick’s gaze, sees the weariness in his expression and let’s concern come out for him, too, because the man sure looks like he needs a nap. He looks as beaten as he imagines Jason does if he could actually see his face right now.
“Are you okay,” he mouths to Dick, and the man just stares at him blankly for a moment before starting to nod, stopping as Gar’s eyes narrow, then shrugging. He breathes harshly through his nose before gripping Jason tighter, pressing his head to his for a second before pulling back a bit. “Come on, both of you,” he instructs, and he reaches out and grips Dick’s sleeve, tugs him closer and guides the two Robin’s—one former, one present—down the hallway.
He’s not leaving either of them alone right now.
“Deathstroke,” Dick starts, or attempts to, but Gar just tightens his grip on his sleeve, continuing his walk forward, not letting Jason go either, a frown on his features.
“Deathstroke is a problem for, at the very least, an hour from now. We’re useless to anyone and everyone when you guys are falling apart—all of you are falling apart,” he insists blandly, ignoring Dick’s small sound of protest because, honestly, Dick looks like he needs a hug and some sleep and the world’s most patient therapist. “Don’t argue with me right now. An hour is the minimum amount—be happy I’m not making it longer.”
“What happened?” Rachel calls as they come into the living area, and she’s stepping forward a few paces, and Gar trusts her. She’s good. She’s not evil. He knows this. The tiger knows this. Rachel is good. But Jason’s trying to pull away then, step back, and Dawn is pressing forward towards Dick, and Gar is having none of it.
The tiger’s having none of it.
“Get back, all of you,” he barks, and he can feel the shift rippling along his skin, his vision altering as his eyes burn bright, the ache in his nails, his jaw dropping just a bit. It’s almost of perfect mimicry of when he was staring Chief down, but he’s in clothes he doesn’t mind tearing right now, if it comes down to it, and the tiger is prowling in his chest. Rachel shifts, Dawn takes a halting step forward, and Gar’s pressing both Dick and Jason back behind him, teeth and fangs bared in snarl that’s more tiger than Gar. “I mean it.” The growl is low and constant, and he can see Donna inching as if to go around, and his jaw drops in an honest to fuck roar that even scares Gar.
He can feel the tiger, edging into his head even as his form stays human, and he’s so scared. He’s terrified. It’s never happened like this before. The tiger and him—it’s one or the other, one or the other, not this hybrid where it’s there but not quite, it’s voice mixing with his. His throat feels different and his jaw heavier, but they agree on one thing.
They need to protect them.
“What is going on here,” Kory calls, sharp and commanding, her voice cutting through the clutter, and as soon as everyone’s eyes snap to hers, the tiger moves, gripping Dick’s sleeve and wrenching him over towards Kory, his other arm fastening around Jason and dragging him along. Dick’s easy to gravitate towards her, but she and Jason aren’t close and he hesitates, but Gar makes sure to keep his hold tight and urge him along.
“Nothing important. He,” he directs her attention to Dick, keeping his voice low because, honestly, he’s not sure how he feels about everyone at this moment, “needs to lie down. Like, now,” he urges, and he can see the concern on her face as she reaches out for Dick, ignores his insistence that he’s fine, and Gar takes advantage of his momentary lapse in attention to drag the gun from the waistband of his jeans, holding it firmly against his thigh as he pulls Jason with him.
“Where are you going,” Kory whispers, looking concerned as she gazes at them.
He looks over Jason’s shoulder, feels the tiger press into his rib cage from where it had subsided earlier and dig its claws in, growl hard and loud in his chest. “Surveillance,” he answers. “Dick thinks Deathstroke is here, or was—I’m going to double check.”
Kory nods, and Gar internally echoes his earlier sentiments when she had shown up the first time. Thank God for Kory—he’s not sure any of them would survive without her.
“Okay.”
He doesn’t linger longer because Dick needed to lie down yesterday, and Jason’s getting more and more agitated being there, and trudges into the surveillance room with Jason in tow, shutting the door and stopping short of locking and barricading it, figuring it’d be better if this room was at least accessible even if he was ready to kick anyone and everyone out.
“You didn’t need to do that—”
“I did,” he cuts him off, inhaling deeply as he tries to push the tiger’s anger to the side, however ineffectively. He levels Jason with a look as the man, boy, teen, person leans against the console, fingers laced awkwardly in his lap, head bowed. He looks so small like this, broken, and Gar hates that he wasn’t there, kept not being there, wanted to escape so badly he slept a whole day just to not have to face his mistakes again. There was someone who was counting on him, and he let him down. “You didn’t do anything,” he continues, motioning to the monitors like they’d reveal all that transpired while Gar was too busy in his own head.
“You saw?”
“Yeah,” he admits.
“Did you see who did it?”
“I didn’t look for that yet,” he admits.
“Then, how do you know,” and Gar’s never heard Jason like this, voice cracked and raw, like his throat had lost a fight with sandpaper and now his breath is scraping past the wounds, imbuing his voice with an ever-present sense of pain, pain, pain, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop hating himself for this.
“Because I know you—or, rather, I’d like to think I do. You’ve been honest with me, I believe that. And you’re good, Jason—you wouldn’t hurt them like that. That’s not you.” His voice is quiet, but it feels loud in the silence that follows, and he can see Jason’s got his lips pursed into a tough line, like that’ll stop him from potentially crying, and he just wants to grab him and tell him it’s okay to cry. It’s okay. He won’t judge. But he’s overstepped his bounds enough times today already, so he figures it might be best to not launch himself at the guy again.
The scene in the living room—it reminds him too much of everyone blaming him, silently and out loud, for Jason being taken. The way Kory had met his gaze for just the briefest of moments as they had walked past with Rose, like she knew this was all Gar’s fault, like she believed it. Rachel and her accusing tones, that stare, as she berated him for keeping secrets when hers was more life threatening than his had ever been—despite Jason. Because they could get Jason back; he had to believe that was true. But they wouldn’t be able to do anything if Gar lost his hand to Rachel’s razor blade wings, or if Jason had lost his life to her crushing grip. The way Rose just laid it all out, flayed him open, when he already felt like he was being offered up on a platter to anyone and everyone as they all rushed to fix his mistake.
None of it was Jason’s fault, and he wishes none of it was his fault, but he knows, and maybe it’s the snake or the tiger in him, pushing their thoughts into his head, but he knows—
It’s not safe here. For any of them.
He lets his lips stretch, stretch, stretch, and stop—
He’s natural. He’s cool. He’s fine.
“You want to help me look through the footage,” he asks, and he can’t quite keep the softness out of his voice, but he thinks maybe a part of Jason appreciates the gentleness, robbed as he’s been of it.
“Yeah, okay,” he croaks, lips twitching into their own hesitant approximation of a smile. Gar feels his heart fracture, but he doesn’t let his smile waver even as he feels cold slither over the cracks and break them open, feels the tiger feed on the pieces that fall.
He’s not going to let this continue on.
They’re not going to let this continue.
They’re going to fix this.
For their team.
The footage remains fairly unforthcoming, and it occurs to him, silently, that maybe one Mister Slade Wilson has managed to hack into their system, can see them as they are trying to see him. He gulps, the sound loud as he sends his chair screeching back, looking at the footage of the very room they’re in right now. Jason looks confused at the live feed, tilting his head, mouth open like he’s about to ask, but Gar is dragging him into a hug, shoving his face into his neck to muffle his questioning sound, staring at the monitor with wide eyes.
“You need to look fine,” he whispers, words barely a brush of breath. “You need to act like everything’s fine.”
“Gar,” and Jason sounds hurt, but it’s okay. They’re going to fix this. They’ll fix this and it’ll all be fine.
“He’s watching,” he hisses, staring at the monitor. “He’s been watching who knows how long.”
It’s silent in the room, and Gar can feel his trembling heart thumping harsh and loud in his chest, wildly, as the tiger snaps its jaws at its tentative structure. Jason nods his head, a shaky thing, and he pulls back, smiles as gently as possible with the pure terror coursing through his veins and the anger. They don’t like being afraid. They really don’t like it.
And for all that Jason said he’d rather be with Deathstroke than here, he can see the trauma of the encounter lining him, so painfully fresh that he wears it like chain mail, heavy and folding with him, resistant to his attempts to just snap out of it. Gar wants to hide him away and not let anyone near him ever again.
“I’m going to be here for a bit. I don’t know if you want to stick around for that or you can go chill with Dick and Kory for a bit while Dick gets some rest. I think Conner could probably do with some company, too,” he comments as he pulls up the old footage again, sitting in the chair. Jason looks almost lost, standing there, eyes still red and puffy, nose the same shade of scarlet. “There’s also Rose.”
“Not Rose,” Jason bites out almost immediately, and it’s like there’s a new weight on his shoulders, expression vaguely haunted, like something finally clicked and it’s weighing him down to the point where his knees are threatening to buckle.
“Okay,” he answers easily. “But can you do me a favor and send for someone to grab her,” he asks, trying to stay gentle. “She knows her dad better than me, obviously. If he was here, she might have better input.”
Jason shifts, swallowing thickly before drawing his shoulders back, jaw clenching. His head jerks in a hasty replica of a nod before he’s marching to the door and shouting for Hank. Gar winces at the volume, and it does wonders to hide his surprise at that being the name he’s chosen to call for. Hank’s presence is imposing in the room, and Jason’s backed up next to Gar before the man even finishes reaching the door. He doesn’t know if it’s fear or defensiveness that makes Jason do that, but he doesn’t think too much of pressing his shoulder to his hip gently, trying to provide some level of comfort, even as he starts scrolling through footage. Who knows when those things were planted?
“What,” Hank grumbles, and Gar throws a glare over his shoulder at the man, wishing he could just knock some sense into him, but he doesn’t think he has the patience for it, and he’s supposed to be the comforting one. He can’t get too involved in his emotions. He’s here to help, not hinder.
“You need to go grab Rose,” Jason states, plain and simple, like Gar can’t feel the tension running through him like a live wire. Hank seems to want to say something, but Gar’s scrolling through the footage on the roof, trying to see if maybe that was the entry point for Slade or whoever got into the tower, and he can smell the sudden wave of pure devastation and sadness coming from Hank, and he realizes what he just scrolled through. He wants to warn Hank off of mentioning anything, Jason’s back turned to the monitor, but he doesn’t think he’ll have to as Hank shifts, clearing his throat awkwardly.
“Yeah, okay,” is all he manages to get out, and his voice sounds thick, and Gar has to dig inside himself for a moment to find his sense of compassion as the man leaves the room, continuing to scroll through hours of footage as quickly as possible while attempting to be detailed. It had to have happened within the last forty-eight hours, that much he knows, but he doesn’t know how far back, where to start, where Slade is more likely to strike, if he’s even the one behind it at all.
“I’m going to go check on Dick,” Jason says suddenly, voice cracking in the silence, and he looks up, finds Jason’s eyes trained on the door, and he looks haunted, gaze flicking, and he stands, watching Jason snap out of the daze with an almost visible shake.
“Send my regards,” Gar grins, but his head tilts down, serious, and Jason nods, dragging on a matching grin with almost obvious effort. “And Jason,” he calls as the male pauses by the door, not looking back, but there’s a tension in his shoulders and, “I’m really glad that you’re here,” it eases just a little bit at the words, and he continues on out of the room.
“Didn’t expect you to be the one hailing me,” Rose drawls from the doorway some moments later, and Gar turns, cocking his head at the door. She sighs, almost put out as she shuts it.
“You want to tell me why you flipped out on Jason,” he drawls, and he feels so tired, and there’s venom in his veins, aching to come out, but he swallows it back, shoves it down, down, down and let’s it burn him from the inside out. She stiffens, turns as if to leave, and he lurches forward a little bit. “Look, I’m just trying to understand everything here. And I need to know how far this all goes.”
Is this the pressure Dick always feels? This overbearing weight to complete and to succeed, to protect even at the cost of his own well-being? Gar doesn’t like this feeling. It feels too feral, too powerful, like it’s asking for him to flip out, like it’s trying to draw the beast out of him. He astutely ignores the red lab coat in the corner of his vision, ignores the sounds of scream echoing in his skull.
“You’re going to go after him,” she says, breathes out, like she’s in awe or like she thinks he’s stupid—he can’t tell.
“He’s coming,” he sighs, corrects, and Rose is a stranger. He’s already flipped out on her. Does it matter if he’s happy around her? Does he have to be reassuring? Is it unfair to her if he lets her see his cracks? But she’s seen them. But she has some of her own. He wants to be able to provide some level of comfort to her. They’re in the same boat, sort of. He wants her to feel like she can stay when all of this is over, but he doesn’t think it’s possible—not after being forced to linger this long.
“Let me go with you,” she urges, suddenly, stepping forward, and she’s imposing even with her short stature, and Gar can’t help but lean back a bit, straighten his own posture, shoulders broadening as the tiger growls in him.
His eyes flick to the camera, straight at it, tries not to think of the prospect of Slade watching them through it, listening through it, and sighs out, “No,” turning his attention back to Rose. Her shoulders pull back, but she looks small and young like this, like she’s just been stripped of hope.
“I’m tired of listening to these petty people squabble over maybes and potential courses of action without doing shit. You and Jason went out,” she presses, and he hides a wince and his eyes move back to the camera, “and Jason—he did something useful. He tried. None of you want to do anything. They’re just sitting with their thumbs up their asses, hoping that they don’t have to get their hands bloody, hoping someone else will do it for them, or driving themselves insane over shit in the past that they can’t change.”
“I know,” he shouts, and it’s raw and broken. His breath shakes as he lets it out, slow and smooth. “I know,” he tries again, slower, softer. “But we do this as a team, or not at all.”
She draws up, slouches, like he just destroyed her whole opinion of him, whatever there was of it, but then she must see something in his eyes. Something wild, animalistic—a flash of green, a bare of teeth, something—and she huffs a breath, arms hanging loose at her side. “As a team or not at all,” and it sounds degrading as she says it, but it’s—she knows.
They’re tired of being scared.
“Jason had a box with my brother’s record,” she finally says, crossing her arms like she wants to hide. “He said it was Dick’s box of records that he borrowed, but,” and here she trails off, like she knows she maybe messed up, but there’s not much to do about it. And there isn’t, not now, anyway. Maybe later. “Aren’t you tired of being lied to? Everything they say—everything everyone says, even your little girlfriend—”
“Not my girlfriend,” he hisses.
“—is a lie. Aren’t you tired?”
He nods, can’t do much else. He is tired. He’s tired of not knowing what’s going on, of people getting hurt, of people driving themselves insane trying to solve a problem without having to touch it. He’s tired of being shoved to the side because the original Titans are hiding something terrible, tired of trying to justify it all to everyone and then himself. He’s tired of being scared and not knowing what he’s supposed to be scared of half of the time.
“Dick thinks Slade was, or is, in the tower. You know him better. Help me look,” and the last sentence is phrased as a question, except he’s not waiting for a response, turning in his chair, glaring at the screen.
“He’d come low,” she says as she steps closer, looking up at the monitor. “The shadows are your friend.” It’s recited like an echo of the past, but he can feel the weight of it as she steps close enough for her stomach to press into his shoulder. He doesn’t mind her presence right now as much as he had the last time they were alone together. It’s, actually, kind of nice.
“Rerouting,” he intones, tries to imbue humor into the moment with a poor imitation of a GPS redirecting, and it doesn’t do anything for the tense atmosphere, but he thinks she appreciates it, in some detached sort of way, as she shifts just that hairsbreadth closer. He thinks he’ll take the win.
They don’t find signs of Slade anywhere, but he thinks they find a sort of understanding with each other.
“What are you going to do, if we find him,” she asks, chucking a wooden sword at him, clutching one of her own, somehow mindful now that he’s not as skilled with a blade as the others. Weapons weren’t something he was ever taught to use.
He doesn’t answer, just lowers himself into a crouch, let’s his eyes close and the tiger bleed into his veins. His ears twitch and his eyes open, hand moving to block her blade, a sharp little spindle of pain twitching from the valley of his palm down the line of his thumb and into his wrist. He ignores it, clenching his teeth as he spins under the blade, dragging his own against it, placing pressure on the tip to drag it with him. Her foot sails over his head, a narrow miss as he ducks, following the motion she was dragged in, and she aims lower with the next foot, landing solid into the center of his back.
He can feel its force, knocking the breath out of him even as he turns and aims back with the sword, blocks her next upwards hit, jumping back as she moves quickly to a side slash, spinning away as a foot follows and blocking with two hands on his blade as hers comes down onto his. She’s strong, and her blade tilts and drags along his, so fast he almost doesn’t react quickly enough, relinquishing one hand to slide away, tilting his blade into the floor and following its movement with a flip that is purely Jason, aiming a kick at her head that she ducks and rolls out of the way of, blade abandoned.
The absence of a weapon doesn’t stop her, and the next occurs in a semi blur, her motions quick and jarring, and he hurries to block, to protect, and he’s not as fast as she is, and he’s fairly certain he’s not as strong, but the tiger’s working in tandem with him, and it works. He thinks he’s keeping up well, and there’s a light in her eyes, so much like Jason, like this fight—she’s been missing it.
Her next hit lands on his ear, and it’s sharp and ringing, and the tiger roars in his ears, and there’s an ache in his nails as he turns and catches her next hand, but one of the abandoned blades is raised over her head. They both stop, breathing hard, and she’s staring at him.
“What are you going to do,” she repeats, and her voice is breathless but steady. There’s that manic light in her eyes, and it’s captivating.
Later, he’ll be ashamed it was only half the tiger talking. Later, looking at reddened white and missing organs, remembering the taste of iron, remembering the squelch of organs, he’ll be disgusted. Later, with a body at his feet and a protected team, he’ll feel desolate.
But right now? Now, he feels hot with anger and fear and fury—flushed with instinct and excitement.
“What are you going to do,” and her voice is stronger now, and she presses down on him with the arm he’s still clutching, sword raising just a bit higher, blade tilting, and he remarks dully in his head that if it was a real blade, he’d be about to die. He’s fairly certain he still could right now.
And his skin prickles uncomfortably, and there’s a hand with a cattle prod raised above him now, and there’s wide, manic eyes and pale hands. He feels the electricity running through him, feels his bones creak, and he can feel the tiger in his jaw, in his teeth, along his nails. He can feel the serpent in his eyes, in his tongue. He can feel the two of them in his head, the hum of something more, and he presses back, jaw dropping.
Later, he’ll be ashamed. He will. He hopes he will, but now.
“What will you do?” She’s shouting now, and it sounds like she’s trying to urge him on, and it’s an exhilarating rush. He, for once, for the first blissful moment since he left Chief’s mansion, since he got rescued from the Congo, since he got sick, doesn’t feel the tightness of fear. He doesn’t feel it’s strangled hold on his mind. He only feels free. “What will you do, if we find him?”
And there’s the tiger and the serpent and him in his head. There’s three, and a hum, and they’re all free. They’re finally fucking free, if only for a brief moment. What will he do?
What will he do?
What are they going to do?
“We’re going to eat him.”