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Tim Drake and Jason Todd meet completely on accident.
Jason, recently orphaned as well as recently homeless, is curled up in a box turned on its side in a grimy alleyway. He doesn’t see Tim.
Tim, whose parents have been in the country once in the past 8 months, and spoke a total of 13 words to him while home (“Timothy, stand up straight. Slouching isn’t proper for any boy of your standard.”), is hunting for Batman and Robin, camera resting carefully around his neck. He sees Jason.
Tim clears his throat. Jason sits up and flicks him a glare that has Tim’s words dying in his throat. “I’m not taking clients.”
Tim takes a second to process the sentence before shaking his head furiously. “I’m not here for.. that. I just- you’re just.. lying there. You look really cold, and-”
Jason looks furious. Tim falters, but recovers quickly. “My house has a heating system. Sometimes my parents forget to pay it, because they’re not home too much, but it’s on right now, if you.. wanted to..?”
Tim realises that he’s effectively inviting a random stranger to his house who would probably steal his money and then kill him. Tim rationalises that the stranger in question is just a kid, like him.
Plus, Tim’s really, really lonely. Mrs. Mac hasn’t been by the house in two weeks, and she only ever stays for the time she’s paid for, which isn’t much. He really wants a hug, but company is good too, even if the company is a random kid from Crime Alley.
Jason looks Tim up and down with a scrutinous gaze before visibly softening. “..Okay.”
---
Jason is.. wary, to say the least. But his mom died two weeks ago, and he got kicked out onto the streets in one, and even if it wasn’t great, before, he’d always had a roof over his head. Now he had nothing, and the kid (he was just a kid) was offering warmth, and he’d have to be an idiot to say no.
Of course, he’d also have to be an idiot to say yes. Maybe the kid really was planning to kill him. At least he wouldn’t be on the streets anymore.
But the kid doesn't kill him. The kid leads him back to a whole-ass mansion (and Jason had assumed he was rich, from the fancy camera around his neck, but.. wow), and shows him to his room (the only lived-in place in the stupid big house), and offers him five different blankets, and hasn’t done a single thing but sit there in a blanket burrito and watch Jason when he thought he wasn’t looking.
Jason still doesn't know his name.
“Hey, kid, what’s your name?”
The kid perks up. “I’m Timothy Drake, but you can call me Tim if you want.”
“Alright. Tim, where are your parents?”
Tim visibly deflates. “In Turkey on a dig.”
A.. dig? Jason decides not to ask. “How long have they been gone?” How long has a tiny kid been alone in a giant house with nobody to take care of him?
“Well.. six months, technically.”
Jason tries to keep his rage from showing on his face. His dad had been an abusive asshole, but he’d been there. And his mom was always there, no matter what, even when she got addicted. “What do you mean, technically?”
“They came back to the country six months ago for a week. Before that, they had been gone for five.”
Jason curls his fist into one of the three blankets wrapped around him.
“I’m staying here,” Jason decides.
Tim blinks in obvious surprise, and Jason expects protest. He receives a quietly awed “Okay.” Jason can't help but pull him into a hug, effectively smothering them both with blankets.
Jason wastes no time in moving into the room next to Tim’s. It was pretty easy when you didn’t have any stuff of your own to bring with. Jason still spends a lot of time missing his mom, but less. It was harder to focus on grief when you had a little brother to take care of.