Red Robin Hood - candlebreak - Batman (2024)

Chapter 1: The Replacement (Jason)

Chapter Text

Jason slowly tensed and untensed each of his muscles, head to toe, as he lay on the cold concrete roof with his sniper rifle set up in front of him. He’d been there for a few hours already—completely sacrificing his night as Red Hood—but there were too many masks galavanting about this city for him to chance a shoddy stakeout.

Bludhaven wasn’t supposed to be like Gotham; there shouldn’t be so many capes and villains running around. But he guessed that was what happened when Dickwing decided to claim the city as his own. He brought the crazies with him.

Crazies like Jason. Oops.

Speaking of Dickface, he was off playing renegade with Deathstroke on the other side of the city. Jason had confirmed they were far away tonight—and that the Bat was in Gotham—before setting up. He didn’t have nearly the same resources in Bludhaven as he did in Gotham, and he really didn’t fancy a fight with Bruce or Deathstroke-the-f*cking-Terminator right then.

Jason had no idea what was going on with Dick; surely Goldie hadn’t actually gone full darkside, but how had he convinced Slade motherf*cking Wilson that he had? Because Deathstroke seemed pretty damned convinced, sending Dick on all sorts of missions with his daughter. Which, point for Evil Dick. But Bruce wouldn’t let his one remaining Robin live all alone in a city that had Deathstroke, Ravager, and an evil Dick Grayson running around, would he?

It was a conundrum. Jason had hacked into the Bats’ comm frequency weeks ago, but they hadn’t discussed dickhe*d at all. At least not where Jason could hear. It didn’t matter. His plan didn’t involve his so-called “big brother.” If all went well, Nightwing wouldn't be involved until it was too late.

But Goldie and the Terminator weren’t the only masks running around the city. Oh, no. The new Batgirl was also supposed to be floating around somewhere, but no one had seen her in a few weeks. No sightings in Gotham, either. It could be she was just quiet, but Jason’s money was that she was either recovering from an injury, training abroad, or undercover somewhere. But he wasn’t going to let his guard down just because she probably wasn’t around right now. Rumor said she was good, and she could be back any time.

Then there was Barbie, who was probably playing Oracle to an extent. Not as much as she did in Gotham, but Jason couldn’t imagine a world where the ex-Batgirl wasn’t at least keeping half an eye out for Dick. And the new Robin.

The final f*cking vigilante living in Bludhaven.

The reason Jason was here tonight.

His goddamn replacement.

Robin wasn’t here right now, but Jason was pretty sure he would be. The Bats’ comm line was currently playing in his ear, relayed from Gotham, and it confirmed that the Replacement was in Gotham tonight. The line was fairly quiet, mainly brief status reports between B and Agent A, with occasional insight from Oracle and a few short check-ins from the Replacement. It sounded like the kid was flying solo, on the other side of the city from Bats. And wasn’t that just asking for trouble.

Jason was happy to oblige. That was, after all, why he was here: to cause the bats some f*cking trouble. Or, not here here. That would come later. He was here here to do some f*cking reconnaissance, the boring-as-sh*t old fashioned way. He knew their schedules and routines in Gotham, had been listening long enough to map them out, was keeping a pretty close watch on the Teen Titans' activity, but he had one major gap in his intel that needed to be rectified: Eddie Drake. Little Robin’s legal guardian.

He was doing a sh*t job of it. Oh, on paper he looked fine—an upstanding citizen, clean tax history, fine employment and medical records, a long list of past residences all around the world that reflected the nomadic lifestyle he'd given up to take care of the Replacement as soon as the kid's father died—but that was only on paper. As far as Jason could tell from careful stakeouts of the guy’s place, he hadn’t even seen the Replacement in at least two weeks. Tim Drake certainly wasn't living with him. And three days ago, he’d pulled the kid out of school. If Jason didn’t have Robin’s sporadic reports over the comms, he would have thought that Uncle Eddie killed the kid and was trying to cover it up.

Something fishy was going on, so Jason had tailed the Replacement back to this place a few nights ago, a nondescript apartment building in a semi-nice area of Bludhaven. If anything in Bludhaven could be called even semi-nice. Ownership traced back to a shell company. Now it was just a waiting game. See where Robin came to roost.

f*cking Timothy Drake, making him give up perfectly good time when he could be crime-lording so that he could stare at an empty apartment in the freezing f*cking cold instead.

Jason breathed through the rage that thoughts of the new Robin always brought. He kept his focus on the view through the scope of his rifle, the world washed in cold green clarity. Whether that was the night vision scope or the Pit didn’t matter; either way, it brought Jason focus. Purpose. A pointed, patient rage, a purifying fire that consumed and comforted him, distilling his being into deadly intent.

Jason had died in an orange blaze of fire. He had died beaten black and blue and broken and bloody. He had died betrayed, and abandoned, and alone. Jason had died, and that should have been the end of it. Robin should have died with Jason.

Robin should have died with Jason.

But Jason was back, and so was f*cking Robin. Timothy f*cking Drake. Jason’s death hadn’t mattered, to him. Hadn’t mattered to Bruce or Dickface or any of them. Jason hadn’t mattered. And now there was a new Robin, flying around town like he wasn’t wrapped in a dead boy’s stolen shroud. Dancing on the edge of rooftops like he didn’t know he could fall.

That had to be why Jason had returned. Someone needed to introduce the new kid to gravity. Clip his wings, give him a little push. Robin should have died with Jason. So it was Jason’s job to set that right, and he burned with a righteous green fervor at the task, a hotter flame than even the explosion that had ripped his body to shreds.

Robin would die. Jason would kill him. Jason would destroy Robin so thoroughly, raze his ashes to the ground, salt the fields with his tears and his bones so that nothing could grow again. No more Robins. No more pale imitations creeping out of mansions and concrete. No more colorful corpses crawling out of graves like undead daisies.

It wouldn’t be enough. Jason wasn’t stupid, no matter what Talia or Ra’s or Bruce or Dick or anyone might think. He’d read Hamlet. He’d read The Count of Monte Cristo and Wuthering Heights. More than that, he’d seen too many kids die in the street, gasping for air with punctured lungs, caught up in so much revenge for their sisters and brothers who’d died just the same way, caught up in the gangs and the endless escalation of a head for an eye and never getting any satisfaction from the blood that ran into the gutters and washed out into the river with the rest of Gotham’s toxic sh*t.

Jason knew the price of revenge. The toll paid in blood and ripped off pieces of your soul for an ultimately hollow prize. But he was not Edmond Dantès. He was not Hamlet, or Miss Havisham, or Heathcliff. He was not a kid caught up in dreams of power and justice.

Jason knew he would destroy himself, destroying Robin. He would break everything good about what he once was—at least the bits not already shattered by the Bat and the Joker and the Pit and cesspool that was Gotham. Robin gives me magic.

He would tear that magic away. Not just from Robin, but from Jason. He didn’t care. He deserved it. He’d long since suffocated his innocence, long enough since that he hadn’t even felt a fleeting flutter of it as he hacked off seven gang lieutenants’ heads and stuffed them in a duffel bag for show and parade.

It didn’t matter. Robin would die with Jason. And then Jason could die with Robin, for real this time.

And so, Jason waited, and lost himself in the clarity of the navy-blue night, soft city noises, the view of the cracked-open window and empty bed, framed in black and all washed green through the lens of his rifle scope.

Jason loved his scope. It was top of the line: second focal place reticle design with a powerful telescopic lens; ED glass; a .250 MOA click value; an integrated power throw lever; night sights; the works. The scope alone had probably cost around three grand, and that was on top of the rifle itself, a beautiful SAKO TRG 42—not the fanciest gun out there, but a marvel of Finnish engineering and light enough to make up for the weight of the scope. All told, Jason was probably aiming about ten grand worth of gun towards the Drake's window. Plus the directional mic—he was too paranoid about being caught this early in the game to bug the birdie’s room—and the veritable armory he was decked out in. No iconic red helmet tonight; it was too flashy for this stakeout. So he was wearing a replacement helmet instead, black, and one that left his eyes free for the scope but still had just as much tech and all the filters built in. So maybe fifty, sixty grand of equipment, all told. Thank you, Al Ghul money.

Talia had been happy to outfit him with whatever gear his heart desired, on two conditions: one, he got rid of the Drake boy; and two, he didn’t kill Bruce. Well, neither of them were explicit conditions, but Jason could read between the lines. She hated Timothy Drake—an easy hatred to share—and she was obsessed with reuniting with her dear “Beloved”—a less understandable goal. Jason had no desire to crawl back to the man.

Punish him, yes. Reconcile? Never.

Ugh. Jason rolled his eyes and gagged beneath his mask. He wasn’t ever going to understand Talia’s obsession with Bruce. Like, sure, he was currently building up an entire criminal empire and stalking the man’s new pet project solely for the sake of a long and convoluted revenge plot against him, but it wasn’t the same at all. Jason didn’t expect Bruce to love him at the end of this. Talia was an idiot for thinking that this could end in anything other than hatred and pain all around.

Everything ended that way, with Bats.

No, Jason was smarter than that. He just wanted Bruce to hurt. He wanted him to hurt bad enough that the agony of Jason’s own torture and death would be preferable to the hell he was stuck in.

And he would start with Timothy Drake.

Speaking of, here came the little birdie, pulling up to the curb in his civilian motorcycle and parking.

His replacement.

And damn if that didn’t hurt, the knowledge he’d been swapped out for a new and improved model, like an action figure or an upgraded character in a video game. Jason swallowed against the surge of green rage that screamed at him to tear the imposter limb from limb. He couldn’t do that. Not yet. He had a plan. He had a metaphor.

Bruce was about to learn what happened when you didn’t take care of your toys.

So Jason banked the Pit to mere fury, and watched the Replacement as he limped to fire escape and hauled himself up to the window. Incompetent little sh*t had been injured. And where was Bruce? He really did take such bad care of his Robins.

Jason would be doing him a favor, showing him just how bad.

The Replacement shimmied through his window—stupid to do that in civvies—and huffed as he collapsed on the bed, the sound crackling in Jason’s ear as the mic did its job.

The Replacement groaned, then flopped half his body over the edge of the bed, grabbed something from underneath it.

Jason watched as the kid pulled out a large orange bag, pretty easily recognizable as the type that EMTs carried around—lots of pockets, crazy organized, stuffed with, like, premium first aid sh*t.

Now that was interesting: why was the kid patching himself up? Did Alfred not exist anymore? That was a stupid thought, even if Jason hadn’t heard Agent A checking in over the comms scarcely an hour ago. Alfred couldn’t stop existing. He was immortal and unchanging and would never die or leave or be anything less than Alfred.

But the evidence spoke otherwise: Timothy Drake was here, after he’d reported back to the cave, all alone and spreading an absorbent pad across his comforter to soak up the blood before it stained the sheets. Alfred wouldn’t have allowed that to stand. So what exactly was going on here?

Jason winced in sympathy as the kid stripped out of his sweats until he was dressed in nothing but a thin pair of boxer briefs against the cold November chill that was seeping in from the still-open window. The kid was torn up to all hell: layers upon layers of bruises up his ribs and a serious case of road rash across both forearms and the outside of his left thigh. He’d somehow managed to avoid any injury to his face, but the rest of him was not pretty.

A lot of those were new injuries, but Jason hadn’t heard anything about Robin getting hurt over the comms.

The kid had an obvious routine going. Squeeze bottles of sterilized water to clean out his wounds, antiseptic cream, gauze and butterfly bandages for the more shallow cuts that looked recent, stitches for what looked like older injuries, to replace the ones he’d obviously popped on patrol.

He hissed as he brushed the gravel out of his injuries, and bit his knuckles to keep from screaming as he contorted his bruised torso to stitch closed a cut on his side.

Finally he finished, but he didn’t go to sleep or even clean up the bloody first aid materials. Instead, he pulled out a computer and stared intently at the screen, working on something.

As he worked, Replacement toyed with his discarded needle, seemingly unaware of what he was doing as it poked in and out of his thigh, in and out. Thin pinpricks of blood bubbling up to the surface and wiped away.

He didn’t stop until dawn. Then he squinted at the sun out the window and drew the blackout curtains closed.

Jason stayed on his rooftop, listening intently as Replacement fell back on his bed. There was no further noise, no clacking of keys or sound of clean-up efforts, and Jason was about to call it a night and go when soft hitches of breath caught his attention.

The Replacement was crying.

He sobbed almost silently, only the irregular shaking of his breath giving him away. Or maybe he was just shivering against the cold. Even when he’d closed the curtains, the stupid kid still hadn’t closed the window or even put on f*cking PJs.

Either way, it took another half an hour before his Replacement finally stuttered off into what sounded like actual sleep breathing.

Jason packed up slowly, methodically, flexing his numb limbs to bring some sort of life back into them. He used the time to think. His original plan wouldn’t work, not with this new information.

He’d thought that Bruce and Dickface and the rest of them would be all over the baby bird, especially after the last one—the girl—had bit the dust. Drake's father hadn’t died that long ago, either. But they didn’t even care enough to know the kid was injured, living alone in Bludhaven, had dropped out of school, and was crying himself to sleep at 7:00am.

The kid was going to die at this rate, whether or not Jason had anything to do with it. Apparently dead Robins were just a thing, now, and Bruce didn’t give a sh*t whether they lived or died.

There was something almost comforting about that, that Jason’s wasn’t the only life that didn’t matter.

There was something f*cking infuriating about that, that Jason’s wasn’t the only life that didn’t matter.

Do better, Bruce.

His plan had depended on people caring about Timothy Drake, parents rich and powerful enough to cause problems for Brucie Wayne, parents who would would at the very least hire someone to dig into the details. But then Jack Drake had died, the stepmom had been committed, and this new uncle obviously wasn’t doing any kind of parenting. His plan depended on a Bruce so wracked with guilt at the death of yet another Robin that he would slip up enough for Jason to take advantage of the cracks.

But it was pretty f*cking obvious that no one was looking out for the kid. Not if he was stitching himself up in his room, crying alone in the cold, and so used to it that he had it down to a routine.

Well, okay, then. Jason would just have to adapt. Improvisation, that was his speciality. Hmm…yeah. That might work. He wouldn’t even have to modify the plan too much.

If those f*cks didn’t care about their baby bird now, Jason would just have to make them care. And he had a few ideas on just how to do that.

Timothy might get a little broken in the process, but what was a little kidnapping and torture between friends?

Chapter 2: Titans Tower (Tim)

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Tim rubbed his temples and tried to make the screen in front of him make sense. Mission report. Standard protocol. It should have been easy.

It wasn’t easy. Tim missed Kon. It was stupid; Kon was in Kansas. He needed time. Tim should be respecting that. He shouldn’t be yearning for something that was never his to begin with. Bad Tim.

He wrapped his hands around his mug of hot chocolate. It had gone cold. That was sad, but Tim couldn’t be bothered to get up to microwave it. It wasn’t like it was Alfred hot chocolate, anyway. He would have treated Alfred hot chocolate with more respect.

Tim groaned and thunked his head down on the desk. Frick, he missed Kon. And Bart, but he had seen Bart a few hours ago, before he went home for the week. He hadn’t seen Kon in over a month.

Because Kon didn’t want to see him. Tim knew, he knew, that Kon didn’t hate him, that his request for Tim to stay away had more to do with the guilt of how badly he’d hurt him when he was brainwashed. But Tim’s stupid brain kept insisting that Kon didn’t like him anymore, that he didn’t want to be friends, that he was angry and Tim rightfully disgusted him. Which didn’t even make sense. Tim was the one who’d been hurt; if anyone was going to be angry, it should be Tim.

And Tim wasn’t even a little bit angry. He was just sad. He wanted his friend back. How long did it take to get over some brainwashing, anyway?

Maybe he should call Bart. Or Cassie. He needed someone to pull him out of his head. Everyone had gone home except for Gar, Vic, and Raven, and Tim didn’t feel right pulling them back in just to deal with his bullsh*t. Raven was sleeping, and not great for pulling you out of depression funk anyway. And Beast Boy and Cyborg were great, but, damn, it was impossible not to feel like a third wheel if you were hanging out with them alone.

So Tim just sat in front of his computer. Sad. Pitiful.

Slightly less pitiful than sitting in front of his computer alone in his apartment. Slightly.

He knew he had to go back to Gotham—well, Bludhaven—at some point, but God, he really didn’t want to. He’d been living in San Francisco for almost three weeks now, and it was nice. Good. The Tower was safe. There were always people around. And yeah, Tim locked himself in his room a lot, but it was nice to know that people were there. Even during the schoolweek, when Bart and Cassie and Mia (and Kon, because Kon would come back) were gone, there were still people living there. It was odd, uncomfortable, so different from anywhere he’d ever lived before, but Tim thought he liked it.

Plus, he didn’t have to go to school any more. Tim didn’t think he was up to faking being a normal kid. It just took so. much. energy. School was too easy, too boring, and it took more effort than he had in his body to force his brain to focus on the work. And trying to socialize with normal kids on top of that? Hell.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was missing out on anything. He was smart, he could teach himself anything he needed to know, and he’d never really gone to school even when he was enrolled anyway.

He’d missed months of school his Freshman year back at Gotham Heights, between two training trips to Paris, healing from the disaster that was John-Paul, and getting fricking ebola. He should have been kicked out of Brentwood for the sheer amount of absences he had—only a delicate application of both Wayne and Drake money had prevented that, before the Drake money ran out. Then with moving back and forth to Keystone, the cataclysm, and No Man’s Land, he hadn’t really had the opportunity to go. The final straw had been Darla, though. The mobsters breaking into Greaves and shooting Darla in his arms.

He still had nightmares about that. That was a lie. It was only one nightmare. One of the many in his ever-cycling roster of fun sleep companions. This one probably visited once a week or so. It would probably come more often if he let himself sleep every night. But if he forced himself to stay awake until he passed out from sheer exhaustion, sometimes the nightmares didn’t come at all and he could get a few blissful hours of blackness.

This particular nightmare started as it had in reality. The suddenly empty high school hallway. Just him, Darla, and Tyrone. Thinly veiled panic all around him while Tim desperately tried to keep control, projecting a Robin-like calm all around him.

“I’m staying with you, Tim. I know I’ll be safe with you.” Darla’s last words.

The impact of the bullet as she stumbled forward, Darla gasping for breath as the blood pooled around her. Fifteen chest compressions, two breaths. Fifteen compressions, two breaths. Fifteen compressions.

Tyrone’s voice, distant, distorted. “Tim? Tim, I don’t know what to do.”

Here was where the dream diverged from reality. In reality, he’d evacuated to the nurse’s office with Tyrone and Darla’s limp body. He’d kept doing compressions until Batman got there. Darla had died in the hospital. She’d never woken up.

In the dream, he cracked her ribs. That might have happened in real life, too. But in the dream, her ribs splintered under his fingers, the shards punctured her lungs. Her lungs filled with blood, and she went cold and still. Another gunshot. Tyrone was down. Dead. Jimmy’s corpse was there, bled out from the wound in his thigh, even though Jimmy had safely evacuated to the gym by that point.

Fifteen chest compressions. Two breaths.

Backup wasn’t coming.

Fifteen compressions.

One breath, inhale—

Darla’s eyes opened.

“You promised I’d be safe with you. Why did you kill me, Tim? Why did you let me die?” Darla wasn’t ever angry. Only confused and disappointed.

Why did you let me die? The question echoed around him, Tyrone and Jimmy joining in. They hadn’t died. Not in real life, but he never knew that in his dream. Then Steph, who was dead in real life. His mom, his dad. Dad had been on the roster even before he actually died, but now his bullet wounds matched the ones that had actually killed him. Donna was there. Omen. Jason. Everyone he’d ever failed.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t act. He was holding a gun. He was Evil Future Tim, holding the gun that had killed Thomas and Martha Wayne. He had shot Thomas and Martha Wayne. Except Thomas and Martha Wayne were Tim’s parents? In the way of dream-logic, Martha Wayne was Janet Drake and Thomas Wayne was Jack Drake. And Tim was holding the gun. He had killed them. He had killed all of them.

Then Bruce was there. Bruce was there, and he felt a surge of hope. Every time, he felt a surge of hope. Because Bruce would fix it, and Tim was an idiot.

Dream-Bruce curled his hand around Tim’s, pried the gun away with gentle fingers, crouched down in front of him, pushed the cowl down to meet his eyes. “Why did you kill me, Tim?” His voice was soft in a way Batman’s never could be. “Why did you let me die?”

Bruce turned the up gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

And Tim was just there, alive, covered in brain matter and blood. The scent of linoleum and lockers and stale schoolhouse air, a gun in his lap. He wrapped his hand around the gun, raised his arm, and…

Then—and only then—finally, Tim could wake up.

So, yeah. Tim didn’t miss going to school.

Screw this. He obviously wasn’t getting the report done tonight. Tim forced himself up and away from the computer. Walked just to walk.

The Tower was quiet. He found himself on the top floor, looking out over the Bay. Warm lights against the nothing of the ocean. There were people out there, making the lights. There were people who weren’t dead.

“Hey, Tim.”

Tim startled. He wasn’t proud of it. He was a bat. He should be un-sneak-up-uponable. He was about to roll his eyes, tell off whatever teammate had interrupted his thoughts when he caught a glance of red in the window’s reflection.

“You’re—you’re Red Hood.” Tim turned around, reaching for his bo staff. He held it at the ready, not attacking yet. Hood didn’t have any weapons drawn, though he was doing a very good job of…looming.

“Surprised?” Even through the voice filters, Hood’s voice was dry and mocking.

“We’re a bit far from your usual stomping grounds.” Red Hood was a Gotham crime lord. He’d been seen in Bludhaven a few times, was rumored to have international backing, but he generally stuck to a very specific radius around Crime Alley. “How did you get in the Tower?” And why? Tim—Robin—was the obvious answer, the connection to Gotham, but even that didn’t make sense. Tim had never even fought the Red Hood before.

Red Hood ignored the question. “Little Timmy Drake. Timothy Jackson Drake. Robin number three. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Who?” Tim wrapped Robin around him, hoping to still the frantic beating of his heart. He discretely pressed the panic button built into his suit.

“Don’t play coy, Replacement. It doesn’t suit you.”

“What?”

A loud sigh. “It doesn’t matter. You’re coming with me. The hard way.”

“Aren’t you supposed to give me a choice?”

“Would you take the easy way?”

“Depends. What do you want?”

Hood huffed. “Mmm, no. You don’t get to know that. I’m not an easy kind of girl, anyway.” He reached for his belt.

“Oh, so you like it hard?”

That was definitely an amused snort. “You’re stalling, Replacement.” He snapped out a bo staff, a perfect complement to Tim’s. “If you’re waiting for reinforcements, they’re not coming. Tower’s on lockdown. No signals in or out.”

An icy chill roiled down Tim’s spine, because everything pointed to Hood telling the truth. That panic button should have gone directly to the Watchtower. Someone from the Justice League should have zeta’d in by now. That wouldn’t stop the signal from reaching people inside the Tower, though. “What have you done to my team?”

“Aw, the little birdie’s protective. That’s cute.”

“What. have you done. to my team.”

A dark chuckle. “Relax, Replacement. They’ll wake up. You, on the other hand…” He pointed the staff at Tim.

“Was that supposed to be intimidating…?”

A tilt of the helmet. A twirl of the staff to rest across his shoulders. “You still want to do this the easy way?”

Tim didn’t answer. He just moved. Feint to the left, and swing up.

Impossibly fast for someone so large and encumbered, Red Hood dodged the blow. But Tim was ready, coming in with a kick to the kidneys, or what would have been a kick to the kidneys if Hood hadn’t shifted to take the blow harmlessly against his armored side.

Tim rejoined with a strike to the head, but was quickly pushed back in a flurry of blows. He got in a few good hits, but Hood was relentless and much more heavily armored than Tim. And Tim was tiring fast. Time to change strategies.

He released a smoke pellet and dashed to the side. With unerring aim, a knife of some kind crashed into his shoulder, causing him to stumble. Then again. They stuck in his flesh through his armor.

Tim scrambled to his feet and threw himself down the hall and over the railing of the stairwell. He plummeted, gravity doing its job, before sending a quick grappling hook to the railing and swinging onto the seventh floor. He needed to get to a computer terminal. Signal for backup.

Tim sprinted through the corridors, head spinning. What was even going on? Why was Hood here? Nothing made sense.

It wasn’t until he crashed into a terminal, bleeding, that he realized Hood was being awfully slow to follow him.

No time to worry about that. It took him three frantic tries to log onto the computer, because the letters kept shifting around. Wait. The letters weren’t supposed to move…

“Aw, frick.” He’d been poisoned.

“You can use big-boy words, you know. It’s just us here. I promise I won’t tell Daddy Bats.”

Tim whirled, vision blacking out, and buckled to his knees. No. No no no no no. It hadn’t even been a real fight! Tim desperately clung to consciousness, numb fingers refusing to obey his orders. His staff rolled to the floor.

“It’s…Agent A you have to worry about. Swearing.” Tim could have said that better. If only the lights would stop blinking at him.

The last thing he was aware of was a startled burst of laughter before the darkness took him.

Chapter 3: The Search Begins (Barbara)

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“I’m a goddamn adult, Bruce,” Barbara snapped, spinning her wheelchair around from the Batcomputer so that she could glare at the man head-on. “With a full-time job and my own vigilante team. I am not your personal tech wizard, and you do not treat me as such.”

“I am not—”

“Oh no, B. That wasn’t a suggestion you could argue against. You. Do not treat. Me. Like your personal computer valet. End of sentence.”

“That’s hardly-”

“No.”

Bruce huffed like the spoiled man-child he was. “You’re using my equipment, in my cave, and—”

“Whose ridiculous plan was it that got my entire base of operations blown up?”

“That was hardly my fault.”

“Whose plan.”

“If Spoiler hadn’t—”

“Tread. Very. Carefully. Bruce. Because if you were about to blame a dead teenager for your f*ck-up, a dead child who I mentored and who was tortured until she died because of your inability to communicate in any kind of meaningful way, you better rephrase that sentence.”

“Hrng.”

“Mm. That’s what I thought.” Barbara closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I’m moving to Metropolis.”

“What?”

She fixed him with a look. “There’s nothing here for me, Bruce. My base is gone, Steph is gone, Cass is gone. My Birds can fly wherever. I can do my business from anywhere with a solid internet connection. You got Tim and Cass out of the city for a reason. Well, I need a break too. I can’t be here right now. It’s too painful. So I’m going.”

A long, drawn-out silence, punctuated by a single nod. “If that’s what you feel is best.”

“It is.”

“Hm.” A beat. “Metropolis?”

“Maybe I want to pay Luthor a visit.”

“Hn.”

That was his amused grunt, so Babs figured she was probably in the clear.

“The matter we were discussing…”

“Still. Not. Your. Tech-Monkey.”

“Of course not, but Martian Manhunter is a member of the Justice League, and he’s been missing for over a week now. You have been known to freelance for the Justice League.”

Babs sighed. “Isn’t Vic all over it? I don’t know what you expect me to find if he hasn’t found anything. The man literally has the entirety of the internet in his brain.”

“You know as well as I that it’s a matter of sifting through all that information. And Vic has been occupied recently with matters involving the Teen Titans.”

“Okay. This is still not in my job description. I have so many commit—”

An incoming call from the JLA, on the emergency line. Babs immediately shut up.

Barbara raised an eyebrow at Bruce, and he nodded: the argument was tabled for now. She pressed on a domino and Bruce ducked into a cowl before Barbara spun back around and clicked the video feed open—not everyone on the League knew their identities.

Wonder Woman’s face popped up on the screen. The secrecy hadn’t been necessary then, but better safe than sorry. “Oracle, hello. Batman.” Her greeting was far less enthusiastic than it usually was.

“Diana,” Bruce growled. “Have you found him.”

Diana’s face was grim, an obvious no. “I’m so sorry, Bruce.” Her tone was much more sympathetic than the situation warranted. It wasn’t like J’onn and B were particularly close. “We only just learned he was missing.”

Something wasn’t adding up. Bruce’s shoulders did that thing that they did when he was frowning his ‘Confused and Worried Batglare(tm)’ under the cowl. He straightened up to stare at the screen. “Report.”

Diana nodded, brisk. “At 00:41 last night, Titans Tower went into electronic lockdown. Raven, Beast Boy, and Cyborg were incapacitated. They were transferred to the Tower medbay by an unknown assailant and set on IV sedatives. They were discovered fifteen minutes ago when Speedy dropped by the Tower to pick up school supplies. All three are groggy, but apparently unharmed.”

Barbara's breath caught in her throat. Robin was supposed to be at the Tower now. Diana hadn’t mentioned Robin. If Tim was okay, she would have lead with that. So Tim was hurt, or missing, or…no. Barbara didn’t think she could take another dead child. Missing, Diana had said.

Bruce was already suiting up, ignoring the screen. Barbara transferred the audio feed to the comm in his cowl and popped her own headset on, nodding at Diana to continue. She had a feeling she would be playing Oracle for a while tonight.

“Speedy radioed the situation in to the Watchtower, and Aquaman, Superman, and Zatanna responded to the scene. Green Arrow and Black Canary are en route. Cyborg is currently working on rebooting the system, which may be difficult given the extent of the…physical damage. Robin is MIA, presumed captured. His uniform and weapons were found in the medbay, and…there was a message.”

She didn’t elaborate. Diana of Themyscira, Wonder Woman, hesitated to say whatever it was out loud. This was bad.

Batman had gone nonverbal, so it was up to Barbara to prompt, “A message?”

Diana’s lips tightened on the screen, but she was not one to mince words. “‘Dead Robin #3.’ Written in blood on the wall of the common room.”

Barbara’s whole being went icy cold. Not again. No. Please, God, no.

Silence.

Dead silence.

“Bruce,” Diana began, “we have no evidence that—”

Batman was gone. Babs shook her head to let Diana know it was useless. “He should be arriving at the Watchtower via zeta any second now.”

Diana nodded solemnly. “Yes, I expected as—” She co*cked her head, listening. “He is here now.” A pause, Diana’s attention still elsewhere. “And he’s gone. Presumably to the Tower.”

Barbara nodded, already bringing up screenloads of tracker data. Bruce’s tracker was indeed in San Francisco. “Copy.”

“I trust Batman will be taking the lead on this, but let us know what we can do on our end. An attack on the Tower is a matter that affects the whole League.”

A grunt in her ear, the first sign of communication from Batman since he’d demanded the report.

“Thank you, Diana,” Barbara translated. “We will. Oracle out.”

She shut off the video link and reported to Batman without any prompting. She wasn’t his personal tech wizard, but she wasn’t heartless. She’d be on this case until they got Robin back, alive and well. Because they would get him back. Anything else was unacceptable. Not after Jason. Not after Steph.

Not that it had been acceptable for either one of them.

She couldn’t do this again.

What she had to report wasn’t great. “Robin’s trackers are all pinging inside Titans Tower, except the ones in various suits here and in Bludhaven. I’m going to need to coordinate with Vic to help recover what we can from the Tower’s security system—I might need you to physically get me into the system over there. I’m going over security feeds from the surrounding area, and I’ve set up alerts to track any credible mentions of Robin on the web. You need to loop in Nightwing and Batgirl; it might take me a bit, but I’ll open a line of contact to each of them.”

“No.”

Because nothing was ever easy with this man, was it? “An entire word, B? For me? You shouldn’t have.” She made an attempt to reign in the sass. It was a defense mechanism, not helpful right now. “Yes, we are looping them in. That’s not optional. Their—Robin is missing.”

“Communications at this point would jeopardize their undercover work and needlessly endanger them, while we do not yet have sufficient intelligence to suggest that their knowing about this event would be at all helpful.”

Deep breath, Babs. “Okay.” She kept her voice calm. “I will contact Nightwing and Batgirl, taking reasonable precautions, while you investigate the Tower.”

“Do not contact either—”

“I don’t take orders from you, B,” Barbara snapped. “You can either waste time arguing with me, or you can investigate.”

Batman chose to investigate. Smart man.

“I’ll loop in Agent A as well.”

“Hn.”

“You’re welcome.”

The more they investigated, the worse it got. The Red Hood had broken into Titan’s Tower. A Gotham crime lord, up and coming. He’d taken advantage of the instability after the last gang war to muscle in on Black Mask’s territory. Made his debut with a duffle bag of severed heads.

It made no sense. It was so far outside of his MO that Babs started running image recognition programs on security feeds from Gotham last night, on the chance that this was a random imposter. This kind of crime had “masked villain” written all over it, and Hood? Hood wasn’t really a mask.

Oh, he had the helmet that covered his face. But other than that? No gimmicks, no powers, no known obsessions. The severed heads thing was bad, yes, but since then his violence had mainly stayed at acceptable levels, aimed solely at sexual predators, domestic abusers, and people who took advantage of kids in one way or another. His rules were clear, and he enforced them regularly. Not exactly masked-villain behavior. Just, normal crime-lord behavior.

Honestly, with everything that had been going on, Red Hood been so low on the priority list that Babs hadn’t really dug into his whole deal yet.

So why the bizarre escalation?

The footage from Tim’s domino was the most easily recovered, and Babs went through it first. It showed a normal night, Tim staring at a computer screen for fifteen minutes without moving—probably sleep deprivation, because the twerp didn’t know how to take care of himself—before he pushed himself up to wander the halls. No alarms, no warning signs, no hint of an intruder until suddenly one was behind him.

He knew Tim’s name. He knew Tim was the third Robin. It wasn’t too much of a leap from that to figure that he knew all of their identities, that he knew more about the Bats than anyone outside the family ever should.

And he was confident. He acted like he had all the time in the world, and he was right. It had been nearly thirteen hours between when Tim was attacked and when they’d discovered the breach. They could be anywhere by now.

It was hard to pick out anything about him through the voice modulators—maybe a hint of a Gotham accent? A sardonic sense of humor? He enjoyed quipping back and forth with Robin, but then again, most villains enjoyed their quips.

No powers that she could tell from the feed, but he was very, very good. He also had almost a foot and probably seventy pounds on Robin, plus heavy-duty body armor and whatever was inside his helmet. The fight had been stacked against Tim from the beginning, even before whatever poison that had hit Tim came into effect.

And it was clear something had gotten into him—probably when he stumbled before jumping down the stairwell. Babs asked B to check the suit for any tears or residue. Tim was shaky and unsteady as he fled to a computer terminal, then collapsed with a half-hearted quip about Agent A and swearing.

Red Hood laughed at that, a full-body thing. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to piss of Alfie, would we?” He picked Tim’s limp body up and hoisted him over his shoulder.

Barbara had to pause the video there. She’d known—she’d known already, then, that the Red Hood likely knew at least Batman and Nightwing’s identities. But Alfred? Calling him Alfie? That implied a level of intimate familiarity with their lives that Babs was not at all comfortable with.

Tim didn’t move as Red Hood hauled him up to the medbay. The angle was bad—just a bouncing image of the back of Red Hood’s jacket—but she heard him humming tunelessly as he worked. He laid Tim out on a cot and put him in a full set of restraints. Then he disappeared, carting Raven, Beast Boy, and Cyborg into the infirmary one by one. Thankfully, Tim’s head had flopped at a good angle to see them. Red Hood huffed a bit when he set Cyborg down onto a cot, but he showed no other sign of strain from hauling the huge, half-metal man around.

Red Hood hooked all of them—including Robin—up to IV lines, showing an easy familiarity with both medical equipment and the layout of the medbay. He checked their pulses, breathing, and pupils before turning back to Robin. More care than most villains showed.

Still humming, he cut off Robin’s uniform with a sharp-looking knife. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking behind that faceless red helmet. Jesus f*ck, please don’t let him be a perv.

He folded the uniform neatly, and set it to the side. Then he ripped off the domino in a decisive yank. Barbara winced in sympathy—that had to have taken chunks of skin with it—but Tim didn’t make a sound. Hood placed it neatly on top of the uniform, and Barbara was treated to a lovely view of the medbay ceiling for the next twelve and a half hours of recording. She sped through it, hoping to hear something useful, but the most that she got was Red Hood shuffling around the infirmary for a few minutes, then silence for almost forty minutes, then the sounds of restraints being undone and a soft grunt as—presumably—Red Hood came back for Tim and carted him away.

Babs would bet her chair that he’d spent those forty minutes leaving his bloody message and then thoroughly trashing all the electronics in the base. Vic and Batman were on the ground, trying to piece what they could back together, but it was slow going. It wasn’t on Tim’s cowl footage, but B was pretty sure some of the damage was from a rocket launcher.

Maybe a team effort, but Babs was inclined to think this was a solo operation. It was smooth, professional, and almost invisible. It would have taken one person that full forty minutes to wreak as much damage as there was, and if there had been more players, they would have been in and out even more quickly. As it was, it looked like the whole thing had been done—in and out—in just under an hour.

Babs left the Tower’s records to Vic and B, and turned her attention to the backups in the Watchtower. They wouldn’t have caught anything after Hood destroyed the physical hardware, but before that? The records should have backed themselves up every five minutes.

And so they did. Working backwards, Babs was able to see exactly how Red Hood had waltzed in through the front doors, headed immediately to the nearest command terminal, and flicked through the security footage there. He neatly disabled all the alarms and set up a Faraday cage around the Tower to stop any transmissions from going in or out—it was a defense measure already built into the Tower. Tellingly, he didn’t put the Tower in full lockdown, meaning no one could get in or out, an action which would have sent an alert to the Watchtower. He turned off the cameras—but made sure their lights stayed on—and from then on everything was blank.

Barbara had a really bad feeling about this. He knew too much, was too familiar with the tech and security protocols. It wasn’t even like he was a genius hacker—he hadn’t done any actual hacking. Just used someone else’s security codes and told the system to do what it was built to do, quickly, efficiently, and with a minimum of fuss.

“B,” she said, “we have a mole.”

“Agreed,” came the terse response. “It’s too clean. Can you check—”

“The security logs? On it. Okay, it looks like the door codes and the computer security logon were both keyed to—f*ck.” She stared at the screen, refusing to believe it.

“Oracle?”

Barbara swallowed. “Nightwing. They were both keyed to Nightwing. His root access codes. B, those are locked up tight. Even other members of the League wouldn’t be able to…”

“I know.” Silence. “Have you contacted Nightwing yet?”

“I sent him a message earlier letting him know he needs to check in, and it’s urgent. I can force through a call to him, but it might blow his cover.”

“Do it.”

Barbara did.

“Hey, B?”

“Hng.”

“Did you know Robin’s uncle is entirely fabricated, and is in fact an actor named Richard Beren?”

“Hn.”

“Oh, well, thanks for sharing that with the class.” Barbara was going on thirty hours without sleep, and was not in the mood for these games. “I guess that explains why I can see your digital fingerprints across some of this work.”

Broody silence.

“You helped Robin fabricate a fake uncle?” Nightwing’s incredulous voice broke through the comms.

“Robin did the bulk of the work without my intervention. When I uncovered his scheme, I simply helped him shore it up a little.”

“That’s messed up, B.”

Defensive broody silence.

“He’s been living alone.” Barbara tried to bring them back on topic. “All sorts of things could have happened that we don’t know about.”

“No, he hasn’t! I thought he was staying with—isn’t he staying with Batgirl?”

“Batgirl is currently on an undercover operation, and would not be able to live with Robin without risking compromising both of their civilian identities.”

“Oh, now we’re worried about compromising identities to the fake uncle?” Nightwing was pissed. “I thought part of the whole deal with Robin and Batgirl coming to Bludhaven after—after Spoiler, was that they would be removed from the action and have a support system.”

“Hn.”

“Oh, don’t take that tone of grunt with me, B. If I’d known you were just going to throw him all alone into the deep end, I might not have taken this most recent op. He’s a kid. A literal child. He shouldn’t be living all on his own when he’s pissing off supervillains every day. No, scratch that. He shouldn’t be living on his own period.”

“He was practically living on his own for much of his earlier tenure as Robin, and for many years well before that. All told, there were only a few months when Robin actually cohabited with his parents or others.”

A long sigh. “That’s really not any better, B.”

Barbara wisely pretended she had not been listening and went back to digging through the records. But she made a mental note: they’d need to hold Tim close when they got him home. Let him know he was loved.

Two days later and they had nothing to show for it. The blood on the wall was Tim’s. There had been residue of the sedative on Robin’s uniform, and in his blood, but it told them nothing. A common compound, fast-acting, easily available to anyone with black-market connections.

The Red Hood was lying low. No one had seen him since the attack on the Tower, and not for lack of trying. The bats were tearing through his empire, dismantling it bit by bit. Or, Batman and Nightwing were. And the more they dug, the flimsier it seemed. No one knew who Red Hood was. No one knew what he looked like. No one knew where he was, or where he’d come from. No one knew any long-term goals. The revenue stream made no sense. They had nothing.

It was becoming increasingly clear that the “Red Hood” had been a front. A temporary identity used to pursue a more long-term objective. And that objective was Robin.

“What if it’s Deathstroke?” Barbara sat slumped over a mug of tea at the kitchen table.

“It’s not Deathstroke.” Dick was similarly slumped over his own mug of some sugary monstrosity that couldn’t be rightly called a drink.

“Who else could have possibly accessed your codes?”

“I don’t know!” Dick exploded back from the table to perch on the counter. “I don’t f*cking know, Babs. Yes, I’ve been working with Deathstroke. For an undercover mission. To bring him down. I never gave him access to any of my codes! And yes, I have worked for Deathstroke in the past, when he was blackmailing me. But if you and B don’t trust me, fine. Deathstroke didn’t do it because he would be screaming it from the rooftops if he did, rubbing it in B’s and my face. And I was with him the whole time that night. Is that enough? I didn’t—I would never—I would never hurt Tim. Not on purpose. I f*cked up, okay? I f*cked up somehow, somewhere, and now my little brother is dead or being tortured and it’s all my fault, and I don’t even know how! Is that what you want to hear? Because that’s all I’ve f*cking got. I—I messed up, and now my brother is dead. Again.”

Babs closed her eyes. “Dick.” She was so tired. “I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, whatever. It’s fine. Sorry.”

“Master Richard, if you would kindly remove your feet from the counter. I understand that you are upset, but that is hardly a reason to track outside germs into the food preparation area.”

Dick swung down. “Sorry, Alfie.” His voice was sullen.

Babs looked hopefully at the old butler. “Any ideas?”

“Not in the last half hour, Miss Gordon. It took a great deal of mental effort to force Master Bruce to sleep.”

“Did you drug him?” Dick asked.

Alfred sniffed. “A rather unseemly suggestion.”

“That wasn’t a denial.”

Alfred ignored him and turned back to Barbara. “I have been wracking my brain for the two days as to who might have such familiarity with myself as exhibited on the tapes, and am coming up entirely blank to anyone outside our household and yours. The Kents, perhaps Ms. Kyle, but this seems entirely antithetical to any of their ways of functioning.”

Babs grimaced in agreement.

“Does Tim have any enemies?” Dick ventured. “Not as Robin. But Tim as Tim.”

“You would know better than me. I couldn’t find anything in the electronic records.”

“I got nothing.” Dick shook his head helplessly. “He was living alone. Why the f*ck was he living alone, Babs? He’s sixteen! What the hell made B think, that when he found out Tim had invented a fake uncle and created a paper trail for and hired an actor to play said uncle—what made B think it would be a good idea to encourage Tim to do that?”

Barbara gave him a flat look. “He’s B.”

“Yeah, I guess that explains it. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this family is f*cked up.”

Babs very kindly refrained from pointing out that she wasn’t in this family, thank you very much, and she preferred to keep it that way.

Barbara sighed and cradled her head in her hands. “I keep coming back to one thing.”

“Mm?”

“If I didn’t know better, just based on method alone, I’d say it was Bruce.”

Dick raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Bruce?”

“Bruce with guns and a more vocal sense of humor.”

“Hmm. The idea does have some merit, Ms. Gordon.”

“Alfie? You’re in on this?”

Alfred merely shrugged and opened his hands. “The Red Hood has seemingly-impossible intel. He quickly and efficiently targeted points of weakness. He’s an incredibly good fighter. Large, fast, versatile. A flair for the dramatic, a tendency towards secrecy, and a somewhat juvenile sense of humor. Master Bruce to a tee.”

Dick blinked. “I’m sorry, what? Bruce doesn’t have a sense of humor, period. Let alone a juvenile one.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “He does not have a sense of humor that he expresses aloud. You are talking about a man who regularly frequents Batman conspiracy forums and gets into arguments with his own accounts about whether or not Bruce Wayne is Batman.”

“That’s a contingency plan to discredit the truth, because he’s a paranoid f—”

“A man who bought Superman’s entire place of employment just to annoy the man because he ‘thought it would be fun.’ A man who believed it would be a good idea to design a highly-weaponized super-car that can disguise itself as a pile of trash. Who named the insurance policies for Batman-related damages, ‘Dark Knight Returns.’ A man who took great delight in your puns and catchphrases of old, and—although he would never admit it—found immense enjoyment in Master Jason’s frequent wordplay upon the more vulgar connotations of your name.”

Dick looked like he didn’t know whether to smile or cry. “Bruce liked my Bat-puns?”

“Indubitably.”

“What about Wingdings?”

Alfred’s lip twitched. “I daresay you’ll have to ask him, Master Dick.”

“Diplomatic, Alfie.”

“But of course.”

There was a moment of silence.

“God, Jason. I should’ve been there for him.”

Alfred’s mouth turned down. “We all have our regrets, Master Dick. We cannot let them keep us from living in the present moment.”

“Except the past keeps repeating. We should’ve been there for Jason, and now he’s dead. We should’ve been there for Stephanie, and now she’s dead. We should’ve been there for Tim, and now—” His voice cracked. “Three out of four, Alfie. I’m the only Robin left standing.”

“Now, now, Master Dick—”

“It’s a copycat,” Barbara breathed.

Both of the other heads in the room whipped towards her.

“What?” asked Dick.

“The past keeps repeating itself. He’s a copycat. The Red Hood. That’s one of the Joker’s old aliases, except we dismissed that as a connection back when he first appeared on the scene because the Red Hood isn’t completely unhinged. He was always methodical and all about order. He had rules, and he stuck to them, and he showed no interest in anything Joker-related. But the Joker killed Jason—the Red Hood killed Robin, and now…”

“The Red Hood will kill Robin again.” Dick finished the thought. “Do you think,” he swallowed, “do you think he’ll try to recreate it? How—how Jason died. In Ethiopia? Or should we be looking into warehouses? Maybe he…God, do you think he tried to contact the Joker?”

“I don’t know. I—yes. We should check all of those out. But it’s a wide net, Dick. I don’t know if…” She shook her head. “Possible connection to the Bats; possible connection to the Joker. Possible connection to Jason, to you, to Tim. I’m on it. Let’s get down to the cave.”

Chapter 4: What Happens to Robins (Jason & Tim)

Chapter Text

Jason uses Dick’s old codes to get into the Tower. He could have used his own—assuming they haven’t been disabled—but that would point to him being here, to him being alive, and Jason isn’t quite ready to reveal himself. If he ever will.

The lesson will probably be more effective if B doesn’t think he’ll get some kind of second chance with Jason. If all he knows is that he has three dead birds at his feet. Doesn’t really work if one of the birds starts flying again. Maybe when all this is over, he’ll vanish into thin air with no explanations, leaving only the Replacement’s corpse behind. Or not even a corpse. Just nothing. Let them stew over what could have happened for the rest of their lives.

Whatever their imaginations come up with, it’ll probably be worse than anything Jason could ever do. Although Jason has a very good imagination. Especially when it comes to ways of inflicting pain. That was a lesson he’d had beaten into him with a crowbar and a brand.

The plan goes off without a hitch. He doesn’t really get the chance to fight the Replacement, to beat him into the ground like he deserves, but that’s all right. He’s leaving the domino with its built-in camera for Bats or Barbie to find, and it’s probably best if they don’t see him fighting too much. The last thing he needs is for one of them to recognize a League move—or a Bat one—and start tracing him back from there. His bloodlust will have to be sated later.

He hauls the three Titans to the medbay and sets them up on IVs. Can’t have them waking up and telling on him. He doesn’t give two sh*ts about Beast Boy or Cyborg, had never really known them, but he feels kind of bad about Raven. She was always nice to him, even if she was always lecturing about how he needed to control his anger.

Well, f*ck that. He has every f*cking right to his anger and he would do as he damn well pleased with it. And he was being very controlled right now, thank you very much. He hadn’t even roughed up the Replacement beyond what it took to take him down. That could come later. Jason was patient. So there.

He sawed off the Replacement’s uniform—setting it aside neatly for Batman & Co. to find—and checked him over for trackers. B was a freak; he might have embedded something subdermally. But his search didn’t turn up anything that wasn’t in the suit. Kid was clean.

He was covered in the expected scars—nothing Jason hadn’t seen through his bedroom window—and a few new bumps and bruises that Jason couldn’t give half a sh*t about.

Jason set another needle in the kid’s arm that wasn’t hooked up to the IV. This one was to draw blood, and he arranged it so that Replacement’s blood started to pool in a blood bag he set on the floor.

Yeah, he could just cut the kid, and had considered doing just that, or beating him bloody, but there was no satisfaction in that. Not when he was limp and unconscious and couldn’t even scream. Jason would need him awake to torture him, and he wasn’t stupid enough to have the kid conscious in the Tower, his home turf. No matter how prepared Jason was, Robins were resourceful. He knew that well.

As the blood bag filled up, he unshackled one of the Replacement’s wrists to pull him roughly into a sitting position. He’d already removed the throwing knives that had been embedded in the muscle, nothing serious, mostly caught by the kid’s armor, and now he stitched up the cuts neatly. He wasn’t going to be caught because Replacement felt the need to bleed all over the place.

Jason let the bag fill a bit longer than necessary—not enough to kill the kid, but enough to make him weak for a while—before detaching it and pressing a gauze pad to the wound. He stuck a band-aid over the gauze—a Green Lantern one, because apparently the Titans stocked Justice League-themed merchandise in the medbay and Jason had a great sense of humor. And because Green Lantern was better than Batman.

Then it was time to work. First, the message. Jason had considered several variations on the theme: Another dead bird; He’ll die screaming; Bye-bye birdie; This is the third. In the end, he went clinical: Dead Robin #3. Just a simple, factual label. Because the kid in the medbay downstairs might be breathing, but that was just a technicality. Even Batman couldn’t fight cold, hard facts.

The placement, too, was something he had given a great deal of thought to. The medbay would be the most convenient, but lacked a certain something. Plus: cold, hard surfaces? The clean-up would be a breeze. No, Jason wanted something that would stain. He considered the Hall of Heroes, but dismissed that as well. Too easy to shunt all that emotion away in the basem*nt, where the monuments to dead children stood. Too easy to forget they had ever been there.

No, there was only one place for it: the common room. The place where the heroes got to pretend at being real kids. Well, f*ck that. Heroes died. They got hurt. It’s what they did. It didn’t matter if they were kids, and it did no one any good to pretend. Plus, the walls were wallpapered and the floor was carpeted. Jason made sure to spill enough blood that they’d have to rip up the carpet. Paint or repaper the wall. They wouldn’t be able to forget this.

He used a paintbrush—bought with cash at a corner store on the other side of the country—to form the letters. He’d wanted to do it with his fingers, but he didn’t want to accidentally leave prints in the letters or ruin his gauntlets by soaking them in blood. So, paintbrush it was. He tucked it and the blood bag—after shaking out the rest of its contents on the sofas and beanbag chairs—into his pocket. Let the Bats wonder how exactly he’d gotten Timothy’s blood.

Then it was time to wreak havoc. He retrieved his bazooka and his sledgehammer from where he’d stashed them earlier, and went to work.

Jason was in a considerably better mood when he left the Tower half an hour later, sledgehammer at his waist, guns strapped to his thighs, a rocket launcher slung over one shoulder, and a plucked Robin slung over the other.

“Jason.”

“Talia.”

He’d switched cars three times and re-sedated Robin once before finally meeting up with Talia at the rendevous point, where she was waiting with a plane and a pilot.

She eyed the limp bird on his shoulder. “What are you going to do with him?”

“Does it matter?”

She pursed her lips. “I suppose not.”

“It’s all set up like I asked?”

“Jason,” she chided, fixing him with a look. “Have I ever failed to come through for you before?”

Jason shifted, chastised. “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “Sorry, I guess I’m just nervous, you know? This is it.”

She considered him. “So it is. I thank you, for clearing the way for the Batman’s rightful heir.”

“Sure, whatever. I didn’t do it for you.” Jason had met Talia’s demon-child a few times, briefly, and he did not think that whole thing was going to go the way she planned. But it wasn’t any of his business.

“Nevertheless.”

Jason shrugged, the Replacement’s bony f*cking hip digging into his shoulder. “Cool. I guess I’ll see you around. Or not.”

“Jason.” Talia hesitated, then cupped his face in one palm, kissed him gently. “Take care of yourself.”

Jason couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Yeah, of course.”

She nodded. “Good-bye, love.”

He climbed up the gangway to the plane, looked back just before ducking through the door. “Good-bye, Talia.”

A small smile tilted her lips, and then she was gone.

Jason dumped the Replacement none-too-gently on the waiting bench, nodded to the pilot. The man nodded back and started their taxi. Jason strapped in the Replacement as they took off, securing him as well as possible in the back of the plane, hands restrained behind him, knees and ankles bound with heavy-duty zipties.

He was torn between wanting to sit in the co-pilot’s seat, untrusting of the man in the co*ckpit, and needing to stay in the back to keep an eye on the Replacement. He should be out for hours more, but just in case…

Jason ended up splitting the difference, crouching in the entrance to the co*ckpit and staring at his captive bird as he drooped against his bonds.

This was the weakest link in his plan, the plane and Talia’s involvement. But he didn’t have the resources to pull this off entirely on his own, so Talia’s help it was, and Jason would just have to trust that the League wouldn’t leak. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have a choice.

An hour into the flight, and Robin was shivering violently, covered in goosebumps. Jason hadn’t bothered to bring new clothes for him—there were some at the safehouse, but that was still another hour or so away.

Jason narrowed his eyes. It was probably fine.

Jason had taken a lot of blood from him. He might be going into shock.

He hadn’t even started to hurt the kid yet; he probably shouldn’t let him go into shock before the fun even started.

Besides, Jason felt more than a bit gross staring at a basically-naked kid all trussed up like a Christmas turkey.

Growling, he stalked over to one of the plane’s built-in cabinets, fished around until he found the emergency supplies, and pulled out a mylar blanket. He shoved it around the kid until he was all surrounded, and returned to his perch.

The kid’s head lolled against his chest. He was drooling. Disgusting. Jason couldn’t wait to tear him apart. One more hour, plus however long it took Replacement to wake up.

Then the Pit could come out to play.

Tim woke up slowly, his head clouded with fog. He was sore, and he didn’t remember falling asleep. He groaned and shifted—

“About time you woke up.”

Tim froze, memories of the Tower and the confrontation with Red Hood crashing into him. And then the actual Red Hood crashing into him.

Tim struggled—of course he struggled—but his limbs didn’t quite seem ready to obey him, and he was unarmed and unarmored.

Oh f*ck, he was unarmed and unarmored.

Before that thought could really sink in, he was up against a wall, vision spotting black, and gasping desparately for air as the Red Hood blocked his windpipe with an armored forearm. He couldn’t breathe—he couldn’t breathe, and the world closed in around him, and he didn’t even know why, why his lungs were spasming and his insides burning and everything on fire as his whole body screamed for air, please dear God, air, his bare arms and legs scrabbling uselessly against concrete and body armor, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t fight, everything was black, he was going to die, he knew it in his soul, in every fiber of his being, this was how he died, gasping, choking, desparate for air and unable even to scream at the pain.

And then suddenly he could gasp in a gulp of air, then another, as the pressure abated and he—was choking again, he couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t fair, he had just managed to claw a breath in, he had just resigned himself to the truth he was dying, and now here he was again, helpless and burning, in so much pain, please air, please, please, and he couldn’t even stop his body from desparately struggling to stay awake, trying to force something into his lungs and failing miserably, spasming and hurting, and screaming at him that something was wrong. No duh, body, we’re being choked out by a helmeted psychopath. Of course something is wrong.

Again, he thought this was it. He knew it in his bones and in his aching lungs. He was dead. And again he pitched forward and was allowed a desperate gasp of air. And again he was choking and dying. And again. And again. And again.

Tim had no idea how long it went on for. It seemed unending. He tried going limp; he tried struggling; he tried to gasp out pleas and curses. Nothing mattered. This was all there was now. The pain and the dying and the inhale of hope—how he wished he could just not breathe in, but every time his body betrayed him and refused to die. It went on forever.

He was on the ground. He was on the ground and breathing. He was breathing. It was a trick. He knew it was a trick. Tim didn’t get to breathe, only gasp, and only after the pain, so why was he breathing, why was he breathing, oh god everything hurt so bad please please please make it stop.

“Enjoy the warm-up, Replacement?”

Tim lay shaking on the ground.

An armored boot crashed into his ribs, and Tim curled instinctively around himself, wheezing blood.

“I asked you a question: are you enjoying the warm-up, Replacement?” The words were spaced out, overly enunciated. Tim tried to force himself to focus on them.

“Please…” The word burned coming out, and he couldn’t manage more than a hoarse whisper through the bruised mess that used to be his throat.

“It’s a yes or no question, Robin.” Hood crouched down and tilted Tim’s chin up so that he was looking into glowing mechanical eyes.

There was no good option.

“Do I need to jog your memory?”

“No!” f*ck, that hurt. “No, no, nonono, please.”

“Are you sure? I think I do.”

And again, Tim couldn’t breathe, pressed up against the floor this time, dying in agony until finally he was allowed air once more.

“Let’s try this again. Enjoy the warm-up?”

“No.” He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that again. Please.

“Oh. That’s too bad.” Hood’s voice dripped with fake sympathy. “We’ll try it again later, see if it’s grown on you. In the meantime, I’m sure we can find something you like. Tell me, Timothy, how do you feel about electricity?”

Tim couldn’t stop the whimper that clawed its way up his throat.

“Why are you doing this?” Tim’s whole body was limp, wrung out. The last few—hours? days? it felt like years—had passed in a blur of agony and pain, peppered with Red Hood’s taunts about what he was going to do next.

“Patching you up?” The Red Hood asked, willfully obtuse, as he rubbed some kind of salve into the rope burns on Tim’s wrist. “I told you, Timmers, we’re gonna start with the stuff that heals easily, the stuff that doesn’t deal lasting damage, and work our way up from there until you are begging for the sweet release of death, and even then I won’t give it to you. Can’t do that if you start falling apart on me. So we gotta take care of you, make sure you don’t die yet. Not until I say you can.” He pat Tim’s cheek with one gauntleted hand. “It’ll be a while.”

“But why?”

Red Hood stopped his ministrations, Tim’s wrist still in his hand. The blank expanse of his helmet swivelled to stare into Tim’s own face. There was a long pause, a considering silence. Tim didn’t dare move. “Because you’re Robin,” he said, as if that answered anything.

“What?”

A sigh. “This is what happens to Robins,” he explained, as if talking to a very young child. “They get kidnapped, and tortured, and die.”

Tim stared at his own distorted reflection in that blank, unmoving red surface. “But I don’t understand,” he pressed, well aware that he was pushing his luck. “Why?”

“Because Daddy Bats doesn’t take very good care of his toys,” snapped Hood. “He takes them in, trains them up, and sends them off to fight in his personal crusade against crime. Then, when they break, he finds a new one and forgets all about the old. You should know this by now; you’re—what?—the second replacement? Or would it be fourth?” He hummed in thought. “How do you count the girl one, when you were both before and after?”

“That’s not…” Tim was so confused. What did any of that have to do with why Red Hood was torturing him?

The grip on his wrist tightened painfully. “Don’t pretend you don’t know I’m right, Replacement. First there was Grayson: the original model. The Platonic ideal of a Robin. But he got too old, too independent, so Bruce went ahead and replaced him with an inferior copy that he plucked out of the trash. That reckless fool went ahead and got himself blown up by the Clown, so bye-bye birdie number two. But obviously he didn’t matter, because Bruce brushed it off and went ahead and picked out Robin number three, Replacement number two—that’s you—and you were out playing the part like an understudy’s understudy before the idiot’s corpse even had the chance cool off in its casket.”

“Don’t you f*cking talk about Jason like that.” White-hot rage gripped Tim. Enough. “Don’t you f*cking dare.” Jason had dealt with enough people looking down on him while he was alive, enough people thinking he was less-good version of Dick. The socialites, the Teen Titans, even Dick himself.

Tim wouldn’t stand for it. He didn’t care what the consequences were. Jason was his Robin, and Tim wouldn’t stand for it.

His voice came out as a low hiss, rough, cracked, and dangerous. “Jason Todd was a goddamn hero and a hundred times the man you’ll ever be. He was brave, and smart, and funny, and kind, and he always took the time to comfort the victims, and his death was a f*cking tragedy, and it broke Bruce, it broke him, and you don’t have a f*cking clue what you’re talking about.”

Tim was surprised the Red Hood hadn’t stopped him yet, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. “I’m a replacement, like you keep saying. Yeah. Duh. I know that. I’ve always known that. I’ve always just been a poor stand-in for what Robin should have been. I could never measure up to Jason, but I’ve tried to make him proud. Because he was my Robin. And he was amazing. He wasn’t inferior, or trash, or anyone’s replacement. He was his own f*cking person and that person was the best—”

He broke off in a fit of hoarse coughing, his abused throat finally giving out on him. He tried to breathe, but the only thing that came out was a pained wheeze.

The Red Hood just watched him, stone-still, as Tim struggled and finally got himself under control. Tim could feel the weight of his stare even through the helmet.

The silence stretched on.

“Is that what you think.”

Tim glared at him. “It’s the truth.” His voice gave out halfway through the sentence.

Hood tapped Tim’s lips closed. If he wasn’t wearing those stupid f*cking gauntlets, Tim would have bitten his fingers off.

Abruptly, Hood rose, taking the medical supplies with him. “Get some rest,” he said. “You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.”

Chapter 5: The First of Several Breakdowns (Jason & Tim)

Chapter Text

Jason was breathing very calmly.

He was.

Jason was being very calm.

He was in the bathroom, still in full armor and hood, staring directly at the mirror and not seeing anything.

The Lazarus Pit was quiet and still. He wanted it back. He wanted it back.

The thought did not carry near as much anger as it should have.

Thoughts were very far away.

Were they even his thoughts? Someone had said…something, and it had sent all the thoughts all scattering away. They were out of reach, floating gently in his brain, along with the glowing green swirl of the Pit and his rage and all feeling. Just…there. In the brain, far away.

It wasn’t his brain. It wasn’t his body. Jason was just a ghost, inhabiting a constructed corpse. It wasn’t real.

Everything was so far away.

Was he dead again?

Or maybe he’d never come back.

Mm, that sounded more likely.

He’d been doing something.

He’d been doing something, and now he was here, and the thought of trying to remember what he’d been doing brought a painful flutter of absolute terror he couldn’t touch.

He would just float.

In the soup with the thoughts and the Pit and the air and all the other dead things. Bump away anything that drifted too near.

Just float.

Jason stood there for he-didn’t-know-how-long until his legs grew tired and he crashed to his knees.

“Ow.” Jason was wearing armor; it didn’t actually hurt.

Maybe it hurt the floor.

He patted the floor. “Sorry.”

He sank down to lie on the tile.

The floor should be cold. It wasn’t. Why?

Oh, helmet.

He released the catch and pushed the helmet away.

The tile was cold against his cheek. Good. Better. Jason leaned into it. The thoughts were above him now, swirling, swirling, swirling. Jason didn’t want them inside him. Circling like vultures, come to pick on dead meat.

Jason didn’t want them inside him.

They hurt.

Like they sensed his fear, the thoughts shrieked and flew to meet him. They wouldn’t stop coming, swooping down again and again to peck, peck, peck, and Jason covered his head with his arms, but the thoughts flew straight through them and peck peck peck and it hurt it hurt, unending pain and torment, shrieking laughter, the birds flew down and Jason was Prometheus and he couldn’t defend himself couldn’t escape couldn’t die couldn’t die, healed and ripped open, it hurt, it hurt, he wanted to smash his head on the ground, crack it open like an egg, make the thoughts and the noise be out, get out, get out.

He grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled, strong grip, pain good yes, can’t think when the head hurts except the thoughts and the feelings kept their relentless assault, dive-bombing down down down, again and again and it wouldn’t stop wouldn’t stop wouldn’t stop.

Jason screamed, and turned on the water, threw himself into the shower, uncaring of the temperature, let it protect him drops of rain, but the birds flew through, and the Green, but not enough, not enough, and he was going to throw up he was going to die he was already dead it hurt make it stop make it stop make it stop.

He dove for his helmet and slammed it back on his head, slipping a bit in the tub, but even the helmet offered no protection, no solace, no peace, so he tore it off again and threw it at the mirror, which shattered with a satisfying crash, the first thing loud enough to drown out the shrieking laughter of his mind.

So Jason unholstered a gun, threw it at the mirror too. And again the crash, and the temporary peace. He threw his other gun, then followed it out of the shower, picked it up off the ground, and pounded the mirror into submission, the screech, the crash, the shatter of tinkling glass again and again and again.

Ha. Crash. Ha. Crash. Ha. Crash.

Then the mirror was done so he turned to the sink. Smash, smash, smash. Shoot the gun. Bang. His helmet was off; he wasn’t wearing ear protection. It was enough to make his ears ring and echo. He emptied the clip. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Other gun. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Reload. Fire again. Reload. Fire. Reload. Needed to get more rounds.

Moving on autopilot, Jason holstered his pistols and strode to his gun rack. Grabbed a twelve gauge and a box of lead slugs. He wanted the thump and the recoil and the noise and the methodical unloading and reloading and the bang and the thump. He went outside, where he had targets set up, grabbed some ear protection because he wasn’t entirely stupid.

Then he shot and shot and shot and shot until the thoughts stopped coming.

Tim panted on the ground, eyes on the door Red Hood had just left through. What. the actual. frick.

Nothing made any sense.

It took him a few minutes to slowly draw himself together. Okay. Okay. He was Robin. He could do this. Step one: pull yourself together. Step two: assess the situation. Step three: escape. Step four (figure out what was going on) could wait until he was semi-safe.

Tim took stock of himself and his surroundings. He was wearing an unfamiliar white tanktop and shorts, no domino, nothing left of his uniform or equipment. He tried not to imagine how the Red Hood had gotten him into the new get-up.

The clothes didn’t cover much, but Tim didn’t think it was in a pervy way. More like in a not much spare material, tight enough that he couldn’t hide anything in his clothes, thin enough that he’d be freezing once he managed to get outside (assuming they were near either Gotham or San Francisco, where it was winter—which, now that Tim thought about it, wasn’t a given), sparse and similar enough to underclothes that he felt vulnerable. The Red Hood had a thing against rapists, right? Of course, he also had a thing about people who hurt kids, and Tim had no illusions that Hood didn’t know his age. Okay, bad, but a problem for Later Tim. At least it wasn’t too cold in his cell.

Okay, next: how injured was he? Tim was surprised to figure out the answer was not much. Or, not nearly as much as he expected for how bad he felt. He had a headache and was feeling slightly light-headed, but no concussion. He was pretty sure the sedative had completely worn off. Rope burns on his wrists and elbows, superficial scrapes down his arms and legs. A small cut on his shoulder, neatly stitched up. A piece of gauze on the inside of his elbow held down with…a Green Lantern band-aid? He pried it off and found a needle-mark underneath. Okay, probably from the sedation? Why Green Lantern though? He pat it back down and decided that he’d save that question for a future Tim. A smattering of bruises across his body, mostly old. Electrical burns on his torso. A couple of potentially cracked ribs. And his throat.

Those would be the biggest problems, the ribs and his throat. Breathing hurt. Any major exertion would be agony. But he didn’t think the damage would be permanent. Not yet, at least. He needed to get out of here quickly, before the Red Hood made good on his threats and incapacitated Tim more thoroughly. Right now, his limbs were all working, he had all his fingers and toes, and he could see and hear. Based on what he could remember from Hood’s threats, that might not be the case for long.

Okay. Injury assessment: done. Environmental assessment: go.

He was in a cell, but a large one. Big enough to be an entire apartment. Open space, concrete walls and floors. One wall had a thick metal ring embedded into it. Tim didn’t want to think about what that could be for.

High ceilings with fluorescent lighting. Tim wouldn’t be able to reach the bulbs unless he suddenly learned how to fly. He couldn’t find a light switch. No windows. Some ringing and hushing sounds that could either be the lights or his own head giving him feedback or a white noise machine. Or all three. No other easily discernable sounds.

Though, thinking of white noise… “Kon,” Tim forced out. “Kon, if you can hear me. I know you need space but I could really use some help.” God, his throat hurt. So much.

Nothing happened. Tim’s heart sank as the minutes stretched on. He hadn’t really been expecting anything, but still. He kept repeating the plea as he continued tacking stock.

Air vents, positioned at the top of the walls, too small for even his hand to fit through. Potentially able to emit gas of some kind. A speaker, similarly out of reach.

It took Tim a while to place the cameras, but he was pretty sure they were embedded in the walls between the vents. No blindspots, except for an alcove partway covered by a sheet of what looked like frosted glass that mostly hid a toilet. Yay, he got semi-privacy to take a sh*t! The cameras would only pick him up in silhouette! Wasn’t that just considerate.

Tim rapped on the sheet, but whatever it was made of would be difficult to break without equipment. It was embedded into the floor, wall, and ceiling on three sides, immovable. The toilet itself was similarly sunk into the walls and the floor, with no movable parts exposed except the flusher. There was a sink on the other side of the alcove, not concealed by the semi-opaque screen, and only the basin and the handles were visible, the pipes presumably in the wall somewhere. He couldn’t figure out a way to get the handles unscrewed, which meant the bathroom was a bust for escape materials. That was…very not good. The bathroom—if there was one—was usually the best place to find makeshift weapons or escape implements. Pipes, screws, chain, wires. Toilet tank covers could make could shields, or bludgeoning weapons. Maybe some cleaning chemicals if someone was really careless.

But noooo, Tim got to get kidnapped by a nutjob who actually knew what he was doing. It was infuriating.

On the opposite wall, there was a shelving unit built into the wall. It contained a large amount of plastic water bottles, protein bars, nutrient shakes, and a bunch of MREs.

MREs. Hm. Those usually had plastic spoons in them. Tim tore one open, and yup, plastic spoon. He could…make a shiv out of it? Of course, he could also make a shiv out of the paper packaging and some water, it would just take a while. He wasn’t really sure if either would do him any good. He kept a hold of the spoon as he continued exploring, though.

There was a tatami mat on the floor, with a foam mattress, blanket, and pillow on top. The blanket was thick, fluffy shearling. Nice. Inexplicable, weird, and not super useful for escape purposes, but nice. He draped it over himself like a cape and knotted it closed, feeling much more secure already, with his spoon and his blanket. Which was so stupid, because neither of them would help him when Hood returned.

But he felt better anyway.

The only other thing in the room was, incongruously, a sofa, facing away from the mattress and towards the door. It was orange, and plush, and the legs were sunk into the floor. Not even bolted—he might have been able to get the bolts out and use them for something—the couch was sunk into the floor. It was more than a bit ridiculous.

That was everything in the room. Only one thing left to check out: the door. Which was, as far as he could tell, the only viable exit. He had saved it for last in case examining it up close brought Red Hood back in. Thankfully, his fears seemed to be unfounded.

The door was a hulking piece of metal that reminded Tim of a bank vault. It fit seamlessly into the wall; Tim couldn’t even crack a fingernail between the door and the wall, or the floor. The hinges must be on the outside. There was no handle, but there was a lock set into the door. The lock itself didn’t look too complicated—old fashioned, needed a key, no electronics or biometric scanners—but he didn’t have anything to pick it with. At least if there had been some kind of tech, he could have probably pried it apart with enough effort and had some materials. As it was, he had nothing.

Red Hood, or whoever he was working for, was good. And he hadn’t underestimated Tim.

Pushing down the uneasy knot of fear in his stomach, Tim went back to the food shelf and opened a bottle of water. There was enough food and water to last him weeks, if not months. It didn’t make sense to leave it all in the cell with him unless Hood was planning on leaving him locked down here that long without contact.

Solitary isolation as a form of torture? Didn’t seem like Hood’s style, based on what he’d seen, but it was possible. Well, Hood would be surprised at how good Tim was at being alone. Sucked that he didn’t have anything to entertain himself with, but Tim would make do. He could make himself very, very dangerous with enough time on his hands, even if he didn’t have many resources.

Assuming he wasn’t also being tortured during that time.

He poured the water down his throat, trying to minimize any swallowing. That hurt. Still, he forced the whole thing down in small, painful sips, and then another bottle. He needed water. The very idea of trying to swallow the MRE made him want to die, but he did force himself to take intermittent sips of one of the nutrient shakes. All of it could be poisoned, but Tim decided that was an acceptable risk, especially because it wasn’t exactly like he could stop the Red Hood from forcing something down his throat or into his veins.

He sat on the cot, sipping his shake and thinking. He didn’t trust the couch: it was incongruous and inexplicable, and therefore suspect. The blanket was similarly suspect, but its softness and body-obscuring abilities outweighed its suspiciousness factor.

His brain was going into overdrive, trying to map out all the possibilities, but eventually exhaustion overtook him and he slipped off into an uneasy state of dreaming.

Jason was empty. It was hours later. Midnight-ish. He’d left the Replacement at 8:00pm or so. He hadn’t turned the lights off in the cell. Whoops. He’d meant to do that—or he thought he’d meant to do it—but the lights were still on. According to the cameras, though, the kid was on the cot, sleeping, so Jason decided to leave it be. If he turned them off now, he’d probably wake the kid up.

Which. Why did Jason care about whether or not he woke up the f*cking Replacement? He’d just tortured the boy. He should turn the lights off, scare him a bit, make him ride out a wave of fear and anticipation.

Jason grimaced. He knew why he didn’t; he just didn’t like it. Jason Todd was a goddamn hero and a hundred times the man you’ll ever be. What the f*ck kind of lies had the old man been feeding the kid? Jason had never been worth sh*t. But Tim’s eyes had blazed with a righteous furor and for a moment Jason had almost believed him.

He had wanted to believe him, so bad.

He wasn’t inferior, or trash, or anyone’s replacement. He was his own f*cking person, and that person was the best. What the f*ck, Replacement? Why would he say that??

Was he trying to play on Jason’s emotions? Was Jason that obvious? Was he that f*cking pathetic, that deperate for approval?

Maybe he was, because it was f*cking driving him up the goddamn wall and out of the f*cking house and all he wanted to do was go down there and shake the Replacement until he told him why.

Except the Replacement didn’t know who Jason was. He couldn’t know who Jason was. Could he?

Did he?

f*ck.

Jason needed to know. He needed to know and he didn’t know how.

What the f*ck was he supposed to do, march up to the kid and say, tell me why you said that about Jason Todd or I’ll cut off your fingers? The kid already thought that Jason was going to cut off his fingers for no reason at all. Or, at least, no reason known to him. Wouldn’t be a f*cking motivator.

Besides, information gained through torture was notoriously unreliable. Jason had certainly never been very truthful when he was getting beat, whether it was Willis or older kids on the streets or enforcers that caught him in the wrong place at the wrong time. You just said whatever in those situations, whatever you thought would make it stop.

But how the hell else was he supposed to get to the truth?

Talia would say it was about leverage, leverage and pain. He could find something the kid wanted. Or didn’t want. Apply a judicial amount of pressure. Simple enough.

Bruce would…Bruce would dangle the kid off a building, probably. Or, maybe not because, well, kid. Bruce would design some kind of psychological test that you didn’t know was test until after it was over and you’d already failed, and then you felt miserable about yourself for the rest of your short life because you had to confront that you were the kind of person who would kill a puppy or whatever.

But Jason wasn’t Bruce. He wasn’t Talia. He didn’t have reams upon reams of impossible surveillance records. He didn’t have the ability to psychoanalyze people from across the continent. He couldn’t deduce the best way to blackmail a guy from the twitch of his brow.

He was just Jason, and a poor imitation of Jason at that. He was good at destroying things. Good at hurting; good at killing; good at blowing things up.

He was brave, and smart, and funny, and kind, and he always took the time to comfort the victims.

Why the f*ck would the Replacement think that when all the evidence said otherwise? He was supposed to be the smart one. The detective.

Besides, that Jason was dead—if he had ever existed.

His chest ached.

He wanted to know.

He didn’t know how.

He was too f*cking tired for this bullsh*t.

f*ck it. He’d figure it out in the morning.

Maybe Morning Jason wouldn’t be such a pathetic sack of sh*t, and he could get back to his plans of cold-blooded torture. That would be nice.

Yeah, that would be nice.

Chapter 6: A History Lesson (Jason & Tim)

Chapter Text

The morning did not bring answers. Jason woke with a headache and a sense of dread. “God Jesus f*ck Dammit.” He buried his head in his pillow and tried to shut out consciousness. It didn’t work, so, groaning, he rolled himself off the bed and flopped onto the floor.

A quick peek into the bathroom showed that yep, he hadn’t imagined blasting everything in it to smithereens. Great.

Sighing, he closed the door, and made his way to the other bathroom, the one just off the kitchen. This one didn’t have a shower, but Jason would deal. Worst came to worst, there was a shower in the bunker-slash-prison downstairs. Not in the cell part, but there were other rooms down there.

He didn’t like stripping his body armour off long enough to shower anyway. And he’d stood under shower water yesterday, so that had to count for something, right? Granted, he’d been in full armor and he hadn’t attempted anything close to a wash, but…po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Sponge baths where he only had to uncover one piece of armour at a time were the way of the future, anyway.

Even as he had the thought, he knew it wasn’t healthy. Paranoid, and he knew it. It’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you.

Ugh, fine. He’d clean up the bathroom later. His paranoia this time around was likely misplaced.

It had been thirty hours since he’d kidnapped the Replacement. They’d probably called in Superman by now. Assuming Bruce and Clark were still on good terms. Hard to tell—Jason had access to the Bats’ comms, but not the Justice League’s, and Batman and Superman’s public personas told him nothing about how Bruce and Clark were doing.

But he’d broken into Titans Tower, and the Teen Titans were at least loosely affiliated with the Justice League. Superman had almost certainly been called. He and Superboy were both on Earth, as of two days ago, but neither had shown up yet. Which probably meant that his anti-Kryptonian measures were holding. White noise machines and lead-lined walls. And just in case, a small bit of Kryptonite in his helmet, and another in his boot. Can’t beat a classic.

So he was unlikely to be attacked by a godlike alien while naked in the shower. But maybe he should shower with the Kryptonite anyway, just in case. He already kept a gun within easy reach for emergencies. It wouldn’t be too hard to hollow out a small compartment in the handle for Kryptonite storage.

Mm. Yeah, he’d do that before the next time he stripped down.

Part of him thought he was being ridiculous, but the larger part knew he was just preparing for a plausible outcome to this whole scenario.

He put his shower plans on the back burner and fried up some breakfast. Eggs, bacon, and toast. With avocado, because goddammit, Ana Rosa Salgado-Mejia hadn’t walked from La Ceiba, Honduras to motherf*cking Gotham, New Jersey for her grandson to be scared off from eating avocado toast by f*cking white girl trends.

And he threw some arugula on top because he was taking care of his freakish zombie body, and that included eating greens. It wasn’t so bad with some sea salt, a dash of chili pepper, and lime sprinkled overtop.

As he ate, he popped an earphone in, and fast-forwarded through yesterday’s recordings of the bat-communications. There wasn’t much until the evening—they must have been using JL communicators until then. But Dickwing and the Bat were tearing through his operations like two bats out of hell, pun very much intended.

Score one for zombie boy. The bats sounded angry, frantic, confused. Or, they sounded professional and emotionless, but Jason knew how to read between the repressed and blood-soaked lines. They were rattled, and they didn’t know sh*t about sh*t.

Jason grinned, mood picking up considerably. Step one of revenge plan: done. Flawlessly executed. Beautiful, meticulous work from Jason motherf*cking Todd. He deserved a medal.

He’d let them stew in their own cluelessness and misery for a while, and then—when their hope had started to peter out—he’d up the ante a bit. This was going to be fun. He’d have a few more days, maybe weeks, to get footage out of Replacement.

Speaking of, how was his captive doing this fine November morning? He stuffed the last of the avocado toast in his mouth and went to speed through the bunker footage.

The footage looked exactly like Jason expected it to look, Replacement going about the Bat-Guide to Being Kidnapped(TM) step-by-step. Taking stock of injuries; wandering; wandering; trying and failing to take apart the toilet; palming a spoon from one of the MREs—Jason would have to confiscate that, not because it might be dangerous but because Replacement should know he was always watching; making a blanket cape—aww, he’s a superhero! Isn’t that cute; examining the door; drinking water; glaring at the couch; getting more water; circling the couch as he drank; going to the bathroom; massaging his throat; getting a protein shake; more glaring at the couch—what was his problem with it? It was a perfectly fine couch; drinking the protein shake; and finally, dropping off to sleep, which he was still doing right now. Truly, Replacement led such a riveting life.

Now Jason just had to decide what to do next. He needed answers, needed to know what Replacement knew about him, and straight-up torture wasn’t gonna get him there. That left either bribery or mind games in his get-information-from-people arsenal. Or both.

Ooh. This could be good. Play good cop now, offer up some perks, some hope at kindness, make it hurt all the more when he went back to being sad*stic cop. Or sad*stic criminal, as it were.

Jason put the kettle on, and donned his helmet.

Tim was having the dream again. Darla, bleeding out in his arms. Steph. His mom and dad, who were also Thomas and Martha Wayne. All of them dead by his hand.

The gun in his lap.

Bruce.

Bruce’s gentle eyes, gentle hands. “Why did you kill me, Tim?” Bruce easing the gun out of Tim’s limp fingers. He couldn’t move, couldn’t stop it. “Why did you let me die?”

Bruce raised the gun—

A harsh jolt. Bright light. A voice in his ear. “Hey, kid. Hey, hey, hey. It’s alright, kiddo. Just a nightmare. Shhh. It was just a dream. Shhh.”

Strong arms circling around him, body armor. A hand rubbing his back. Batman? No, Bruce.

Bruce was here, Bruce was alive, Tim hadn’t failed him, he was alive, everything was fine. Tim sobbed and let himself relax into the hold, shut his eyes tight against the images playing in his brain.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

The hand paused on his back, switched to combing gentle fingers through his hair. “Why?”

Tim sank into the touch. He didn’t deserve it. He was a terrible Robin. But Bruce was being so kind. “I didn’t mean to let you die.”

The body behind him tensed, the hand gripping a fistful of hair too tight.

“Ow.” Tim tried to squirm out of the now-painful grasp.

The arms around him didn’t budge. “Pretty sure you had nothing to do with my death, Replacement. Unless you have something you want to share with the class?”

Tim froze. Oh sh*t. His eyes flew open and, yep, he was still in Red Hood’s stupidly secure prison cell. Only Red Hood himself was wrapped around Tim, holding him trapped in a tight bear hug.

Tim thrashed, trying to escape, but he’d let himself sink right into the hold and Hood’s arms were like steel traps. The man had wrapped himself entirely around Tim, so that Tim’s legs were pinned by his own, and Tim could do little more than ineffectually rock against his captor and scream.

That only caused the grip around him to tighten. “Shhh. Shhhh. Calm down. Shhh. It’s alright, Timbo. Shhh.”

Tim sobbed. Did Hood think he’d actually believe that? He had no idea what kind of sick game this was, but he knew that nothing was alright and it was going to end with him in agony.

No matter how hard Tim struggled to escape his captor’s hold, Hood just held on tighter and shushed him with quiet reassurances that meant nothing, until eventually Tim had no choice but to flop back, limp and useless, exhausted muscles completely wrung out by his efforts.

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Just get on with the torture part,” Tim snapped, hoarse, his still-injured throat protesting every word. “I’m not falling for your mind games.”

“Mm. I dunno, you seemed pretty comfortable earlier.”

“That’s because I thought you were Bruce, dumbass.”

The arms tightened painfully around him, and Tim thought for a second they were going to go into another round of ‘Suffocate the Tim,’ before they deliberately relaxed.

“I am nothing like Bruce,” Hood hissed.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Tim snapped back. “For one, he doesn’t torture children.”

“No, he just stands back and lets them be tortured.”

“You don’t have the moral high ground here, Hood and I’m not suddenly going to sympathize with whatever cause it is you’re preaching because you played nice for a few minutes.” f*ck, Tim’s throat hurt even more than it had yesterday. And today had barely even started.

“Too bad.” Tim felt Hood shrug behind him. “And part of my ‘playing nice’ was going to be giving you some warm honey tea. I guess I’ll just have to drink it myself. Or pour it down the drain.”

Tim hated that his body perked up at ‘honey tea.’

Hood chuckled. “You want some?”

Tim set his jaw and shook his head.

“You sure?”

Nod. He wasn’t going to buy into any of Hood’s so-called kindness.

“All right.” Hood shifted so that one arm held both of Tim’s own arms pinned to his sides, and used his newly-free hand to scoop up a mug of tea set just within reach on the floor.

Tim bit back a whine as the warm scent of honey wafted by him. God, that would be nice right now.

Hood held the mug somewhere above and behind him. “You know,” he said, “the ancient Greeks told tale of this punishment, scaphism. You ever heard of it?”

Tim had practically dropped out after middle school. No, he did not know ancient Greek torture techniques.

He didn’t respond to Hood’s question.

“Basically, they’d chain you to a boat, or a hollowed-out log, and force-feed you milk and honey until you sh*t yourself. Then they’d cover you with more milk and honey and wait for the insects to descend. The wasps, the flies, the stinging beetles. And the bugs would burrow into your flesh and eat you from the inside out while you were still alive and you couldn’t do a damn thing about it. They’d keep feeding you, though. Milk and honey. People could last days on that. Weeks.” He paused, and Tim felt the warmth of the mug near his forehead. “What do you think, Replacement, should we try it out?”

Tim didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. Hood would do what he wanted, and Tim responding in any way would only play into whatever sick fantasies Hood was dreaming up.

“I can feel your heartbeat, Tim-Tam. I know you’re scared.”

Tim blinked against tears.

The mug travelled down his face, stopped at his lips. “Drink.”

Tim pressed his lips together.

“Drink, and I won’t leave you out for the fire ants when I kill you.”

It would set a bad precedent to give in now. It would let Hood know exactly what he could do to control him. But he could feel the honey on his lips, a balm for his aching throat; he could smell the sweet tea, the promise of warmth and caffeine. He held out for a few more seconds, hating himself for his weakness, his uselessness, his complete and utter inadequacy, before acquiescing. “Fine.”

Surprisingly, Hood didn’t gloat. He just nodded and tilted Tim’s chin back against his chest, poured the tea into his mouth, a sipful at a time. “Slowly,” he cautioned, taking the mug away, when Tim tried to guzzle down more. “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Tim hated it, but his body responded automatically to the reassurances, relaxing in Hood’s hold.

Hood brought the mug back to Tim’s lips. “Drink.”

Tim bit back a sob of relief as the honey soothed his battered throat.

“One more sip.”

Tim obeyed, tried to chase the mug with his head as Hood set it aside, still half full.

“In a bit.”

Tim sagged in defeat. It was taking all his energy not to cry. Usually when he got kidnapped, he just got beat up a bunch. Maybe there were tools involved if the scum in question wanted to get creative. Sometimes magic, especially if it was a YJ mission. Tim could take pain. He’d been tortured before. Multiple times. He’d never broken. But this?

He could feel himself giving in. It hadn’t even been a full day—or, at least, he hadn’t been conscious for a full day—and he was already breaking. Pathetic. Dick would never have been this weak. Jason would never have been this weak.

Jason had been tortured to death and he hadn’t broken. So had Steph.

Tim was sinking straight into Red Hood’s plot, leaning into the way Hood’s thumb was rubbing his arm in soothing circles.

Tim was a disgrace to the mantle of Robin.

“What do you want?” he asked, despondent.

A shrug. “Let’s talk, Replacement.”

“I’m not going to sell out any of the Bats. I don’t care what you do, what you threaten me with. I won’t.”

Hood snorted. “I don’t give a flying f*ck about the Bats. I know everything I need to know about them anyway.”

“I won’t sell out any other heroes, either.”

“Wasn’t asking you to.”

Tim bit the inside of his cheek to stop a snappy retort. “What did you want to talk about then?”

A long silence, thoughtful. “You were dreaming. What were you dreaming about?”

Tim frowned. “What?”

“What was your dream?” Hood repeated the question.

“Um, does it matter? It was just a dream, it’s not like—”

“You said you didn’t mean to let me die. Except you thought I was B.” A dismissive snort. “So you let B die in your little nightmare. Where’s that come from? Mishap when you were Robin, perhaps? Or…”

Tim parsed out the request. “…You want me to psychoanalyze my own dreams?”

“Sure, yeah, you could call it that.”

“Why?”

“I’m curious.”

Tim sighed, considering. If they were talking, Hood wasn’t torturing him. He just…had to talk about his dream. That was better than torture. Marginally. Hood already knew all their identities, and a scary amount of personal information. And it wasn’t like Hood could use this particular fear against any of the family. Or against Tim. Not unless he kidnapped Batman.

If he did, Hood would have his hands full with an angry Batman.

That was a nice mental image.

“Fine, okay. My dream is, um, I have a gun, and then Bruce takes it and he kills himself and I can’t stop it.” Hood only knew about the Batman bits, so Tim wasn’t going to share any of the rest. “I just watch him do it, and I can’t move, and it’s all my fault because I’m right there and it’s my gun and I didn’t do anything.”

A pause. “…That’s it?”

“What, that isn’t enough for you?”

“Just doesn’t seem very realistic. Just, so far out of the realm of possibility. Not worth getting as freaked out about it as you were.”

“Gee, thanks. That’s what everyone wants to hear about their nightmares. ‘It’s not that bad.’” Tim rolled his eyes.

“I’m holding you captive, baby bird. I don’t have to be nice.” Tim could hear the smile in Hood’s voice. “All I’m saying is it should be pretty easy to tell dream from reality. Do you even own a gun?”

“Yes.”

“…What?”

“Yes, I own a gun.”

“Pretty sure Bats has rules about that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t always follow the rules.”

“Oh, is our Timmybird a rebel? Watch out, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a bad boy on our hands.”

“Shut up.”

“Ooh, good one, Timbourine. I’m quaking in my boots. If you’re so scared of owning a gun that you have nightmares about it, why do you keep it?”

Tim was silent.

“Hey, Timbit.” Hood nudged him with his leg. “Why do you have a gun?” Just the barest hint of a threat colored his tone.

Tim sighed. “It’s…It was my father’s. When he was killed, he tried to defend himself. Got the murderer, too. They both died. I keep it in a gun safe in my apartment, I’m not stupid, but…I don’t know, he was a pretty sh*tty dad, most of the time, but he was my dad. He taught me how to use it, when I was a kid. Think it was the longest time I ever spent with him. He took me to the range, then we went to go see a baseball game.”

Tim had never told anyone this story, but now the words were spilling out of his mouth, unstoppable. “Just, a full eight or nine hours, and he was actually paying attention to me, and it wasn’t even bad attention. He didn’t yell at me once, or break any of my things, or send me away, or tell me that I was worthless. I was good at shooting a gun, and he told me he was proud of me and he ruffled my hair and took me to the baseball game as a treat, and even though I don’t like baseball it was so good. Just, such a good day. Because he was there, and he was trying. Like we were a TV family, or something.”

Tim tapered off, and Red Hood still didn’t say anything.

“He told me he was proud of me right before he died, too. Over the phone. Then I got to hear him choking on his own blood until he suffocated. We got there maybe two minutes after he stopped breathing.”

Hood was silent for a long moment. “That really sucks, Timbo. Watching your parent die, even if they weren’t always the best…that’s really hard. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Tim was listening for it, but he didn’t hear any mockery in Hood’s voice. He didn’t understand. What was Hood playing at?

Hood grabbed the mug, held it to Tim’s mouth. “Drink.”

Tim hesitated, but obeyed. Once he’d had a few more sips of tea—no use in jeopardizing that one small kindness—he snorted. “What the f*ck do you care? He’s dead, it’s over, you can’t use that against me. Why the hell are you pretending to even give a sh*t?”

Hood drummed his fingers against Tim’s leg, but didn’t answer. “You know B’s not going to die like that, right? The man would shrug off however many bullets through sheer willpower alone.”

Tim scoffed. “I’m not worried about B dying from some second-rate supervillain attack. I’m worried about him blowing his brains out or jumping off the top of the Gotham Arms without a grapple. Though I guess the likeliest scenario would be he just lets himself fight until he’s too injured to properly defend himself and then walks into a mob boss’s lair with no backup.”

A long silence. “…Batman’s not suicidal.”

Tim couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. He tried to stop, but everything he did just made him laugh more, hearty guffaws tearing themselves out of his chest. Finally, he got himself somewhat under control, tears leaking down his face. “Yeah, right.”

“Bull-f*cking-sh*t. No way is Batman suicidal.”

Tim chuckled and shook his head at Hood’s ignorance. “Maybe not right now.” He co*cked his head, thinking. If he died here, would his death put Bruce back over that edge? “I guess he didn’t go off the deep end when Steph died, so he’ll probably be fine if and when I go. It’s not like I’m his kid or anything. But after Jason?” Tim exhaled. “He was doing everything he could to follow Jason to the grave. Jason was everything to B, and ever since he died, there’s been a part of B that wants to die too. A large part.”

“That’s a load of crap if I’ve ever heard one. Jason meant nothing to Bruce. He’d barely been gone six months when Bruce replaced him with you. You should know; you were there.”

“Yeah, I was there,” Tim snapped. “Which is how I know how wrecked B was. And I didn’t replace Jason. I stepped in and played Robin. For the symbol of it, and to keep B from killing himself. And even that B fought tooth and nail. He spent months trying to drive me away. I wasn’t Jason Todd, I wasn’t his son, and I never could be. He made that very clear. That’s fine though, I had my own parents, and Jason was way better than I ever could be anyway. No one could have replaced him. I just…tried my best not to let his legacy fall apart, I guess.”

Hood scoffed. “Your story’s holes have holes, Replacement. How the f*ck did you become Robin in the first place if Bruce was trying to drive you away?”

Tim shrugged and squirmed in Red Hood’s grip. Could the man not hold him so f*cking tight? “I’ve known that Bruce Wayne was Batman since I was nine, back when Dick was still Robin. I used to follow them around, take pictures. Then Jason became Robin, and he was…amazing. Dick was flashier, sure, and better at the whole ‘creepy laughter from the darkness’ shtick, but he and B were already fighting pretty much constantly at that point. They weren’t a good team anymore. But Jason? Jason was the best at being Robin.”

Tim grinned, the memory of his favorite Robin warming him. “He had this joy about him, and he cared, and him caring made B care too. B can get trapped in the big picture, statistics, and forget there are real people who actually matter on the ground. Jason made him see them. Jason brought him light. And then Jason died and it was like all the light went with him. B got crazy reckless, he stopped holding back, he beat random muggers half to death and let himself get knocked about and injured in the process. He and Nightwing got captured by Two-Face and blown up. They were going to die, suffocate under the rubble, so Agent A let me borrow one of Jason’s old suits. He and I fought off Two-Face and dug Batman and Nightwing out.”

Tim’s lips thinned as he remembered. “The first thing B did when he got out of the rubble was he ripped by domino off and said, ‘You’re not Robin. There is no more Robin. One boy died wearing that costume. I’m not taking that risk a third time.’”

He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I think the only reason B finally gave in was that I promised it would be like a business relationship, our Batman-Robin deal. And he knew that Batman needed a Robin.”

Hood was obviously thinking about Tim’s story, tapping his thumb against Tim’s bicep where he held him restrained. “Let me get this straight: you say you were trailing Batman and Robin for years, and he never knew about it. Nuh-uh. Not buying it. You can’t be that good.”

“I am,” he said, simply. This was one area that Tim had no doubts in.

Hood shook his head. “He let you find him, let you come to him. It couldn’t be too easy or you would have been suspicious. But I bet I know what he said once you’d been lured in. That you had the talent to make a difference in Gotham. That he needed someone he could trust in his war on crime. That you were one of a kind. The light to his darkness. Robin, the Boy Wonder.” Hood’s voice was bitter through the mechanical filter.

“It wasn’t like that, Hood.”

“It was,” Hood insisted. “That’s what he does, Replacement. He takes in naive, idiotic little boys and makes them think they could matter, and then he sends them off to die in his endless war. Jason Todd died thinking that he mattered, that he was loved, that Batman would come rescue him.” Scorn dripped through every word. “He was wrong. He never mattered, he was never loved, and Batman was never going to rescue him. And now—despite your protests that you never expected him to care about you—you’ve fallen into the exact same trap. You’ll be similarly disappointed.”

Tim twisted up to glare at Hood’s helmet. “What is your problem with Jason? Are you jealous or something?”

A snort. “No.”

“Are you sure? You should be. He was a million times the person you could ever dream of being.”

A slow exhale that Tim was certain accompanied an eye roll behind that faceless mask. “You never even met the guy, Replacement. Stalking someone over the rooftops doesn’t mean you know sh*t. For all you know, he could have been a sh*tty person outside the mask.”

“He wasn’t.”

“Oh yeah? How do you know? Tell me one thing about Jason Todd that has nothing to do with Robin.”

Tim jut out his jaw. “He liked reading. His favorites were 18^th-century novels, like Jane Austen and stuff. He used to help people with their English essays, if they asked. Even if they weren’t his friends. He had a favorite gargoyle, the one on the northwest corner of that church with no name on Riverside and Morstan Street. And that’s not a Robin thing because it was his favorite even before he was Robin, and he named it Charlie. His favorite food was chili dogs, and his favorite ice cream was Neapolitan. He liked helping A-Agent A in the kitchen, and Agent A trusted him to use the stove correctly. His favorite hero was Wonder Woman, but he collected Green Lantern merch. B thought it was just because GL annoys him so much. Um,” Tim tried to think of other non-Robin things about Jason. He was good with kids? But that was mainly a Robin thing, him comforting kids.

Red Hood was staring at him. “How the f*ck do you know all that sh*t?”

Tim scowled. “I know things.”

“Yeah, sure, but how? How the f*ck do you know what B’s theory on the whole Green Lantern shtick was? Did B—Did B talk about—about Jason? B? The most uncommunicative bastard to ever grace the earth?”

“No.” Tim glowered. “Obviously not. I snuck in and hacked B’s files on Jason. So I wouldn’t f*ck up and remind him too bad.”

“He had files?” Hood cut off that thought and muttered to himself, “What am I saying, of course he had files. Of course he had files. But why the f*ck would he put—ice cream? Charlie was in it? The, the Green Lantern thing—how did—how the f*ck did B even know about why, why—?” Hood cut himself off, thoughts obviously spiralling. “What the f*ck, Replacement?”

Tim stared at the faceless blank helmet above him, mind racing. A hundred little pieces suddenly clicking together. The Green Lantern band-aid stuck on his arm. Pretty sure you had nothing to do with my death, Replacement. The frankly creepy level of knowledge Hood had about the Batfam. This is what happens to Robins. The familiarity with Titans Tower. Charlie was in it? The insistance on calling Tim ‘Replacement.’ B takes in naive, idiotic little boys and makes them think they could matter. The scorn and the bitterness in his voice whenever he mentioned the second Robin. Jason Todd died thinking that he mattered, that he was loved, that Batman would come rescue him. He was wrong.

Tim stared at the mask above him, mind racing, pulse rocketing in his neck, and it wasn’t possible, it was absolutely insane, but it made sense, it made a horrible, twisted kind of sense. “Jason?” he asked.

Silence.

“Jason?” Tim pressed, more desperate, more certain. He still couldn’t move his arms, but he pressed himself against Hood’s armored torso. “You’re back. You’re back. You’re alive. B will be so happy. Oh my God, Alfie will be so—”

“Stop.” Hood’s voice was low and dangerous, even through the voice modulator. His grip around Tim was painfully tight, bruising. “Shut the f*ck up. You don’t know sh*t about sh*t, Replacement. Jason Todd is dead. He’s dead.”

“Really? Because you feel pretty alive to me.”

Tim suddenly found himself flipped and slammed into the concrete floor, Hood—Jason—on top of him, knee to neck. Tim’s head snapped back, and he blinked against stars and blackness.

Everything felt unreal as Hood reached up and unbuckled his helmet, tossed it aside. Distantly, Tim heard the clang of metal on concrete.

And there—there—Jason Todd’s face hovered above him. Older, leaner. A white streak through his hair. Eyes glowing green. But undeniably Jason.

That face drew closer to his own, spots of light and black blinking all around. “You don’t know me, Replacement,” hissed Jason-f*cking-Todd. “I’m going to kill you. Slowly. Painfully. Whatever misplaced hero-worship bullsh*t you have going on ain’t gonna save you. It doesn’t matter what you think you know about a dead boy. He’s f*cking dead.”

“How?” Tim gasped out, head spinning.

“Crowbar and an explosion, Replacement. Don’t tell me you know all that sh*t about Charlie but don’t have the basic facts of how I died.” His face twisted in bitter rage.

That wasn’t what he’d asked. “You’re back,” Tim tried to clarify. The edges of the room were closing in on him, all thoughts drifting away into the black void of nothingness that flashed in and out all around him. There was— He couldn’t think. A face above him. He knew—he knew that face. That was a safe face. “Robin,” he breathed.

Tim relaxed, letting himself drop into the abyss pressing around him. Robin was here. Robin would keep him safe. Tim could finally let go.

Chapter 7: Messages from the Grave (Bruce)

Chapter Text

The tape came by mail, almost two weeks after Tim was kidnapped. Alfred brought it to the study, Dick trailing behind him.

“Master Bruce,” said Alfred. “This came in the morning post.” He held out a silver tray with an oversized envelope on it. One of those large yellow ones with built-in bubble wrap, a package of some kind inside. “I do not want to assume, but I have the distinct suspicion it might be related to Master Tim’s disappearance.”

It was only because Bruce had known Alfred for so long that he could read the distinct signs of worry and fear stamped across Alfred’s face.

Bruce stared at the envelope. Generic stamp, postal mark from Georgia, dated three days ago. He’d track it, but he was sure that lead was already cold. It was addressed to Timothy Drake, c/o Bruce Wayne, at the Manor’s address, handwritten in black Sharpie. Block letters. He didn’t recognize the handwriting.

Batman ended up taking it down to the cave, Alfred and Dick joining him. Oracle was at her father’s house, sleeping. Batman made the decision not to call her until Alfred’s suspicions were confirmed.

It was suspicious, and Batman was wary of a trap, but the truth was they’d run out of useful leads days ago—even Superboy hadn’t been able to trace Robin’s heartbeat. He was less practiced at it than Superman, true, but he knew Tim much better. Clark hadn’t been around the boy long enough to follow what he sounded like.

Superboy was certain that if Robin were anywhere unshielded on earth and talking, he would be able to find him. Which meant Tim was either not on earth, being kept somewhere that was shielded from a Kryptonian’s senses, or not talking.

If there was enough of him left to talk.

Maybe the package was a ransom message.

Maybe it was a bomb.

If it was a bomb, it would be stable—only triggered by some distinct and deliberate action. Otherwise, it would never have made it through the postal system.

Unless the stamps were fake.

Batman ran every test he could think of—fingerprints, chemical analysis, x-ray scans. Hacked into the USPS database. Nothing suspicious.

He opened the envelope. There was a VHS tape inside, encased in a plain white box. Who used VHS tapes these days?

He added that to his list of ways to track down Hood. Or Hood’s employer. Where could you even get VHS tapes now?

Alfred was already wheeling out an old VCR player. Bruce felt some small measure of smugness. He had been right to keep multiple forms of outdated technology in the cave’s storerooms. He was not an unduly paranoid hoarder, Alfred.

Alfred narrowed his eyes at Bruce as if he knew exactly what Bruce was thinking.

Bruce huffed.

He checked the set-up to confirm it would copy the contents of the tape to a digital format, but that nothing was connected to any of the cave’s systems. He’d never heard of anyone transmitting a virus or a Trojan through a video cassette, but it was likely at least theoretically possible.

“You might want to leave. There is no reason for either of you to have to—”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right, B. Tim’s my little bro. I’m staying.”

“Indeed,” Alfred echoed. “We will both be remaining to provide any necessary physical, logistical, or emotional support that may be needed.”

They shouldn’t have to. Bruce should be strong enough to do this himself. It was his fault that the Tower’s safety protocols were so obviously lacking, his fault for letting Tim leave Gotham without him, his fault for letting Tim fight crime in the first place. But he recognized a losing argument when he saw one, so he just gave in with a resigned grunt and pressed play.

For a moment, nothing, and then an image appeared on screen. The quality wasn’t great—equivalent to a home-movie from the mid-nineties—but what was very obviously Tim appeared on-screen, and Bruce’s heart leapt.

Tim was passed out on a thin mattress, on what looked like a concrete floor. In the foreground, a large pair of boots, generic, black, dotted with dried speckles of blood just barely visible through the low-quality recording: Hood. Or an associate of his. Angle suggested he was sitting on the floor just out of frame, facing Tim. Concrete walls, nothing else visible in frame, no identifying features. The camera angle was low, looking up. Likely Red Hood had simply set a camcorder on the floor and let it run.

Tim was dressed in thin white underclothes—a tank top and shorts—and looked a bit roughed up. Batman tried to catalogue the injuries—bruises, scrapes, rope burn—but they all seemed superficial. Likely this tape had been made early on in his captivity. Tim’s frame was curled around a blanket, and Bruce ached at how small and vulnerable he looked like that.

That was not Robin, Boy Wonder, crime fighter extraordinaire.

That was a child.

For five minutes, Tim just slept, unmoving except for the steady up and down of his breathing. Bruce wished he could reach through the screen, brush an errant lock of hair out of his face. Then Tim shifted, a small wince coming to his face as he groaned.

“About time you woke up.” That was definitely Red Hood, voice still masked in his helmet.

Tim’s eyes flew open, the rush of adrenaline and panic clear on his face for the entire half-second he got before Hood slammed into him, pinning him to the wall, forearm pressed into his throat.

Dick made an aborted choking noise, and Alfred tensed next to him. Batman pressed his lips together. Emotion was only a hindrance in this situation.

Hood kicked the mattress away and shifted his position so that Tim’s rapidly-reddening face was clearly visible. His limbs scrambled ineffectually, trying to seek out weak points, but Hood hadn’t left him any. Batman watched as Tim’s face shifted from fear to anger to determination to terror to despair. Tim twitched weakly, but his body couldn’t follow his brain’s orders anymore. He went limp and lifeless, and Bruce realized he was watching his son die.

Hood let up the pressure, letting Tim’s body slump into his waiting hand. And, miracle of all miracles, Tim gasped in a desperate breath, eyes open and unseeing. He was alive. Tim was alive.

And then he was forced back up against the wall, struggling for air, slowly and painfully dying.

Batman forced himself to watch Hood, to look for tells, for clues, for anything. He was a showman, playing to the camera, but Batman didn’t think it was entirely show. Something about the tilt of his helmet, the way he leaned in too close. Hood was enjoying this.

And Batman could do nothing.

It was agonizing. He knew, he knew, this recording had to be several days old at the absolute earliest, likely over a week old, and yet everything in him was screaming at him to dive through the screen and scoop up his son, beat the scum who was hurting him until death would be a mercy.

Some said Batman’s no-killing rule was a sign of weakness, a way he was too soft, too merciful. Batman knew better. There were worse things than death. And he would bring every single one of them to bear upon the Red Hood.

As soon as he found him.

Making this tape had been Hood’s last mistake.

Twenty-seven minutes later, Hood let Tim fall to the floor instead of catching him.

“Enjoy the warm-up, Replacement?” The glee in his voice confirmed Batman’s suspicion of sadism. But well-controlled sadism. He’d waited until he was out of the Tower, and Tim conscious and aware, before starting in on him. He’d wanted time and space to do whatever it was he wanted to do.

Tim lay shaking on the ground, too stunned to respond. But alive. Still alive.

Hood taunted Tim, mocking him over and over. Replacement. He’d called Tim that in the Tower as well. Their best guess was that it referred to Tim’s role as Robin, given that Hood had called him “Robin number three.” But why did Hood even care?

Was it as Barbara thought? Tim was a replacement for the Robin the Joker had killed, and Hood was a replacement for the Joker? Something about that didn’t feel quite right to Batman. Not necessarily wrong, but not enough. Not to explain this.

The anger in Hood’s voice, even through the modulator, as he came up with increasingly sad*stic threats, that was personal. The joy he was obviously exulting in as he electrocuted Tim, as he kicked in his ribs, as he kept brutalizing the defenseless child in front of him, that was personal and unhinged.

Batman was sure he would have remembered anyone with that degree of obsession with any of his Robins. There was a certain level of insanity and obsession that you just couldn’t hide, not for any length of time. And this had obviously been planned for some time.

Joker certainly fit the bill, but that was it. And Joker was in Arkham, Joker was still confined to a hospital bed, Joker had had no contact with the outside world in months. He hadn’t even known that someone else was using the name ‘Red Hood.’ Batman hadn’t mentioned his missing Robin when he interrogated Joker, but he knew Joker would not have been able to shut up about it if he even had a hint about what was happening.

Which left him with no leads except the gruesome tape still playing in front of him.

It went on for two hours, no cuts, no visible edits. Batman forced himself to watch it, to pay attention to every detail, even as his companions stepped away for breaks.

He learned nothing useful. Hood was well-prepared, well-supplied. He hated Robin for being Robin, was planning on killing him. All things they already knew.

Occassionally Hood would step out of frame to grab a new implement of torture. He was never gone for more than a few seconds, and Tim never had enough time to recover any kind of defense. His taunts told them only that he wasn’t planning to let Tim enjoy the mercy of a quick death.

That was good, Batman had to tell himself, it gave them time to find him.

Dick whimpered, as Tim on the tape let out a particularly desperate scream. Batman had locked Bruce away about five minutes in, because Bruce was could not handle this recording, but Batman was there. Batman could offer no solace except to reach up to grab his old partner’s hand, grip in tight in a promise of retribution. Alfred’s hand settled on Batman’s shoulder in its own deathgrip, tight enough that it should have brought pain, but Batman could only take grim comfort from its steady weight.

Batman’s stomach sank when Hood returned with a medical kit. He knew well the type of pain that could be implemented with a well-placed scalpel. But instead of continuing the torture, Hood started patching Tim up, movements clinical, removed.

“Why are you doing this?” Tim gasped out, confusion warring with agony on his face, which told Batman that Tim also had no idea why Hood had taken him. That likely ruled out any personal enemies.

Hood’s answer gave no further illumination, only a re-tread of threats he’d made a dozen times already.

“But why?” Tim’s eyes were dazed and unfocused with pain. Batman was unsure if he was even aware of the camera. He hadn’t tried to send any messages that Batman could detect.

The Red Hood stilled at the question, and Batman dared hope that they’d get some kind of explanation. Or at least a clue. Something.

Anything.

“Because you’re Robin,” he said. “This is what happens to Robins. They get kidnapped, and tortured, and die.”

Jason. It had been all he could think of since Tim had been kidnapped. Stephanie, although she wasn’t his child and she’d been Spoiler when she died. But mostly Jason, dying alone in a warehouse far from home, trusting in Batman and Batman had failed. Jason, whose life he would still give his for in a heartbeat.

“But I don’t understand,” Tim on the tape was saying.

Batman understood. This was his punishment for failing to save Jason. But Tim should never have been dragged into it. Tim had done nothing wrong. This was Batman’s fault. Bruce’s.

The tape abruptly cut off, and the screen was nothing but black.

Nobody breathed.

“Is that it?” Dick asked. “Was there any more? There has to be more, right? He wouldn’t just send…”

The tape ran out, static playing on the monitor.

Batman rose to eject it. There had to be something he could get from the tape, something that would lead him to Hood. A sound in the background, a hint to a location or identity. Something.

The screen flashed back on, and Batman froze, startled. Apparently there was more. The video now showed Red Hood alone. He was sitting on a wooden chair, up against a plain concrete wall. Nothing that could help identify the location.

Hood leaned forward on his knees, helmet angled down to face the camera. He stayed like that for several seconds, an interminably long time. “He died,” said Hood, simply.

No.

No.

“Day two.” He held up two fingers, tutted. “Heart failure. I guess the electricity was a bit much.”

Hood drummed his fingers against his thigh holsters. “Don’t worry; I brought him back. I’m not giving him up that easily.”

Batman growled.

Hood laughed, an eerie, cruel thing, distorted by the helmet. “I expect he’ll probably kick it a few more times before I make it permanent. I think I could probably draw it out a few months. Maybe a year. Two years? That seems a bit excessive. Eh, I’ll figure it out.” He shrugged and leaned back, crossed an ankle over his knee.

“When I’m done, I’ll bury him. I’ll get him a nice coffin, don’t worry. Sturdy. Lead-lined. If I’m feeling merciful, he’ll be dead before he goes in it. Doubt it, though. Either way, I’ll put him into the ground, set up a nice grave. Unmarked. You won’t find the body. Feel free to detective away to your heart’s content, poke through all my sh*t in Gotham. I’m not there, and I’m not coming back. I’ve got what I came for.”

He made a monstrous sound that it took Batman a second to identify as a yawn, distorted by his voice filter.

“Anyway, this isn’t a ransom, or a demand, or anything. Just thought you’d like to know what Robin Number Three is doing with the rest of his days. He’ll be in pain, screaming, wishing he was dead and praying that you’ll come. Maybe he’ll even believe it.” Hood shrugged.

“But you won’t, at least not in time to save him, because you never do. What’s that saying—once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern?” He let that sit in the air.

Then he cracked his shoulders, worked out a kink in his neck. “Well, that’s all I wanted to say. Don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time, so I won’t contact you again. Bye.” He got up and reached for the camera to turn it off.

This time the tape really did run out, cutting to the screech of static that did not stop.

Bruce sat on the brittle brown grass, letting it and the dirt beneath stain his pants. The whole suit might need to be thrown out. That would be acceptable—it was an eyesore, a pale pink velvet monstrosity that fit Brucie Wayne like a glove. It’s too bright for the season anyway, Bruce thought, and wished he could delete all knowledge of fashion and seasons from his brain as frivolous and irrelevant. His mind should not be thinking such thoughts while Jason was dead and Tim was missing.

He drew a thumb along the granite inscription, Jason Peter Todd. Would he need to order a matching one for Timothy Jackson Drake? Tim’s grave might have to be empty, a hollow sham. At least Jason’s had the dignity of his body, resting safe beneath the earth.

He’s not dead yet, Bruce had to tell himself, and he didn’t believe it. Jason was dead, and Tim was gone, and he had no way to bring either of them back. No leads. No hope.

Nothing.

All he could do was join them.

“God, Jason,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’ve failed you again. After everything—never again, I promised. Never again. I’ll make sure of it this time.”

The stone was rough underneath his calloused fingers.

The wind whipped through his suit like a scourge.

Bruce Wayne sat at his son’s grave, and did not let himself cry.

The comm in his ear clicked on. “B. Do you have a minute?” Oracle.

He said nothing, but he did not cut the line. The effort of raising his hand to his ear seemed too monumental to achieve in that moment.

“We need to talk about Tim. And the outside world.” A pause. “Do we say anything? Publicly? Do we report him missing?”

Bruce’s jaw tightened, and he pressed his thumb more firmly into the engraved J of Jason’s name.

“Currently, Bruce Wayne is completely unconnected to Tim Drake, so it would be odd for you to put out a press release or report him missing or anything. But also…you might be the only one who can do it. His parents are dead. Dana’s in an inpatient facility. He’s dropped out of school. He doesn’t have a job. He owns his apartment through a shell company, no rent or mortgage. Besides his fake uncle, who I think we can all agree we don’t want talking to anybody, no one outside of the nighttime business will notice. But he did stay with you while his dad was in that coma. It’s plausible you would check in with him from time to time.”

Silence.

“Bruce?”

Bruce took the comm out of his ear and crushed it between his fingers. Barbara didn’t try to call him back.

He sat on the deadened grass with Jason’s grave until it grew dark.

Then he kept sitting, staring into nothing.

It was freezing cold. They might get snow soon.

Victor Fries would be happy about that. Batman should be preparing for his celebration, and for the inevitable holiday free-for-all.

He couldn’t summon the energy to care.

Maybe he would sleep out here. With Jason.

His phone rang. Bruce knew he had put it on silent. Oracle. Again.

He clenched his fist, but answered. Barbara likely had a reason for forcing the call.

“What.”

“Uh, hey B.” That was Nightwing, not Oracle. “Nobody’s hurt, nobody’s in danger, this probably isn’t related to Tim, but we have um, a bit of a situation over here, and you should probably get back to the manor.”

Batman was already moving, the clarity of mission and adrenalinecarrying him forward and away from the graveyard. “Report.”

“This isn’t a secure line?”

Batman growled as he threw himself into his car, putting the phone on speaker. “My civilian phone is secure enough for a sitrep.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Dick.”

“Okay, okay. This might be the kind of thing that’s better discussed in person, though.”

Batman let the silence hang expectantly.

“Fine, whatever! If you crash, it’s not on me.”

“Hn.”

“We have an intruder in the cave. Contained, not actively hostile, and we’re looking into confirming their identity.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here. The DNA analysis was a match, though.”

“A known entity, then?”

“Not going to spill the deets over the phone.”

It was a known entity. Necessarily so, if they’d had DNA samples on hand to compare. Dick was simply being willfully obstinate.

“I’ve got Alfie and Barb backing me up on this, B. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

Unacceptable, but there was nothing Batman could do about it now. “How did they get in?”

“Back entrance, had the codes.”

“Hng. Are they authorized to have the codes?”

“Technically, yes. If they are who they say they are.”

That limited the pool significantly. Not even Selina had the codes to the Batcave. Primary candidates included Tim—although Dick had said it was unrelated—Clark, Diana, and Leslie Thompkins. Everyone else was either dead or evil.

“Why is there doubt?”

“Well, they’re supposed to be dead.”

Jason? was the first thought that crossed Bruce’s mind, a sprig of desperate hope that he ruthlessly crushed down. Jason was long gone and would never return to him; Bruce didn’t deserve that happiness.

“Do I need a mask?” He had a few spare dominoes and a full suit in a hidden compartment in the car, but that would take extra seconds to don. If this was someone who theoretically had access to the cave, then they also likely had theoretical knowledge of their identities.

“Not unless you want to. They are well aware of civilian identities.”

Bruce grunted acknowledgement and swung the car down the road that led to the main entrance of the Batcave. He parked on a dime behind the two Batmobiles currently out, and exited the car.

Dick, Barbara, and Alfred were already there, crowded around a holding cell. Bruce strode towards them and they parted like the Red Sea.

“Hi, Bruce.” The voice was familiar, female, and angry. A smile through clenched teeth.

Bruce pulled to a stop right outside the holding cell and glared at its occupant.

“Yeah, yeah, I came all the way back from the dead, it’s miraculous or whatever. But I have a very important question for you, and you’re gonna answer it honestly.” Stephanie Brown leaned up against the glass and met him glare for glare. “Where. The f*ck. Is Tim?”

Chapter 8: Escape, Part I (Tim)

Chapter Text

Tim was fighting a war. He had started from a position of weakness: ambushed; injured; and stripped of his usual resources, but now Tim knew who he was fighting, and Hood—Jason—would be unwise to count him out. Oh, he couldn’t summon anything as flashy or initially devastating as Hood’s ambush-kidnap-torture combo, but that was fine. This was a war of attrition.

And Tim was going to win.

He had two days to plan after figuring out that Hood was Jason. Or, he thought it was two days. There was no real way to tell. He woke up on his stupid floor mattress, alone, with a sore neck but otherwise unharmed. Jason was nowhere to be found.

It gave Tim a lot of time to think. He went over everything he knew, everything he suspected, and formulated theories. He made shivs of dubious quality and sequestered them around the room. He drank the bottled water and the nutrient shakes. His bowels were not happy about him suddenly switching to an all-liquid diet, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. On day two, he forced some of an MRE down his throat. It was disgusting and painful, and Tim added it to the list of Jason’s sins that he would pay him back for.

Because Tim was going to escape, he was going to get his revenge upon Jason for the whole kidnap-torture thing, and he was going to bring Jason back to the family. The order of operations was flexible, but Tim was formulating the beginning of a plan that would allow him to do all three.

Jason definitely had some kind of ‘came back from the dead wrong and is now a villain’ scenario going on, so Tim wasn’t particularly worried about going all-out fighting him from a moral perspective. He’d need to, in order to escape, but any damage Tim did could be fixed when they got to the ‘bring Jason back to the family’ stage. As long as neither of them killed the other, it should all be fine. Eventually.

Honestly, even if Jason killed Tim, it would probably still be fine. Tim couldn’t imagine any of the Bats turning Jason away for that.

As long as they knew it was Jason.

But Tim didn’t particularly want to die, so Plan A was escape using whatever force necessary—short of lethal force, obviously—and then get reinforcements. Jason seemed to have a thing about B, and Bruce wasn’t the most emotionally literate at the best of times, so probably Dick. And Alfred. Definitely Alfred.

He might have to keep the knowledge of Jason’s resurrection from Bruce for a little bit, at least until Alfred and Dick talked to Jason, so that B didn’t just go blundering in and f*ck it all up.

Plus he would need to confirm that it was actually Jason, with, like, lab tests and stuff. But Tim was 99.8% sure that it was. Nothing else made sense.

But he could worry about all that more after he escaped. The escape part of the plan was actually going pretty well, considering the absolutely insane level of security Jason had implemented.

Key to his escape, Tim had figured out that there were coil springs in the bed-frame of the couch. He spent hours pretending to sleep with his hands tucked under the couch cushions, sawing away at the fabric and metal until his shivs snapped and his fingers bled.

But in the end, he got the wire. Now he had lock picks.

Sometimes the lights would go off, and Tim would be left in darkness, the only sign he had that Jason hadn’t forgotten about him. The times were far enough apart that they could correspond with normal day-night cycles, but Tim didn’t have any way of actually telling that. Jason could just be an asshole, messing with Tim’s sense of time.

Scratch that. Jason was definitely an asshole. The only question was how exactly his assholery manifested. Tim pondered the question as he paced, drank his stupid sludge shakes, and ran through various body-weight workouts and katas.

Once, when the lights were off, Tim leaned his back against the door and picked the lock, hands hidden behind his body as he pretended to try and push it open. He felt the lock open with a soft click. There were no alarms Tim could hear. He knew the door swung outwards, but even pushing on it with all his weight, it didn’t budge an inch. No other locks accessible from inside the cell—there must be something blocking it from the other side. Another door, a bar, a deadbolt, something like that. f*ck.

Okay. Hood had to be able to get out whenever he came in. That meant that the outer barrier—whatever it was—wouldn’t be in place when Hood was in the cell. Tricky. Tim was going to have to time this very carefully.

Tim re-locked the door, and went to lie on his mattress, heart pounding. He’d done the best he could to hide his actions from the cameras, but who knew how carefully Jason was watching. He was an ex-Robin. He would know better than anyone how resourceful they could be.

Tim didn’t sleep a wink that “night,” but Hood didn’t come in, didn’t confiscate Tim’s makeshift knives and picks. When the lights went off again, Tim dared to hope his plan had gone undiscovered.

Now it was just a waiting game.

Hood returned on what Tim thought might be the third day after Tim had figured out his identity. He walked through the door, helmeted once again, and Tim narrowed his eyes at him from his perch on the still-suspicious-but-very-comfy couch.

“So,” said Tim. “Did you come back wrong, were you thrown in a Lazarus Pit, or were you somehow kidnapped by a villain and B didn’t notice?” Those were the only three options that made sense.

Hood startled in the doorway, a tiny movement that Tim would have missed if he hadn’t honed his skills trying to read B. “Not that it’s any of your business, Replacement, but it was all three.”

Tim couldn’t tell if he was being facetious or telling the truth. Unhelpful. “And now you’re, what, back from the dead and here for your bloody revenge?”

“Bingo. It’s time for torture, Timmy!”

Tim’s heart jumped in his chest, but he refused to let the spike of fear show on his face. “You’re an asshole,” he said instead.

“Wow, you’re only just figuring that out? And they say you’re the smart one.”

“They do? Who says that?”

“Obviously no one who actually knows what they’re talking about.”

Tim rolled his eyes.

“Okay, up and at ’em, Timantha. ’Tis the season for suffering and all that.”

“Oh, is it December already?” By Tim’s count, it should be December 2^nd, but he wasn’t sure about that by any means at all.

Hood shrugged. “It could be. Up.”

“Yeah, no. I’m not willingly going to get tortured.”

“Then you’ll go unwillingly.”

Tim refused to be intimidated. This was Jason, who was scarcely older than him, and Tim was Robin. He ate threats for breakfast. Or something like that.

“And how’s that gonna work? Are you, Jason Todd, the Big Bad Red Riding Hood, going to drag me, Timothy Drake—an unarmed and unarmored kid—and what, beat me up? Choke me again? Electrocute me? Really?”

“Yup.” Hood popped the ‘p.’ “That’s exactly what’s gonna happen.”

Tim hadn’t really expected an appeal to morality to work, given how his week had gone so far, but he was still disappointed. “So…whatever happened to you in the last three years has made you the type of person who’s cool with torturing children for sh*ts and giggles.”

“You’re not a kid, Replacement. You’re Robin.”

“Yes, and I’m pretty sure I’m also a minor.”

“Barely. You’re sixteen, Timbourine.”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “That’s a minor.”

“That’s older than I was when I died. You survived a whole year over me.”

That wiped the smile off Tim’s face. But Jason’s own horrific death didn’t give new-and-not-improved Jason free license to torture-murder Tim. “And what, you’re jealous that you never got a sweet sixteen?”

“I’m not jealous of you, Replacement.”

“Kinda seems like you are.”

“f*ck you.”

“I’m not getting up.”

“Fine by me.” Hood reached for his holsters, and Tim only just managed to duck behind the couch as a bullet sped through the air where he had been.

“Did you just try to shoot me?” This was going to be a lot more difficult if Jason wasn’t planning on getting up close and personal.

“That was your only warning, Replacement.”

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?!”

“C’mon, Timberly. We’ve already covered this. I came back wrong, was dunked in a Lazarus Pit, and kidnapped by evil villains. Keep up.”

“Were you actually, though?”

Another gunshot, and Tim hissed as a burning pain grazed his arm.

“Couch ain’t bulletproof, Tim-Tam-a-Lam.”

Tim clapped one hand over the thankfully shallow graze. “Watch where you’re shooting that thing!” he called. “You could have killed me.”

“And I will,” Hood promised. “But give me a little credit, Timmy. I can aim.”

“You can’t see me!”

“Yes, I can.” The sound of tapping on metal. “Thermal imaging, Timbo. It’s not just a fashion statement.”

Jesus f*ck. Okay. Tim curled as small as he could behind the arm of the couch, which provided the best cover from oncoming fire. He dug out his spoon-shiv from where he’d hidden it in the upholstery. “Why are you shooting at me anyway? Shouldn’t you be going after the Joker or something? You know, the person who actually killed you?”

“Don’t f*cking talk about the Joker.” Where before Jason’s voice had been playful—if sad*stically so—now that was pure rage in his voice. “You don’t f*cking get to talk about him.”

“Why the hell not?” Tim tried to judge whether it would be worth it to try and duck into the toilet alcove. Probably not. It would be a long dash through wide-open space, and likely wouldn’t provide any more cover than the couch. “You’re the one trying to reenact his murderscapades on me.”

“I am nothing like the him.” The next shot clipped his other shoulder.

Tim grunted and let the momentum carry him to the floor. Lying flat on the ground was basically the closest thing to cover he could get right now. “I’ve got two bullet wounds, five electrical burns, and a sh*tton of bruises that say otherwise.”

“Oh, that? That’s nothing, Replacement. You haven’t experienced anything close to real pain yet; you can’t even imagine the agonies of—”

“Oh my God, you’re villain monologuing. Can we skip the clichés and get to the actual fricking point.”

“Cliché?” Hood sputtered. “Did you just call me—?! I’ll show you cliché, you flat-assed miscreant.” Hood marched around the couch and stalked towards Tim, holstering his gun as he did so.

Tim scrambled backwards, one hand clutching his more-wounded shoulder, the other dangling at an awkward angle to cover the shiv hidden between his forearm and thigh.

Hood grabbed for Tim’s hair, but Tim ducked under his grasp, closing the last bit of distance between them. In one smooth motion, he flipped his spoon-shiv into his hand and drove it as hard as he could up Jason’s wrist, through the small gap in the sleeve of his leather jacket. He felt a hot, wet rush of blood over his hand and the distinct feeling of something going snap.

Then Hood’s other fist was crashing into him, and Tim went sprawling backwards, head ringing. f*ck, but Hood could pack a punch.

“Jesus f*cking—what the f*ck, Replacement?” Blood was spurting out of Jason’s wrist, dripping down from his sleeve to the floor. Tim had hit the artery.

Tim was already sprinting towards the door, grabbing another of his stashed shivs on the way, and pulling his wire lock picks out of his hair from where he’d hidden them at the nape of his neck.

He was almost done picking the lock when the first shot went through his more-injured shoulder. His hand spasmed and dropped the picks, but they thankfully stayed inside the lock. Tim switched hands, turning, turning, click.

Bang.

The next shot hit him in the calf. Tim slumped forward, desperately putting all his weight on the door, pushing himself forward with his uninjured leg.

The door swung open, and Tim crashed through, falling on the ground just in time to miss another bullet. He scrambled out of the doorway—out of Jason’s sights—and oh, yeah. There was the bar: a heavy, iron thing on a fulcrum that no human would have a chance of moving from the inside. Tim dashed over to it and grabbed the end to swing it across the door and lock Jason inside. f*ck, it was heavy. He had to crouch under it and lift up with his left arm—the less injured one—to have any hope of moving it.

Just as he got in position, the door crashed back open and Jason slammed into the hallway wall. With a curse, Tim dropped the bar and ran, weaving unpredictably.

The now-open door actually provided decent enough cover for Tim to clear the hallway’s corner, but Tim couldn’t afford to slow down. He passed a bunch of closed doors, and didn’t even try to open any of them. Come on, come on, come on…yes!

Stairs. Sweet, beautiful stairs, leading up. Tim took them two at a time, adrenaline carrying him through the exhaustion and pain. At the top was another door that needed to be unlocked, but Tim made quick work of it before slamming it closed behind him.

He was in a house of some kind. Tim scanned for the room and found a cabinet nearby that would suit his purposes. He heaved it over to block the door. Okay. That should take Hood at least a few seconds to get through.

There wasn’t anyone rushing at him, so hopefully Jason had been here alone and there wouldn’t be a bunch of backup goons rushing him. Tim didn’t think he could take any backup goons right now.

He moved through the house like a hurricane, grabbing supplies as he went. Blanket—useful. Tie it into a bag. Bottle of water—useful. Half-full thermos—useful. Gun—useful. He stuck that into his waistband.

A quick glance out the window told him he was in the countryside, surrounded by trees covered in a light dusting of snow.

Tim tore through the house, looking for a computer or a phone or the keys to a vehicle. Living room—nothing. Kitchen—nothing. Bathroom—nothing. Bedroom—nothing. Other bathroom—nothing, and it looked like a bomb had gone off in there. The mirror lay in pieces on the floor, there were bullet holes everywhere, and the counter was pulverized.

Finally, Tim found a small room full of electronics. Monitors, mainly showing Tim’s cell, but also the house he was currently in and the inside of a few warehouses filled with goons that Tim was pretty sure belonged to Black Mask. Headset, radio receivers, relay devices, VCR camera, and a bunch more technology. Tim couldn’t see Hood on any of the screens, which caused a pit to form in his stomach. That cabinet wouldn’t hold him long, and Tim had already taken too much time searching.

Finally—finally—tucked away behind one of the monitors, holiest of all holies: a cellphone. Simple flip phone, a burner. Tim flipped it open and swore—no signal. Nothing in this room looked like it had an easy way to send an outgoing message. Tim was sure he could figure out how to do so, but that would take time, and Tim didn’t have any time.

He did see a garage on one of the monitors. Hoping it was attached to the house, he kept trying doors until—yep, garage. Okay. One car—an old Chevy Impala, a monstrosity of a thing with its engine half on the floor, obviously in the middle of refurbishment.

And…a motorcycle. Tim winced as the thing shocked him when he tried to remove the panel to hot wire it. f*ck. Okay. Tim honestly wasn’t sure if he could even drive a bike right now—his calf was beginning to spasm around the bullet wound, and his right arm wasn’t quite obeying his brain anymore.

Tim grabbed a hammer in his less-wounded left hand and stabbed the claw end into the motorcycle’s front tire. It started to deflate with a tired squeal, and Tim decided that was good enough. Hood would have to at least change the tire before coming after him.

Tim limped to the garage door, and f*ck, it needed a key code to open. Okay. Okay. He could do this. He pried the keypad open, grabbed wires with shaking hands—

“Going somewhere, Replacement?”

Tim spun, pulling Hood’s gun out of his waistband as he did.

“You gonna shoot me, Timbo?”

“You shot me,” Tim pointed out. “Four times.” His hand was shaking, whether from blood loss or pain or misplaced adrenaline, he didn’t know.

“Yeah, I did do that.” Hood sounded mildly regretful, like he’d done something embarrassing while drunk, instead of shooting Tim four times. He was standing steady, bandages poking out of his red-soaked sleeve, though he blurred a bit in and out in Tim’s vision. “How abouts I patch you up, and we’ll call it even?”

“That is…not how that works.” The rush of adrenaline was beginning to fade, and Tim could feel the world getting shaky all around him as he came down.

Hood just shrugged. “That’s fine. You can hold a grudge; I’ll hold a grudge; we can all just be one great grudgeful family trying to get undying revenge upon each other.”

“You’re not funny, Hood.”

“Ouch.” Hood sighed. “Put down the gun, Timmy.”

“No.”

Hood took a step forward.

“I’ll shoot,” Tim warned. He thought of his future self, the mass murderer. Batman with guns. He had it in him to do this.

“Uh-huh, sure.”

Tim thought of his father, facing down Captain Boomerang as he died. The world was spinning. “I will,” he insisted.

Hood ignored his words and continued walking towards him.

Tim thought of Batman, of Bruce, and his hatred of guns. His fear. His devastating and destructive love for his lost son. How absolutely wrecked he would be if he ever found out that Jason had died again. That Tim had killed him. That Tim had killed.He thought of Darla’s corpse cooling beneath his hands. He thought of Jason the first time, dying alone and abandoned.

He couldn't do it.

f*ck.

He couldn't do it.

But there was still the Jason in the room with him now, risen from the grave. Jason, who might not even be able to be called Jason anymore. Jason, who was going to kill him slowly. Jason, in front of him, somehow inevitable.

Tim’s fate was already decided. Jason wouldn't give him another chance to escape. The only question left was how Tim would go.

He had to do it.

He couldn't do it.

He had to do something.

Maybe if he got him mad enough, Hood would kill him quickly.

Jason was ten feet away, in full Hood regalia.

Black spots crowded in the edge of Tim’s vision.

It’s now or never.

Tim pulled the trigger.

Then he pulled it again.

He didn’t stop until he’d emptied the whole clip into Jason’s chest.

Chapter 9: Escape, Part II (Jason)

Chapter Text

Jason was not having a good day. Scratch that, Jason was not having a good week. Or month. Or the last three years. Or really a good life at all.

Second life.

Though the first one hadn’t been that great either.

Whatever. That wasn’t the point.

The point was that the past three days had been particularly bad.

First, Replacement had figured out his identity. Replacement was strangely knowledgable about the kid that had been Jason Todd. Jason didn’t like it. He didn’t like anybody seeing beneath his hood. It made his skin crawl.

Worse, Replacement had just looked up at Jason with this unshakeable awe—as Jason was choking him out—and whispered, certain as a psalm, “Robin.”

Which, no.

Jason was not Robin. Jason did not want to be Robin. The kid—the Replacement—was Robin. That’s why he was called the Replacement. Jason was not anything near to being Robin.

Not anymore.

So Jason did the only thing he could do in that scenario: he fled.

He dragged the Replacement to the mattress, hid in his bedroom upstairs, and had a panic attack until he fell asleep. He woke up a few hours later—nightmares tinged green—and went for a walk outside.

The ground was hard, covered in frost, and the air was crystalline cold. Jason could see the stars above the tops of the pines. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of the stars.

He hadn’t ever really seen them before he died. Gotham—even the outskirts of Gotham where Wayne Manor rested—was too polluted, too full of light and gas and haze for any but the brightest of stars to shine through.

The first time he’d truly seen the night sky had been in Nanda Parbat.

Now, just outside his safehouse in eastern Pennsylvania, surrounded by nothing but woods for miles, he stared at the stars hanging like diamonds in the chill of the night and chewed on some emotion he could not name.

When he returned to the safehouse, he realized that he’d forgotten to turn the lights off so that Replacement could sleep, again. Whoops. He flicked the switch that would bring the kid some darkness. Better late than never, right?

Ugh. Why was Jason so bad at this?

It was supposed to be easy: kidnap the kid, torture him, send a video to Bruce, make sure B was actually tormented by said video, disappear without a trace. Rinse and repeat if there were ever more Robins. And, okay, yeah, Jason had so far been pulling off the plan without a hitch. It was going perfectly.

But it didn’t feel right.

Jason just felt weirdly empty and sad.

Whatever. It didn’t matter.

He’d deal with it in the morning.

In the morning, he felt like crap. Not sick, exactly, just…wrung out. Tired. He took advantage of the fact that he lived alone (except for the kid locked in his torture basem*nt) to stay in bed until noon.

Then he forced himself up and got something to eat. Put on the Bat-recordings. Had to make sure they were suitably worried for their missing bird.

Most of it was boring. Long periods of silence. Them digging into his crime lord operations that he’d decided to abandon when the plan changed to kidnapping instead of immediate murder. Stuff he already knew.

There were a few interesting tidbits, though. Batgirl was deep undercover on a mission somewhere, and wouldn’t even be able to be contacted for another two weeks. Also, apparently B had helped Replacement hire an actor to play his uncle. Which explained why that whole thing had been so shady. And why the Replacement was living alone. And why Jason hadn’t been able to see anything off with the paper trail.

Actually, wait, no, that didn’t explain a damn thing. What the f*ck, Bruce? Replacement could get a tentative pass because Jason had known him for all of three days and it was clear that the kid was not anything approaching normal or sane, but Bruce? The man was a serial adopter, and instead of adopting his newly-orphaned sidekick, he’d sent him to another city to live alone? What the f*ck was that? Had he realized that they were expendable and so didn’t bother with the formalities any more?

Had he…had he really regretted adopting Jason so much that it stopped him from ever taking in another kid?

It left him feeling sick, and the room all washed with green.

He wanted to kill someone. Specifically Bruce, but anyone would do. Viscerally, bloodily. He wanted to pound in someone’s face until the crack of bones beneath his knuckles gave way to soft crunches and their brain matter leaked out their ears. He wanted to hurt.

Replacement was in the basem*nt.

He was planning on killing Replacement anyway.

No. Jason shook his head, trying to clear it of green. No. He had a plan. He would stick to the plan.

He beat up a punching bag instead.

By the time dinner rolled around, he still didn’t trust himself in the room with the kid. Good thing there was food and sh*t down there. Jason hadn’t actually planned on him needing to eat any of that stuff—it was a contingency, just in case Jason died when Replacement was still down there. Or if Jason somehow got locked in there himself. Talia would check in every three days, but it might take her longer than that to actually come let him out. Jason didn’t want the kid to starve to death.

Though that might be more merciful than handing him over to Talia.

Talia hated the Replacement.

Jason ate dinner and took a shower. He had to use the downstairs one in the bunker, because he still hadn’t even touched the bathroom he destroyed. He needed to get on that. He should also probably figure out a shower schedule for the kid. Ugh.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow he’d figure out showers and food for the kid, and he’d clean up the bathroom he’d destroyed, and he’d make a video for B, and he’d figure out why everything felt so empty and hollow.

Yeah. Tomorrow.

Surprise, he did not get any of that sh*t done tomorrow. Except for the video to B. He kinda got that done. Not really. Mostly.

He slept in again—and had actually remembered Replacement’s lights this time around!—and had brunch around 2:00pm.

Then he was too restless to focus, to do anything. He needed to fight someone.

There wasn’t anyone here to fight.

There was the kid.

No. Stick to the plan. Slow torture. Key word: slow. It doesn’t work if you can’t keep sending B videos months down the line.

He could go back to Gotham, look for trouble. It was only an hour and a half drive, at least the way Jason drove.

That was an even worse idea, and he knew it.

Scranton wasn’t far. Less than half an hour. He was sure he could find some idiot scum and knock their heads in.

Bad idea. Then the Bat knows you’re nearby.

Ughhhhhhhhh. Everything was awful and Jason wanted to die. Again.

That was a lie. He didn’t want to die.

He dismantled his Impala’s engine, instead. Destructive enough to act as a balm for the green, constructive enough that he didn’t feel like a complete failure. When the engine was on the floor in pieces, he decided that was enough for today and turned to his new career as a video editor. Jason knew that whatever digital sh*t he did, it wouldn’t hold to Barbie’s scrutiny. So he went old school. VCR. The camera and all the equipment were from a yard sale in West Virginia—no way was Oracle going to be able to trace that back to him.

Except putting the thing together meant he had to go through and watch the f*cking tape. He was doing just fine, coasting on green, up until Replacement opened his stupid f*cking mouth and hissed out, “Don’t you f*cking talk about Jason like that.”

Jason reached out and stopped the tape. Nope. Not doing that again. Bad feelings. He rewound a bit, cut off the recording before they got there.

A part of him—a large part of him—wanted to include the bit he’d said about Dick and himself, how they’d both been replaced by inferior copies, but listening to it back now…there was a chance, however small, that they might get something from it. He was too angry, too uncontrolled, too hurt in that clip. It made him seem vulnerable, and that was the last thing he wanted to show to the Bats.

So, early cut, and now it was time to make a threat. He went back downstairs to do it—the whole house was soundproofed, but the featureless concrete and cold lighting down there made for a better ambiance.

He set the camera on the floor in the hallway and dragged a chair from the medbay for him to sit on. That should be appropriately casual, right? Nonchalant. I have your little bird, and I’m not even the tiniest bit worried you’ll ever find him.

He leaned forward, looked into the camera, smiled underneath his helmet. “Brucie! Hope you enjoyed the show.” He paused, considered. “No, that’s stupid. Okay, okay. Reset.”

He took a breath. “Bruce.” He let cruel malice tip his lips upward. “I know you didn’t get to see exactly how your second one went, so I thought I’d let you watch for number three.”

“…Nope. That wasn’t it either.”

Reset.

“Hello Bruce. Just thought I’d let you know: I will kill him. Slowly, painfully. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Ugh, no.” He already knows that. All you’re doing is making it less scary by putting it into words.

Reset.

“Heya, B! —Nope, not even gonna try to save that one.”

Reset. Maybe no greeting?

“I killed him.” Ooh, that was good. But now you’ve lost the possibility of tormenting him with future torture videos unless you want him to know you’re a liar. “Don’t worry, I brought him back.”

Mmm. Closer, but not quite.

Reset.

“I’ll bury him when I’m done. Nice coffin, sturdy. Six feet under the ground, all that. Maybe he’ll be able to dig himself up before he runs out of air. Break his fingernails off into the hardwood as he tears at the satin all around him. Break a few fingers as he tries to punch his way out. Realize that there is no getting out, not without equipment and a hell of a lot more strength than he has in that body.”

“f*ck, I wouldn’t have made it out if it weren’t for that stupid belt buckle. Because God f*cking forbid you bury me in something useful. Or even moderately comfortable. Crawling through six feet of dirt and mud with broken fingers and bloody hands, suffocating on the soil, gasping for something, anything, all while you’re in a f*cking suit jacket and tie, restricting your every motion? It’s not f*cking fun, Bruce! Every f*cking night, I relive that sh*t. Every f*cking night! Why the f*ck would you—you spent all that f*cking money, on the coffin, and the suit, and that f*cking angel headstone, and then you never even bothered to notice that I dug my way out of my f*cking grave! It’s not like I was subtle about it! Why the f*ck wouldn’t you notice—?! It must have been destroyed! The ground would have been wrecked. And you—you just threw all that money at it, ‘Here lies Jason f*cking Todd, we’ve put him in a fancy suit for appearance’s sake but f*ck if we’ll actually care enough to notice if his grave gets desecrated from the f*cking inside.’ f*ck you. I promise I’ll at least notice if Replacement digs himself up after I’ve buried him.”

“f*ck.” He stepped out of frame and flipped open his helmet to chug down a bottle of water.

Reset.

Finally—finally—he got a take that he was happy with. He was tired, so wrung out, that he couldn’t put any real emotion into his voice.

That was fine. Good, even. Detached, impartial, casual. Those things were scary. Hood was scary.

Jason let Hood take over.

“Anyway, this isn’t a ransom, or a demand, or anything. Just thought you’d like to know what Robin Number Three is doing with the rest of his days. He’ll be in pain, screaming, wishing he was dead and praying that you’ll come. Maybe he’ll even believe it.” Jason had believed it. Up until the very end, Jason had believed.

Hood shrugged. That was just how it was.

“But you won’t, at least not in time to save him, because you never do. What’s that saying—once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern?” If it had just been Jason, if he’d been the only one, maybe…then maybe it would have been his fault. Maybe it was his fault. But B didn’t get to just walk away. Not when he hadn’t been there.

“Well, that’s all I wanted to say. Don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time, so I won’t contact you again. Bye.”

The ‘bye’ was stupid, an automatic reflex, but f*ck it. Good enough. Jason switched the camera off and went upstairs. He’d edit it in the morning. Now the only thing he wanted to do was sleep.

The bathroom and Replacement would keep.

Jason woke as he almost always did, clawing his way out of green-soaked nightmares where he couldn’t breathe, gun drawn and ready to fire.

A few seconds to breathe, and he lowered his weapon. Still alive. Still alone.

He changed out his sweat-soaked armor for a fresh set, made his way to the kitchen. Breakfast. As he waited for the kettle to boil, he thunked his head down on the counter and groaned. He really needed to deal with Replacement today. f*ck.

Thing was, he didn’t actually want to torture the kid. Not now. Not after the haze of green had lifted and his too-real nightmares clung tight to his skin. Had he really been planning to inflict that same pain, worse pain even, on someone else? On a f*cking kid?

The thought had been chewing its way into his mind for a few days, Jason could admit that now. But f*ck. If he wasn’t going to torture the kid, what was he going to do with him? He couldn’t just let him go. But he couldn’t just keep the kid in his basem*nt bunker for the rest of his natural life.

It was a problem.

Jason considered it as he sipped his tea and nibbled on some scrambled eggs. There had to be some kind of workable solution.

He finished breakfast all too soon. Well, no point in putting it off. He almost forgot to speed through Replacement’s tapes—the kid was up to something, but Jason couldn’t make himself care enough to rewind and rewatch the tapes to figure out what, exactly. Jason was almost a foot taller, armed to the teeth, covered in a full suit of body armor, and well-fed. Replacement had been living off Ensure, was in a T-shirt, and had maybe a makeshift shank or two. Jason would easily win any fight if it came to it.

He could do this.

He could not do this.

Replacement was waiting for him, and the first words out of his mouth were, “So, did you come back wrong, were you thrown in a Lazarus Pit, or were you somehow kidnapped by a villain and B didn’t notice?”

How the f*ck did Replacement know—? Jason shook himself out of it. Obviously, Replacement didn’t actually know how on the money he was. He rejoined with the simple truth, disguised as a joke: “Not that it’s any of your business, Replacement, but it was all three.”

Replacement’s eyes narrowed. “And now you’re, what, back from the dead and here for your bloody revenge?”

“Bingo. It’s time for torture, Timmy!” What? Jason couldn’t have a little fun tormenting the Replacement? It wasn’t like he was going to actually do the torture he was threatening. Anymore.

“You’re an asshole.”

Jason grinned. “Wow, you’re only just figuring that out? And they say you’re the smart one.”

“They do? Who says that?”

“Obviously no one who actually knows what they’re talking about.”

Replacement rolled his eyes.

“Okay, up and at ’em, Timantha. ’Tis the season for suffering and all that.” They could go upstairs—as a gesture of Jason’s munificent goodwill—and talk things over over a breakfast of real food. Replacement had to be sick of nutrition shakes and MRE.

“Oh, is it December already?”

Oh, right. Replacement had no idea how long he’d been down there. Whoops. Jason shrugged. “It could be. Up.”

“Yeah, no. I’m not willingly going to get tortured.” Where had all this attitude been before? Honestly, Jason was kind of enjoying their back and forth. This was fun.

He narrowed his eyes, even though Tim-Tam couldn’t see it. “Then you’ll go unwillingly.” He should probably cuff Replacement anyway before bringing him to a less secure area.

“And how’s that gonna work? Are you, Jason Todd, the Big Bad Red Riding Hood, going to drag me, Timothy Drake—an unarmed and unarmored kid—and what, beat me up? Choke me again? Electrocute me? Really?”

“Yup.” Jason grinned. “That’s exactly what’s gonna happen.” Well, no, it wasn’t, but…fun banter. And Replacement trying not to look afraid when he very obviously was quaking in his bare feet was hilarious.

“So…whatever happened to you in the last three years has made you the type of person who’s cool with torturing children for sh*ts and giggles.”

A flash of green. Manic giggling. Which hurts more, A or B? Pain. Forehand…or backhand? Screaming laughter. Come now, birdboy. You’re not going to sleep on me already, are you? Fear. Ha ha ha hA HA hA Ha hA. Jason bit back a growl. “You’re not a kid, Replacement. You’re Robin.”

“Yes, and I’m pretty sure I’m also a minor.”

Jason grit his teeth. Ha ha ha hA HA hA Ha hA. Fire. Pain. Green. “Barely. You’re sixteen, Timbourine.”

“Yeah,” said Replacement. “That’s a minor.”

Everything inside Jason was screaming for blood. Red to balance out the green. He forced it back. “That’s older than I was when I died,” he said instead. “You survived a whole year over me.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness off his face.

“And what, you’re jealous that you never got a sweet sixteen?”

Well, f*ck you too, Replacement, you snot-nosed brat. “I’m not jealous of you, Replacement.”

“Kinda seems like you are.”

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe. Fire in his lungs, fire and dirt and acid. Green green green. Couldn’t keep up with the conversation. “f*ck you.” That was always a safe bet.

“I’m not getting up.”

The green roared. That was practically an invitation. Hood grinned. Finally. “Fine by me.” He drew and shot, remembering at the last second that he wasn’t actually planning on hurting the Replacement. He aimed high.

“Did you just try to shoot me?”

Nope. If he had, Replacement would have been shot. “That was your only warning, Replacement.” Green fire and acid surged against his skin, begging for bloodshed. Please, please, please. It was all he could think about. Replacement, bleeding on the floor. Replacement, screaming in pain and terror. Replacement, begging for nonexistant mercy.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?!”

Fighting back could work too. Hood smiled, broad, let his teeth glint under the helmet. Violence was in the air, and it was only a matter of time before it broke. “C’mon, Timberly. We’ve already covered this. I came back wrong, was dunked in a Lazarus Pit, and kidnapped by evil villains. Keep up.”

“Were you actually, though?”

Rude. How f*cking dare he doubt Jason’s tragic backstory? But actually. How f*cking dare he?

Green and laughter, the sting of a whip, dirt grinding into the beds of his fingers where his nails used to be.

Replacement was cowering behind the couch, a yellow blob, but easy enough to aim and skim the arm. A warning. A promise.

Jason’s blood sung. “Couch ain’t bulletproof, Tim-Tam-a-Lam,” he called. Oh, Replacement was going to pay.

“Watch where you’re shooting that thing! You could have killed me.”

That’s the f*cking point, dipsh*t. “And I will,” Hood promised, and the green hummed in pleasure. “But give me a little credit, Timmy. I can aim.”

“You can’t see me!”

“Yes, I can.” He tapped his helmet. “Thermal imaging, Timbo. It’s not just a fashion statement.”

Silence. Panting. Replacement was afraid, and it made something inside Jason curl up in warm satisfaction. “Why are you shooting at me anyway? Shouldn’t you be going after the Joker or something? You know, the person who actually killed you?”

Cold. Freezing cold. Death and acid and fire searing his soul, so hot and bright it had circled right round back to cold. The satisfaction was gone. The comfort was gone. There was only green, only green rage and the promise of blood and viscera staining the floor. The certainty of rage and pain.

There were words. They didn’t matter. His being demanded blood and suffering. Shattered bones. Slow, something in his mind reminded him. No, said another part. Don’t.

Shhhhh. He clipped a shoulder with his next shot, and that was very unsatisfying. He had better aim than that—why had he…?

Oh. Right. It would be better to do this up close. Where he could see the insides of the little bird become its outsides. A thrilling surge of green, the promise of pleasure and pain, and he knew nothing else as he allowed that wave to carry him forward to his prey.

Pain. Jesus f*ck his arm hurt. Jason looked down, and oh, that was blood. A lot of it. His blood. Still streaming out much too fast. sh*t.

Jason applied pressure with his other hand. What the f*ck had happened? He’d been talking with the Replacement, and the Replacement was being a little sh*t, and then—nothing. Green. Glee.

…Replacement had called him a cliché? f*ck him, the Replacement was a cliché.

Oh, and also he had a sharp piece of plastic embedded in his artery and was spurting blood from the wound.

“Jesus f*cking—what the f*ck, Replacement?” Jason had to admit he was grudgingly impressed. That had been a good shot. The Pit seemed to have receded in the face of Jason’s pain and blood and slightly bemused respect at Replacement’s sheer gall.

Speaking of, where was the kid? Jason scanned the room, and…of course he was fiddling with the lock. f*ck.

Jason wasn’t going to be able to get there in time to stop him leaving. Thankfully, that’s what guns were for. Jason aimed and fired—nowhere vital, the outside of his shoulder, just enough to make him drop the picks—but Replacement just switched hands and kept going.

Jason sighed. Great. This was going to be fun to clean up. Also he was still bleeding. Quite badly. He needed to get on that.

He took a step forward, and—woah. Dizzy. Hello, blood loss. Fun.

Replacement was opening the door, and with a sudden jolt of panic, Jason realized that Replacement was perfectly capable of locking him in. Another shot—to the leg this time, slow him down, and Jason was running after him, charging the door. No f*cking way was he getting himself locked in here for f*cking Batman to pick up when Replacement called in reinforcements. f*ck, that would be embarrassing.

Jason crashed into the hallway, Replacement already disappearing around the corner. Okay, priorities. There was no signal here, except for the satcom built into his helmet. Replacement was wounded, would take a bit to either hack his communications systems or hot wire his car. Except, wait, the car was in pieces right now. So he’d need to take the bike, and there was no way he was in shape to drive it. Jason had time. Stitch himself up first.

There was a medbay in the bunker complex, and Jason liberally helped himself to the materials there. Holy motherf*cking pissballs, Replacement had managed to snap off a sharpened plastic spoon inside his arm.

With a frustrated sigh, Jason shrugged off his jacket and the armour on his arm, tied a tourniquet just below his elbow. This was going to bleed like a bitch if he didn’t, and Jason didn’t think he had that much blood to lose. He twisted the tourniquet tight, tied it off with his teeth in a practiced move, and got to work. Tourniquet was all well and good to stem the blood loss, but Jason was on a timer now if he wanted to keep his arm.

He cursed and hissed as he pried out the plastic, cleaned out the wound, quick, quick, quick, stitches with his left hand—good enough, slice off the tourniquet.

Jason screamed as the blood rushed down through his forearm and the bubbling agony threatened to overwhelm him.

For a few moments, it was all he could do to curl up on the floor and pant in pain.

“Oh f*ck,” he gasped out. “That sucked. That really, really sucked.”

Jason grimaced and pushed himself up with his good arm, forced himself to make a fist with the injured one. Hurt like a bitch, but at least his hand obeyed his orders.

Jason exhaled, closed his eyes for just a moment. Then it was time for bandages, and pulling his blood-soaked armor back on. It squelched and rubbed uncomfortably as he did. Ugh. Nope, not gonna think about it. That was a problem for the Jason of Christmas Future.

The Jason of Christmas Present had to deal with Tim.

After kicking down the staiwell door—and reducing the wooden cabinet to smithereens—finding and cornering the Replacement, and getting f*cking shot by the Replacement, Jason thought it was fair to say that this wasn’t his best day ever.

He leaned against the hood of his car, wincing and probing his chest. Yup, definitely some cracked ribs. Jason’s body armour was good, probably the best money could buy, but there was only so much it could do with six bullets and point blank range. Ow.

Jason poked at his ribs again, unable to stop. It was like wiggling a tooth. Except, you know, inside your body with the potential to puncture your lungs. And hellishly painful. Just like a loose tooth.

Jason sighed, turned his attention to Tim. “What was the plan there, Replacement? You had to know I’m wearing armor.”

Replacement was shaking against the garage door. Jason thought it was shock, not fear. Though it could be both.

“Hey!” He tried to snap for the Replacement’s attention, but between his gloves and his screaming wrist, it was a futile effort. “Replacement. What the f*ck outcome were you hoping for there?”

He pried the gun from Tim’s grip with his good hand, tossed it aside. Boxed the kid in with his body.

Replacement looked up at him. “Um, escape?”

“Yeah, no, I got that, dipsh*t. The shooting me move. What the f*ck was that about? Isn’t that, like, Daddy Bat’s cardinal rule?” He made his voice go deep and growly in a mocking imitation of Bruce’s. “‘No guns.’ You’re not stupid enough to think that would kill me, or even slow me down that much, it doesn’t help you escape, so I ask yet again: what the f*ck, Replacement?”And Jason was asking that question a lot. It was infuriating.

“Uh…”

“C’mon, Timbo, there’s gotta be an answer somewhere in there.” He flicked Tim’s head with his good hand.

Tim startled back at the touch, but didn’t flinch. “Honestly? A quick death.”

Jason was silent for a long moment. “That’s the f*cking stupidest sh*t I’ve ever heard.” He sputtered, trying to get his thoughts in order. “Even discounting how f*cked up that is—How…Why would you even think that would work?”

Replacement shrugged, winced as the motion tugged his own wounds. “I dunno. But at least it’s better if you kill me than if I kill you. B would never forgive me if I…” He went pale. “Oh my God, I shot you.”

“Yeah,” said Jason, mind reeling with the implications of the other thing Tim had just said. “We’ve already established that.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Tim insisted. “B’s going to…he’s going to—He probably won’t kill me, but he might lock me up somewhere in a dark box and never let me out. f*ck.”

“Why the f*ck would he—?”

“You’re you,” Tim insisted. “If B ever found out—that you’re back, that I’d hurt you? Death would be a mercy.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no. Kid, I’m a mass-murdering psychopath who was actively torturing you. Pretty sure you’re allowed to use self-defense, Timmyboy.”

“Yeah, but you’re also Jason. And I used a gun.” Somehow the kid got even paler than he’d already been.

“So?”

“So, B has a thing about guns. And you getting hurt. I’m dead. Oh my god, I’m dead.”

Lies. “He didn’t even do that much to the f*cking Joker, and that f*cko killed me. You’ll be fine.” The green fury was rising up in him once again. The need to hurt, to rage, to kill.

“But—”

“You know what?” Jason cut off the kid, breathing out in a controlled hiss. “Let’s not talk about—about him. About either of them.”

“O...kay? I mean—”

“Shut up,” Jason snapped. He closed his eyes against the onslaught of rage. Breathe. “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen: we are not going to talk about”—green fire, the smash of the crowbar, blood in his lungs, fire in his lungs, hA HA Ha hA hA HA ha hA, can’t breathe, acid in his lungs, I promise, Jaylad—“about any of that, and I am not going to lose control and attack you again. Got it?”

“What exactly do—”

“Got it?” Jason grit out, an order. He was barely clinging onto sanity.

Silence. A few pained breaths. Jason wasn’t sure if they were his or the Replacement’s.

“Sure. Got it.” Replacement’s voice was surprisingly gentle.

Jason forced his eyes open, forced himself into the present. His fists were both clenched, his injured wrist throbbing with each beat of his heart. He was here. He wasn’t there. He was in control.

Replacement bit his lip, considered. “When you say ‘lose control,’ do you—”

“That,” Jason spit, “would fall under the category of ‘any of that.’”

Replacement took an angry breath in to respond, then seemed to think better of it. “Fine. What is an acceptable topic of conversation, then?”

Jason deliberately tensed and relaxed each of his muscles, head to toe. He was here. He could do this. “You’re injured,” he forced out. “Let’s get you patched up, and then we can go over ground rules. Boundaries.”

Tim stared up at him, suspicious. But it wasn’t like he had a choice. Replacement was injured, weak, cornered. Unarmed, ill-supplied. He wasn’t going anywhere without Jason’s support. As if to prove his thought, Tim swayed in place. “No torture?”

“No torture.”

Replacement didn’t look like he believed him, but he nodded shakily. “Okay.”

Good enough.

Chapter 10: A Truce (Tim & Jason)

Chapter Text

Tim stared at Jason. Jason ignored Tim, and instead stabbed him repeatedly with a small needle. He’d removed his gauntlets, washed his hands, and changed into medical gloves, his one concession to the fact he was performing a medical procedure. Otherwise, he was still fully geared-up. He hadn’t even removed his helmet.

It wasn’t the best-case scenario, not by any means, but it thankfully wasn’t anywhere near the worst-case scenarios Tim had imagined. Though that may just be because Tim was hazy with blood loss and the comedown from his adrenaline-fueled flight. Maybe it was worse than he thought, and Tim was just too tired to notice.

Oh, wait. It was worse that he thought, because Tim had shot Jason. Why had he done that? There had been…thoughts at the time that made it make sense but now he couldn’t figure it out for the life of him. Bruce was going to hate him forever.

Maybe—maybe—his relationship with Bruce could be salvaged if he brought Jason back to the family. Then Bruce might tolerate him because Jason was there too.

So he had to make Jason like him. Easier said than done. One, it was Jason, who was kind of his childhood hero, second only to Dick Grayson, who only held first place because he’d met Dick first and his little toddler mind had imprinted upon the older boy. Two, he had no idea how to make Jason like him. His current plan was just to act like they were already friends and hope it caught on. Of course, Tim wasn’t particularly nice to most of his friends. So maybe that was a bad plan. He didn’t have a better one though. And three, most importantly, Jason was obviously not Jason, or at least not as he had been. Jason Jason wouldn’t have tortured Tim. But he might have patched Tim up if he was injured, so maybe there was still hope?

Tim winced as Jason pulled the thread through his body with a particularly harsh tug. “Ow.”

A gentle swat. “Hush, Replacement.”

“Do you seriously not have any painkillers in this whole facility?”

“I don’t do drugs.”

“An aspirin? Tylenol?”

“Those are drugs.”

His next stitch was vicious, and Tim bit back a hiss.

“Stop whining.”

“Stop whining,” Tim mocked back, for lack of any better comebacks with his brain all fuzzy. “You shot me, Jason. Four times. It hurts, and this is the kind of thing that normal people use painkillers for.”

“Oh, boo-hoo, Replacement got clipped a few times. You don’t even have any bullets in you. I had to dig myself out of my grave, fresh from the autopsy table, and I sure as sh*t didn’t get pain meds for that. Suck it up.”

“Not my fault you didn’t get proper medical treatment,” Tim snapped back, but his mind was reeling. Jason had dug himself out of his grave? How?

It also meant that Tim’s leading theory, a Lazarus Pit, wasn’t how Jason had come back. But it just made so much sense. Tim’s memory of the one and only time he’d actually seen Jason’s face was hazy, but he remembered the eyes, glowing green above him as his air slipped away. Too bright to be natural, the same glowing green as Ra’s. It explained the mood swings, the paranoia, the rage, the somewhat untethered view of reality, the intense desire to hurt. Classic Pit Madness.

Tim didn’t like the thought he was wrong about Jason having been put in the Pit. Pit Madness was understandable, if unpredictable—magic always was—and if it was the Pit, then that would mean that Jason, that Robin, hadn’t actually tortured him. It was just sort of like…mind control. Or drugging someone until they couldn’t understand what they were doing. It wasn’t his fault.

But if it hadn’t been the Pit…

Although…All three, Replacement, Jason had said, and Tim was beginning to believe he hadn’t been joking. Came back wrong, somehow, stuck in his grave; then put in a Lazarus Pit; then kidnapped by villains…the League of Assassins? Probably reverse those last two: grave, then kidnapped by the League, then dunked in a Lazarus Pit, and then…?

Somehow it ended in a convoluted scheme that involved torturing Tim.

“So…you mentioned ground rules?”

A grunt from Jason. Wow, that was so like B it was uncanny.

Tim tried again. “What kind of things were you thinking?”

Jason scowled and focused on his stitches. “Don’t talk about…about Him,” he finally ground out.

Him being…the Joker, probably? That seemed like the kind of thing Tim shouldn’t leave to just ‘probably.’ “Okay,” said Tim. “Just to confirm, Him being…?”

Jason exhaled a short, angry huff. He didn’t look up from his work tying Tim’s arm back together. “The Clown.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t like talking about Him.”

“Okay.”

“I remember and there’s green and laughing and I can’t—I can’t. Control it.”

Tim took a breath to cover another wince as Jason started to tie off his stitches. “Okay,” he said again. Then, “It?”

“The Pit.” So Tim had been right about that.

“The Lazarus Pit?” he asked anyway.

“Yeah. Lie down. I need to get to your leg.”

Obediently, Tim lay face-down on the medical table, face hidden by his better arm. The worse one he kept loose at his side. It was easier, somehow, if he wasn’t looking at the Red Hood.

Jason cleaned out his leg wound and started on the stitches before he spoke again. “I get…It makes me angry, and I can’t think. I didn’t…Today. When I came into the room, I didn’t mean to actually hurt you again. Just mess with you a little, maybe. The first shot was always gonna miss. But then you mentioned Him and I—” He cut himself off, obviously frustrated.

“Hey,” said Tim, still not looking at him. “It’s cool. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Yeah, whatever. I just”—a deep breath—“I’ve been thinking. A lot. Over the past few days. And…I’m mad at Bruce, not you. And you’re a kid. An annoying, irresponsible, reckless, idiotic kid who took my place and stabbed me in the arm with a f*cking spoon, but a kid. I shouldn’t’ve tortured you. So. Sorry. About that.”

He paused. Was he expecting a response? What was Tim supposed to say—oh yeah, it’s all totally chill, torture is whatever and I completely forgive you? Because, no. sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, he needed to say something.

“Uh…thanks? I mean, I’m not about to just no-holds say it’s fine and I accept your apology, but”—Tim slowed down here, trying to think through his words—“it’s pretty obvious you’re going through some stuff, so maybe we can try and figure out how to…move past it?”

Silence. Jason had finished his stitching. “Yeah. That would be…good.”

“Cool.” Tim exhaled through a twinging pain in his leg.

“I’m not letting you go, though.” Jason smeared some kind of ointment on Tim’s leg and started bandaging him up.

“Yeah, I figured,” said Tim. “But could my enforced stay here be a bit less torture-dungeon-y?”

“Yeah. No torture, I already said.”

“And no dungeon?” Tim asked hopefully.

“No way. You’re still a flight risk, and I’m not an idiot. We can make it more comfy though if you promise not to attack me again.”

Tim sighed. “Yeah, okay.” He’d been going to ask about supervised trips outside, but he could build up to that. “Can I have something to do? It’s really boring in there.”

“Books, only from what I already have in the safe house. No electronics.”

Disappointing, but not unexpected. “Notebook and something to write with?”

“Sure.”

“A clock?”

“No, that’s electronics. Or mechanics. Whatever. Either way, no.”

“Some way to tell time, then.”

Silence, but Hood was considering it. “I’ll keep to a schedule on the lights, and come visit you at least once a day. You can ask me what time it is then.”

“So I’m completely dependent upon you to keep track of the passage of time.”

A shrug. “Take it or leave it, Replacement. Up.”

Tim sighed and sat up. “Fine. What’s the schedule for the lights?”

Hood fashioned a sling for Tim’s right arm and started fiddling with it. “Lights out from three to eleven?”

Not horrible. It was way more time than he usually slept, but kept him on a somewhat reasonable schedule for a return to vigilantism. “Deal. More blankets.”

“Fine.”

“Real clothes.”

“Sweats,” was Hood’s counteroffer.

“Yeah, okay.” That was great, actually. Tim loved curling up in sweats. “Showers. Or a bath. Some way to get clean.”

“Not today, because we just got your stitches done, but in general, sure. Once a day?”

Tim startled. That was more generous than he’d been expecting. “Yeah, that works.”

“Morning or night?”

Oooh, he got choices. “Night.” Obviously, Tim would be keeping up a workout routine, and this way he didn’t have to go to bed all gross and sweaty. “Real food?”

“Yeah, but no complaining about it.” Hood’s helmet turned towards him. “You have any allergies I don’t know about?”

Tim narrowed his eyes. “…Are there any allergies of mine that you do know about?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

A beat. “Then…why did you need to know what I knew?”

“I don’t know! Maybe you did some kind of freaky blood test thing and discovered an allergy I didn’t know about.”

“Nah, that level of stalking is more B’s domain. I’m more the creepy watching through your window through a rifle scope kind of stalking.”

“Oh, cool.” Tim paused. “Did you do that to me?”

“Yep,” said Hood, completely unashamed. “By the way, Timbers? Creating a fake uncle so you can live alone and not sleep and poke yourself with a needle? Not healthy, and you’re talking to the king of unhealthy behaviors right here.”

Tim flushed. “Nobody asked you.”

Hood shrugged. “I took it upon myself, since no one else was. The bats and birds have realized how much they really dropped the ball on you since you disappeared though, so that’s something.”

“They…they have?” There was nothing to drop the ball on, but Jason’s words left an oddly warm feeling in him nonetheless. “Wait. How do you know that?”

Hood tapped his helmet. “Bat frequencies.”

Tim frowned. They were close enough to Gotham to pick up comm chatter? From what he’d been able to see of the outside, they were in a heavily forested mountainous area. There was nowhere like that close enough to Gotham to be in range.

Like he was reading Tim’s mind, Jason added, “I’ve got them on a relay.”

“Oh. Huh.” Tim considered that. “How are they?”

“Fine,” said Hood, terse. Then he relented. “Frightened. Frantic—ooh, alliteration!”

Tim swallowed. Hood’s tone said he didn’t want to talk about the bats anymore, but… “They’re really worried about me?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Jason, and he seemed sincere, at least as much as Tim could read him through the mask. “They’re worried sick about you, kiddo.”

“Oh,” said Tim, quiet.

Jason took that as an invitation to add, “Not worried enough, mind you, but they will be.”

Somehow, Tim didn’t find that very comforting at all.

Tim fiddled with his latest gift from Jason: a hunk of modeling clay he could squish between his fingers ‘so that you have something to do with your hands that’s not picking at your stitches and ruining all my hard work, Replacement.’ “What’s even your plan? Like, what’s your endgame? What are you hoping to achieve?”

“I don’t have to be here, Replacement. I could just leave you to rot for the next few months.”

“Nah, you promised I’d get visits every day. No take-backsies. Do you want Robin back, or something? Because you can have it.” That would suck, giving up Robin again, especially because this time he wouldn’t have his dad or Dana or school, but it would suck less than torture-murder. Marginally. “Or we could work out some sort of split-custody arrangement.” That would be better. He rolled the clay into a ball against the floor—his right hand was still incapacitated—then squished it flat.

Jason looked absolutely disgusted. “f*ck no, I don’t want it back. Why the f*ck would I want to go prancing around in panties to get blown up by the Bat again?”

The Joker had blown Jason up, not Bruce. Interesting phrasing. Tim decided not to comment on it until he had more information. Joker and B were Jason’s two main triggers, and Tim didn’t feel like getting beaten up or driving Jason away right then. “You do know you could have worn pants, right?” he said instead. “Like, B didn’t put up any fight when I said I wanted some.”

“f*ck you,” said Jason. “Give me a piece of that.” He held out his hand towards the clay.

“You’re an asshole,” said Tim, because it was true. But he broke off a piece and handed it to Jason.

“Again, I don’t have to be here.” Jason took off his gauntlets to start toying with the stuff.

“Okay, then go.” Tim called his bluff. There was a reason Jason kept coming down here, and it wasn’t—as Jason claimed—that he enjoyed watching Tim suffer.

“f*ck you, I’m making a snake. You can’t stop me.”

Tim, telegraphing nothing, darted out smushed Jason’s snake into the ground.

Victory felt like smushed clay beneath his fingers.

Jason squawked and threatened to dislocate Tim’s thumb if he did that again.

But he didn’t actually dislocate Tim’s thumb. And he’d taken off both his helmet and gloves for today’s fun hang out times.

Progress.

Tim relinquished his grip on Jason’s chunk of clay and tossed it back at him. “Why did you have modeling clay just lying around, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s C-4.”

Tim blinked. “What.”

“It’s C-4.”

Oh, okay. That’s what Tim thought he had said. “I’m not allowed to go upstairs and stand near the window, but you’ll just straight-up give me C-4?”

“C-4 is highly stable, Replacement. You need a shockwave to set it off, won’t even blow if you shoot it or set it on fire. If you can figure out how to detonate it with the stuff in this room, you deserve whatever explosion you get.”

“I hope you know I’m taking that as a challenge.”

Jason grinned. “Feel free, Timberino. It’s not gonna do anything, but you’re welcome to try.”

Tim pouted. “Oh, I will. And I still want to stand next to the window.”

“I’ll get you a sunlamp next time I do a supply run.”

The Replacement was growing on him. Like a small, annoying mold. And, like a mold, he was potentially deadly. At least to Jason’s plans, if not to Jason himself. Though his ribs and his wrist kept reminding him that ‘not deadly’ didn’t mean ‘not painful.’

But that was fine. Jason actually got a lot done now that ‘torturing the Replacement’ wasn’t on his to-do list. His normal routine of drills and body maintenance, of course, but other things too. He cleaned out the bathroom. He reassembled his engine. He did a supply run and got new bathroom fixtures, a sunlamp, and some over-the-counter pain meds. He kept an almost-regular sleep schedule, reminded by the alarms he’d set to switch off Timmy’s lights. He cooked. After a few days, he started having meals with the Replacement downstairs. It was kind of nice, not eating alone.

Nine days after he’d kidnapped the Replacement—five days from their shootout and subsequent truce—Jason finally forced himself to finish editing the tape and handed it off to one of Talia’s goons at a pre-arranged meeting spot. He’d take it somewhere well out of state and drop it off in a postal box somewhere, unseen. Not traceable back to Jason. Or, hopefully, the League. It was the kind of thing Jason would usually want to do himself, but he couldn’t be away from the kid so long and it was a good idea to have a few layers of separation between him and the tape anyway.

Now it was just a matter of waiting.

Jason hated waiting.

Waiting was boring.

As the days passed, he found himself going down to bug the Replacement more and more.

“You,” said the Replacement, not looking up from his book as he sat on his mattress and read, “are an asshole.” It was his standard greeting.

“Sure am, Timbo. What is it this time?”

“Frankenstein, Jason? Really?”

“Don’t diss Mary Shelley. She was hardcore.” Jason plopped himself down on the couch and stuck a lollipop in his mouth, threw another one at Tim-Tam. Jason got the red-flavored one, because he was great and also the Red Hood, and Replacement got the grape-flavored one, because he was less great and deserved lesser lollipops.

“It should not be possible for a zombie book to be this boring.” Exhibit A of Replacement’s less greatness. How could anyone think Frankenstein was boring?

“Excuse you. That is one of the greatest works of literature ever penned.”

“Oh God, the rest of literature must really suck then,” said the Replacement as he unwrapped his lollipop.

Jason tried to strangle the outraged squawk that came out of his mouth at that. “Have you never read a book in your life?”

“I read.” Replacement sounded offended. “Just, you know, useful books. About real things.”

Jason stared at him, lollipop hanging out of his mouth. “And what, emotions aren’t real? Themes of life and death and coming back and revenge, loss and grief and mourning, an exploration of what makes someone human, that’s not real?”

“I mean, Frankenstein’s not real. Zombies aren’t—” Replacement stopped and flushed. He stuck his lollipop in his mouth.

“Good thing you cut yourself off there, Timmers, seeing as you’re speaking to a zombie and all. And it doesn’t matter that Frankenstein and the Creature aren’t literally real people. The story that it tells is still true.”

“That makes no sense.”

“How the f*ck did you pass English, Replacement? This is elementary school stuff.”

The Replacement shrugged. “It’s pretty easy to figure out what teachers want to hear from the rubric. You don’t need to actually understand it.”

“In middle school, maybe.”

Replacement co*cked his head, considered it. “Yeah, fair. I had so many absences freshman and sophom*ore year because of Robin stuff that I only really passed any of my classes because of Bruce and my dad pulling some strings, and then I dropped out, so...never really got to the part where I had to actually understand themes and metaphors and all that. Plus SparkNotes is a thing.”

It took Jason a few seconds to parse and understand what Replacement was saying. When he did…oh, that was not f*cking okay. Someone had let this child down, big time. Jason blamed Bruce. And the Replacement's parents, but they were dead, so f*ck them.

Jason vaulted over the back of the couch to kneel in front of the Replacement on the mattress. “All right, you uneducated Philistine. Today we’re gonna have a lesson in Literature and Truth. Gimme the book.”

Skeptical, Tim handed it over.

Jason flipped through to the very back, until he found the passage he wanted.

“Shouldn’t you choose a bit from the beginning? I haven’t actually read that much…”

“Hush.” Jason bopped him on the head with the book, making sure his thumb kept his place. “Listen.”

Replacement sighed, but quieted down.

Jason waited for the anticipation to build before he began to read. Several times, Replacement began to shift or talk, only to be silenced with a look from Jason. When he was sure the kid was about to break from the wait, he began, voice soft and certain. “But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing.” Jason brushed a finger across Tim’s neck, where the bruises were still fading.

Tim’s breath hitched, but he was otherwise perfectly still, blue eyes wide as he met Jason’s own.

Jason dropped his hand back to the page, but his eyes didn’t leave Tim’s. He had this passage memorized, anyway. “I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin.”

“There he lies,” Jason broke the stare, nodded to some undefined point behind Tim, “white and cold in death.”

He glanced back at the book to remind himself of the words. Or maybe to give himself somewhere to look. “You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.” The words blurred on the page.

“Jason…” Replacement’s voice was barely a whisper as his hand brushed against Jason’s wrist.

“Fear not that I shall be the instrument of some future mischief.” Jason brought his eyes up to meet the Replacement’s once again. “Neither yours nor any man’s death is needed to consummate the series of my being and accomplish that which must be done.”

Either Replacement was trembling or Jason was; he could not tell which. He took a breath, steady, did not break away from Tim’s gaze. “But it requires my own.”

He snapped the book closed without looking at it, set it aside on the threadbare mattress. “Now tell me, Replacement, that that’s not true.”

Tim stared at him. Swallowed. “It’s not true,” he whispered, fervent. His hand had curled around Jason’s injured wrist, tight tight tight. He could feel his pulse beating against the stitches held firm in Replacement’s grip. “Jason, it’s not true.”

Jason wanted so badly to flee into the green. For once it wasn’t trying to drag him down, but he needed that rage, that confidence, that certainty. He closed his eyes. Breathed. You can’t give in when the kid’s in the room. You can’t risk hurting the kid. More than you already have. Which was a lot.

He rose to leave. He couldn’t be here.

“Don’t go.” Replacement’s hand was still latched around his wrist, and he was half-dragged off the mattress as Jason stood. “Please.”

“I don’t need your pity, Replacement,” Jason spat out.

“It’s not—”

“Let go.” Jason made his voice low and dangerous.

“You asked me what my dream was.” Replacement dropped his hand, but the statement was so out of the blue that Jason didn’t pull away. “That day way back when. With the tea.”

“Yeah,” said Jason, a challenge.

“I lied.” A flash of green, down. “Or, I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the whole truth either.”

“Mm?” Jason hummed the question as he sank into a crouch, still wary.

“The dream. It’s—I was a civilian, briefly, and Steph became Robin.” And oh, there was bitterness there, buried deep. But Jason knew that feeling, knew its source. Not good enough, never good enough.

“My dad had found out and threatened to turn us all in if I didn’t retire, so I did. And I tried really hard. To just be normal. To be a kid. Made some friends, even. This one girl, Darla—I don’t know, maybe we could have been more than friends.”

Jason felt like he should be mocking the Replacement about his high school would-be romances, but he had just enough general social awareness left to realize that that would be a bad idea.

“Then the gang war broke out, and Darla was targeted because her dad ran the Odessa Mob. The Ventriloquist’s guys started shooting up the school, but I managed to knock most of them out. I wasn’t Robin, but I couldn’t just let—I got almost everybody evacuated to the gym, and it was just me and Darla and our friend Tyrone, and Darla looked at me and said, ‘I know I’ll be safe with you.’ She went to hug me, and she was shot. Bled out in my arms. Tried to do CPR. Didn’t work.”

“Anyway, my dream is—my dream is that, except I’m the one who shot her, and Steph, and my parents, and—and you.” Tim’s gaze darted up to Jason’s and then away.

“Then there’s the whole bit with Bruce, which I told you about, and everyone’s dead, and the only way I can wake up is if I—I need to take the gun and…” He made a gun shape with two fingers for the barrel, brought it up to his carotid, angled up under his chin, mimed blowing himself away. His face was completely blank. Emotionless. “And every time I wake up, I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t do it preemptively. Because I know I could be that. And the world will be better if I’m not.”

Jason felt something humming in his bones. He’d had the inexplicable urge to tackle the Replacement when he formed his hand-gun, and now the urge was still there but there was nothing to tackle. “Take it from a killer, kid,” said Jason, voice rough. “You’re not.”

“I shot you, Jason. Six times.”

“And you didn’t come anywhere close to killing me.”

Tim looked at him with something approaching scorn, then closed his eyes and shook his head. “We went to the future. The Teen Titans. Me of the future was basically an evil fascist Batman with guns. A mass murderer.”

“That’s not you.”

“Yes, it is. Could be. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to say—it’s not pity.”

Jason exhaled and rocked back on his heels. This was…a lot. He had no idea what to do. He wanted an adult. Except, not any of the adults in his life. A fairytale or TV-adult, who always knew what to do and gave good advice. He wanted…Alfred. Alfie would know what to do.

But Alfie wasn’t here. It was just Jason. Jason was the adult. And God, wasn’t that just a kick in the crotch.

What would Alfred do?

“C’mon, kid,” he said, standing up and holding out a hand. “This is a hot chocolate and sit by the window and watch the snow kind of situation.”

Tim looked up at him, bewildered. “Really? Upstairs?”

“Don’t get used to it,” Jason grumbled. “And if you run, I will kneecap you. I’m serious.”

Replacement nodded earnestly.

Jason sighed and turned towards the door. “And bring a blanket. You’ve stolen all the good ones.”

Chapter 11: Spoiler's Return (Stephanie)

Chapter Text

Steph wasn’t sure what she had expected, coming back to Gotham. She was still—not great, physically. It had been five and half months, and her hands were still all sorts of f*cked up. She was in the process of rebuilding her muscle mass. Her endurance was shot. Her body felt…wrong. Not hers. Out of her control.

The last time she’d felt so unsettled in her own skin was when she’d been pregnant. But that had been different. Temporary. Her choice. She’d chosen to carry that baby, whose name she would never know. And something good had come out of it. Life.

She’d chosen to walk the path that led to her death, too. But it still felt…different.

She’d thought maybe being back in the city would make her feel more grounded, give her some clarity. But if anything, it was making it worse, from the moment she stepped off the bus. Everything was humming, wrong.

It was Gotham, just as Gotham as it always was. Took her all of twenty seconds to find out Black Mask was the new top player in town. That was her fault. But otherwise the city was the same. Just like after No Man’s Land, the city oozed out of its own ashes and kept on going, nevermind for the dead.

She felt like her death should have made the city feel different. But it didn’t.

That was morbid. She wasn’t normally so introspective, and that also felt wrong, being so caught in her own head. But if dying wasn’t going to make you think about things…

Steph sighed. She was stalling. Time to face the music. It had been nice, to get away, to have some time for healing. She understood why Doc Thompkins had done it, spirited her away from the operating table after she’d flatlined. Twice.

“You’re a child, Stephanie,” she’d said. “You need to be safe. I won’t let you go back there.”

And Steph was grateful to the doc. Glad she hadn’t died permanently. Relieved to have some time away, to think things through. But it wasn’t the goddamn doc’s choice, what she did with her life. Steph was in this, now. She had Gotham in her veins and violence in her lungs. She was a vigilante, through and through. She’d made that decision for herself, and she wasn’t backing down.

And if Doc Thompkins and Batman and her mom and whoever else didn’t agree? They could all kindly go f*ck themselves.

Steph grinned. Gotham felt wrong, she felt wrong, undead and unliving, but there was only one way to fix that: pound that pavement, baby. Spoiler was back.

Once she made herself a new uniform. And got a base of operations. And maybe lunch.

She went to Tim’s place first. Except Tim wasn’t there. Some random family was. Steph had no idea who they were.

Okay, so Tim had moved. Ugh, legwork. This sucked. And, yeah, sure, she could just go to the cave and make contact from there, but, God, she really didn’t want to deal with Batman’s paranoia. He’d probably lock her in a cage somewhere until she proved she wasn’t a shapeshifter or a clone or something. And that was, like, the opposite of what she needed.

What she needed was a good, long hug and to punch someone. And some waffles. Maybe waffles first. That was easiest.

It was getting to late afternoon when Steph realized she had nowhere to spend the night. She’d been planning to stay with Tim or Cass. She couldn’t—she couldn’t face her mom quite yet. Her mom, who still thought she was dead.

But Tim and Cass were nowhere to be found. She did some poking around online, using the Wi-Fi in a run-down cafe—nothing too egregious that would attract Oracle’s attention; that was another conversation she didn’t want to have. Steph was nowhere near Babs’ class when it came to hacking, but she wasn’t half-bad either. Coding was puzzles, and as much as she hated it, Steph was Cluemaster’s daughter.

What she found was—f*ck. Tim’s dad was dead. Four days after she’d ‘died.’ That really sucked. It had sucked when her dad died, and her dad was a grade-A abusive asshole. Tim’s dad was like, a C-grade abusive asshole, at best. Neglectful and distant and pigheaded, constantly toeing the line of outright violence, but at least he’d tried. And Tim had loved him.

She needed to find him.

According to records online, he was living with his uncle in Bludhaven. Tim didn’t have an uncle, so that was either some Tim chicanery or some Bat chicanery. Either way, dead end, not worth digging into. Not helpful. Cass just straight-up didn’t exist online. Neither Robin nor Batgirl had been reliably sighted for weeks. Injured? Undercover? Training?

…Dead?

No. Don’t think like that. Just because you sort of temporarily not-even-died, doesn’t mean everyone else will.

Steph groaned, exageratingly loud, and thumped her head on the rickety cafe table. When she got glares, she cheerfully flipped them all off. Come at me, motherf*ckers. She was spoiling(ha!) for a fight, and Gotham was usually happy to oblige.

Not today, though. No, today, everyone just had to be on their tip-top manners. Gross. Unsatisfying. Disgusting. Ew.

She threw some money down on the table—enough for the waffle and a good tip, she wasn’t an animal—and headed to her nearest local sketchy alleyway. Scoped it out. She was alone, for now.

She flipped open a burner phone she’d picked up at the bus stop and considered her options. She’d wanted to surprise them, thought it would be best to explain in person, but…yeah. Best play here was to call Tim, set up somewhere to meet.

Except Tim didn’t pick up his phone. Or his backup phone. Or his super-secret-second-backup-burner.

Steph pushed down a stirring of uneasiness. Tim was fine. He was just…busy on patrol. At 4:30 in the afternoon, when the sun was still shining. Or sleeping. Bats kept odd hours.

But Cass didn’t pick up either.

sh*t.

Okay. She tapped a purple-painted fingernail on the side of her burner. Calling Babs or Dick would be the equivalent of calling Bruce, and she really, really didn’t want to deal with Batman before she at least got to see that her two best friends were alive and well.

Think, Steph.

Oh. Duh. Tim had friends who weren’t her. They would know where he was. Calling Titans Tower was out of the question if she wanted to stay off Batman’s radar. But even B didn’t actively monitor the civilian lines of other superheroes. Passively, perhaps—she never knew for sure—but he definitely didn’t have the time to listen to every single seemingly-innocuous call that went to a super.

So, tracking down a super’s civilian number. The first, last, and only time she’d had a conversation with Kon, he’d been trying to beat her up because she wasn’t Tim, so…she’d call him before she called Batman, but that wasn’t saying much. She had no idea how to track down Bart Allen in his civilian identity. Did he even have parents?

Thankfully, Helena Sandsmark had her work phone number listed on the Gateway City Museum of Antiquities website. Steph hummed and picked at her nails as she listened to the phone ringing.

“Gateway City Museum of Antiquities, this is Helena Sandsmark speaking.”

“Ms. Sandsmark, hi!” Stephanie put on a huge fake smile and bounced on her feet. “Um, this is kind of embarrassing, but I’m supposed to be working on a group project with Cassie, and I completely lost her number to coordinate things, like a total doofus, and we don’t really have many mutual friends, so I was wondering if maybe you could put us in touch?”

“Oh.” Stephanie could hear the pleasant surprise in Ms. Sandsmark’s voice, caught off-guard by Steph’s youth and bubbly-ness and not-museumness. “I tell you what: give me your number, and I’ll have Cassie call you. What did you say your name was, again?” And there was the well-guarded suspicion. Good. She wasn’t giving out Wonder Girl’s personal info to random strangers just because they sounded pretty and purply on the phone.

“Steph,” said Steph. “Stephanie Draper. I’m Alvin Draper’s sister.” She wasn’t sure if Tim had ever used the alias around Cassie, but it was worth a shot. She listed off the burner phone’s number in an easy reel.

“All right, dear. I’ll pass along your message.”

“Thanks, Ms. Sandsmark. I really appreciate it. And I’d be really grateful if you could ask Cassie to call me soon. We’re on kind of a deadline.” She smiled and bobbed apologetically at the grimy alley wall to make it come through in her voice. Hopefully that should get the message through, and fast, whether or not Helena Sandsmark suspected Steph was involved in all that vigilante bullsh*t.

She was considering whether she ought to move alleyways or find a place to bunker down when her phone rang, lit up with an unknown number.

“That was fast,” she remarked, raising an eyebrow at a nearby dumpster rat, who hissed back at her. Ah, good ol’ Gotham.

“Hello?” She answered the phone and held it between her head and shoulder, fake smile back in place.

“Who the f*ck are you, and what are you doing calling my mother?”

“Woah.” Steph raised her hands beseechingly, even though Cassie couldn’t see it. The rat eyed her as if she’d suddenly become prey. Not you, she mouthed at it, and bared her teeth in a silent snarl. She barely remembered to soften it back into a smile before turning back to Cassie. “I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. Sorry about that. I’m on your side, I swear.”

“Talk.”

“Okay, okay. Just an FYI, I don’t know about your end, but my end is just a very cheap burner, not encrypted at all and I’m alone but on a public street, so I’m gonna have to be a bit…oblique.” Oblique. That was a good word. She’d learned it when she was eight or nine, from her dad’s filled out New York Times Crossword. ‘Like some references (7).’ It was also a very bat-way of doing things. Speaking around, not about. But Steph was kinda a bat. Or she had been.

She took a breath, considered what to say. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met once during that whole, um, Zandia thing. I’m a friend of Tim’s? I wore a lot of purple.”

There was a brief silence, then, “Nice try. The girl you’re talking about is dead. Who are you really?”

“Wow, I hadn’t realized the whole community knew about that. I thought I hadn’t really busted the radar outside Gotham.”

“She didn’t. But she mattered to Tim, and now you’re using her name to try and get at us, and I won’t let you.”

“Um, wow. Okay. Good protective instincts, don’t get me wrong, I just…okay, lemme level with you: I was dead, but only briefly, like, two minutes, max, and I had to…go away for a bit, and I couldn’t tell Tim. Family business.” Meaning Bat Business, meaning f*ck off. “You’ve gotta know how it is, working with them. Secrets on secrets, even with each other.”

And okay, it wasn’t actually Bat business, kind of the exact opposite, but damn if that wasn’t a useful excuse.

“Hmm.” Cassie still sounded skeptical, but that was a step up from her outright hostility of a few seconds ago.

“Anyway, I got back to Gotham this morning, and things are weird and I can’t find Tim, he’s not picking up his phone, and no one will tell me anything.” Granted, she hadn’t asked anyone who would actually know, but that wasn’t technically a lie, so she should be good. That was totally how that worked.

God, she was a bat.

She sighed, ran a finger through her hair. “I just, you’re one of his best friends, and the only one I could figure out how to contact without Big B jumping down my throat, which I’m sure neither of us wants. I get if he doesn’t want to see me or something, if he’s mad that I didn’t tell him I’m alive, but…I just, I was hoping you could get us in contact again, or at the very least, just let me know he’s okay.”

Silence on the other side of the phone. No, not silence. Breathing. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Okay, let me think. Just give me a second.”

“Cassie, tell me what?”

“f*ck.” Steph surveyed the evidence laid out in front of her on the barn’s floor. Which, wow, it was disorienting and kind of awesome being flown halfway across the country in only a few minutes, but she had bigger things to worry about.

Things like ‘Dead Robin #3’ written in Tim’s blood on the Titans common room, Tim himself gone, taken by the Red Hood.

“Yeah,” said Kon, short and bitter. “f*ck.” He was glaring at Steph. Well, that wasn’t exactly fair. Kon was glaring at everybody. Steph, Cassie, and Bart Allen, all gathered in the Kent’s barn in Smallville. All of the ‘Core Four’—the founding members of the new Teen Titans, the ones who’d been on Young Justice together. Except for Tim. Because Tim was kidnapped. Or maybe dead. They’d thoroughly grilled her on Tim’s favorite foods and sleeping habits before deciding to trust that she was probably who she said she was. In the absence of Tim, they were all trying to out-paranoia each other. Tim would be proud. Steph ached at the weight of his absence hanging in the room.

“Yeah, it’s very much not good,” Bart agreed. “And the Bats aren’t exactly being forthcoming with information, which is so not crash. So spill.”

Steph shook her head. Everyone except her was in full hero get-up, and she felt a bit underdressed in a purple hoodie and jeans. “I honestly had no idea what was going on until I got here. I’ve been completely out of the game for months. I just got back to Gotham, and I could tell pretty quick that something was wrong, so I called Cassie, and, well…you know the rest.”

“Yeahokaybut what did Bats say?” Bart had a tendency to run his words together, and Steph had to work a bit to understand him. “I overheard Cyborg telling Beast Boy that Nightwing said that Red Hood had sent Bats some kind of tape, and Cy and Oracle were going over it, but he wouldn’t share the details.”

Steph blinked, trying to follow that horrendous chain of information. “Okay, that sounds ominous. But it probably means he’s alive? I don’t actually know what’s going on with the Bats. I wanted to find Tim first, before B locked me up in some dark cell in a fit of paranoia. Tim would get me out of a cell. Or Cass would, but I can’t find Cass either.”

Both boys threw confused looks at Cassie Sandsmark.

“She’s the new Batgirl,” Steph clarified. “Or she was five months ago. Do you guys know her? Or do you know where she is?”

Bart frowned. “Ollie told Mia that Batgirl was undercover with some Justice League thing and she can’t be contacted a few weeks.” He chewed his lip. “That was almost two weeks ago, though, right after…”

Ollie…Oliver Queen? “Who’s Mia?” she asked.

“Speedy,” said Cassie, which confirmed who Ollie was.

“Okay.” Steph tried to arrange all this information in her head.

“Wait, back up.” Conner’s tone said he was looking for a fight. “Why would Batman throw you in a cell?”

Steph sighed. She’d hoped they would miss that slip-up. “Okay, so the Bats might all still think I’m dead, and Batman is definitely paranoid enough to lock me up until he figures out I’m not an evil clone or something.” She glanced at Conner. “Uh, sorry.”

He shrugged, but his eyes didn’t soften. “I thought you told Cass that you being dead-but-not-dead was a Bat thing.”

Cass? Oh, Cassie. God, this was gonna be confusing. “Yeah, okay, I maybe fudged the truth a little bit there. It was more of a doctor-rescued-slash-kidnapped-me-from-Batman thing than a Batman-sanctioned thing.”

“You call that fudging the truth?” Cassie sounded mad. “What the f*ck is up with you Bats and not telling anyone anything and lying about it, and Tim could be dead, he could be dead right now, and we wouldn’t even know it, and that would be on you!”

Steph reared back. “f*ck you. This isn’t my fault. I wasn’t even here. You all are the ones who let Tim get kidnapped from right under your noses!”

“Yeah, you weren’t here!” Conner butt in. “You’ve been alive this whole time, and Tim was utterly destroyed, and now you think you can just come gallavanting about back and swoop in for the rescue? It doesn’t work like that!”

“You can also suck mud. I’m just trying to look out for one of my best friends in the entire world, and f*ck you if you’re not going to help me just because of your own stupid grudgematch against me.”

“He’s got a point.” Bart was closing ranks, but at least he wasn’t yelling. “Why should we even trust you when you hurt Tim by lying about being dead? How do we even know that you don’t have something to do with him getting kidnapped? If you were kidnapped, and now you’re back, and now he’s kidnapped… You gotta admit the timing is, like, super suspicious. Just the absolute mode.”

“Oh, well excuse me for being tortured by Black Mask until I died on the operating table and then being too injured to go anywhere until just now. Look, my kidnapping torture sh*t doesn’t have anything to do with Tim’s kidnapping torture sh*t.”

“How do you know, though? Bart’s right; that’s super suspicious.”

“Because Leslie Thompkins is a damn good doctor who would never work for a villain. She faked my death and smuggled me out of the country because she thought if I stayed, I was going to get killed for real, and I disagreed with her which is why I came back as soon as I got enough of my strength back, but now I’m beginning to think she had a point if this is what’s happened to Tim in my absence with you all looking over him!”

That set off another round of shouting that only ended when Martha Kent came round with a platter of apple turnovers and a stern look that would put Alfred to shame.

“Sorry, Ma.” Conner blushed and ducked his head, looking strangely small and sheepish in front of the woman who barely came up to his chin. It was almost funny, how absolutely cowed he looked in her presence, despite his superhero uniform and the truly excessive amount of muscles he had for someone who didn’t even need to work out, plus the hair teased up to an impressive height and the eyeliner and earrings and glasses and the spiked shoulders of his leather jacket all screaming a very punk-rock ‘I don’t listen to authority.’ But obviously he did, if that authority was Martha Kent.

“Wasn’t me you were hollering at fit to wake the dead, Conner.” She handed him a turnover and pat his arm.

“Sorry, Steph,” Connor mumbled. “I’m stressed about Tim, and I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Steph would have smirked in his face, but now she had the full force of the Martha Kent gaze of expectation bearing down upon her, so all she could do was mumble out her own shamefaced apologies and take a turnover. Cassie and Bart each went through their own rounds with Martha, which Martha won handily without even breaking a sweat.

Steph bit into the turnover. It was absolute heaven. Just, divine. “Did you make these, Mrs. Kent?” she asked, eyes widening as flaky crumbs fell from her mouth. Quickly, she swallowed down her bite. “They’re amazing.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Martha Kent reprimanded, but there was a fond smile in her eyes. “Heathens, the whole lot of you.” She snagged Bart’s hand before he could grab a pastry. Bart, who had been moving at super speed. “Let everybody else have seconds before you take fifths.”

“Sorry, Ma.” Bart looked at the ground and scuffed his toes in the dirt.

Mrs. Kent turned back to Stephanie, slipping Bart his fifths as she did so. “And I sure did. Been trying something new in the kitchen, more portable than pie. And call me Ma, dear. Everybody does.”

Steph stared at her. “Can I be you when I grow up?”

Conner stared at her. “No one could ever be as cool as Ma.”

Steph shrugged, accepting it. “A girl can dream.”

Ma Kent nodded sagely and handed Bart his sixth and seventh turnovers. “Now that y’all have got that out of your systems, how about you actually discuss what you know and start coming up with a plan to get that young man of yours back.”

Two hours later, they had a workable plan. Sort of. Steph, as the resident authority on bats, Gotham, and kidnapped Robins, was going to go information-gathering. She’d start with the Bats, as all her info would be way out of date, and it would be easier for her to piggyback off of what they’d already done. If she hadn’t checked back in with them in forty-eight hours, then Superboy, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash (she’d thought it was Impulse, but whatever; it wasn’t like she had a leg to stand on when it came to taking on titles that had been used by other heroes) would come in for a rescue mission.

Then they’d make the actual plan from there.

Which was how Stephanie found herself locked in a containment cell with Nightwing, Oracle, and Agent A all hovering outside, readying herself for a battle of wills with Batman. And speak of the devil, here came the man himself.

Steph breathed in as B’s acolytes parted like water to let him pass. She was going to win this. She had to. Tim’s life was on the line.

She met his brooding glare with a challenging stare. “Yeah, yeah, I came all the way back from the dead, it’s miraculous or whatever.” Babs and Dick and Alfred had been strangely caught up on that bit, even when she’d explained that it was simple human trickery. That wasn’t what mattered right now, and Tim didn’t have the time to get into all that with B.

So Stephanie Brown, recently resurrected Robin, leaned into the glass of her cell at stared down Batman. “I have a very important question for you, and you’re gonna answer it honestly. Where. The f*ck. Is Tim?”

Chapter 12: A Scattered Flock (Barbara & Jason)

Chapter Text

Babs sighed and cleaned her glasses with her shirt. “It’s her.”

“We can’t be sure of that.”

“Bruce. We’ve run every test there is, she knows the answers to all of our security and personal information questions, and she gave a thorough and comprehensive report of how exactly she was passed off as ‘dead’ and where she’s been.” And Babs was sure they’d be tracking down Leslie Thompkins in the near future to discuss that, as soon as they got Tim back. “It’s her. Let’s get her out of the holding cell and into a bed.”

“It’s not that simple. Even if this is the real Stephanie...” And so it went on.

Babs rubbed her temples. They’d been going around in circles for hours now. She slid her phone out of her pocket and sent a quick ‘SOS’ to Dick.

“…already compromised the safety of the city once, and sparked off a gang war. She made no attempt to contact us in the five and half months she has been absent, and then immediately contacted a group of outsiders when she did return to the city. It would be imprudent to allow such a security risk to—”

“Pretty sure no one’s saying we give her the keys to the Batmobile, B. Just a bed for the night and some modicum of human decency.” Finally, Dick had responded to her plea for help.

Bruce cut him an annoyed glare. “We can’t—”

“Oh my God, do I have to call Alfie in on this one? He’s already made up a guest room, so all you’re doing is causing us to lose more sleep by being a paranoid, stubborn asshole.”

Bruce grumbled, but if Alfred had spoken, it was a done deal.

“Great, that’s settled then.” Babs cut in. “I’m going to take a bath, Dick and Alfred can get Steph settled in, and Bruce can have his scheduled nightly brooding.”

She ignored the glare Bruce sent her and wheeled to the room set just next to the showers. Besides the computers, this was definitely her favorite part of the cave: a truly heavenly bathtub set into the floor, basically a jacuzzi that could drain itself, deep and wide and fully accessible. It almost made it worth dealing with B’s overbearingness. Almost.

She lowered herself out of her chair to sit next to the tub, turned the faucets on and waited for it to fill up. Closed her eyes and let the sound of running water and hot steam wash over her as she stripped and set her clothes on a nearby bench. She was exhausted. Steph was alive.

Steph was alive and back, and she hadn’t told them she was alive. Barbara couldn’t quite help thinking, in some superstitious corner of her brain, that it was a trade: Steph was back because Tim was gone, or vice versa. She tried to tamp down on that thought.

She sighed and lowered herself into the water using the built-in handrails, sinking onto the underwater bench and laying her head back against the tiled floor. She pressed the jacuzzi button and let it run. There were some things that were nice about being a billionaire, she could grant Bruce that much.

A soft knock sounded at the door.

“Mm?” She called.

“Miss Gordon, I was simply wondering whether you might like me to make up your usual room for the night tonight, as it is getting rather late for you to return home.”

It did sound nice not to have to drag herself into her car and drive home, however much she hated feeling like she was in debt to the Waynes. And she should probably talk to Steph. “Yeah, Alfred, that would be amazing. Thank you so much.”

“Of course, Miss Gordon. It is no trouble at all.”

She stayed soaking until her fingers shriveled up and the water began to cool. It was almost 4:30am by the time she emerged from the elevator into the manor proper and wheeled herself down the guest corridor.

There was a warm light peeking through the crack two doors down from her room. She rapped her knuckles softly against the doorframe. “Steph?”

Some quiet movement, and Steph opened the door, in soft navy sweats with her blonde hair wet and hanging down to her waist. Barbara eyed her outfit and smiled. “We match.”

“Bat couture.” Steph nodded solemnly. “You wanna come in?”

“If you’re up for it.”

“I mean, I’m tired, but I’m not exhausted yet. Was just about to braid my hair and turn in.”

Babs nodded and accepted the invitation. “You want a hand with the braid?”

“If you’re volunteering, sure.”

Babs nodded and motioned for Steph to sit on the bed, facing away from her. She pulled her chair right up next to the bed and lifted herself over onto the mattress for the best angle. “Fishtail?”

“Oooh, yes please. I can never get those quite right.”

“It’s just practice. And time.”

“Yeah, I really only braid my hair to sleep, and it never seems worth the effort to do it.”

Babs hummed in acknowledgement and started the braid, fingers moving quick and sure. She was silent for a few moments, trying to think what exactly they needed to talk about.

“Why didn’t you call?” She tried to keep the hurt, the judgment out of her voice. She wasn’t sure if she succeeded.

Steph squirmed a bit, shrugged. “I didn’t—at first, I couldn’t. It was touch and go for weeks, according to Leslie. And I could’ve, I guess, gotten a phone and reached out once I was conscious, but…” She sighed. “I was so tired, Babs. I could only stay awake for a few hours at a time, and even thinking took so much effort. And I really f*cked up. I activated Bruce’s plan, like an idiot, without knowing all the pieces, and I caused a gang war, and so many people died, and I just…I felt like such a failure.” Her voice broke.

Barbara didn’t offer any comfort—that wasn’t her style—but she also didn’t stop the steady weave of Steph’s hair, under, over, and across.

“I wanted to at least be able to hold a conversation, to walk on my own for more than five feet. I didn’t want any of you to see me broken, and I was so ashamed…” She trailed off, furiously wiped away tears. “And I didn’t want B to come down on Doc Thompkins. At least, not while I was still a liability to her. She can hold her own, but not if she’s trynna cover for me too. Because, yeah, I was mad that she basically kidnapped me without my consent and let you all and my mom think I was dead, but…she was trying to save me. I didn’t want her to get hurt.”

Barbara tied off the braid with one of her own spare hair ties. “Why’d you come back then?”

Steph shook her head helplessly. “I couldn’t not. It’s Gotham; this city is in my blood. It needs me, or I need it. You all need me, obviously, if this is the mess I come back to.”

Babs huffed and smacked her shoulder.

Steph smiled, turning partway around to dangle her feet off the side of the bed. “And I needed to see my mom. She doesn’t deserve…she should know I’m alive.” She kicked bare feet against the bedframe.

Babs hummed. “Do you want me to drive you over there in the morning? Or, afternoon, more accurately.”

Steph took a breath. “I—I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready to face her yet. Does that make me a coward?” She looked up to Babs, and Barbara was struck once again by the fact that Steph was sixteen, still a child, still painfully young.

Barbara threaded her fingers through Steph’s, trying to hide her wince as her fingers brushed over ghoulish raised scars, scars from wounds that no child, no person, should have had to endure. “There are many words I would use to describe you, Stephanie Brown,” she said. “Coward isn’t one of them.”

She sighed when Stephanie looked unconvinced. “It’s okay, you know? To be hurt. To be scared. To mess up. To need some time to recover. Everybody does. God knows I was a reclusive mess for months after the Joker—” she gestured to her spine. “It’s not your fault when someone hurts you. It doesn’t make you weak, or wrong, or broken.”

Steph frowned, and her grip around Babs’ hand tightened. “Thanks.”

Babs nodded, didn’t push. “You don’t have to suffer through it alone. In fact, it’s better if you have people around you, trust me on that one.” She scooted herself back into her wheelchair, spun to face Steph head-on. “We’re here for you, kiddo.”

Steph smiled, a half-hearted thing, but it was there. “And we’ll get Tim and Cass back, and then we can all suffer together.”

Babs huffed a laugh. “That’s what friends are for, I guess.”

Steph nodded, squeezed and took back her hand. She hesitated. “Cass is really okay?”

Barbara met her eyes. “She’s really okay. She’s undercover—super top secret, I can’t tell you the details—but she’s undercover with a cult that wants to end the world and has a thing against technology, so we have super limited ways to contact her, especially since”—Babs winced, remembering her last disasterous conversation with Cass—“she can’t read.”

She definitely didn’t manage to keep the thick guilt from her voice, but thankfully Stephanie didn’t press. “We got a message in through an intermediary, and Cass will be wrapping stuff up with the assignment and be back in Gotham in four days. We should be able to get her on comms the day after tomorrow. Or, I guess it would technically be tomorrow, now.”

Steph nodded. “Four days. Okay. We’ll get them back. We’ll get them both back.”

“Yeah,” said Barbara, trying to put every ounce of faith into what she was pretty sure was a lie, “we will.”

“Are you seriously—?” The Replacement sputtered in outrage. “Like a dog?”

Jason shrugged, nonchalant. “If that’s how you want to think about it, sure, Replacement.”

“If that’s how I—?!” He laughed. “No.”

“Okay, then. No go. That’s fine.”

Replacement looked ready to throttle him. Jason resisted the urge to cackle in his face.

“There is no reason to—”

“Not letting you call your Kryptonian buddy.”

Replacement, swimming in Jason’s sweats, tried to stare him down. Unfortunately, it was pretty dang hard to win a staring contest against a helmet, so Jason won.

“Seriously?” Timmy asked, but he sounded more resigned than outraged now.

“Yup,” said Jason. “You’ve got a sunlamp, and I’m letting you upstairs for dinner now.”

“Yeah, if I’m shackled,” Tim muttered.

“Hush. That’s a reasonable safety precaution.”

“There’s nothing reasonable about the number of wrought-iron chains you have lying around.”

“Agree to disagree, Timbo. You want to go outside, or not?”

Tim sighed. “Fine.”

“Okay, then it’s settled. Normal upstairs procedures still apply; you know the drill.”

Still pouting, the Replacement turned around, hands behind his back for Jason to chain.

“No need to be a baby about it, Replacement.”

“Bite me, asshole.”

Jason just chuckled and went about securing the kid. And, sure, the restraints looked excessive, but the shackles on his wrists and ankles, welded together—no loose chain that could be used as a weapon—was barely enough for what Jason considered appropriate to hold a Robin. He ran a length of chain from the kid’s wrist shackles to his ankle shackles, and linked another chain to the middle of that length, out of reach of the Replacement’s hands without the kid contorting awkwardly.

“Fricking leash,” Replacement grumbled.

Jason yanked the chain in response, and Tim yelped as he crashed down to his knees, unable to break the fall with the way he was chained. “Asshole.”

Jason smirked. “It’s effective, Replacement.”

“You’re still an asshole.”

“Yeah, but you don’t get to complain about it. Mouth.”

The kid awkwardly hopped up to his feet. “You suck, and you’re an ass—”

Jason cut off the end of Timmy’s whining by stuffing a rag in his mouth. The kid glared, but didn’t spit it out as he let Jason tie it in place and put a full-on leather muzzle over the top. It was a bit disturbing what League safehouses came pre-stocked with.

“All righty, Replacement. Let’s go.”

Tim sent him a baleful look, but shuffled forward towards the exit.

Jason quickly got bored with the very slow penguin waddle that the chains necessitated. “You wanna be carried, Replacement?”

Replacement made some kind of noise that sure sounded negative, accompanied by shaking his head, but Jason chose to take it as a yes. “Okey dokey, up you go.”

Replacement squirmed and protested as he shifted the kid into a bridal carry, and Jason laughed.

Replacement head-butted his chest, right where his ribs were still bruised. Little sh*t.

Jason hissed and shifted his grip. “You want me to drop you down these stairs? I can.”

Replacement stared at him flatly.

Jason let go of the arm that was supporting the kid’s back, so that he was dangling upside-down for the rest of the journey. “I could have made you hop up the stairs. I’m being nice. See?”

Replacement curled himself up as much as the chains allowed—even with his limited range of motion, it was a pretty impressive feat of core strength—to make sure that Jason saw it when he rolled his eyes.

Jason scoffed and reverted back to a bridal carry just in time to open the door to upstairs. “Now who’s the asshole?”

It was amazing how well Replacement could communicate, ‘still you’ without saying a single word.

Jason took immense pleasure in dumping the kid into a snow flurry outside.

Replacement squawked—or tried to, the noise was swallowed so completely that even Jason could barely hear it, and he was standing right next to the kid—but didn’t even try to get up. Instead, he lay back in the snow bank and tipped his head upwards, letting the sun play over the uncovered portion of his face.

Jason watched carefully, looping the free end of the chain leash around his wrist, but Replacement made no move to escape. Instead he just lay in the snow, eyes closed, a few silent tears trickling down his face.

Jason chose to believe that those were from the cold. He shifted a bit so that Replacement was only in his peripheral vision, not straight on. There was something almost private in this moment, between the kid and the snow and the sun, and Jason felt awkward standing witness. Not awkward enough that he’d actually let Replacement out of his sight or out of chain-reach, but still.

He stood sentry for half an hour before hauling the kid up to his feet. “All right, kiddo. You’re gonna get frostbite if you stay out here any longer.”

Tim blinked at Jason, almost like he’d forgotten Jason was there, but nodded, subdued, and didn’t protest when Jason carried him back into the house.

He didn’t speak even when Jason removed the gag and dressed him in dry clothing, re-chained him up by the kitchen window. There was a little alcove there, and Jason had installed a metal hoop into the wall below that he could attach the ankle shackles to.

Tim sank into the alcove as soon as Jason readjusted his wrists to be chained in front of him, laid his cheek against the window and curled into the blankets and pillows kept there.

Jason let him be as he started on dinner prep. He also put on a pot of milk for hot chocolate. When dinner—a simple chicken casserole—was in the oven, Jason gathered two mugs of hot chocolate and dragged his chair over to the Replacement’s alcove.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He asked, handing over one of the hot chocolates and sitting down.

Tim startled and blinked back at him, accepted the mug.

Jason unlatched his helmet and placed it in reach behind his chair—out of reach for the Replacement.

Tim took a sip of hot chocolate, a slight frown creasing his brow. Jason was beginning to think that he wasn’t going to speak at all when he broke the silence.

“I just miss it,” he said. “Being outside. The wind. Flying.”

“Yeah,” said Jason, softly. “Sorry.”

Tim shrugged. “I’d say ‘not your fault,’ but…”

Jason huffed in reluctant amusem*nt. “Still.”

“Mm.” He took another sip of hot chocolate. “Thanks.”

Something twisted in Jason’s guts and he didn’t respond.

Tim was still frowning, his focus on Jason now. “Do you ever miss it?” he asked.

“What, outside?” Jason scoffed. “I think you’re getting us confused, Replacement. I can go outside whenever.”

Tim just co*cked his head, thoughtful. “How often do you take your helmet off outside? Or inside, for that matter.”

Jason took a swig of hot chocolate and didn’t answer.

“When was the last time you felt the wind on your face?”

“f*ck off, Replacement. It’s a security risk.”

Replacement shrugged. “Just wondering. I thought…” He bit his lip, uncertain, his gaze returning to the darkening sky outside. “I thought maybe you’d miss it too. The feeling of flying, wind all around, the swoop and the catch. Feeling alive like that.”

Jason followed his stare out the window. “Yeah, well. I’m dead. So I can’t really ‘feel alive’ anymore.”

Tim cut him a look. “I just meant—”

“I know what you meant, Replacement.” He got up, kicked his chair out of the way. Threw a book at the kid a bit harder than necessary. “Read it,” he said. “It’s some sci-fi, fantasy, Lovecraftian bullsh*t. Except, unlike Lovecraft, it’s actually good. You’ll like it.”

Tim eyed him skeptically.

Jason rolled his eyes. Replacement would like it. It was N.K. Jemisin. Everybody liked N.K. Jemisin. Jason appreciated rising from the grave if only because this book hadn’t been published yet when he died. “Read it, and we’ll talk about what Gotham’s avatar would be like.”

“I don’t even know what that means, and I already know that Gotham’s avatar would be horrific.”

Jason snorted, but his tone was wistful and fond when he spoke. “Yeah, she really would be.”

It was around 2am and Jason was washing the dishes and listening to batchatter—Tim safely stashed in the basem*nt bunker—when a new voice crackled through the comms, young and female with a Narrows accent. “Hey, B, you know what would help us find Red Hood?”

Jason frowned, and turned up the volume, tuned in a bit more. He hadn’t ever heard that voice before. A new player this far into the game made him nervous.Would this mystery speaker f*ck up his plans?

B responded to this new voice with his ‘shut up’ growl.

“If I went out as Robin.”

“No.”

Jason rolled his eyes. That was classic B, shooting down anyone else’s idea before even considering it. Though in this case, Jason was on his side. It’d be really inconvenient if he had to go to Gotham and intentionally spring the bats’ trap just because B threw another kid out there in his uniform.

“C’mon. We know Hood is hunting Robins, I’m a Robin, we make a trap.”

“We are not discussing this.”

“Do you have any other ideas? Not even better ideas, just other.”

Silence.

Jason snorted. New girl was funny, and she wasn’t scared of B. Jason decided he liked her.

“See? I’m right. I’m trained, I’m here, I’ve been Robin before—”

Wait. What? Had he missed one?

“Spoiler, no,” cut in B’s growl.

Spoiler? That was the girl one’s name, wasn’t it? The name she’d used before and after her turn as Robin? Her name was…something that started with S. Tim had said it at some point. Stacy? Sarah? Sophie? Something like that. He actually hadn’t known her civilian identity before kidnapping Tim—whoever she was, she wasn’t publicly connected to Bruce Wayne in any way Jason could figure out. Wasn’t she supposed to be dead? Was everyone just popping back up from grave? Was this just a thing now? Was it a Robin thing, specifically? Did they need to form a club?

“I think you mean, Robin, yes,” the dead girl retorted.

“You are not Robin. That’s final. You never should have been Robin in the first place.”

“Ouch.” The girl’s tone was joking, but there was real hurt under it. Jason winced in sympathy. Just hearing those words in his ears…it hurt. Even though it wasn’t aimed at him. It wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

Jason very deliberately set the plate he’d been washing down in the sink, backed up and breathed. He was in control. He was.

Spoiler-slash-Robin (Sam, maybe?) rebounded quickly, a vicious kick in her voice. “So I guess when you said I really was Robin, you know, when I was on my deathbed, that was just a lie to comfort a dying girl. Harsh. And, sure, I get why you didn’t set up a monument for me—it’s not like I was ever anything close to Ja—”

“Names,” B growled.

Jason stopped breathing. A monument? What was she talking about?

The conversation went on without him, and Jason nearly missed the next bit.

A deep breath in over the comms. And out. “I was Robin, B. I died in this goddamn war, and sure, it wasn’t for as long as death usually is, but I died trying to fix things, trying to save people, and that meant something. It did, no matter how much of an asshole you’re being about it. If T—if Robin dies because of some sh*tty Joker knock-off, what the f*ck does that mean? f*cking nothing, is what!”

Oh, you want to see a sh*tty Joker knock-off? Jason would show her a sh*tty f*cking Joker knock-off. Breathe. Don’t break your hand punching the marble counter. Jason formed a fist, felt the ache and crack in his bones.

“And he deserves better than that,” Spoiler-Robin went on. “He deserves better than to be, just, some expendable sidekick! And I know—I know—that Robin set himself up as just the sh*tty stand-in for—for Robins One and Two, someone to hold the fort, because God knows I did the same exact thing, and it was never—I was never good enough for you, fine, whatever. But he deserves better. I deserved better! We deserve someone who actually f*cking cares about us, someone who will f*cking come when we get hurt! At least you tried to save—Robin Two. I mean, you failed pretty f*cking miserably, but at least you tried. We deserve at least that much. At least.”

“Spoiler.” That was Dick, his voice soft and horrified. “Take a breather.”

Jason was hollow. He was hollow, he was empty, he couldn’t, he couldn’t—

“f*ck you. You know I’m right.”

“Spoiler, please—” Dick tried.

“No. No! I’m not going to—I know what it feels like, to be tortured and held and know that there’s no backup coming, and—”

“Spoiler, stand down.” It looked like B got his voice back. “You will not play Robin. End of discussion.”

A frustrated scream, caged in behind closed teeth. “Fine. I guess I’ll just do it myself if you’re gonna go all big broody on this. You can show up as back-up, if you want.”

“Not acceptable,” Batman rejoined. “You ‘died’”—and oh, there was scorn there—“because you didn’t follow orders. Orders there were a good reason for. Robin Two died because he didn’t follow orders.”

f*ck you, old man. f*ck you f*ck you f*ck you f*ck you.

“You will not put on a mask. Never again. That’s an order, and you will follow it.”

Or die, went unspoken, maybe only in Jason’s head. He was hyperventilating. He couldn’t think. He needed to get the voices out of his head—too much, too much, he couldn’t deal with this—but he couldn’t seem do muster up the wherewithall to figure out how to get them out. He was holding a sponge on a stick, one of those plastic ones where the soap could go in the handle. There wasn’t any soap in the handle. That seemed important, for some reason.

Jason stared at the sponge. Voices washed over him, Bruce and Spoiler and hA hA HA hA HA ha HA. Sheila. Willis and Catherine, fighting over something. Flesh on flesh on bone and crunch.

He tilted the sponge brush, looked at the transparent handle. The world looked different through the distorted plastic. There should be soap in there. Right?

“You know what he said to me, B?” Spoiler was saying when Jason tuned back in. “You know what he said? Black Mask, right after he shot me, right after I chose not to shoot him because I was following your f*cking rules, I was being your good soldier? Right before he left, he said, ‘Tell him “thank you,” from me. Thank you so much, Batman, for sending such lovely, poorly trained children my way.’”

Spoiler was panting. Or maybe that was Jason.

Anyway, be a good boy. Finish your homework and be in bed by 9:00. And, hey…please tell the Big Man I said, ‘hello.’ Laughter. Pain. Agony and agony and blood and fire. Dirt in his mouth. Exposed bone scraping against concrete. Green.

Jason was on the floor, curled up in a ball. He wasn’t sure when he’d dropped. The sponge-brush was also on the floor, maybe four feet away from him. He should pick it up. Bad manners to leave a mess behind.

“And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t be going out. I should never have let you out in the first place. Nor Robin. Nor Jay—Robin Two.”

No names on comms, Jason thought distantly. For the B-Man to be messing that up…it meant something, but he was too overwhelmed to figure out what.

“You are out of shape, insufficiently trained, too young, too impulsive, too fragile! If I hadn’t let—” B cut himself off. “You aren’t going out, even if I have to tie you up in a cell to keep you from it.”

The comms were dead silent. For a long moment, Jason thought Spoiler might have disconnected. But then her voice came through again, low and rough. “Yeah, no. Not your call. It’s not your fault that I died, B. But it wasn’t mine, either. Or Robin Two’s. We disobeyed orders and we got killed for it. Trying to help people. Because that’s what we do. That’s the whole f*cking point of Robin. To care. And I will never apologize for caring. For trying to do the right thing. And I would do it all over again. Not the—not the starting a gang war, obviously not, but the trying to help, even if it killed me. And that doesn’t mean that it’s my fault that I died, B. Just like it wasn’t Jason’s fault, either. No matter what you say about orders.”

Jason was crying, a steady stream of silent tears. He wasn’t sure when he had started, but he didn’t think he could stop.

“The only people you can put that on are the f*cking psychopaths who tortured us.” Spoiler inhaled, and Jason breathed with her. It felt like absolution. It felt like damnation.

“I’ll tell you what, though. If you don’t do everything within your power to get Robin back? If you try and stop me from helping him? His death will be on you. It’ll be on Red Hood too, yeah, but also on you. Can you live with his blood on your hands?”

And maybe Jason was imagining it, but he could have sworn he heard a whisper. “I live with Jason’s every day.”

Jason finally remembered how to undo his clasps, to push his helmet off his head and bowl it away to skitter across the floor.

Okay. Okay. Focus on what’s important. Spoiler was back. Spoiler-who-had-been-Robin-and-had-been-dead was back. Stevie. Stella. Sidney. Whatever the f*ck her name was. She was back. Sounded like there was a story there, but it didn’t matter. She had died, just like Jason, and she was back, just like Jason, and she was throwing herself face-first into a fistful of violence that would tear her apart.

Jason had to get her out of there.

f*ck.

Barbara did not want to be in the Cave when Bruce and Dick got back after patrol. There was a problem with that, though, as she was running comms, and had to be at least semi-available until they got back. God, she missed the Clocktower. If she’d been there, she could have stayed on comms all night and never had to see any bat face-to-face if she didn’t want to. f*ck Black Mask for making her blow it up.

She was trying—really hard—not to blame Stephanie for that too. It had been easier when Steph had been dead. Babs closed her eyes and breathed, swallowed against the sour taste of guilt in her mouth. Nothing had changed, except now she knew that Steph had survived being tortured by Black Mask. That shouldn’t have anything to do with whether it was Steph’s fault or not.

But for some reason it did. She hated that about herself, but it wouldn’t do any good to try and ignore it. Just, recognize it, acknowledge it, let it go, and move on.

She started the process of shutting everything down for the night as soon as Nightwing and Batman started heading home. Dick was staying in the manor until they found Tim.

Or—as Barbara was thinking would be increasingly likely—until the next crisis or the next blowout between Dick and B. And if she knew either of them, they were having it out right now after the truly horrendous fight Steph had sparked off earlier that night.

Stephanie herself had stormed off into the manor halfway through the fight, and Alfred had gone after her, so she couldn’t even take the coward’s way out and ask Agent A to be the welcoming committee.

She flicked the last of the necessary switches off as the Batmobile pulled into the tunnel. Turned off most of the lights, and wheeled herself to the elevator, around a corner from the vehicle bay.

The Batmobile pulled up as she was waiting, and a door slammed closed as soon as the car squealed to a stop.

“What is your actual f*cking problem, B? Because it’s not with the plan. It’s a good plan; it’s the only plan we currently have.”

“It’s dangerous.” B was in full Batman-voice

“Everything we do is dangerous. Steph knows it’s dangerous. She has literally died for one of our plans before! She knows the risks.”

“She didn’t die!” B’s voice cracked. “She didn’t die, and Jason did, and how can you ask—”

The elevator dinged open, and the Cave went silent as a swath of bright light cut through it.

“I’m just…going home now,” said Barbara. She wanted to die.

Dick cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. Night, Babs.”

“Good night.”

B’s cape snapped as he went off in a dramatic huff.

The elevator doors dinged closed, and Barbara slowly exhaled, shaking, cradling her head in her hands.

She really missed the Clocktower.

Despite her distaste for spending any time in the Cave or Wayne Manor, Barbara was back there at 2pm the next day so she could sit in on the scheduled call with Cass. That was going to be through the Justice League’s systems, and her home set-up didn’t have the necessary access.

Steph was snacking in the kitchen when she got there. “Hey. Clementine?”

“No thanks.”

Steph shrugged, threw the offered fruit up into the air and disappeared it up her sleeve in some kind of slight-of-hand. She pushed herself off the counter and strode towards Babs. “So—”

Barbara held up a hand. “If you’re planning on trying to convince me of your Robin plan, no need. I don’t like it, especially since you’re not in fighting shape right now, but if we get you as armored as possible, tracked to the gills, and have Superman as back-up, I’ll back your play.”

“Oh.” Steph bounced on her toes. “Okay. Kon, Cassie, and Bart also want to be back-up. I talked to them about it this morning.”

Barbara sighed. She did not want to coordinate the notoriously unmanagable ex-Young Justicers. “If B agrees to it, fine.”

Steph’s face soured, and she stuck her tongue out at Babs. They both knew that Bruce might break his “no metas in Gotham” rule for Superman, but not for the three young heroes.

“You’re going down to talk to Cass?”

“Yeah.”

Steph nodded and invited herself into the elevator to the Cave with Barbara. Babs rubbed at her temples. Bruce was going to blame Stephanie’s presence on Barbara and get all snippy, especially after what she’d overheard last night.

Thankfully B was in full mission-mode, and therefore all his snippiness was silent. Everyone except B got kicked out of the communication station, a small room carved out from the larger cave, because technically none of them had the clearance to know about this mission. Even though Babs had read through all the records, because that’s what she did.

But they all hung around right outside the doorway in domino masks, like naughty children outside the principal’s office, even though Babs was nearing thirty, and Dick wasn’t that far behind.

None of her bugs inside the room were working, which was just annoying, because by this point Bruce should know that if he bugged her, she was going to bug him right back. Now she actually had to sweep her place for Bruce’s surveillance so that they’d be even.

Finally, the door clicked open, a signal that they could enter. Dick entered first, holding the door open for Babs as he went. Cass was visible on a video screen.

“Oracle,” said Batman, “can you arrange to deliver a plane to Batgirl at her current coordinates?”

“Yeah, of course. Might take a few hours; you’re pretty remote.”

B shot her an annoyed glance; she wasn’t supposed to know where Cass was. She just raised an eyebrow in response. She knew Bruce could sense it even with the domino masking her face.

“A few hours is good,” said Cass. “I need to sleep. Before I fly. And…take care of my wounds. It is…not helpful…to Tim? for Tim? It is not helpful for Tim if I crash.”

“Or,” Steph slipped into the camera’s view, “you could ask Superman to fly you. Or Ko-Superboy. Superboy would definitely do it.”

Cass shot up, ramrod straight, staring at the screen.

Dick sighed. “Oh my god, B, did you not tell Batgirl about Spoiler’s return?”

Batman shifted. “It wasn’t mission-critical. In addition, the suggestion for Superboy or Superman to retrieve Batgirl is not resource-efficient and needlessly involves outside heroes in Gotham business.”

“Jesus Christ.” Dick shook his head. “Okay. Let’s you and I go, and Batgirl can catch up with Oracle and Spoiler and sort out transport.”

Batman paused, but allowed himself to be ushered out.

“Stephanie?” asked Cass, when the door closed behind him. “Are you…real?”

“Yeah.” Steph’s voice cracked as she stepped closer to the camera. “Hi, Cass. I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier that I’m still alive.”

“…Oh.”

“I wanted to let you know in person—I know it’s easier for you, not through the screen. Um, but we can talk now, if you want? Or after you get back to Gotham?”

There was a pause while Cass thought. She was in her full Batgirl mask, so it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. “Tell me…the facts now. And then…when I get back…we will talk. For the feelings. About the feelings? Which one is it?”

“About our feelings.” Stephanie’s whole face lit up in a smile when she was talking to Cass. “And okay.” She proceeded to relay the barebones of what happened with Black Mask, how she’d died on the table, how Leslie Thompkins had spirited her away, how she’d returned only to find Tim and Cass gone.

“Um, but we have a plan. To find Tim. If Red Hood is hunting Robins, and I go out as Robin…we can trap him.”

Cass was still for a long moment. Then, “Wait for me?” she asked. “This plan…it will take time. Many days. For Red Hood to notice. To…decide to act. I will sleep and fly back tomorrow. Then I will patrol with you. To be…behind? No, backup. I will be backup. It has been…many days already. One more day will not make it… more bad? worse. Will not make it worse for Tim.”

Steph swallowed, nodded. “Yeah, okay. Do you want me to ask Kon to come get you? Then you could sleep here and maybe even patrol tonight.”

Barbara sent a look to Steph. “If you go behind B’s back to have Kon bring her, there’s no way he’ll greenlight them coming in later.”

Steph grimaced. “Two of them have super speed, and the other one can fly. They can be backup even without B’s permission.”

Cass was shaking her head. “Do not send Superboy. I need…some time. To rest. And to think. Even if I am in Gotham tonight…I need more time. Flying…will be good. To help me think. And I will be there tomorrow.”

“Okay,” said Steph, easily giving ground where she’d left none before. “Okay. We’ll see you tomorrow, then. And, um, you don’t have to say anything back, but I just…I’m really glad you’re okay, Cass. I missed you so much, and I’m sorry…again. I love you.” She smiled awkwardly and stepped away from the camera, melted into the shadows in certified Bat fashion.

Cass was silent and still for a moment. Then she nodded softly to herself, turned to the camera. “You will send me the plane, Oracle?”

“Yeah.” Babs swung herself in front of the computer, pulled up the videolink’s coordinates. It wasn’t the main Batcomputer, but it still did the job pretty damn well. “Okay, I can get you an unmodified Slipstream that’ll make it across the Pacific. You’ll still need to refuel on the West Coast. Or go the other way around, and refuel in Europe.”

“West Coast. Fewer…eyes? watchers? Fewer eyes.”

“Okay. It’ll be mostly on autopilot, but just in case, everything is labelled…wait.” She took of her glasses, pinched the bridge of her nose. How on earth was she going to communicate everything that Cass needed to know about the plane? “I’ll going to send you some pictures of the co*ckpit and controls, and then…I guess we can go over what everything does, how to fly it.” Christ, this was going to take ages.

“I don’t need pictures. I know how to fly.”

And of course Cass was going to make this difficult. “Okay, but every plane is different, and a lot of the controls and buttons will be labelled, and you won’t know what they’re saying—”

“I know how to fly,” Cass insisted.

“Cass, please, I’m just trying to help—”

“I don’t want your help.”

“But you need it!” Barbara snapped. She immediately winced. She could feel Stephanie tensing in the shadows. “Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s been…a long couple of weeks. I just meant—you need to know what the controls are. Just in case. So we’ll go over it.”

“I do not need your help.” Angry. Definitely angry. “Stop treating me like I’m stupid.”

“Cass, I’m sorry! Okay? I don’t think you’re stupid, it was stupid of me to say that in the first place, but you can’t read, and I need to get this information to you, so if you would just listen—”

“I am listening,” said Cass. “You are not. I know how to fly. The Slipstream. It is the same as the Batplane, yes? Except…civilian. I know how to fly it. Bruce showed me.”

“…Oh.” Babs felt the heat rush to her cheeks. How had she messed up this exact same thing again? “Cass, I’m so sorry…” She was intensely aware of Stephanie in the corner, who was watching this whole scene intently.

“I know,” said Cass, “that you are sorry. But…it is not enough. You still…you treat me like…you think I can’t understand things. I can. I know what I can do…and what I cannot do. You need to listen when I say. When I tell you…what I can do. And what I cannot. What I need. Before, when we were in Gotham, right before…when Spoiler…did not die. I asked you. Where she was. You said…I can’t remember the words. But you acted like…it was not important. And I tried…to ask more. But you did not listen.” Babs closed her eyes, and she knew exactly what Cass was talking about, because hadn’t she played that exact same exchange, over and over again in her nightmares? She was intensely aware of Stephanie behind her somewhere, uncharacteristically quiet and still, but she wasn’t sure if Cass knew she was still in the room.

“I need you to listen, and…trust me. And do not speak…on top? no, over. Do not speak over me. Or speak…down to me. Then…we will be good.”

Babs took a deep breath in. Tried to calm down. She could be such an idiot sometimes. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I can do that. And for what it’s worth, I am really sorry.”

Cass shook her head. “Do not be sorry. Do…better.” She nodded, crisp and decisive. “Do better.”

It took a few more minutes to sort everything out so that she could sign off and turn to go—

“Was that true?” Stephanie’s voice was rough. “What Cass said,” she added, as if there was any need for clarification.

“Steph.” Babs spun her chair around to face her. “I am so sorry. And if you don’t think it haunts me every day, that maybe I could’ve stopped you from being tortured, if I’d just been…”

“There was a gang war going on,” said Steph, her face stony and cold. “The city was in chaos. I wasn’t a bat; you had other priorities. I get it. You’re only one person. Whatever.”

“Stephanie, if I had known—”

“You didn’t. It’s fine.” Her tone said it was anything but fine. She took in a shuddering breath. “Did you really call Cass stupid?”

Barbara flinched. “Yeah.” She swallowed. “I did. I regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth, but—”

“Damage was done.”

“Yeah.”

“She was looking for me. Cass. When Black Mask had me? She was looking?”

“Yeah, she was. As far as we could tell, reconstructing it, she took out half the city looking for you.”

“…Oh.”

Hesitantly, Babs reached out a hand.

“Don’t.” Steph snarled, took a step back. “Don’t touch me.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t—Aaagh!” She let forth a scream of pure anguish that echoed around the small chamber.

Babs winced as the noise pierced through her ears.

“Don’t f*cking—I can’t—I can’t f*cking talk about this right now!”

“That—”

A hiss from Stephanie cut her off. “Don’t—just don’t talk! Don’t—” She strangled the air in front of her, paced like a caged tiger, finally pulled herself together with a low growl.

“You are going to convince B to follow my plan and let Young Justice play backup. I am going to get some f*cking air. Don’t wait up.” She marched towards the door.

“Steph—wait!”

The girl whirled around, eyes flashing. “What?”

“Don’t do anything stu—anything reckless.”

“Don’t worry, if I do, I’m apparently in good company.”

Babs clenched her fist, tried not to let it show on her face. “Just don’t go after Hood tonight. Or—anyone. Steph, you just got back, and you’re not in fighting condition.”

Steph glared at her through red-rimmed eyes. “I promised Cass that I’d wait until tomorrow. I don’t go back on my word.”

Babs swallowed something sour tasting and closed her eyes. “Stay safe.”

“Like you care,” was Steph’s parting shot, mumbled under her breath, and Babs slumped over the monitor desk as the door slammed behind her.

She let herself stay sunken into the desk for two minutes, counting the seconds as they went by. “Of course I care,” she whispered to the empty room.

Then she forced herself up and back out to the main cave. She had a Robin to find, a plane to remotely pilot, a villain to catch. Oracle had to prioritize, and Barbara’s feelings of shame and inadequacy and heartbreak weren’t even on the list.

Chapter 13: Black Mask, Part I (Jason & Stephanie)

Chapter Text

“So.” Jason slid over a plate of French Toast to where Replacement was curled up in the window. “Spoiler. The girl Robin. The dead one.”

Tim winced and eyed him warily as he picked up his fork. “What about her?”

Jason shrugged. “I dunno. What was up with all that? What was her deal?”

“…Why?”

“Jesus f*ck, Replacement, I’m trying to establish a rapport.”

“You’re doing a really bad job of it.”

“Oh, f*ck you. I’m a delight.”

“Uh-huh.”

Jason flipped him off. “…So?”

“Seriously? Why do you want me to talk about my dead girlfriend over breakfast?”

“So you were dating?”

“That’s what you took away from this? Yeah, we were dating. Sort of. It got…complicated.”

“Oooh, drama. Spill the deets, Timmy.”

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?”

“I just wanna know everything there is to know about your brutally murdered girlfriend-slash-successor, Tim-Tam, geez. There’s nothing weird about that.”

“Again: What. The f*ck. Is wrong with you?”

“I’m not gonna stop asking, so you might as well tell me.”

“…Is this an interrogation?”

Jason shrugged. “Do you want it to be? I could go get some rusty kitchen scissors.”

Tim stared at him, expression flat. “I think you’re joking. But I’m not sure. Do you know if you’re joking?”

Jason just hummed thoughtfully. Truth be told, he did not know whether or not he was joking. On the one hand, he kind of liked the Replacement and felt bad for torturing him and holding him hostage. On the other hand, something in him sang at the thought of making the kid scream. On the other other hand, Jason did not keep rusty kitchen scissors around, only sharp ones, which were less good for extended torture. “Tellll meeeee, Timmyyyy,” he said instead of articulating any of that, flopping dramatically over his chair.

Tim sighed. “Is this just a really convoluted way of trying to torture me by getting me to talk about my feelings?”

“Yes,” Jason deadpanned. “Talking about your feelings. The weakness of all Bats. It will render you powerless to my evil master plan.”

Tim tried and failed to suppress a snort. “…I’ll tell you about Stephanie if you tell me why you want to know.”

“Stephanie!” Jason bolted upright. “That was her name.”

Tim looked at him like he was crazy. “You didn’t know her name?”

Jason made a face back at him. “How the f*ck would I know her name, Replacement? As far as I can tell, she’s not connected to Bruce f*cking Wayne, and it’s not like she’s out there using her real name.” He wasn’t sure if even Talia knew her name. Talia definitely had the resources to figure it out, but he doubted she thought it was important enough to pay attention to.

“Oh. Huh. So why do you want to know about Steph?”

Jason sighed. “Maybe I’ve been thinking about dead Robins, Replacement. Maybe I identify just a little bit with the kid who got tortured to death by a Rogue. I just…I need to know what happened. Why. How. How it could happen. Again. And then again after that, with you. But I know how it happened with you, because that was me. You know?”

“…No?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Shut up and talk, Replacement.”

“Shut up and—ugh, fine. Stephanie Brown, daughter of one sh*tty C-list villain. Cluemaster.”

And so Jason learned all about the newest resurrected Robin. The more he heard, the more it was like looking into a funhouse mirror. Criminal father. Addict mother, although Stephanie’s had recovered. Determined to do the right thing, even with no money, no resources. Reckless, impulsive, looked down upon.

When Jason was fifteen, he’d been killed tracking down his birth mother. When Stephanie was fifteen, she gave birth to a kid and put it up for adoption. There was some kind of symmetry there, some kind of symbolism, but Jason couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

He learned about the Cataclysm, about No Man’s Land, about Steph’s friendship with the new Batgirl, whose name was apparently Cassandra Cain.

And why did that ring a bell? Cain…Cain. “Any relation to David Cain?”

“Yeah, he’s her very awful father who never taught her how to speak or read or write and shot her for flinching as a kid.”

The One Who is All. He’d heard whispers of her during his time at the League. They all spoke of her skill, her prowess in violence. That sucked about her sh*tty dad, but he still very much did not want to fight her. Thankfully, she was still gone on her undercover trip. At least, as far as he could tell.

Okay, saving that for later. More about Stephanie. He learned about how Tim stopped being Robin, his own really weird family dynamics, then Stephanie taking over Robin, getting fired, and starting a gang war.

Jason whistled, low and slow. Honestly, that was kind of impressive. f*cking up Gotham’s underbelly enough to throw the whole city into chaos was an undertaking, especially considering how chaotic Gotham was on a normal day.

And finally, he learned of her death at the hands of Black Mask. f*cking Sionis. sad*stic asshole. Maybe Jason should revisit his original plan to kill him and take over his business. He still had eyes on most of Sionis’s operations, and half a pound of kryptonite that he’d stolen from the man. The Bats had recovered most of that shipment, but Jason had managed to smuggle some of it out. And Sionis was out a hell of a lot of money because of him.

Taking out Black Mask would involve going back to Gotham with the Bats all searching for him, but…might be worth it.

Another thing he learned: “You’re kind of a sh*tty boyfriend, Replacement.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just saying.” Jason shrugged. “Are you sure you were even actually dating her?”

“f*ck you. Of course we were dating.”

Jason hummed. “No, no, I get that Robin and Spoiler dated at some point, which is its own bag of f*cking worms; you can’t just call yourself a different name and carry on two separate relationships under different identities, Replacement. That’s called cheating and being an asshole—”

“I never cheated—!”

“Timbo. Timbourine. Timbuktu. I hate to break it to you, but if Tim Drake was dating this Ariana chick while Robin was dating Spoiler, that still counts.”

Replacement sputtered. “They never technically overlapped.”

Jason grinned. “Oh yeah, that’s how you know it’s all above-board. When you have to use the word technically to even have some kind of semi-justification for your actions.”

“f*ck you, you torture-murderer. You don’t get to judge my teenage dating foibles.”

“Foibles.” Jason scoffed. “You dated Spoiler for months and she never even knew your name. Even when she was pregnant and you moved away to Kansas.”

“That was not in my control!”

Jason stuffed a big bite of syrupy french toast into his mouth before talking. Sue him, Alfred wasn’t there. “Obviously it was, since you came back.”

“Yeah, I did! And I had to basically give up almost everything up to do it! My dad thought I was dead!”

“And yet you still didn’t tell her your name.” He pointed his fork at Timbo.

“That wasn’t—that was for Batman.” There was a bit of a growl in his voice when he said that name. Jason bit down on an answering growl growing in his own chest. “Even if he didn’t—whatever, it doesn’t matter. Why are you so hung up on the name thing?”

Jason rocked back in his chair. “I dunno, just feels weird. Like, I just don’t think you can actually be in a relationship with a person if they don’t know your secret identity.”

“Well, we were. Don’t—it was real, with Steph. It was.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Stop being so judgy.”

“No can do, Timelia Bedelia. Being judgy is like ninety percent of my personality. Maybe ninety-five.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Never claimed not to be.”

Timbo flipped him off.

Jason returned the gesture, and collected their now-empty plates, threw them in the sink.

“So how’d she get off the Bats’ radar long enough for Sionis to do his thing?”

Tim was quiet. “Can I have a refill?” He held out his coffee mug.

“Not what I asked about, so…no.” Jason could use some more coffee, though, if he was going to be planning an abduction all day, so he put on a new pot.

Tim’s eye roll could have been weaponized, and Jason was pretty sure that he whispered ‘f*cking asshole’ under his breath. As far as lip-reading went, it was a pretty easy one to guess.

“Talk, Replacement, and then you can have more poison bean juice.”

Tim stared at him flatly. “This is an ‘I need more coffee to get through it’ kind of conversation.”

“Well, in that case,” Jason matched the Replacement’s sh*tty tone, “I’ve got whiskey.”

“I’m a minor.”

Jason stared at him. “And you definitely haven’t been regularly ignoring the law since you were thirteen.”

“Not for drinking.”

“Uh-huh, okay.” The coffee machine beeped that it was ready, and Jason filled his own mug before walking over to Timbo’s window seat and snagging the kid’s. “Just saying, offer’s open.” He snatched the bottle of whiskey off the counter by its neck and waggled it in Tim’s direction, poured a generous shot or so in his own mug.

“No.” The Replacement’s voice came out sharper than he’d expected. Sharper than the Replacement had expected, too, if the way he startled and flushed at his own voice was any indication.

Jason passed the Replacement his un-whiskied coffee and leaned back on the counter, co*cked his head. “So. No alcohol, got it. There a story there?”

“No.” The kid buried his face in the mug, sullen.

“Yeah, I really believe you.”

“It’s not…it’s nothing.” The kid wouldn’t meet his eyes. Even though Jason’s eyes were actually meetable for once, his helmet set aside for breakfast.

“Nothing,” Jason echoed, letting all his skepticism color his voice.

Tim’s jaw tightened, before he very deliberately relaxed, smiled, shrugged. “It’s really not a big deal. Just my dad used to drink, sometimes, and he’d be…it was fine. He never hit me, or anything. He loved me. And he was going through a lot. His wife had just been murdered, he was paralyzed, we lost a lot of money, I wasn’t a good son…he had a lot of reasons to be upset. It was fine.”

Jason breathed out through his nose, held a sipful of bitter coffee-slash-whiskey in his mouth. The edges of his vision flickered green. The sound of breaking plates and shouting. Whiskey and cheap beer, cigarettes and bruises. Held breath and tiptoeing around the apartment when he couldn’t hunker down and hide.

Slowly, Jason forced himself to swallow, forced the green to bank down. He hadn’t noticed, not until right then, but this was the first time the Pit had bothered him in…days, probably. At least since Timbo had become a regular fixture upstairs, maybe longer. In all that time, he hadn’t felt that overwhelming desire to hurt, to destroy, to rip someone or something apart with his bare hands and tear his teeth into flesh until he could taste the screams.

“Yeah, okay, whatever.” If Jason’s voice was too rough to be properly dismissive, Tim didn’t mention it. “Stephanie. How’d she fly the coop?”

Tim took a long sip of coffee. “I don’t really know. We weren’t…we weren’t really talking, at the end.”

“What’d you do?”

Tim huffed. “Why do you assume that I did anything?!”

Jason shrugged. “What’d she do, then?”

“Nothing! She didn’t…it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Okay. Why were you doing the dating-but-not-talking teenage drama thing, then?”

Tim sighed, long-suffering. “I don’t know. I have no idea. We were good one day, and then…nothing. She just stopped talking to me, wouldn’t answer any of my calls, wouldn’t see me when I tried to go in-person. And then suddenly she’s Robin!” His mouth flattened into a thin line, and his brow creased into a frown. “I don’t know why. Obviously, I did something wrong, I wasn’t good enough…but I don’t even know why.”

“Robins get kicked to the curb and replaced, Timbo. Thought we’d already covered that.”

Tim started a little, looked up at him. Winced. “Not…I didn’t mean…sh*t.” He closed his eyes, took a breath. “I don’t know what happened. I was still a civilian, then. I found out there was a new Robin from the papers, called the cave. Steph said we would talk about it, but…it never happened.” Replacement’s voice was carefully controlled, almost robotic. “A few weeks later, the city broke out into all-out war. My school got shot up, Darla died, and I went back to being Robin. And when it was all over, Steph was dead. B told me, after…he’d fired her, she’d enacted one of his plans without knowing all the pieces, she got caught by Black Mask. He tortured her, she died.”

Jason frowned. “How exactly did she die? Blood loss? Was there a fatal injury…? Or multiple ones? Electricity? Gimme details here, Timbit.”

Tim reared back. “What the f*ck? What the hell is your problem, Jason? Can you maybe not be a voyeuristic creep for once in your life?”

Jason ran back through his last few questions, and okay, yeah, that was fair. He tried to make his voice softer. “I just…” He drummed his fingers against the side of his mug. “I need to know this, Timmy. It’s important. How did she die?”

Tim stared at him, the gears in his mind obviously spinning. “…On the operating table. I don’t know specifics.”

Jason frowned. “You know all that sh*t about Charlie the Gargoyle, but you never cracked open B’s record on your dead girlfriend?”

Tim flinched. “No,” he ground out. “I didn’t.”

“Well, why the f*ck not, Replacement?” Jason needed info. This was not at all helpful.

Tim glared at him, but eventually answered. “It was…it was a lot. Darla was dead, I’d just returned to being Robin. The gang war was just go go go. Then Steph died. Then Dad died a few days later, and Dana just fell apart. So I had to find treatment for Dana, deal with the company, sort out the funeral, make living arrangements, move to Bludhaven…It was easier, after, not to poke into it. I didn’t want to…it felt like my fault. I didn’t need to check the records so I could know it was too.”

Jason considered his coffee. Took a swig, felt the whiskey burn as it went down. “Don’t really see how it could have been your fault. You were out of the game.”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “I was.” And in his mouth, it sounded like condemnation.

Jason felt like he should probably be doing something about Tim’s obviously not-okayness, but he had to move quick, before the Bats set up their trap for him. The f*cks were planning to call in Superman, and, sure, Jason had a decent amount of kryptonite, but that wasn’t a guarantee. Besides, he could just shove Stephanie at Tim once he nabbed her and let her deal with the emotional fallout. Much more efficient.

By now it was pretty obvious that Replacement had no clue about his sort-of girlfriend returning from the dead. This conversation was giving him nothing useful, so he’d just have to ask her about it herself.

He ushered Timmy back to his cell and locked him in over the kid’s vehement protests. It was a rare occurrence, nowadays, locking him in, when the kid spent most of his days upstairs with Jason. But Jason had another Robin abduction to plan, and not much time to do it.

So here’s the thing. Yes, Steph had been planning on getting herself captured by a psychopath who tortured Robins. Yes, going out and helping people by painting a target on her own back had been the idea from the get-go. But she hadn’t been planning to get kidnapped yet, and she certainly hadn’t been planning to get kidnapped when she had no way to call for backup. And she super definitely hadn’t been planning on getting kidnapped by this particular psychopath who got off on torturing Robins. So she was maybe in a not-great situation.

But. After that conversation with Babs and Cass, she’d gone to the city to cool down. Totally reasonable. And she had cooled down. Steph had always blown hot, and she honestly wasn’t that mad at Babs. Hurt, yes, but mainly on Cass’s behalf. She’d already known that Oracle had had to prioritize other things on the night when Black Mask had captured her. But to know that Cass had been looking for her…that was something. She didn’t know what it was, but it was something.

She’d been walking down the street fresh from her favorite waffles and crêpes place—wow, she had missed them when she was dead; they had a two-for-one special whenever there was an active shelter-in-place order in force, because if you couldn’t find some way to get customers to come out when Scarecrow was roaming the streets, your business model wouldn’t make it very long in Gotham—and Steph was enjoying a strawberry jam-filled crêpe all curled up nice and cozy in a paper cone, minding her own damn business and avoiding potentially booby-trapped snow banks, when some assholes thought it would be a good idea to kidnap some kids right in f*cking front of her, like that sh*t was gonna fly.

And, okay, sure, she wasn’t wearing any gear, and she didn’t have a comm on her, because the Bats still hadn’t cleared her for combat and she’d stormed out of the Cave that afternoon, and she was still wildly out of shape and out of practice compared to where she’d been, but she was still the goddamn Spoiler, and she was gonna spoil these assholes’ f*cking child-trafficking plan.

There were only three of them—hulking brutes with automatic machine guns and bulletproof vests, and the getaway driver. On the other side was Steph, with pepper spray, a pair of brass knuckles, and a purple fleece hoodie; and two kids, pretty obviously homeless and not visibly armed. So Steph figured it was about even odds, given how Gotham raised her children.

And technically, she won the fight. Or, she achieved her goal, which was basically the same thing, right? She dropped one of the goons straight off, provided enough of a distraction for one of the kids to stab another goon in the junk holy sh*t, and she blocked that guy’s retaliatory blow well enough that the kids could scramble out of the way and off to whatever safety there was in this city.

So, kids: safe. Two goons down. One to go plus the driver. She turned to face goon number three when she realized that driver goon was about to f*cking ram her with the goddamn car, so of course she jumped out of the way, but it’d been too long and she miscalculated the angle and ended up landing in a snow flurry, and, yeah, that was just about her luck, because this being Gotham, there was some sort of trap buried in it and now her leg was stuck. She bit back a scream as cold metal bit through her jeans.

After that, it wasn’t much of a fight. She got a good punch or two on newly-dickless and the rest, but it was four on one, Steph wasn’t wearing armor, and her leg was caught in what she really hoped wasn’t a bear trap. Her leg didn’t feel snapped, so…probably not a bear trap?

Either way, she quickly found herself with a ringing concussion, her hands ziptied behind her back, and her legs circled with rope. One of them pat her down and tossed her phone into the snow. It was joined by her brass knuckles, pepper spray, keys, and left shoe. The steel trap was still closed around her right foot when they threw her onto the floor of the backseat, and she clenched her teeth as the world whited out in pain when her leg got jarred.

“Bad mistake, girlie,” said Goon #1, climbing in after her. He prodded her injured foot with his gun, and Steph hissed. “You’re a bit too old to make up for that cargo you just cost us, but I’m pretty sure the boss can figure out a way to take it out of your skin.”

Steph glared up at him and spat in his face. “f*ck you and f*ck your boss, you child-abducting piece of sh*t.”

That earned her a boot to the nose. Steph closed her eyes through the almost-familiar crunch and then grinned blood at her captor. She refused to be intimidated by this no-name piece of sh*t. “Big mistake, f*cko,” she said, echoing his earlier words. “You’re gonna wish you were dead by the time I’m through with you.”

The guy laughed, like she wasn’t being completely serious. “You think you’re brave, girlie? Just wait till you meet Black Mask. I’m sure he’ll enjoy getting up close and personal with the wannabe-hero who messed with his bottom line. Pretty sure you’ll be the one that wishes you were dead.”

Steph went white at his words, and the goons laughed around her. She couldn’t even be bothered to care that she’d shown her fear. Black Mask knew her face. She still had the scars from the last time he’d tortured her, the scars from where he’d shot her. He would know exactly who his unwitting goons had caught, and, sure, Steph had gotten the drop on him before, fought him to a standstill, but she didn’t exactly fancy her chances for round two. Security would be Bat-tight, and she didn’t even have an emergency beacon. No backup, no weapons, and no one to know where she was. Limited mobility, concussion, and growing blood loss. It was barely 5pm; the sky was still light. The Bats wouldn’t even start looking until later tonight at the absolute earliest. Young Justice wouldn’t notice she was gone until tomorrow.

Three days back in Gotham, and she was going to die just the same way she had last time. At the hands of the same asshole sad*st. And she wouldn’t even get a Tim out of it.

f*ck.

Not acceptable. Not even close to acceptable.

Steph grit her teeth, and prepared to fight.

Steph made a break for it the moment the car door opened. It was a doomed attempt from the beginning, but Steph didn’t stop struggling until she felt a syringe plunge into the side of her neck and her vision started to go black. The last thought she had before losing consciousness completely was a grim sort of satisfaction that none of the men who’d taken her would be able to forget her any time soon.

Some time later, she struggled back to consciousness through a haze of drugs. Everything hurt. f*ck.

She tried to keep her breathing even, survey her surroundings. Her hands were chained above her, and her entire weight dangled from her shoulders. They felt about ready to pop out of their sockets. Her feet weren’t even brushing the ground. The metal trap was still closed around her ankle. She was definitely bruised all over, and her head hurt like a bitch.

She didn’t hear anyone nearby, and took the risk of cracking open her eyes. The world spun around her. Big room. Three doors. Two windows, though they were both painted over black. Through the tiny chips in the paint, she was pretty sure it was dark outside. That didn’t mean much; the sun had been just about setting when she was captured. There was a plush leather sofa with a little side table and a foot rest in front of it. Cigars on the side table, two matching alchol carts beside it. Or, one cart of alcohol, and one matching cart filled with sharp pointy things.

There was a drain in the floor.

Steph tried to work herself free, but she had no lock picks, next to no leverage, and the hook she was hanging from was solidly drilled into the ceiling. Even climbing up her chains hand-over-hand wouldn’t do anything—the chains were padlocked into the hook, and, again, she had no picks.

f*ck.

It was too—it was too close to how it had been, when Black Mask had had her last time. Dark. Empty. Hands tied above her head. Shoulders aching. Everything aching. The knowledge he could come in any minute.

And even if she could get free…So where did you get off to, pretty-pretty? We were having such fun together, before I had to excuse myself.

She shivered at the memory. He wasn’t here. It wasn’t real.

Yet.

Her eyes kept skittering back to the cart of pointy things. Shining, glistening in what little light there was. She remembered the glint of a scalpel before…no.

She was in control. She was fine. She was not going to let Black Mask, Roman-f*cking-Sionis, break her when the sick creep wasn’t even in the room. She wasn’t going to let him break her even when he was in the room.

You already did…whispered some traitorous part of her mind.

She heard his laugh, the click of his jawbone, the whirr of a power drill. The hot mist of his breath against her cheek, his fingers digging into her neck. You’re pretty as a peach.

She closed her eyes against the tears, fought with everything she had to control her breath. She wouldn’t let him break her. She had survived him once. She could do it again.

She could.

It was almost a relief when one of the doors popped open and the lights flickered on, no matter how much it hurt her eyes. Goon #1 came in, followed by the big boss himself. Steph was pleased to see how absolutely wrecked Goon #1 looked. His face was a mess of bruises, and he was definitely limping. Steph had done that.

“Hey, f*ckface,” she called. “How’s dickless doing?”

f*ckface sputtered and went red with rage, but stilled as Black Mask raised a hand and shooed him out of the room. The mob boss did a full circuit around her, unfortunately outside of kicking range, before coming to a stop in front of her. His creepy skull face couldn’t really emote, but she would swear he was grinning.

“Well, this seems familiar,” he said, putting to rest all doubts about whether or not he’d recognized her.

Steph snarled in response.

“I’ll be honest,” said Black Mask, “I thought I’d killed you, but obviously you just couldn’t get enough of my tender mercies. And now, here you are, yet again: you’ve delivered yourself up for round two. How you must have missed me, sweetheart! Well, I’m happy to oblige.”

Steph spat in his face. “Go to hell, you sick, child-trafficking creep.”

He backhanded her, and Steph did her best to move with the slap. Minimize the damage. She ended up swinging in the air, and had to bite down against the nausea. If she hadn’t already had a concussion, she would definitely have one now.

“Such a tease. What do you say, shall we pick up where we left off?”

Steph was about to formulate a spectacular and not-at-all scared reply when the sound of a phone vibrating split the air.

Black Mask reached into his pocket, obviously displeased, and silenced the phone. “Now—”

The phone started ringing again.

He snapped the phone in half and threw the pieces across the floor.

“Now, where were we?”

“That coulda been important,” said Steph. “You sure you didn’t want to take that call?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. It would be rude to take that call and just leave you hanging here.”

Stephanie groaned. “Puns, really? I thought you were supposed to be some kind of high-class villain. The Riddler would’ve been ashamed of that. Cluemaster would’ve been ashamed of that.”

Black Mask ignored her. Just turned his back and went over to the torture cart. f*ck. f*ck. f*ck.

Think, Stephanie.

She had nothing.

“Should we start off with a classic, or spice it up a bit?” She couldn’t see what he was doing.

“f*ck you.”

“Mm. You’re right. There’ll be plenty of time to experiment. Best to start with the old standbys.”

He returned to stand in front of her, scalpel in hand. One hand wrapped around her neck, not yet tight enough to choke, and the other brought the scalpel to play against her cheek.

Stephanie forced herself to breathe through the fear.

A knock sounded at the door.

“What?” Black Mask did not sound happy. He turned to the door, dropping the hand with the scalpel. The other hand was still wrapped around her throat.

A new head, one that Stephanie didn’t recognize, popped in. “Sorry, boss, but you’re gonna want to hear this. Remember that bad penny who stole our kryptonite?”

The hand on her neck twitched. “No, I don’t remember the sh*tstain who blew up my shipment, cost me over $50 million in lost goods, and killed six of my men.”

“Yeah, well, he’s on the phone. Said he just blew up our riverside operations and he wants to talk. Can’t get through to anyone there, and he had the correct address.” As the guy talked, Black Mask’s hand tightened around her throat.

“f*ck!” Black Mask swore, and yanked his hand down, and Stephanie screamed as both her shoulders finally gave way.

For a moment, all she could do was gasp in shallow breaths of air as the pain overwhelmed her. The world was buzzing and spinning around her.

Slowly, things started to crystallize. First, Black Mask’s voice. “…sure this is a fight you can afford to pick right now?”

A voice, mechanical through the phone. She couldn’t make out individual words.

“And where did you hear that?”

If someone had attacked Black Mask, and he had to go deal with it…it might give her an opportunity to escape. And surely the Bats would notice she was missing before long. A spark of hope sputtered to life in her chest.

And then it quickly died when Black Mask turned around to face her again. Breathe.

She had the distinct feeling he was studying her, though without eyes it was hard to tell. “…She’s not for sale.”

Someone wanted to buy her? Who? Who could even possibly know she was here? Or were they talking about someone else? They way Black Mask was focused on her said that was probably unlikely.

“Tempting, but no. If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to carve her limb from limb, and then I’ll do the same to you.”

Steph’s breath stuttered in her chest. What was going on?

The voice on the phone laughed, and spoke again. Steph still couldn’t make out words, but it sounded confident.

“What, you’d just walk right into my stronghold, unarmed, after I told you exactly what I’m planning to do to you?”

More talking.

Black Mask snorted. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

This time, there was no response.

“I said, do you think I’m stupid?”

Silence. The only noise Steph could hear was her own ragged panting.

“Son of a— The bastard hung up on me!”

“Boss? What should we do now?”

Black Mask clicked his teeth. “Keep trying to get McKenzie on the line. If Li—”

There was an explosion. The building rumbled all around her, and Steph was set to swinging like the world’s most gruesome wind chime. She closed her eyes against the fire and heat and dust all around her.

When she opened them again, the room was empty. Everything was gone. Coughing, she looked down.

Where before there’d been maybe ten inches between her and the floor, now there was probably ten feet.

The middle of the floor was just completely missing. Collapsed down. In the rubble, she could make out the sofa, the sad remains of the torture cart, and the even sadder remains of the alcohol cart. And Black Mask and his second, groaning and stumbling to their feet.

A gunshot sounded, and Steph gasped as Black Mask’s head exploded. The other guy froze, and then he, too, was quickly taken down by a headshot. Less explosion-y, though.

Steph could do nothing but hang there and look down as a helmeted figure stepped into the room with Black Mask’s body. He kicked the crime lord’s corpse over, then kicked it again. Emptied a clip from a handgun into his chest. The body jerked as the bullets rocked through it. He finished off with a kick to Black Mask’s groin, hard enough to send the body into the next piece of rubble.

“Yeah,” said Red Hood into the ringing silence. He holstered his gun. “I do think you’re stupid.”

Chapter 14: Black Mask, Part II (Jason)

Chapter Text

It was pure luck that Jason saw the girl when they brought her in. He’d been in his tech closet, looking up Stephanie Brown on his helmet’s system and planning a stealth-attack on the manor while the Bats were out, when a flicker of purple in one of the monitors caught his eye.

He almost didn’t look—the movement was from one of the cameras he’d placed around Black Mask’s main bases, back when he’d been thinking of taking over the man’s empire. He’d also physically snuck in to a lot of the man’s bases, piggybacked his way onto Sionis’s own cameras, which ran on a closed circuit and were otherwise inaccessible.

He honestly should probably cut most of those feeds, get rid of them entirely; it wasn’t like he could follow through on any of those plans anymore and they were just taking up space and power. It was only because purple was on his mind from his research into Spoiler that he bothered to look more closely when the color flickered in his peripheral vision.

And holy sh*t was he glad that he did. The quality wasn’t great, but he’d been staring at pictures and footage of Stephanie Brown for hours now, and that? Blonde hair, purple hoodie, a headbutt hard enough to knock out a full-grown man, a skillfull snap of the zip ties on her arms, and a truly vicious left hook even as her leg collapsed beneath her? That was Stephanie Brown, a.k.a. Spoiler, a.k.a. Robin.

Jason transferred the feed into his helmet—taking up half his vision—and leapt to his feet, all thoughts of an excursion to the manor wiped away. He double-checked that the Bats weren’t on comms yet, made sure they’d come streaming into his ear the moment they did.

There was a chance that this was the trap. That they’d figured out he was tapped into their frequencies, and set this up for him. But it didn’t make any sense: she wasn’t wearing the Robin uniform; she was obviously badly injured; there was no reason for the Bats to think he’d even notice this. And surely, surely, even Bruce wouldn’t send the girl to be captured by the man who had tortured her to death? He wouldn’t do that, right?

No, the evidence pointed to her somehow being captured as a civilian. She was wearing civvies, had something metal latched onto one of her legs, which was soaked in blood. No mask, no visible gadgets. She was fighting with the raw sort of desperation that came from having no backup, and didn’t stop struggling until one of the goons came out of the base with a needle, and they finally put her under.

Jason swung into his car, still helmeted, and tore out of the garage. Thank f*ck he’d put the engine back together. There was a fully-stocked med kit under the front seat, a f*cking arsenal in the trunk. Enough room for someone to lay out in the back. Every inch of the thing was armored. The windows and windshield were coated with a substance that would reflect light back to any cameras that happened to pick him up. Police- and Bat-scanners installed inside. Not the most maneuverable, but ideal for a rescue mission.

As Jason drove, he only kept one eye on the road. The other flicked through cameras on his helmet, following Stephanie’s progress through the compound. Maybe they’d put her in some cell for a while, and he could sneak her out before Sionis even knew she’d been there. It was only an hour and a half to Gotham…

It seemed at first that he’d be lucky. Sort of. They brought her to one of Sionis’s “receiving rooms”—a big, open-concept space on the second floor where the man liked to conduct business—and hung her unconscious form from a hook in the ceiling. f*cking Sionis, of course Black Mask would have torture hooks built into his ceilings.

But Sionis himself was nowhere to be seen. That was good. Jason briefly slowed down, his scanner letting him know that he was about to pass a speed trap, and cycled through camera feeds. Looked like Sionis wasn’t home right then. Okay. This would be doable. Jason turned his main focus to driving, extraction plans running through the back of his mind.

Stephanie woke up forty minutes or so after she’d been put out. She immediately started struggling, but she was weak, faded. If she had any picks on her, she didn’t use them. She hadn’t managed to escape half an hour later, when Sionis walked in through the front door of the compound.

“sh*t.” Jason swore under his breath and hit the gas. He was already flooring it, so that didn’t do anything. He was fifteen minutes out, on the outskirts of Gotham. The Bats still hadn’t gone on comms. Nothing unusual about that; sure, it was dark, but that was just because it was winter. It was only 6:30pm. No reason for them to be out and about yet.

Jason grimaced and toggled a few settings in his helmet until he could get audio.

“—interrupted our ability to procure more stock, boss,” one of the goons was saying. His voice was muffled as he tried to speak through a swollen jaw.

Black Mask made that weird clicking noise with his teeth that he did. “You’re telling me that a teenage girl managed to injure the four of you enough that you lost the merchandise?”

“She’s a vicious little bitch, boss. And the merchandise weren’t exactly being cooperative.”

“Ah. My apologies, Nelson. A teenage girl and two prepubescentchildren managed to take out the four of you.”

Jason growled, the steering wheel creaking under his grip, at the equating of merchandise andprepubescentchildren. He was getting a pretty good picture of just how Stephanie had gotten herself captured in civvies, and he was liking it less and less the more he learned. Where the f*ck was Bruce? Where were any of the Bats?

“They didn’t beat us,” Nelson mumbled. “We got her.”

“Johnson’s out of commission, and you let the merchandise get away!”

“Sorry, boss. Thought you might appreciate the chance to let her know just exactly how much you don’t appreciate her messing with your business.”

No. No more dead Robins. No more tortured Robins.

“Mmm. Tempting. Tell me what we’ve got on her so far.”

He wasn’t going to make it in time.

f*ck.

Jason veered off his route. Change of plans.

He was balancing on the razor’s edge of Lazarus green, well aware that if he gave in, he wouldn’t play it smart enough to succeed. Still, he let that acid-washed fury give him clarity, clung on to just enough sanity by the tips of his fingernails so that he could function.

Black Mask would regret f*cking with a Robin.

He tuned out Nelson’s report, and pulled up outside a riverside warehouse. One of Black Mask’s supply centers—heroin, mostly. It was a relatively unguarded site since he didn’t run street-level distribution out of here; only a select few even knew this warehouse existed.

A guy shouted as Jason exited the car, and Jason drew his gun and shot at the voice, a one-two tap, not stopping his stride towards the trunk. A body dropped behind him.

Jason popped the trunk open and pulled out a roll of det cord, hoisting it over his shoulder. He tucked a small pile of nitroglycerin dynamite sticks into the crook of his elbow on that same arm.

Another head popped into view, following his companion’s shout, and Jason dropped another body before the man could act.

A bullet ricocheted off the armored door of the trunk, and Jason ducked down, tracking the trajectory of the next few shots before returning fire and reloading.

He didn’t hear another body fall, but five seconds passed with no new gunshots, so Jason took a chance and ducked out from the cover the trunk provided and sprinted towards the warehouse, careful to keep his path unpredictable. Difficult with the sheer amount of weight and bulk he was carrying, but Jason was built like a goddamn tank and he hadn’t trained with the best of the best for nothing.

No returning fire. Mildly concerning.

Should be four guys guarding the warehouse. He’d definitely dropped two, probably three. There should still be at least one guy left to shoot at him. Might be he was calling for backup. That was fine; Jason would be long gone before backup ever came. The name of the game now was speed.

He kicked in the warehouse’s front door, scanning for any potential attackers. No one jumped out at him, so he started setting up the dynamite, running the det cord between the bundles, one ear co*cked for an attack.

When he did hear the creak of a door and a “Hey, guys, what’s—”, Jason spun and shot him before he could get any further. Goon #4 dropped to the floor. Distantly, Jason noted that the now-dead man had been in the process of doing up his fly. Bathroom break, seemed like.

Jason didn’t have time to notice sh*t like that. The green was pulling at him, screaming for blood, for pain, for fire, to destroy, but he couldn’t give in quite yet.

There were more crates in the warehouse than he’d been expecting, more than there’d been the last time he’d scouted the place. Good. Meant Sionis had just gotten a shipment in. Meant this would grab his attention.

Jason finished planting his dynamite, confirmed four dead, set a detonator on a three-minute timer, and ran back to the car.

He reloaded all his ammo from the trunk, grabbed a bolt-action sniper rifle filled with explosive rounds, and slung a bag full of C-4 on his back before getting back into the car and screaming out of the parking lot. Five minutes from here to Sionis’s base if he ignored all rules of the road.

He tuned back in to what the crime lord was up to. He was in the room with Stephanie now, leering at her, as much as his skeleton face could leer. “—just couldn’t get enough of my tender mercies,” said Sionis, dragging those last two words out. Obviously, he remembered her.

Jason gagged, his grip on the Lazarus Pit faltering for a second. No. Not yet. Four minutes. His fingers creaked around the steering wheel.

“And now, here you are, yet again: you’ve delivered yourself up for round two. How you must have missed me, sweetheart! Well, I’m happy to oblige.”

Stephanie spat in his face, and Jason grinned beneath his helmet.

“Go to hell, you sick, child-trafficking creep.”

“You f*cking tell him, blondie bird” he muttered, veering up onto the sidewalk to avoid a red light, pedestrians scattering in front of him.

Sionis hit her, set her swinging in the air. Jason bit down hard enough he could taste blood.

Three minutes.

Black Mask waited until her momentum stilled before continuing. “Such a tease. What do you say, shall we pick up where we left off?”

And no. Not acceptable. She’d already been hurt, but this? This cold-blooded torture? These gleeful taunts? Okay, pumpkin, which hurts more: A or B?

Never again.

Without even thinking of it, Jason pulled out a burner and dialed Black Mask’s personal number. Which he really shouldn’t have, but, well, he had had this whole plan to destroy the man’s empire before taking care of Timmy had taken precedence.

It rang three times before Sionis silenced it. Jason growled and rang again.

This time, Sionis literally snapped the phone in half instead of answering.

Two minutes. The warehouse would’ve just blown.

“Now, where were we?” asked Black Mask.

“That coulda been important,” said Stephanie, still a f*cking spitfire to the last. “You sure you didn’t want to take that call?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling,” Sionis rejoined. “It would be rude to take that call and just leave you hanging here.”

Stephanie and Jason groaned in tandem.

Jason pulled to the curb two blocks from Sionis’s headquarters, near a manhole cover. Black Mask’s base was well-guarded from the air—he was rightfully wary of Bats dropping in from the rooftops—but there was a secret entrance from the sewer tunnels that only had two guards posted.

Jason grabbed the rifle, confirmed it was loaded, and strapped it to his belt, checked the C-4 was in place.

“Puns, really?” Stephanie was saying, as Jason pried the manhole cover up and dropped into the sewers. “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of high-class villain. The Riddler would’ve been ashamed of that. Cluemaster would’ve been ashamed of that.”

Jason snorted. He doubted Sionis would appreciate just how much of an insult it was that she was comparing him unfavorably to her crappy villain of a father. He let his amusem*nt drag him just a bit further from the edge of his rage, inch back from the edge of the Pit. This was the part that would require the most thinking.

Jason toggled his helmet’s settings so that it wouldn’t let any sound out, muted the feed from his surveillance.

Sionis had gone over to his goddamn dedicated torture cart and was probably being all silkily menacing like the sick f*ck he was. f*cking disgusting.

Whatever he was doing, it definitely wasn’t ‘leaving to go deal with his blown up warehouse.’ Okay, time to improvise.

As if this whole f*cking thing hadn’t been improvisation.

Jason dialed a new number through the helmet as he moved as quickly through the sewers as he could while still remaining silent.

It rang four times before someone picked up. “Who is this?” asked a sharp voice.

“David!” Red Hood greeted Black Mask’s assistant. “Or do you prefer Mr. Li? Either way, this is Red Hood, and I have some information your boss is gonna want to hear.”

A beat. “I doubt my boss, as you put it, has anything to say to a no-name petty thief whose entire operation has been dismantled by the Bat.”

“Petty thief?” said Hood, offended. “I stole $40 million worth of kryptonite from that f*cker. Hardly f*cking petty. And I’m also a murderer. Actually, that’s what I was calling to talk about. Just killed four of your boss’s men, blew the warehouse on 329 Riverside. Thought we might have a bit of a chat about that.”

A pause. “Please hold.”

Jason snorted. “Please hold, my ass,” he muttered. He was at the entrance to the compound.

He knocked on the door hidden in the bricks, a shave and a haircut, and a guard opened it from the inside, sticking his head and his gun out and showing truly terrible amounts of caution for, you know, a guard.

Jason grabbed the gun in one hand, throwing it into the sewer and yanking him close enough for his other hand to grab him by the neck, cutting off the poor bastard’s air supply. He pushed him back through the door straight into the body of the other guard, who fell back into the wall, getting the wind knocked out of him.

Jason followed his push through, crowding on both men, snapped guard #1’s neck before turning to guard #2 and doing the exact same thing. Neither of them had time to scream or raise an alarm. He might’ve been spotted on camera, but he’d deal with that if it came up.

His body count was already at six tonight, and it wasn’t gonna go down any time soon. He didn’t have a scratch on him, except for the slowly-healing broken ribs and the almost-healed cut on his wrist courtesy of one Timothy Drake. These f*cks didn’t stand a chance.

Normally, Jason wouldn’t kill all these low-level goons. They weren’t calling the shots. Often, they didn’t even want to be there, but they needed to eat. They had debts. Families. Hell, Jason’s father had been a low-level goon, and he’d have been pissed as f*ck at any asshole who killed him just for doing his job.

But tonight? When the green was singing in his veins and these unlucky pieces of sh*t were standing between him and a teenage girl, a child, a Robin, strung up and about to be tortured?

Tonight every bit of him hummed with satisfaction at each death he wrought.

He started for the stairwell, avoiding most of the cameras. On the off chance his entrance hadn’t been noticed, no sense in courting disaster quite yet.

“Red Hood.” That was Sionis’s voice, crackling through the open line in his helmet. He was pissed, but his voice remained icily pleasant. “The Bat’s been going pretty hard after you. Are you sure this is a fight you can afford to pick right now?”

“Eh,” said Hood, scouting the stairwell, “I got a pretty good deal for that kryptonite I stole from you, even if you didn’t pay up and the Bats got some of it, so I’m good on cash.” That was a complete and total lie, but it was sure to tweak Sionis’s nose. Or, at least the hole where his nose should be.

Jason started up the staircase. He was in the sub-basem*nt, Sionis was on the second floor. Three floors between them. Or…those hooks were pretty embedded into the ceiling. Jason could probably bring Sionis down a bit.

“But I didn’t call to talk about me,” said Hood, as he jogged up the stairs. “Heard you got yourself a bird. One of the Bat’s little sidekicks.”

Sionis was silent for a moment. “And where did you hear that?”

“Oh, I have my sources,” said Jason. He passed a doorway, and a guard on the other side jumped and started to move for either his radio or his gun.

Jason ducked to the side of the door opposite the hinges, broke the lock, and yanked the door open, pulling the guard into the stairwell with him.

“Thought we might be able to make a deal,” said Jason. He pulled the guy down as he brought his knee up, catching him just under the chin and sending his brain rattling into his skull. The guy collapsed.

Jason quickly ducked his head into the hallway, but no one else was running at him. “Say, $2 million for the girl?”

Jason had no intention of paying the f*cker a single cent, but he needed Sionis to stay on the phone and not be torturing Stephanie.

“…She’s not for sale,” said Sionis, and Jason felt the green rage curling in his stomach at his possessive tone. Soon, he promised the Pit.

“Everything’s for sale,” said Jason, throwing down the limp body and continuing up the stairs. “It’s just a matter of price. Now, the Bat and I are having a bit of a disagreement, on account of how I’ve kidnapped his Robin and sent him some videos on just how I’m making the kid scream, and it would be real f*cking useful to my goals if I could add another birdie to my body count. So, name your price. Money ain’t an issue.”

He was at ground level now, Sionis just one floor above him.

“Five million? Ten? Fourteen? That’s what we agreed on for the kryptonite, no? Though it was worth forty, and you sent Freeze to kill me instead, but I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. Name your price, Sionis.”

As he spoke, he made his way maddeningly slowly through the compound, aiming for the room just under Sionis’s current whereabouts, sneaking when he could and killing when he couldn’t. Nothing loud, nothing attention-grabbing. Nothing that would make Sionis run.

Because ultimately, the man would run, leaving his underlings to take the brunt of things. And that was simply unacceptable. The man shouldn’t have even been allowed one strike, but here he was on two.

Well, Jason was here to take him out.

“Tempting, but no,” Sionis was saying. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to carve her limb from limb, and then I’ll do the same to you.”

Hood laughed, like they were friends. “Oddly enough, it doesn’t,” he said. He was in the right room. He double-checked the feed in the corner of his helmet; yes, Sionis was still where he’d left him, only a few feet away from Stephanie. And why wouldn’t he be? It had only been three, maybe four minutes since he entered the compound? It felt like longer, but that was adrenaline and stress and the knowledge he’d killed at least five people in that time.

He started setting charges of C-4 with embedded remote detonators. Duct tape was his friend. As he worked, he spoke, spinning some bullsh*t that even he couldn’t believe. “Hm, tell you what: a million to get in on the action. You keep her wherever you want, have final disposition of the remains, but I get a go at her and I get to record it for my ongoing feud with the Bat. Your terms; your tools; hell, I’ll even hand over my guns for the duration.”

Sionis laughed, obviously not buying it either. “What, you’d just walk right into my stronghold, unarmed, after I told you exactly what I’m planning to do to you?”

“I don’t see why we couldn’t have a mutually beneficial business relationship, lay the harsh words aside.” Jason finished setting his charges. He walked out of the room, striding quickly out of the blast radius. “We’d need to work out the logistics, obviously, but there’s no reason for it not to work.”

Black Mask snorted. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Jason should be far enough away. He checked his cameras, checked his charges, checked his calculations. Should be good to blow the floor beneath Black Mask without getting Stephanie too bad. She’d be blasted with the updraft and a bit of debris, but there was no avoiding that.

“I said, do you think I’m stupid?”

Jason hung up, clicked the remote detonator. It was on a five second delay.

Jason used the time to unholster the rifle from his belt, double-check everything was in working order. Explosive rounds, good to go. Black Mask’s skull was durable, but these were for taking out concrete barricades, so Jason wasn’t worried about it. He also switched his helmet back to the mode that projected his modulated voice outside; he doubted he’d remember to do that once he stoked up the Pit.

Because, finally, it was time. He closed his eyes, sunk into the green. It was easy, almost instantaneous. So much easier to give in than to hold it back. Such a tease, said Sionis’s voice, and the Pit promised retribution. Couldn’t get enough of my tender mercies, and the Pit roared.

Little louder, lambchop, said the Joker, joining in chorus. It's been fun. Well, maybe a smidge more fun for me than you. Anyway, be a good boy.

How you must have missed me, sweetheart! Sionis, but that was the Joker’s voice. Then—and this one had been the Joker, but now Sionis’s predatory lilt joined in: Prepare yourself for a severe spanking, young man. The green reached a fever-pitch, high and tense, a wire waiting to be plucked.

Jason opened his eyes as the building rocked around him and heat roared through the halls, the blast stopping just short of knocking him over. His very being thrummed with the promise of carnage.

He grinned, full of a sick and holy joy, and walked back into the blast zone.

That wasn’t a very nice thing to do to Uncle Joker. Green. Laughter. Sionis and Li were struggling to their feet, rubble all around them.

Hood felt his smile stretching wide, unnaturally so. He took aim, fired. Black Mask’s perpetually grinning skull exploded into chips of discolored bone and brain matter. Hood tossed the rifle down on a pile of rubble away from the door—it wouldn’t do for some goon to grab it, but the thing would only get in the way of the more visceral form of violence that his veins were singing for.

Handgun shot to the head for Li—the man was inconsequential to his rage—and then Hood was on Black Mask, or what had been Black Mask. His boots crunched on bone shards and broken concrete, squished through brains and blood and the runny, clear remains of cerebrospinal fluid. It was beautiful. Hood kicked the corpse for the joy of it, bones giving way beneath his foot, then kicked it again so he could see the front of what had once been a monster masquerading as a man.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” asked a memory. It demanded an answer.

Hood emptied a clip into Black Mask’s chest to the tune of the pulsing green in his head, watched the corpse jerk and dance to that electrifying beat. And when the bullets ran out, he finished with a crescendo, a kick to the crotch hard enough he felt something go splat and the body flew briefly in the air before crashing back down to the rubble.

A f*cking beautiful symphony. Hood hummed in pleasure, and the Pit joined with him in perfect harmony. “Yeah,” said Hood, in response to the dead man’s demands. “I do think you’re stupid.”

He stepped on the corpse as he went to check the other body, confirm his kill. Above, a girl swung from a chain. Hood tilted his head up, regarded his prize. Her breath hitched as she stared back down at him. She was scared, and that pleased him. He could kill her right now, and they both knew it. Nothing she could do to stop him. But that felt wrong, for some reason.

Hood frowned, considered it. He grabbed his rifle from the floor. He could explode her.

But that still didn’t feel right. Why not? Too unsatisfying, perhaps?

She swayed in the air, dangling limply from the chains. Like a piñata, the Pit supplied, and laughed. Ha hA HA Ha hA HA ha Ha hA HA. Hood’s eyes lit up, and he smiled, tasting blood. That was an excellent idea.

But first, there were men running down the hallway, drawn by the explosion like moths to the flame. It was funny that they were only just coming now, but then again Hood had only been in the building for five minutes or so. It had just been…a very eventful five minutes.

He hefted the rifle in his hand, turned to face the coming onslaught of bugs to be squished. He could shoot them, but…

The rifle would work as a club. Much more viscerally satisfying.

Hood laughed, shifted his grip, and jumped off the rubble to join in battle against the coming onslaught, his path down to the deadly and destructive dance awaiting him eased over by an effortless, exultant euphoria.

All was good, and all was green.

Hood whistled, happy, and kicked at a puddle of blood, sending a splash of red liquid to arc in the air and splatter back down. He swung his rifle—now empty of charges, all of its explosive rounds discharged in furtherance of a string of gruesome killings—in a wide, uncaring circle as he roamed the halls, hunting for any survivors.

He poked open a door, and stopped. No floor, one person inside, bloody and hanging from the ceiling. She sparked some kind of feeling inside him. She was important to him.

Hood co*cked his head, trying to remember why she mattered. Piñata, said his memory, and he smiled. That must be it. It was a good idea. Time to party.

The party’s just got started!

Hood recoiled, his joy suddenly tainted with something that tasted like acid and bile. He blinked. Something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

hA HA ha hA ha HA Ha hA ha.

He didn’t like the laughter. He didn’t like it. He needed it to stop.

The only thing that could stop the laughter was metal on flesh, blood, screams, broken bones, and fire. He remembered that much. That was all he remembered, when the laughter ricocheted in his skull like this.

He needed it to stop.

He had metal in his hand, and a piece of flesh strung up and waiting. He felt sick.

No no no no no why.

The world spun in laughter and green venom.

He needed it to stop.

One way forward.

No floor, no easy way to get to her.

Hood fell to his knees, retching.

He needed it to stop. Metal on flesh. Fire and purifying green. Laughter.

He closed his lips against the bile threatening to overwhelm him. “Time to party,” he mumbled, trying to screw up the necessary willpower to rise from the floor.

Come now, Birdboy! You’re not going to sleep on me already, are you? The party’s just got started!

Jason gasped and threw up inside his helmet, crashing back to terrible reality all at once.

He grasped for the release catch, almost pressed it before remembering: DNA in vomit. He definitely didn’t want the Bats realizing who he was after this.

He breathed in the acrid stench, and retched again, unable to stop his body from turning itself inside out. He felt like a dog, with his nose forced into its own sick. Bad boy. No.

You’ve been a bad boy. You must be punished! Ha hA ha HA hA ha Ha ha HA!

He deserved this. He deserved much worse. What the hell was he thinking? What the hell was he doing? A f*cking piñata?! A goddamn prize? Those had been his own thoughts, not the Joker or Black Mask or the Pit whispering in his ear. He had come up with that.

He threw up again, and this time he kept puking until nothing came up but acid and bile, piling up inside his helmet. Nowhere else for it to go: forget watertight, the helmet was airtight, sealed to his neck armor to prevent toxins or other nasty surprises from leaking in. Thankfully there were filtered vents in both the top and the bottom of his helmet, so he wouldn’t asphyxiate from clogging them. He hadn’t had enough in his stomach to drown in it.

He deserved to drown in it.

He very well might.

Maybe he should.

He could make it happen. People died from aspiration.

No. Bad idea.

He breathed in, taking a perverse delight in the way that vomit-tainted air burned in his throat and caused his body to shudder and spasm. His muscles quivered, and every inch of him felt bruised and battered. He deserved worse, but he’d take what he had.

A comm line crackled to life in his ear. “B and I are en route, just about to cross the bridge. Fifteen minutes out from Black Mask’s compound, twenty from the warehouse. Any updates?” Nightwing’s voice, some part of Jason noted distantly. It had the feel of a continuation of a discussion that had happened in the Cave. Well. There were the Bats, he supposed.

“Hold your horses, boy wonder. I only just got in front of the computer. Goddamn inconsiderate criminals, getting in gunfights and setting off explosions during dinner.”

“Yeah, they’re lucky they’re not dealing with Agent A, after they interrupted his meal.”

Agent A. That was Alfie. sh*t.

Jason pushed himself up to his knees, gagging a bit as the puke shifted to coat his neck rather than swim in front of his face. f*ck, this was disgusting.

He was covered in blood. Just, drenched. Blood, and dust, and grime from the sewer, and bits of squishy things that he didn’t want to think too hard about.

He had no f*cking clue how he was ever gonna get clean again.

“Okay, looks like the warehouse blew completely, but the fire’s not spreading.” Oracle’s voice came back through the comms. “The building is one of Sionis’s, and there are some street cops poking through the rubble. From what I can tell from some not-great camera angles, it seems more like they’re destroying evidence than collecting it.”

A grunt from B. “On Black Mask’s payroll?”

“Likely.”

“Any ideas who did it?”

“I’m trying to get a visual, but camera coverage in that area is…sparse, to say the least.”

“Hn.”

“It’s super suspicious timing,” said Nightwing. “And I’m not honestly sure who benefits. Do we know what was in the warehouse? Anyone who’s gunning for Sionis?”

“Hood,” came Oracle’s prompt reply, “but Hood is...Hood.”

Hood himself snorted at that. Oh how right she was.

“Besides that, I’ve got nothing. Sionis is pretty much untouchable right now.”

“Hn.”

“Any new players in town?” Nightwing tried.

“None that I’ve heard of. At least, none capable of doing this. No one who would pick a fight with Black Mask.”

Yeah, well, Jason wasn’t exactly a new player, was he? In fact, he was an old player, a discarded player, older than any of them knew.

He staggered to his feet, using the doorway as support. His helmet sloshed around him. He was getting used to the smell.

“And Sionis’s complex? What’s the situation there?”

“Reports of gunfire and loud noises, potential detonations, maybe screams. Unclear. I only have eyes on the exterior—it’s a closed system, I can’t get in without a physical connection—but the outside is undamaged. No new reports in the last five minutes.”

“Hng.”

Jason stared at Stephanie through the doorway, and she studied him back. It was obvious she was scared, and hurt, and in pain, but she hid it admirably. She co*cked an eyebrow at him. “Lose your stomach for violence?”

Jason laughed, startled, and it turned into a bit of a choking cough. But it was still a laugh. “You,” he said, “are f*cking hilarious. I can see why the Big Man fired you; too much sunshine up his shadowy ass and he might actually crack a smile, and we couldn’t have that, now could we?”

A beat of silence where Stephanie was obviously trying to figure out how to respond to that. “So I guess it’s not gonna fly if I try and play the innocent damsel, ‘oh, thank you, Red Hood, for saving me from the big, bad Black Mask.’” She fluttered her lashes and put on a falsetto.

Jason snorted. “Nope, sorry. But…you’re welcome anyway. For the rescue. For whatever it’s worth.”

“Definitely not worth much, coming from you.”

“Yeah, didn’t think it would be.” Jason took a steadying breath in through his nose—he barely noticed the smell now—and tried to focus. To push aside memories of the Pit. He had a job to do; he could break down later.

“So, are you just gonna stare at me all night, or…?”

“Shut up, I’m trynna figure out how to get you down without killing you or snapping that leg.” He nodded to her right foot, which he could now see was encased in what looked like a bear trap, though he was pretty sure bear traps were bigger than that.

“Considerate,” she deadpanned.

“Nah, just makes for easier transport.”

“So what’s the plan?” Dickwing on the comms.

“We split up,” came B’s growl. “Nightwing, take the warehouse; see what you can find, any evidence you can preserve or document. I’ll do a surveillance pass of the compound, call it from there. We’ll rendezvous wherever’s needed.”

“B...”

“Hn?”

“I don’t like it. Splitting up.”

“We’re working with limited options here, N.”

“Promise me you won’t engage before I get there?”

“Hng.” Jason snorted. That was not B’s ‘I promise’ grunt. “ETA ten minutes to the compound.”

“B!”

“Okay,” said Jason, tuning out their bickering. He surveyed the landscape. Stephanie eyed him like a tiger caught in a trap. Or maybe a mongoose. A snake? Something bitey, anyway.

For a moment, he considered leaving. If he walked away now, Bruce would come to the compound, collect Stephanie, and hustle her away to the cave and medical treatment and Alfred’s hot cocoa.

That would be better than being kidnapped by a murderous stranger. Right?

But something deep in him rebelled at the thought. Bruce didn’t get to play hero, not when it was his fault they were in this situation in the first place. He hadn’t learned his lesson yet.

Fine.

Jason sent a grappling line to the nearest torture hook to Stephanie’s. But instead of retracting himself up, he wrapped the loose end—the gun end—first around his waist, then over and back around one armored thigh, then back and around the other in a complicated sort of pattern that—yep, he checked it—would hold his weight and allow him to hang in midair, sort of like if he was wearing a harness.

He pulled himself up hand over hand, metal cable twisting around his armor. And thank f*ck for the armor; he probably would have already cut his own legs off doing this if he wasn’t wearing the heavy duty stuff. He kept the gun end of the cable wrapped once around his ankle and held between his feet—easy for him to undo the harness without his hands, but he wasn’t gonna accidentally fall fifteen feet either.

Nightwing’s voice, through the comms again. “Any chance Ste—Spoiler could run a second set of comms and video surveillance? It’d be useful with two targets.”

“She’s not in the Cave.” Oracle’s voice was tight. “She needed some space, said not to wait up.”

“No, I know that, but—”

“I’m perfectly capable of running multiple sites, N,” Oracle snapped.

“Yes, you are. Obviously. You’re amazing, O. I just…It’s Black Mask, and after what happened last time, I’d just feel better if she was in the Cave. Or on comms. Or at least if we had eyes on her. Or tracker data?”

Huh. Out of Dickiebird, B, and O, he would have put Dick dead last on the “advocating for the use of invasive stalking technology to monitor people” front. But here he was, leading the pack. Honestly, Jason was kind of pleasantly surprised. Looked like someone was learning some kind of lesson from the repeated abduction-torture-murder plots of Robins.

A long sigh. “Yeah, I’m worried too. Okay, f*ck, I’ll call her in. Just…back me up, N? If it turns out to be nothing? Spoiler and I aren’t on great terms right now, and I’m trying not to be too…untrusting and controlling.”

“Aw, ain’t that sweet.” Hood dropped in front of Stephanie, dangling a few feet away.

“What.” She snarled at him.

“No, not you,” said Jason. He swung back to gain some momentum. And then again. “The Bats have just started to realize that they might be missing yet another little bird, and it’s sent them all in a tizzy. It’s enough to tug on your heartstrings.”

I flare of hope sparked in her eyes, and Hood grabbed on to her chained wrists. “This really is a lesson they should have learned before sending out kids to fight crime, but it’s a sweet sentiment.” He looked down at her and winked, even though she couldn’t see it through the helmet. “Don’t worry—they won’t get here anywhere near soon enough to rescue you.”

“Has anybody ever told you that you’re a f*cking asshole?”

Jason laughed as he worked the locks. “Yeah, actually. Replacement’s got a heckuva mouth on him once you really get him going.”

She stiffened. “Tim? He’s alive?”

Hood tsked at her. “That would be telling. I should leave a message, though, no? Since my last one obviously didn't get through. Or, hmm...kinda have my hands full right now, plus I'm not sure whether to call you Dead Robin number two or four. Two point five? Two point oh? Any thoughts, Stephanie?”

“I thinkyour mouth got replaced by your butthole, and that's why you're spewing so much sh*t. Also, I'm gonna kick your ass.”

Jason snickered in amusem*nt and adjusted his grip so that he had one of her wrists in each hand, then popped off the cuffs with an easy flick. Just like that, he was carrying her full weight. He felt her pulse race as the cuffs fell to the ground far below. “Okay. Step one, done. Now: wrap your legs around my waist.”

“f*ck you, sh*thead, no goddamn way.”

Jason sighed.

“No, you f*cking asshole meringue. I’m not doing sh*t you say.”

Asshole meringue. That was a new one, and brought to mind tastes and textures that he really didn’t want to contemplate in conjunction with each other.

“We have a problem,” Oracle’s voice came through the comms, urgent. “Spoiler was taken in her civilian identity by a group of thugs after she thwarted their attempt to grab some children off the street. Her phone was left at the site of the abduction, I’m tracking the car’s route now to see where she was taken.”

f*ck. Okay, he was about to have a whole load of Bat on his tail.

“Child trafficking is Black Mask,” said Batman, all business. “I’m continuing on to the complex where gunshots were heard. It seems likely the two incidents were related. ETA five minutes. Nightwing—”

“Rerouting to you now. Oracle, let us know when you’ve got confirm on location.”

Five minutes. f*ck. It’d be a f*cking close call, no matter what. Okay, time to speed things up.

Hood stared down at Stephanie Brown, merciless. “One of two things is going to happen right now: either you are going to wrap your legs around my waist and shift your weight so I can f*cking carry you safely to the ground, or you are going to do literally anything else—which includes fighting, which includes staying still—and I will drop you unsafely to the ground. Drop’s probably not far enough to kill ya, but there’s a buncha jagged edges, loose rubble down there, and you’ve already got two dislocated arms and a bum leg. Whaddaya wanna bet we can make it four for four? Then I can come down in all of about two seconds and scoop you up there, and we’re back where we started except you’ve got a heckuva lot more ouchies.”

She swallowed, and stared up at him.

“So? What’ll it be? You’ve got five seconds before we go with option two. Four, three—” He loosened his grip on one of her wrists, ever so slightly.

“Okay, okay! f*ck, Jesus, what the f*ck is wrong with you, you psychopathic f*ck?” But she did what he asked, favoring her injured leg, but eventually settling into a sturdy enough grip around him.

“Alright.” Jason leaned back, checked their balance. By this point, the slosh inside his helmet almost felt normal. Ugh, He was going to need to scrub off his skin after this. And maybe shave his head.

Problem for later. He adjusted his grip, made sure he had her. Her shoulders meant she couldn’t latch on with her arms, but he wasn’t about to reset them in midair with Batman closing in on them.

He aimed his spare grapple at another nearby hook, and lowered them down gently through the hole in the floor. He made his landing soft as possible, trying not to jar her injuries too much.

Jason unhooked and holstered his grappling gun, then paused before leaving the room. “You wanna spit on his corpse?” he asked.

She stared at him.

“Legitimate offer,” he said. “No right or wrong answer.”

She kept staring, searching for something. “Yeah,” she said, finally. “I really f*cking do.”

So they made a very slight detour before it was back through the maintenance tunnels and up to the car.

Chapter 15: The Red Hood, Part I (Dick & Bruce & Stephanie)

Chapter Text

“Sooo,” said Dick, toying with his fork as Alfred set down a salad bowl on the table. “No Steph tonight?” There were only two places laid out.

“Miss Brown left the manor earlier this afternoon to get some air. She indicated that she may be back quite late, and I am planning to set aside some leftovers for her in the fridge.”

“Oh.” Dick tried to push down the panic at having another kid—another Robin—out of the house and out of their view. “Okay.”

He took a bite of his salmon, swallowed past the knot of anxiety in his stomach. Bruce was shoveling food in his mouth with his typical single-minded determination to refuel, never mind the taste or experience of eating.

It was a painfully awkward meal, in a way that Dick hadn’t experienced since his early days of living at the manor. Oh, they’d had blowouts over meals—huge fights that ended in broken dishes and shouting; there’d been meals suffused through with heavy grief, after Steph had died; a few normal-awkward dinners at the beginning of Tim’s tenure as Robin; but this…discomfort, this tension with the weight of an unspoken tragedy hanging over them? The last time he could remember feeling like this was those first few weeks in the manor, right after his parents had died. He hadn’t stayed in the Manor long enough after Jason had died to know if it would have been the same then, but he had a feeling it would have been. It was a feeling he could do without for the rest of his life.

Dick lasted a full twenty seconds before he broke. “When she said she’d be back late…did she mean, like, she was going on patrol? Because that would be…not great. Right now.” He pitched his voice to carry to the kitchen—not a shout, but an easy actor’s projection they’d all picked up after living with Alfie and his insistence on dining separately except for special occasions.

“She did not say either way, Master Dick.” Alfie found some excuse to come into the room and fiddle with the table settings. “But she was attired in civilian clothes and I do believe that she and Miss Cassandra had agreed upon a plan to start her patrolling tomorrow night. I find it unlikely she would risk her friend’s anger when she knows that Cassandra will take her side on the patrol issue tomorrow as long as she remains safe tonight.”

Dick’s grimace could maybe pass as a smile if you didn’t know him at all. “Thanks, Alfie.”

Alfred met his eyes with a look of patient understanding and nodded.

“Cass is in favor of the plan to send Stephanie out as Robin?” Bruce’s voice was toneless, but obviously displeased.

“Indeed so, Master Bruce. My understanding is that she is in favor of the proposal as long as she is within a twenty foot radius of Miss Brown.”

“Hng.” And that was a Batman grunt, when he should be Bruce. Neither Dick nor Alfie called him out on it, because they were merciful gods.

“It is only seven o’clock and patrol will not start for another hour and a half, Master Bruce; there is no need for you to swallow your meal whole without chewing.”

B grumbled, and Dick laughed. It was strained, but it was a real laugh. Cass would be here tomorrow, and then they’d get Hood and get Tim back. He was totally traught about their chances. Totally.

“Plan for tonight?” Dick asked. “Things have been…ominously quiet, recently.”

B rumbled in agreement. “It’s possible it’s a normal lull. Most of the big players are in Arkham. Black Mask is firmly entrenched as the main mobster in town, and he keeps his options orderly, if not savory. The city is aware that we are on the hunt for Hood, and that it’s personal. My guess is most of the small fish are hunkering down, waiting for this to blow over. But you’re right. We’ll start at Arkham,confirm everyone’s still there; check on Sionis’s operations; then continue the search for Hood.”

The ‘search for Hood’ was now little more than wandering around the section of Crime Alley he had claimed as his own and abandoned, hoping for some scrap or remnant of a clue. Over the past few weeks, they’d found and systematically dismantled six safehouses, four warehouses, and a legitimate underground bunker built in the old bootlegging tunnels. But they’d found nothing new for days, now. Dick nodded in agreement at B’s plan anyway. It wasn’t like he had anything better.

“If you could refrain from discussing your extracurriculars at the dinner table, young masters?”

Dick sighed. “Sorry, Alfie.”

It wasn’t like they had anything else to talk about. Dick had quit his job, and Bruce wasn’t going into work. They were on ‘world-ending emergencies only’ for their respective superhero teams. Neither of them could focus on anything else until they brought Tim home.

If they could bring Tim home.

The simultaneous alerts on both of their phones was a huge relief. Then Dick felt guilty for thinking it was a relief; emergency alert most likely meant that people were hurt or dead.

He grabbed the rest of his salmon in one hand and read the text alert with the other as they rushed to the Cave.

“Master Richard!” Oops, he was one step away from being full-named. “Unless you have turned into a grizzly since the beginning of dinner, there is absolutely no reason for you to be pawing at a salmon steak with your bare hands.”

“You mean my bear hands?” Dick sent Alfie a hopeful glance.

“Richard John Grayson.”

Dick panicked. He stuffed the entire rest of the salmon in his mouth, which was definitely not any better in Alfred’s books. “Sorry, Alfie,” he choked out through a mouth full of fish, well aware that he’d reached the saturation point of bad manners with the butler. At this point, his best option was to run. So that’s what he did, calling over his shoulder, “Cave emergency!”

Alfred’s voice followed him down the hallway, though the man himself moved more slowly. “I hardly thought otherwise, with your truly appalling behavior and the both of you running off to the Cave!”

The first alert—big explosion at a warehouse by the river—was quickly followed a second. Someone shooting in Sionis’s main compound. Both were directly from Barbara: she’d been having dinner with her father when he got called away on official police business to deal with it.

Nightwing and Batman suited up quickly and jumped on their bikes, Oracle in their ear giving them the rundown on the situation. Her set-up at home wasn’t as good as at the Batcave, but it was nothing to sneeze at either.

Nightwing headed to the warehouse while B took the compound. Dick was feeling…uneasy about this whole thing. It felt like a trap, but he couldn’t articulate why.

It was just…he tried to put it in words inside his own head: The last person—the only person—to go after Black Mask in any serious way after he’d consolidated power following the gang war was Red Hood. Red Hood had captured and tortured Tim. Robin. Dead Robin #3. The bloody words haunted him every time he closed his eyes. Black Mask had captured and tortured Stephanie. Dead Robin #2. Except that wasn’t right, because Stephanie hadn’t died. Not for real. They had gotten Stephanie back. They had gotten her back, but Black Mask was still out there and Red Hood was still out there, and Stephanie was also out there right now, and they didn’t have eyes or ears on her, oh God, this was going to be #4, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t…it wasn’t really logical. But it was all Dick could think about, horrible possibilities playing in his mind on a loop. He needed to know she was okay.

So he asked Oracle to check on her. She did, after a bit of ill-tempered sniping. Dick did his best not to snap back at her, but God, did he want to. Robin was missing; Barbara’s ego could take a back seat for once. Which he knew wasn’t fair because he could be just as overbearing and none of them had slept for more than a few hours in weeks, but it didn’t stop his grip from strangling the handlebars as he sped to the warehouse.

Then Babs sighed and said she would do it, and her voice was so exhausted, even through the comms, that Dick felt bad ever having had a bad thought about her in his life.

“Just…back me up, N?” she asked, tentative in a way that felt wrong even being on the same wavelength as Oracle. “If it turns out to be nothing? Spoiler and I aren’t on great terms right now, and I’m trying not to be too…untrusting and controlling.”

Dick swallowed. Because that was the Bats all over, wasn’t it? A bunch of untrusting and controlling assholes all hurting each other because they cared too much and didn’t know how to deal with that except by suffocating each other in the increasingly paranoid and pathetic strangleholds that they mistook for actual expressions affection.

And here he was doing it too, asking Babs to spy on Steph when the girl had explicitly stated that she needed space. God knew that was one of Bruce’s neuroses that bothered him the most. Should he back off? Cancel his request of Oracle?

But in the end, he was a hypocrite because he just tightened his jaw and faked a smile and said, “Yeah, of course. If it comes up, feel free to throw me under the Bat-bus.”

Still, he couldn’t banish the feeling of guilt and dread pooling just under his lungs.

He pulled up into the shadow of the demolished warehouse and lay his head on the handlebars of his bike, for only a few seconds. He was so tired.

He’d just dismounted when Oracle’s voice came through the comms once again.

“We have a problem.” That was real fear in Barbara’s voice.

Dick immediately remounted, heart pounding.

“Spoiler was taken in her civilian identity by a group of thugs after she thwarted their attempt to grab some children off the street. Her phone was left at the site of the abduction, I’m tracking the car’s route now to see where she was taken.”

Child trafficking. That was Black Mask. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t think through the panic, the confirmation of all his fears. Everything in Dick was screaming, screaming that he should never have let Stephanie out of his sight, never have let Tim out of his sight, never have let Jason out of his sight. Too late. Too late. Too late.

One, two, three, dead.

Could Steph have been in that warehouse? It was Black Mask’s, and it hadn’t been fully cleared yet. He couldn’t let the thought distract him.

He was driving on pure autopilot, vaguely aware of Batman and Oracle planning in his ear, confirming that Steph had indeed been brought inside the compound. He let them know he was on his way, and let pure rage and fear carry him to Sionis’s headquarters.

“Nightwing.” B’s voice crackled through the comms. “Approach with caution. We’ve got a lot of bodies.”

Dick swallowed. If any of those bodies were Steph’s, B would have said. Probably. “Sionis’s men?”

“As far as I can tell on a preliminary examination.”

Dick’s lips tightened. B had an almost-comprehensive database of every single henchman and goon they’d ever encountered living in his head. How the hell damaged were the bodies if B couldn’t tell?

“Any sign of who did it?”

“Not yet. Mix of bludgeoning and bullet wounds. Occasional knife wounds—either gut slices or slit throats. I haven’t found anyone alive in the entire compound. No sign of the opposing force.”

“I’m not seeing anyone sticking out on any of the external cameras," said Oracle. "Can you patch me in to the internal system?”

“Hn—” B cut off mid-grunt. Dick’s stomach curled; that was never good.

B took a deep breath. His voice was studiously calm. “Sionis is dead.”

Dick heard Barbara’s hitch of breath over the comms. “Good riddance.”

Dick hummed in agreement, ignoring B’s judgmental silence. “Trouble, though.” This would send the city into another spiral, and Steph was still missing. Tim was still missing. He pulled up just outside the complex. “I’m here. Where are you?”

“Ground floor, southwest corner room. I’ll open a window.”

Dick made his way over to the indicated window, and climbed in. He froze halfway through.

“Holy bloodbath, Batman,” he whispered. The room was drenched in blood and gore. The ceiling was gone, piles of rubble and bodies smoldering on the floor. At a guess, he’d say at least twelve bodies, but he wasn’t sure. Some of them had been either blown or torn apart, and there were disparate chunks of corpses strewn across the floor.

Dick climbed the rest of the way in. “Who even has the firepower to do this?”

B shook his head; he didn’t know either.

“Patch me into their system,” said Barbara again. “Let me see if I can run the cameras back.”

“On it.” Dick crossed the room, picking through bodies, and rounded the doorway into a hall until he found an access panel he could patch Oracle into. The corpses thinned out a bit as he left that first room, but there were still splatters of blood and bits of viscera everywhere.

He waited for Babs’ confirm that she’d gotten access. “Okay, thanks. Give me a few minutes to get into the system and filter through everything.”

Dick grunted. A very B action. It didn’t even annoy him, like it usually did when he caught himself doing things that B would do. He wasn’t feeling much of anything, actually, now that he took a second to notice it.

It was too much. Too much.

Over two weeks of constant stress and fear and nightmares and helplessness over Tim, and now Stephanie, and now—this, all the bodies, and he knew the city would erupt in chaos before the night was out.

He was so tired. The last time he’d been this tired, —no. Don’t think about that.

He closed his eyes behind the domino—just for a second—and Blockbuster’s corpse blinked into view behind his lids.

He wrenched them open and forced himself back to B. Focus on the moment.

He was running on almost nothing, utterly exhausted and emotionally wrung out. He blinked, and he was on a rooftop in the rain, and—no.

Focus.

Stay in the present. The choking scent of death, blood and ammonia and excrement from those who’d voided their bowels either pre- or post-mortem. As far as things to ground him in his present reality went, it was hard to top that omnipresent stench.

He made it back to the epicenter of the massacre. B was examining a shard of something embedded in the wall.

Nightwing stepped up beside him and made a questioning noise.

“Skull shard,” said Batman.

And so it was. Black and brittle and charred around the edges, undoubtedly a piece of Roman Sionis’s head.

“Meta, do you think?” asked Dick, rubbing his temples.

“Hn. Likely. The fall pattern of the bodies suggest that there was only one assailant. Even for an incredibly well-armed and well-trained individual, such destruction would be out of reach of most non-enhanced humans. However, remnants of C-4 and discarded shells suggest that they used conventional weaponry.”

“And they didn’t stick around.” Dick’s voice was grim. That probably meant they had more planned, and soon. Nobody would massacre an entire mob just to vanish into thin air. This was a power play, but it was still unclear who benefitted.

“Any sign of Steph?” he asked. They had her on camera going in, but not back out. Whoever had done this had taken her, and Dick’s brain was spiraling straight to the worst-case answer—

“Red Hood.” Oracle’s voice came through the comms, tight with horror. “It was Red Hood. He has Steph.”

Batman felt an icy chill of panic pour down his neck as Oracle’s words filtered through.

No.

If Hood was here, after weeks of staying completely off the grid, if he felt secure enough in his power to leave wherever he’d been holed up with Tim, if he’d decided to risk a full-frontal assault on Sionis—then he was certain Tim would not manage to escape while he was gone. And Hood had never once underestimated Robin’s tenacity. If Hood was here, Tim was either dead or so thoroughly incapacitated that escape would not be an option.

Not to mention how Hood even knew to find Stephanie—the Bats wouldn’t have known that the girl was missing for another few hours if it hadn’t been for Hood’s attention-grabbing antics. For there was no doubt in Batman’s mind that the explosion at the warehouse had also been Hood—a distraction, or a diversion—and that he had come specifically to collect Stephanie. To collect the girl who had been Robin. Even if he still couldn’t place the why.

These thoughts all flashed through his head in an instant, and he pushed it all down with ruthless intent. Nothing mattered now except catching Hood.

“Method of egress?” he asked Oracle.

“Sub-basem*nt entrance that leads into the sewers. No cameras down there; I’m looking for potential exits or getaway vehicles now.”

“Nightwing, stay above ground and be ready to move. I’ll take the sewers. And O?”

“Yeah?”

“Call in Superman.”

Nightwing and Oracle inhaled in identical sharp gasps. Batman ignored their shock; yes, he was famously reluctant to allow metas into Gotham, but he was not losing another child.

He made his way to the sewer entrance on Oracle’s guidance. It was easy to see where a blood-soaked hand had opened the door. In the tunnel, he flicked on his night-vision. Nothing immediately stood out, but…maybe that could be a trace of blood, not yet entirely dry, about waist-height on the wall.

“Oracle, how much of a head start does Hood have?”

“Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds from when he went through that door until you did.”

Batman clenched his jaw. If he’d gone directly to the tunnel when entering the compound, he likely would have only been four or five minutes behind Hood. As it was, the trail was drying, fast. He followed the blood, noting the direction for Oracle.

“Got him!” Oracle’s voice came through the comms. “He came out of the sewers on 8^th and Fairbanks twelve minutes ago. He and Spoiler went into a black Chevy Impala. New Jersey Plates. License T33-JTQ. He headed south on 8^th. Tracing his path now.”

“N—”

“On it,” his eldest growled, the roar of an engine in the background.

Batman emerged from the sewers using the closest entrance, displeased. Doubling back to get his bike would take too much time, but swinging would leave him without a vehicle if it came to a car chase.

“Need a lift?” Kal-El hovered softly aside him.

Batman nodded his assent and they took to the skies. “We’re looking for a Black Chevy Impala, last seen headed south on 8^th Street.” He directed Superman’s flight path, having a much more detailed knowledge of the city than Kal.

“He took a left onto Douglass, then south again on Fir. Nightwing, cut across—”

“Levy Street, yeah.”

“He’s headed into the Bowery,” Batman observed.

“Mm. Fewer cameras in that area. Harder to track. I’ve got him on Fir and Avenue K nine minutes ago, then—nothing. He must have parked somewhere, either switched cars or gone to ground, because there’s no route he could have taken where I wouldn’t have seen him pop up again.”

“He can’t have gotten far in that time, especially if he got out of the car and has Steph,” said Nightwing. “We can cut off any escape routes.”

Batman grunted and pointed to the intersection Oracle had named. “Kal? Can you spot the car?”

Superman was silent for a long minute, then—“Yeah. Yeah, it’s in that garage—”

He pointed, and Batman responded immediately with a more precise address to relay back to Oracle.

“I don’t see any people in it, though,” Superman added. “No people in the entire building.”

Batman saw Nightwing’s bike, rapidly closing in on the offending garage. He pulled in through the open door, not even slowing down as he did so.

“Take me down,” Batman growled. There had to be some clue, something that would tell him where the villain had taken his children.

They started descending, and then—

Batman was hurled upwards, faster even than he could track. His stomach protested the sudden change in momentum, and he had just enough time to register that Kal-El was no longer holding him, that he was several hundred feet in the air with no means of support, when the sounds of an explosion rocked the earth below.

Batman screamed, a wordless expression of fear.

The garage was on fire.

Dick.

The sound of screams and gunshots faded to an eerie silence, and Steph could do nothing but hang there and wait for her doom.

That was Red Hood. The f*cker who’s tortured Tim. The f*cker they were supposed to catch.

And now he was coming for her, and she had no backup, no armor, nothing. The best she could hope for was that the ominous silence meant he’d been killed or injured down below, and she’d get to hang here over an abyss full of corpses until the Bats showed up.

Because the bodies were literally piled on the floor beneath her. Hood hadn’t been quick or merciful about it either, no. He’d used his gun as a goddamn club to bludgeon their brains out, left people with their insides dangling on their outsides, ripped off one guy’s entire arm with his bare hands. He’d been laughing the whole time, pure joy melted into something cruel and deranged.

Steph swallowed, trying not to be sick. This massacre, this carnage, this indiscriminate bloodbath was so different from the coldly calculated cruelty Hood had shown in the videos they had.

She hadn’t understood why Hood had decided to take up an old alias of the Joker’s. They’d seemed so different. But watching that? Steph didn’t think she’d ever been more scared in her life.

Jason had been bludgeoned to death and blown up. Hood was showing a remarkable propensity for the same methods of destruction. Maybe Babs was right. Maybe he was a wannabe-Joker, one more successful than even the original had been. After all, unless a sudden miracle intervened, Hood would have killed two Robins and not even been caught once.

A squelching sound and off-key whistling caught her ear, coming closer. Too bad for her hopes that he’d died in the fight. And was that Singin’ in the Rain? Ugh, talk about tacky.

The whistling got closer. Steph twisted futilely against her bonds.

Closer.

Steph was panicking. Her breathing came fast and shallow, her fingers desperately grasped at her chains, tried to haul herself up, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to go.

The door creaked open, and the whistling stopped. Hood was here.

Steph froze. She stared at the blood-soaked silhouette in the doorway.

Hood stared back.

Steph didn’t dare breathe.

He co*cked his head, glowing white eyes tilting in the dim light.

Steph bit back a whimper. She wouldn’t break before this psychopath. She wouldn’t.

Hood—Hood shuddered, and his body recoiled from the open doorway. What?

It didn’t make any sense, but Hood was retching, retching, and he fell to his knees, his entire frame convulsing. She could hear the sounds of vomit and gasping breath projected through mechanized speakers. Hood scrabbled desperately at his helmet, almost folded over double, before suddenly dropping his hand to the ground.

What the hell?

Eventually, however, Hood stood up on shaky legs, braced against the doorframe. She was pretty sure he had vomit inside his helmet. Ewwww. That was…so gross. Just, the grossest. She wasn’t sure if she could think of anything grosser. Maybe if—oh, wait, no, she definitely could think of grosser things, and she wanted those thoughts to stop now, please.

“Lose your stomach for violence?” she asked instead of allowing her brain to run away from her, forcing every ounce of bravado in her body into the taunt.

Hood stilled, then burst out laughing. His voice was rough even through the filters. “You,” he pointed at her with one blood-soaked gauntlet, “are f*cking hilarious.I can see why the Big Man fired you; too much sunshine up his shadowy ass and he might actually crack a smile, and we couldn’t have that, now could we?”

Well, there went any hope that he hadn’t recognized her as Robin. It was a sentiment she’d normally agree with, but not when it was coming from a blood-soaked murdering psychopath who had tortured and maybe-killed Tim and was probably going to do the same to her. She set her jaw and went for flippant. “So I guess it’s not gonna fly if I try and play the innocent damsel, ‘oh, thank you, Red Hood, for saving me from the big, bad Black Mask.’” She bat her eyelids for good measure, playing it up. Anything to show him she wasn’t scared.

“Nope, sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “But…” He hesitated, and when he continued, his voice was strangely uncertain. “You’re welcome anyway. For the rescue. For whatever it’s worth.”

Steph stared at him. Did he want her to thank him, for what would undoubtedly be a very painful and potentially deadly experience? “Definitely not worth much, coming from you.” She injected as much venom as she could into her voice.

Hood just shrugged and laughed softly, unbothered by her glare or her icy tone. “Yeah, didn’t think it would be.”

Then he just…stood there. Staring at her. For an awkwardly long time. Steph really shouldn’t be complaining, considering what would probably happen when he started moving again, but…it was really freaking her out.

“So, are you just gonna stare at me all night, or…?”

“Shut up,” he snapped. “I’m trynna figure out how to get you down without killing you or snapping that leg.”

Oh. Yeah, she could see how that might present a problem. His fault for blowing up the floor, though. And anything that gave her even a few more minutes before he tortured her, a few more minutes when the Bats could come… “Considerate,” she drawled.

“Nah,” Hood rejoined almost immediately, “just makes for easier transport.” He resumed his staring.

She was struck, once again, by how he’d turned like a switch, from a one-man murder machine to a casually bantering villain, almost friendly in disposition. It was terrifying. At least when the Joker was taunting you, you could hear the menace underneath. Hood either had some kind of split personality, or he was a ridiculously good actor. Steph wasn’t particularly a fan of either option being true.

“Okay,” said Hood, and he sent a grapple to wrap around another hook hanging from the ceiling near her own. Stephanie clenched her jaw at seeing the villain use tech so exclusively associated with the Bats.

He didn’t immediately swing up though, instead doing something complicated with the line so that he ended up with a kind of harness, before climbing up hand over hand.

Stephanie watched him warily, unsure of what else she could do.

Finally, Hood dropped down in front of her. “Aw, ain’t that sweet.” She could hear the mocking condescension in his voice. So similar to Sionis, the last time he’d…I mean, you’re pretty as a peach, but not exactly one of Batman’s smarter minions, are you?

Stephanie growled to drown out the memory of what he’d said next, and glared up at Hood. “What.” It was a challenge and defiance and a pure expression of rage all at once. How dare he look down on her like that?

He co*cked his head. “No, not you,” he said, sounding honestly disgusted with the idea. It was enough to make her blink in confusion. “The Bats have just started to realize that they might be missing yet another little bird,” he continued, “and it’s sent them all in a tizzy. It’s enough to tug on your heartstrings. This really is a lesson they should have learned before sending out kids to fight crime, but it’s a sweet sentiment.”

Steph gasped in a surge of hope. If they knew she was missing…there was a chance.

Hood’s gauntlets, tacky with dead men’s blood, closed around her wrists. “Don’t worry,” he said, all playful menace once again, as he’d been on the VCR. “They won’t get here anywhere near soon enough to rescue you.”

Steph hissed, but decided it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to kick the mass-murderer who currently had her entirely at his mercy. Instead, she bit back with words. “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a f*cking asshole?”

Hood laughed. “Yeah, actually. Replacement’s got a heckuva mouth on him once you really get him going.”

She couldn’t help the way her body perked up at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. “Tim? He’s alive?” Please, please, please let him be alive.

Hood tsked at her, and Stephanie met it with a silent snarl. “That would be telling,” he said, and there was a sudden pressure around her wrists before her cuffs clattered down to the floor below. Only Hood’s bruising grip around her wrists stood between her and the fifteen-foot drop. She felt herself pale as she looked up into his emotionless helmet. “Ishouldleave a message, though, no? Since my last one obviously didn't get through. Or, hmm...kinda have my hands full right now, plus I'm not sure whether to call you Dead Robin number two or four. Two point five? Two point oh? Any thoughts, Stephanie?”

He knew her name. Logically, she'd known he had to know it, with all the information he had. But he knew her name. He knew who her mother was. When in doubt, run your mouth. “I thinkyour mouth got replaced by your butthole, and that's why you're spewing so much sh*t. Also, I'm gonna kick your ass.”

He laughed and adjusted his grip. “Okay, step one, done,” he said, back to cheerful and friendly with no hint of the hidden malice that had to be there. It was scary, how quick he cycled between moods. “Now wrap your legs around my waist.”

“f*ck you,” she said. “No.” No f*cking way was she going to cooperate with him. Plus, he was covered in multiple people’s blood, and she definitely had a few open cuts, and she wasn’t going to get some bloodborne disease from some low-life Gotham creep because Hood told her to touch him. If she hadn’t already gotten something from his bloody grip on her rubbed-raw wrists.

Hood made some kind of noise to indicate his displeasure, but Steph wasn’t having it. “No, you f*cking asshole meringue,” she snapped. “I’m not doing sh*t you say.” He would have to force her. She wasn’t going to make his job any easier for him.

Hood was silent for a second, and then his helmet dipped down to hover an inch from her face. “One of two things is going to happen right now,” he whispered, dead calm. “Either you are going to wrap your legs around my waist and shift your weight so I can f*cking carry you safely to the ground, or—” He paused, letting the implication of a threat hang in the air with her. “You are going to do literally anything else—which includes fighting, which includes staying still—and I will drop you unsafely to the ground.”

Steph considered it. She probably wouldn’t die, not from a fall just over one story high, and if she landed right, she might even be able to try and make a run for it. Or, a limp for it.

“Drop’s probably not far enough to kill ya,” said Hood, echoing her thoughts, “but there’s a bunch of jagged edges, loose rubble down there, and you’ve already got two dislocated arms and a bum leg. Whaddaya wanna bet we can make it four for four?”

Steph swallowed at the thought.

Hood wasn’t done, though. “Then I can come down in all of about two seconds and scoop you up there, and we’re back where we started except you’ve got a heckuva lot more ouchies. So. What’ll it be?”

f*ck. If she could just stall for time—the Bats were on the way, they knew she was missing. Probably. There was no reason Hood would have lied about that…

“You’ve got five seconds before we go with option two.”

She could call his bluff.

“Four.”

She breathed out and tried to relax her body for the fall.

“Three.” His grip loosened, and Steph lurched down, just a bit, and suddenly all she could think of was how much it would hurt, landing on her injured leg and battered body.

“Okay, okay!” Steph gave in. “f*ck, Jesus, what the f*ck is wrong with you, you psychopathic f*ck?” Her heart was beating a frantic rhythm in her ears.

Hood didn’t even react to the insult. Just said, “Alright,” and shifted his weight back so she could grab on. Steph hesitantly laid herself on top of him, trying to ignore the sensation of sticky, partially-congealed blood soaking into her clothes. Her arms screamed in agony as she flopped forward and Hood rotated them down, but there was nothing she could do about it right then with her shoulders both still dislocated. Her head fell naturally into the point where his shoulder met his neck, and she was surprised that she couldn’t smell any puke. She was sure he had—it didn’t matter. The stench of blood and body matter plastered to his armor was more than enough to make her breathe through her mouth, trying desperately not to breathe any of it in.

Hood wrapped one arm beneath her butt, and despite herself, Stephanie gripped him as tightly with her legs as she could, mindful of the trap still clenched around her ankle. Hood was right about one thing: falling really would not be good for her right now.

There was the hiss of a grapple, and they descended to the floor below. Hood landed more gently than she thought was possible, though she still had to bite back a hiss at the way it jarred her wounds.

Hood shifted his grip around her into a hold she’d have trouble breaking on her best day, and picked his way carefully through mounds of rubble and bodies.

Steph was quiet, trying to come up with a plan and conserve her energy.

At the doorway, he paused. He turned his helmet to her. “You wanna spit on his corpse?” he asked.

What? There was only one person Hood could be referring to, but…what the f*ck?

“Legitimate offer,” he said. “No right or wrong answer.”

She didn’t get it at all, but she wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity. Batman may have gone all disapproving about the sanctity of life and respect for the dead, but this was the f*cking creep who had tortured her until her heart gave out, who had taken pleasure in—in— “Yeah,” she said, resolute. “I really f*cking do.”

Hood just nodded, and took her back across some rubble to where Sionis’s headless body lay. And she f*cking spat on his corpse. “f*ck you, I hope you don’t even get the dignity of rotting in hell,” she told the body. “Enjoy being worm food.”

Hood snorted, and turned away. Once out of the room, he moved faster, jogging through the compound and down the stairs.

Steph keened in pain and tried not to scream as the increased pace jostled her injured leg and arms.

“Sorry,” said Hood. “Almost there.”

She didn’t comment on the fake sympathy, too focused on not either throwing up or passing out from the pain.

They ended up in the sewers somehow, and then Hood was climbing up a ladder, and her vision did go white, then black at that.

When she came to it again, Hood was lying her down in the backseat of a car. Before she could think to escape, Hood was in the driver’s seat and pointing a gun at her. “You move, I shoot,” he said. “First shot’ll be painful, second will be paralyzing. I won’t need a third one. Understood?”

Steph felt the blood drain from her face. The world spun around her, and she couldn’t entirely suppress a squeak of fear. “Y-Yeah,” she forced out. “Got it.” New fear: not being able to move ever again.

Her entire awareness of the world narrowed down to her painfully shaking body, and the steady barrel of that gun.

They were driving, and she should be tracking the turns, figuring out where they were, but all she could think about was Babs, and the Joker showing up at her door, and the Red Hood’s gun pointing somewhere significantly higher than where Barbara had been shot.

The car stopped and Hood got out in one easy motion, gun still pointed at her through the door. There were some words exchanged, but she couldn’t see what was happening, and suddenly Hood was leaning over her and stuffing a rag in her mouth. She tried to spit out the gag, but Hood was already tying it into place with another rag and lifting her out of the car once again.

He was less gentle this time, and Steph screamed into the gag as her world whited out into fiery agony.

“Yeah, yeah, it hurts, I know,” Hood was muttering when the world started resolving around her again. They were in…a garage, it looked like, or more likely a chop shop, half-built cars stacked to the ceiling and parts scattered around. No people besides her and Hood. “Weight on your good leg, come on, Stephanie.”

And there wasn’t much else she could do but obey, the way Hood was holding her against the back of his car. It was either stand on her good leg with the car to help her balance, or drop down on her bad leg.

Hood placed one hand on her chest, pinning her to the car, and she barely had time for her pulse to pick up before Hood was pulling up and forward on her wrist until her shoulder popped back into the socket. Her shout of pain was muffled by the gag, and then Hood was doing the other one, and suddenly she had two functional, if incredibly pained, arms.

“Motherf*cker,” she gasped, or tried to. It came out a garbled mess that barely reached her own ears.

“Yeah, yeah.” Hood knelt down, ignoring any threat she now posed. His hands probed the trap around her leg, and she whimpered as he brushed up against it, all thoughts of taking advantage of her newly mobile arms washed away.

Hood was up again before she could do more than breathe. “Hands on my shoulders, weight on your good leg, stand straight up.”

Steph complied, still dazed, and Hood stomped down, hard. She thought for a second he must have shattered her foot, but then a clang of metal on concrete sounded. She looked down, and the not-a-bear-trap clattered loose on the floor.

Oh. She was kinda dizzy, though whether that was pain or blood loss or shock, she didn’t know.

Hood already had her back in an inescapable hold, and walked her the two steps to the trunk. It hurt like hell to put weight on her bad leg, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t broken and that it would hold her weight as an absolute last resort.

Hood was circling shackles around her wrists, tying them behind her, forcing her already aching shoulders back at an uncomfortable angle. He spun her around and pushed her lightly backwards, and she half-sat, half-fell into the trunk, landing on something with a lot of rough edges that dug into her butt.

He pinned her good leg to the car with one shoulder, and rapidly ran a length of gauze around her injured leg from heel to calf, not even bothering to cut away her jeans. Every move was rapid, efficient. Stephanie tried not to let the surge of hope show on her face. There was one main reason she could think of for Hood’s intent focus and speed: the Bats were on their way, and Hood knew it.

Now she just had to delay long enough for them to get here.

She tried to draw her leg away, mess up the wrapping, but Hood merely growled and squeezed her ankle hard, pressed his shoulder into her other calf hard enough to bruise. It was a warning, and short of headbutting his metal helmet, there weren’t really any other moves she could make.

Hood tied off the bandages in a practiced motion. They felt tight, but not circulation-stopping. At least she wasn’t going to bleed out any time soon. Then she got another pair of shackles around her ankles, and Hood hoisted her over his shoulder.

She tried to squirm out of his grip, but then something hard and metal and gun-shaped dug into her hip. “First shot, painful. Second shot…”

Stephanie stilled. She couldn’t see where Hood was going, but she heard a car door open, felt him bend down and reach for something. “C’mon,” he muttered. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…yes!”

And suddenly she was pitching backwards into a hard surface. She blinked up at the roof of a car, and then flinched as a—lid?—came crashing down on top of her.

It clanged shut with a solemn finality before it could hit her, and she was left alone in pitch blackness.

For a few seconds, she could hear nothing but the frantic sound of her heartbeat and her own muffled gasps. There was no light. None whatsoever. She squirmed, tried to get a sense of her surroundings, and realized that she was in a box barely big enough to hold her. She had maybe a few inches on either side, and less than that lengthwise. Her bent knees almost brushed the top of the box, and she couldn’t straighten out her legs any further. She tried to push up against the lid with her legs, but either Hood had locked it or put something heavy on top, because it didn’t even budge. A few brick-sized lumps of…something, covered in plastic, dug into her back.

Think, Stephanie…Hood had dropped her in the backseat of a car. She was pretty sure he’d dropped her inside the backseat of a car. A hidden compartment for…drug smuggling? That would explain the plastic-wrapped bricks digging into her bruises.

sh*t. She’d come across these kinds of modified cars a few times during her run as Spoiler and Robin. The drug compartment was usually lead-lined, to prevent any law-enforcement x-rays from seeing anything off. Even if the Bats were right on her tail, even if they brought in Superman…they wouldn’t be able to see her.

Her only chance was to cause a ruckus. But when? If Hood heard her before the Bats were close enough, he was likely to do something drastic.

Steph swallowed and tried to listen for something, anything, outside her compartment. There was…running water? A tap, or a hose. But almost as soon as she registered it, that sound petered out. Nothing for a few seconds, and then car doors, or maybe a trunk, slamming. Too far away to be this car. Silence, then…more water? Splashing sounds, at least. Less steady than the previous water.

Then a car door popping open almost right on top of her, a thump, and a body sliding into a seat. The rumble of the engine coming to life. Stephanie was sure that wherever they were, it was in a camera blindspot. If Hood successfully managed to switch cars on them…they’d be long gone before the Bats ever managed to track them down.

It was now or never. Stephanie arched her back and kicked with all her might, taking the impact on her good leg. She screamed through the gag and slammed her body against the walls of her cage again and again.

No threats came from the driver’s seat. The car maintained a steady pace, stopping occasionally, and nobody came. Eventually Stephanie dropped, exhausted.

She’d been kidnapped by yet another mass-murdering, Robin-killing sad*st, and she didn’t think she’d be lucky enough to get out of this one with just a few flatlines.

Chapter 16: The Red Hood, Part II (Barbara & Jason)

Chapter Text

Oracle was managing three comm lines—the main one; a private line with Dick; and Superman’s Justice League communicator, which she still needed to patch into the general channel—and navigating for Nightwing, tracking his route through the city, following Batman and Superman’s progress, cycling desperately through camera feeds trying to find some glimpse of Hood, all while scanning through hours-old footage in an attempt to trace his route into the city, hoping against hope it might give her some clue as to where he was going now, and monitoring police channels and social media for any Hood sightings when two things happened almost simultaneously: one, the Batsignal—which had not been lit since the gang war, when the city flipped against them—turned on; and two, the garage Superman had identified blew up. With Dick inside it.

Barbara’s heart stopped. B was screaming over the comm line, and Oracle froze. She blinked, and the system must be glitching, because Dick’s tracker was almost a block away, when she knew he’d been in that building when it blew. She blinked again, and B’s tracker was there too. And so was—

Superman. Barbara let out a shaky breath. Superman had saved Dick. Please, dear God, let Superman have saved Dick. Let it not be a body he’d pulled out of the building.

“Dick.” Bruce’s voice over the comms, desperate and rough with emotion.

There was horrible silence.

Barbara made sure she was muted and paged the Manor. “A, you’re needed downstairs.” Either Dick would need medical care—and they didn’t even have Leslie anymore—or Bruce would need his father.

She very carefully avoided thinking about what she would need, if Dick was dead.

Barbara listened to the hissing silence of the comm line with bated breath.

“Dick, please.”

A weak cough, or maybe just a crackle across the comm connection.

“B? What—?”

Barbara swallowed as the disquieting sound of Batman breaking into sobs came through the line. She felt she should disconnect, not listen in, but they were still in the middle of an emergency. Oracle needed to monitor the situation.

She tried to focus on her feeds, figure out what was going on, where Hood was, but the voices over the comm line still burned their way into her ears.

“B? B—I’m fine.” A round of coughing. “I’m fine.”

“Miss Gordon, an assessment of the situation?” Barbara refused to admit that Alfred’s voice in her ear startled her. It was a private line, bringing her total of open lines up to four. He must have arrived in the Cave.

It was maddening, not being there. Her setup at home was good, but it didn’t feel right, not being there. But she didn’t have the time to cross town to get all the way to the Manor.

“Dick’s injured,” Babs answered. “He was caught in an explosion. I think Superman got him out. Unclear what the extent of his injuries are.”

“I shall prep the medbay, then.”

“B? What’s wrong? Did we get—” Dick gasped in and coughed some more. “Hood? We need to—” A whistling wheeze. “B, seriously, get off.” A gasp in and out. “Hood’s still—need to get him. Tim and Steph.” Pained breathing, too loud, too labored. “Let me—let me up.”

Harsh, ragged breathing.

“B, I’m fine. Uncle Clark saved me. I’m fine. We need to move. O, any updates on Hood’s whereabouts?”

“No.” Bruce cut in before Babs could say anything.

“No?” Dick’s voice was too high, too thin. “What do you mean, no? B, Hood has Steph. Hood has Tim. We need to”—wheeze—“move.”

“You are going back to the cave and getting medical treatment.”

“What? No. B, I’m fine. If you think you can bench me whe—” He broke off in a fit of pained coughing.

Barbara’s screens were lighting up with alerts. It seemed that the city had finally realized Black Mask was dead, and taken that as permission to run riot. There were too many emergencies to count. f*ck. f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck.

“Dick,” said Bruce. “You are going back to the cave and getting medical treatment.” The sound of someone swallowing over the comms. “Please.”

Oracle started sifting through her alerts, trying to prioritize, still frantically searching for Hood. Maybe one of the calls in would be a clue—

Quiet, barely loud enough to make it through the background static. “I can’t lose another son. Please, Dick.”

“I’m not gonna die, B.”

“Jason wasn’t going to die either.” The response was immediate.

Stephanie wasn’t going to die either. Oracle couldn’t find her on the cameras. She couldn’t find Hood. The city was erupting into violence, just as it had the last time, and Oracle still couldn’t find Stephanie.

“That’s different—”

“How? How is it different, Dick? You were both caught in explosions, and I was right there, and I couldn’t save you. You’re my sons, and you died, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t—”

Barbara took a breath and wiped away furious tears.

“Superman happened to be here this time. Please, Dick. Stay alive.”

“Bruce—” Dick’s voice was soft.

“That’s an order, Nightwing.” Batman was back, and there was no give in his steely tone. “Superman, take him to the Cave.”

Barbara blinked. She’d forgotten that Superman had been there the whole time.

“Oh, come on. Clark—”

“Sorry, kiddo.”

Their trackers started to move towards the Cave at a rapid pace.

Barbara exhaled. Alfred would have the medical stuff under control.

Oracle just needed to get everything else in hand. “B, I’m running through cameras as fast as I can, but there’s no sign of Hood or Stephanie. The Batsignal’s lit, and the city’s going apesh*t. Even if I find him again, it’s going to be almost impossible to track him through this much chaos. There might be some clue in the footage from Black Mask’s compound, from Hood’s entry into Mask’s territory, but I can’t look through all that and run comms, especially when the city’s this wired and I’m on my home set-up. What’s my priority?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Batman, I need orders.”

“Superman, once you get Nightwing to medical, pick up Oracle and bring her to the Cave. Oracle, you’re looking for Hood and running Superman. Agent A will patch up Nightwing, then run comms for me. I’ve got the city. Nightwing can join in the search for Hood through the cameras once he’s been medically cleared.”

“On it,” said Barbara, swallowing the lump in her throat that said not enough, it wasn’t going to be enough. She sent her coordinates to Superman and started prepping to shut her systems down, to remotely start up the Batcomputer.

Dick apparently agreed with her. “B, you can’t handle the whole city alone when it’s”—wheeze, cough—“rioting.” More coughing, and suddenly Superman was at her window.

She wheeled over and opened it, and Clark came in.

“Okay. How do you want to do this?”

Barbara chewed her lip. She hadn’t actually thought about it. Her chair wouldn’t fit through the window, and she didn’t have roof access either. “Let’s go out to the backyard; you can pick me up from there.”

He nodded, and Babs finished shutting everything down. As she wheeled through the kitchen, she passed Superman a spare Bat-comm so that they’d all be on the same line.

Superman switched out his Justice League communicator for the one she’d given him. When they were outside, he asked, “You good if I tilt you back and I’ve got you by the wheels?”

“Works for me.”

They rocketed upwards, and Barbara suppressed the urge to whoop. How long had it been since she’d flown?

But even that joy was dampened by the situation they were in. Bruce and Dick were still arguing over the comms.

“If I may,” Clark’s voice came over the main line. “Young Justice has been chomping at the bit to help. They can handle the city, and you can focus on finding your kids.”

B made a displeased sound. “No metas in—”

“I’m already here, and I’m gonna get a whole second-hand lecture from Jon if I don’t let Kon know what’s happening. You are the detective. YJ can handle containment and deescalation for one night, and I’ll be your man on the ground in the search for Hood.”

He set her down gently at the entrance to the Cave, and she wheeled herself in and over to the computer.

“I can run Young Justice.” That was Dick’s voice coming through the channel now. Barbara glanced over to the medbay, and saw he’d lifted an oxygen mask from his face to talk. Alfred was fussing over some machine that was attached to Dick. “I’ve run almost all of them on the Titans, I know their strengths and weaknesses, and I know the city.”

There was a pause over the line.

“And it keeps me in the Cave, with this handy-dandy bronchodilator making sure I recover from smoke inhalation.”

A grumble. “Fine. Kal, take me to the police station and call in Young Justice. I’ll get the sitrep from Gordon—Nightwing, stay on the line. Oracle, you and I will go through the footage of Hood. Kal, be ready to move on our say-so. Agent A to fill in where needed.”

Barbara nodded and stationed herself in front of the computer, bracing herself for a long night. “Copy.”

Barbara’s heart was thrumming in her throat, a constant worry of how had he known? How had he known? How had he known?

She’d found a backdoor physically patched into Sionis’s system—likely Hood. It made sense; they’d been enemies before Hood pulled his pivot to Robin-hunting. She couldn’t trace it back to any location, though. It wasn’t broadcasting. Hood must have cut the signal shortly after he took Stephanie.

So. Hood had likely still been actively monitoring Black Mask. Why? He’d given absolutely no indication he cared about the mob boss at all ever since he’d kidnapped Robin. But Hood had either been monitoring Black Mask closely enough to have seen Stephanie brought in to his base, and he had somehow made the connection to a Robin that was supposed to be dead, or he’d been monitoring Stephanie herself. Either way, how did he know to do it?

And then he’d driven like a f*cking madman into the city—he obviously was watching Sionis in real time, was obviously desperate to get his hands on Stephanie before Black Mask did any damage. Again, why? He obviously had no qualms about torture, so was it just possessiveness? Did he want to be the one who hurt her? Babs had no answers.

She had a preliminary radius of where Hood could be based, calculated by how long it would have taken him to reach Gotham if he left at the same time Steph was taken, but the area covered most of the eastern seaboard and a good chunk of change inland, and was not particularly helpful.

It was chilling, watching Hood break his way into the compound; quickly, efficiently, and quietly killing anyone in his way, all while having a seemingly friendly conversation with Black Mask. Four minutes, from when he’d broken in to when he’d blown up the floor beneath Stephanie and Sionis. Four minutes, six bodies, and he’d been carrying on a conversation to stall Sionis the whole time. Babs couldn’t hear Hood’s side of the exchange—some kind of soundproofing on the helmet?—but she certainly heard Sionis’s, and Sionis didn’t talk like the man on the other side of the line was distressed, or upset, or even out of breath.

Who was Hood, that he could do that?

And then the sheer bloody violence that followed. The carnage. The way Hood had laughed, as he mowed his way through men like blades of grass, using a sniper rifle—precise, deadly, efficient, a weapon he obviously knew how to use—as a f*cking club. Just as deadly, but careless, crude, rough, and needlessly savage.

It didn’t fit. It didn’t make sense.

And all the while, Stephanie hung above, helpless, unable to do anything but watch. They hadn’t even known she was missing yet.

But Hood had.

Hood had, and he’d come for her.

Barbara swallowed, trying to wet her dry throat.

Then Hood seemed to have some kind of fit when he found Stephanie—unclear what was going on there, but there was no time to think about it when Hood was building a harness and dropping down right in front of Steph.

“Aw, ain’t that sweet,” said Hood, and Barbara echoed Stephanie’s growl in response.

“No, not you,” said Hood. He co*cked his head as if he was listening to something. “The Bats have just started to realize that they might be missing yet another little bird, and it’s sent them all in a tizzy. It’s enough to tug on your heartstrings.”

Barbara felt like someone had poured ice water down her spine. She paused the recording, checked the timestamp. Ran back the recordings of the main comm line from earlier in the night.

That was when Dick had asked her to check in on Steph.

Hood was listening in on their comms.

Hood was listening in on their comms.

Oracle was furious. Barbara was terrified.

With trembling fingers, she patched herself into the main comm line. “I’ve received a call from the Muffin Man.” It was a ridiculous code, a play off of Drury Walker, Killer Moth’s real name. Dick, of course, was the one who came up with it. It meant they had a bug on the line.

“The muffin man?” That was Kid Flash, she thought, sounding a mix of baffled and delighted.

“The MUFFIN MAN.” Superboy and Wondergirl shouted over the line at the same time.

“Guys, stop quoting Shrek.” Dick’s voice was uncharacteristically harsh. “This is serious.”

He started walking towards her from where he was doing slow laps around the Cave with a humidified oxygen tank—part of the treatment for his lungs—and his face was pale. Hood? he mouthed.

Barbara nodded.

“Is he still on the line?” Batman’s growl cut through, as the man himself emerged from the side room he’d locked himself into while reviewing evidence taken from the scene of the explosion.

“I believe so,” said Barbara.

Batman’s face was grim. “I’ll take the call,” he said, and his voice echoed oddly when she was hearing it both in-person and over the comms. “Nightwing, continue running Young Justice.” He grabbed a pad of paper and started scrawling.

Maintain normal activity over comms. If Hood is listening, we can use this to trap him.

Dick, Alfred, and Barbara—the only people in the Cave, and, now that she was thinking about it, the only people that the code meant anything to—nodded.

Barbara set her jaw. Finally. It may have taken them much too long to get there, but they finally had a leg up on Hood.

“Patching you through to him,” she said, for appearance’s sake. “He’s on an external line.”

Jason was panicking. Okay, he’d been panicking for a while, but now he was setting Stephanie down into the back seat of his car, in the open, just a few blocks away from Black Mask’s compound, the compound that Batman was currently inside.

f*ck.

He threw himself in the driver’s seat, and Stephanie seemed like she might cause a fuss, so he pointed a gun at her and came up with some threat on autopilot.

Everything was going on autopilot. Jason pulled onto the road and started driving to God-knew-where. He didn’t have a plan. Batman was right there. He was right there.

“I’m not seeing anyone sticking out on any of the external cameras. Can you patch me in to the internal system?” Oracle’s voice over the comms.

f*ck, Oracle. She’d have a bead on his car in no time, if she didn’t have one already. No, she didn’t have one already. She’d said nothing stood out outside.

Okay. Okay. Step one: change cars. He was in the Bowery. Where was the best place to switch over?

It took a few seconds for the answer to come to him, and he shifted his route to a chop-shop-slash-mechanic-for-a-drug-smuggling-operation he knew about only a few blocks away. There was a pretty decent radius around there that was almost entirely camera-free, and the operation was big enough that they probably had at least one car up and running. And that car would likely have smuggling compartments, police scanners, the works.

Okay, good. Workable. He pulled into the garage and flipped himself out of the driver’s seat in one fluid motion. He kept his gun trained on Stephanie; she was the biggest threat in the room.

It was still early; only three people were in the garage, and all of them jumped up and started shouting at Jason’s entrance.

“I just killed Black Mask,” he said, cutting through the noise. “And every single person in his compound. You can either get out now, or die the same way.”

They looked at him, looked at the blood and viscera soaking him from head to toe, and fled. Good. Okay. Dick and B-Man were still theorizing about what had happened to Sionis.

Next step: get Stephanie secured. First, a gag. She hadn’t called for any of the Supers yet, but he wasn’t sure if that was because of the shock or because she wasn’t used to having superpowered backup or she knew they wouldn’t hear her. Either way, Jason wasn’t taking the chance.

Oracle was going through the footage from the compound. sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t.

He yanked Stephanie out of the car, and she went gray and screamed.

sh*t. “Yeah, yeah, it hurts, I know,” he mumbled under his breath, knowing it wouldn’t be comforting but needing to try. She was in bad shape. He couldn’t just throw her into the trunk of a car and drive for several hours.

Fine. Looked like step two would be a patch job.

He manhandled Stephanie through the process of patching her up as quickly as he possibly could. Shoulders in, trap off, leg wrapped, wrists and ankles shackled with equipment from his trunk.

“Red Hood.” Oracle’s voice came through the comms, and Jason’s stomach tightened. No, she couldn’t know he was listening in; she couldn’t—“It was Red Hood. He has Steph.”

Oh. Right.

Jason threw Steph over one shoulder and marched towards the most functional-looking car. The girl struggled, but stilled again after a few harsh words.

He scanned the car for likely secret compartments. Not in the trunk, not with this model, but maybe…he leaned down and groped around under the back seat cushions.

“C’mon,” he muttered. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…yes!”

The seats sprang open to reveal a hidden compartment, just barely big enough to fit the girl he was carrying. There were a few stray bricks of some sort of substance, heavily wrapped, at the bottom of the box, but Jason didn’t have time to clean it out. He dumped Stephanie into it and closed the seats on top of her, latched them closed, then tossed a tire that was lying around on top of the seats, just in case she managed to break the latch somehow.

“I’m looking for potential exits or getaway vehicles now,” Oracle said into his ear.

Okay. He had maybe two or three minutes before she managed to find him and track his route to the Bowery. Even going all-out, seven or eight minutes for them to get here. Then another bit for them to search the area with no cameras.

Jason sprinted back to his car, trying to come up with some kind of plan.

Batman growled, a dog with the scent of blood in his nose. “Nightwing, stay above ground and be ready to move. I’ll take the sewers. And O?”

“Yeah?”

“Call in Superman.”

Jason gasped, and barely even noticed that Dickwing and Barbie had the exact same reaction.

f*ck. He was f*cked.

For a good ten seconds, Jason’s mind was completely blank.

He felt like someone else was in his body, like someone else was thinking his thoughts. They’re looking for Red Hood, said his thoughts. They don’t know what you look like.

If the compartment he’d thrown Stephanie into wasn’t lead-lined…it was a chance he would have to take. Jason started to strip. Boots? Gone. Armored pants? Gone. Socks, which were bloodstained and squelching? Gone.

His jacket, his armor, his gloves. All of it gone. His guns. He threw each piece into his car as he stripped.

Helmet? Gone. Its release let the bile stream down him, but he managed to keep most of it inside the helmet and ignored the rest. With that, he was barefoot, barehanded, bareheaded, dressed only in the leggings and tight shirt he wore under his armor.

He stripped the comm line from inside the helmet and hung it over one ear.

“—JTQ,” Oracle was saying. “He headed south on 8^th. Tracing his path now.”

Move.

Jason sprinted to where a hose was set into the wall and turned it on as high as it went, set aside the comm line briefly, and blasted himself clean with freezing water. He shook out his sopping wet hair like a dog and ran back to the car, grabbing two red gas tanks as he did.

“He took a left onto Douglass, then south again on Fir. Nightwing, cut across—”

“Levy Street, yeah.”

Jason poured the first tank of gas all over his car, soaked it through. He dumped the entire second tank on top of his gear. He was out of C-4 and dynamite, but his helmet had a bomb built in. He tore off the paneling, started rewiring the device with deft hands.

How long did he have? Two minutes? Less? Unfortunately, this was the type of work that couldn’t be hurried.

But finally, he was done. The comm line was looped around his neck, and he grabbed one gun—the one with his kryptonite in it—and the remote detonator. Everything else was set to blow.

“I’ve got him on Fir and Avenue K nine minutes ago, then—nothing. He must have parked somewhere, either switched cars or gone to ground, because there’s no route he could have taken where I wouldn’t have seen him pop up again.”

Jason ran back to the new car, started it up—thank f*cking God it was in working condition—and pulled out of the garage.

His heart was pounding in his throat.

“He can’t have gotten far in that time, especially if he got out of the car and has Steph,” Nightwing said. “We can cut off any escape routes.”

Jason’s breath was coming too shallowly. They were going to box him in. He was barely half a block away from the garage. It took every ounce of his self-control not to floor it right then and there.

Stay under the radar. They don’t know what you look like.

Jason’s hands were shaking, but he stopped at a red light. No breaking traffic laws. Nothing to draw attention. He was freezing cold, soaked to the bone in the frigid night air.

He flicked on the heaters, and winced at the blast of icy air from the still-cold engine.

“Kal? Can you spot the car?”

Jason was going hot and cold, fading in and out of awareness. This was it. This was it. f*ck. He hadn’t known that Superman was already here.

The grip of his gun dug into his palm, the meager supply of kryptonite contained therein wholly inadequate for the situation.

He couldn’t hear Superman’s response—maybe he was on a different comm system?—but Batman’s voice came through loud and clear, rattling off the address of the garage.

The light turned green. Jason’s fist clenched around the detonator. The trigger dug into his palm. He drove forwards. Calm. His hair was dripping onto the seat.

He pushed the trigger. One second, two seconds—

“Take me down,” Batman growled.

Three. The explosion rattled his windows from two blocks away, and Batman screamed.

At first Jason thought that Batman must have been caught in the explosion, and his reaction was one of vicious glee. Let Batman feel how it felt to be blown up, to be roasted from the inside out and the outside in, to suffocate on fiery agony. And the man was obviously alive, if he could scream like that.

Then Bruce’s voice came over the comms: “Dick?” and Jason stopped breathing.

Dick had been in the garage? But he hadn’t—he was on his motorcycle; he was still on his way, cutting across Levy Street.

No. No. No no no no no no no. Dick couldn’t have been in the garage. Because if he’d been in the garage, then Jason had just blown him up, had just pushed the detonator himself, and Dick was dead. Dick was dead because Jason had killed him.

Jason knew exactly what kind of a punch his helmet explosives packed. Add a fuel source, and—

No.

His first thought, incongruously, was that he’d have to tell Tim. How the f*ck was he supposed to tell Tim?

Holy f*ck, he’d just killed Nightwing. He’d killed Dick. Entirely on accident, he’d killed Dick.

Not entirely on accident, a voice whispered in his head. Not on accident at all. You set the explosives. You pushed the trigger. You knew he was going there.

Jason had to—He had to— He was shaking, and his vision was blurring, and he was still driving, and he needed to pull over, but he couldn’t pull over, because Batman would kill him, because Bruce would kill him, because he’d killed Dick, and he would deserve it, he would deserve it because he’d killed—he’d killed his brother.

“Dick, please.” Bruce was begging over the comms, and suddenly Jason was in the rubble of a warehouse, was dying, was dead, and Bruce’s voice floated above him. The exact same tone. No. Jason.

Jason was going to crash. He was going to crash and he needed to pull over but he couldn’t think he couldn’t think he couldn’t see he was a monster he deserved to die he deserved to die bloody and painful and he should—there was a girl tied up in his backseat, and she didn’t deserve any of this.

“B? What—?” Dick’s voice in his imagination.

“B? B—I’m fine.” Imagination-Dick coughed. “I’m fine.” Jason hated the burst of hope that flared across his chest. It was a nice hallucination.

It was a cruel hallucination.

It was a persistent hallucination. “B? What’s wrong? Did we get—” Dick gasped in and coughed some more. “Hood? We need to—” A whistling wheeze. “B, seriously, get off.” That was all Dick, annoyed and fond.

Jason choked. Real? Was Dickie really alive?

It was all he could do to stop himself from trembling too bad, put a lid on the violent shaking he hadn’t even realized he was doing, stop trembling and breathe. Drive forward. Stay on the road.

It was a miracle he hadn’t crashed. A miracle, and several years of training on how to drive in combat situations, until it was pure instinct.

He let Dick’s voice wash over him, weak but gloriously alive, and he drove forward. Slow. Steady.

I’m fine.

Uncle Clark saved me.

Dick kept breathing, in and out, strained over the comms.

Jason breathed in time with him.

Then B was being a dick and wanting to bench Dickie, when he hadn’t even done anything wrong, but even that was kinda comforting. Familiar. It was how Bruce dealt with everything: Go home, Robin. I will not listen to you.

But then—“I can’t lose another son. Please, Dick.”

Jason swallowed.

“I’m not gonna die, B.” And Jason wanted to shake him. You almost did, you absolute buffoon! He wanted to yell. The only reason you aren’t dead is because Superman was there!

“Jason wasn’t going to die either,” said Bruce, and his words were heavy in the air.

“That’s different—”

“How? How is it different, Dick? You were both caught in explosions, and I was right there, and I couldn’t save you. You’re my sons, and you died, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t—”

Huh. Jason was crying. Silent tears streaming down his face.

With numb fingers, he reached for the comm line in his ear, unwrapped it from its perch. He cranked down the window—yeah, it was one of those old cars with a window crank.

The voice was tinny and far away now, but Jason could still make out the words. “Superman happened to be here this time. Please, Dick. Stay alive.”

He threw the comm line out the window, where it was sure to get eaten up by traffic.

He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

If Batman caught him because he wasn’t listening in anymore—so be it. Maybe Jason deserved to get caught.

No, Jason definitely deserved to get caught. He deserved every bad thing that had ever or would ever happen to him.

What was he doing? He had an injured child tied up in a secret box in his backseat, another one at home locked in his basem*nt. He had almost killed Dickie.

What was he doing? And what should he do now?

It was too late—too late to turn back now. Too late to get off the road of blood and violence he’d paved for himself.

So Jason drove, half out of his body, bare feet on the pedals, blue hands on the wheel, at exactly five miles over the speed limit going nowhere in particular, and he kept driving until everything was numb and his thoughts were too exhausted to torment him.

Chapter 17: Great Life Choices (Stephanie)

Chapter Text

The human body could only sustain a high level of fear for so long. Stephanie had long ago met her limit. When it became clear she wasn’t getting out of the secret car compartment, she fell back, limp and exhausted, and just breathed.

The adrenaline leaked out of her body, leaving her shaky and tired. Her head pounded with what she was pretty sure was a concussion headache. It was dark, the car was warm, and the soft vibrations of the engine rumbled through her little compartment. She wanted so badly to sleep. She might as well try. It wasn’t like being well-rested would hurt her.

She wiggled a bit, moving things around as much as she could in the limited space with her hands tied behind her back, until she ended up curled on her side, a stack of (hopefully well-packaged) bricks of illicit somethings serving as her pillow. She thought it might be cocaine, but she wasn’t about to tear through the plastic and tape surrounding them to find out for sure.

She’d tried to loop her hands around her legs, bring them to her front, but there really wasn’t enough space to maneuver. When a sharp and painful twinge hinted that she would dislocate her already weakened shoulders again if she didn’t stop trying to contort herself into knots, she gave up on the effort. She probably could manage to move her hands around front if she re-dislocated her shoulders, but that would hardly be a step up from where she was now.

Having made herself as comfortable as she was going to get, Stephanie promptly drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

She woke up a few times on the drive. Each time, she had a brief moment of panic, but sheer exhaustion dragged her back down into sleep before too long.

What felt like several hours later, she woke up once again, blinking sleepily into the darkness. She was getting better at remembering where she was when she woke up. This time, she hadn’t even had a full second of disorientation before she remembered that Red Hood had shoved her into a box and driven off somewhere.

Speaking of Red Hood’s driving, the rumbling of the engines had stopped. Probably what woke her. It could be a gas stop—Stephanie had debated at the last gas stop whether or not to try and create a ruckus, and had eventually landed on the side of no, considering that Red Hood was more than capable of slaughtering any would-be good Samaritans.

As the minutes stretched on, Stephanie began to think it wasn’t a gas stop. For one, she couldn’t hear any other cars, or even Red Hood’s footsteps. For another, it was getting a bit long for a gas stop, even if Hood was taking a bathroom break or something.

And speaking of bathroom breaks, she could really use one right about now. Or just a chance to stretch her cramped muscles. She did the best she could in the limited space, pushing against walls with different muscles in turn, but God, it would be nice to be able to stand up. Or get the gag out, massage her jaw. Not to mention she was covered in dried blood, enough that her hair had matted and her cheek stuck to the plastic of her drug-brick “pillows.”

At least most of the blood wasn’t hers. Though maybe that just made it weirder. Whatever.

She had a bunch of bruises and scrapes, and her shin just above the ankle—where the trap had been latched—ached horribly. With the way her whole body was covered in blood, it was hard to tell by feel whether or not she’d bled through her bandages, but she thought she might be okay. Honestly, it didn’t hurt that much more than the rest of her. Okay, so, pain, but she didn’t think any of her injuries were permanently debilitating.

Not yet.

As more and more time passed and Steph heard no sign of Red Hood or any other life, new worries started worming their way into her brain. Had he just left her here? She remembered Hood’s threat from the video with Tim. Something about burying him alive. Was that what was happening?

She swallowed through the gag. It was painful, her mouth bone-dry and grating. Was the compartment airtight? Was she going to suffocate here, squished in a box with only unknown drugs and other people’s blood for company? It was not a pleasant thought.

Maybe she should reconsider the whole ‘re-dislocating her shoulders’ thing. Having her hands in front of her would be useful. But she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get them back in again, especially in the cramped space.

Maybe Hood stopped at a safehouse or a motel or something to get some sleep, and there wasn’t anywhere secure he could keep her, so he’d just decided to leave her in the car. That was possible. That was honestly probably her best-case scenario. And if that was the case, this was her best chance to escape.

If so, what an asshole. He could have at least given her a bathroom break before locking her in a tiny box all night. And some water.

Steph squirmed in the compartment, unable to drift back to sleep. She once again tried to find a latch or something, or lift the top, or kick down the sides or bottom, but nothing made any difference.

Steph was braced on her knees, trying to heave the seats above open upon her back when she registered the sound of the car door opening.

She immediately froze. There wasn’t time to shift into a more defensible position. She hadn’t heard any footsteps. There was nothing she could do but curl into herself and squint up at the sudden influx of brightness.

Her eyes started watering immediately at even the dim light backlighting Hood above her and she whimpered in pain. Oh yeah, she definitely probably had a concussion and was still recovering from being drugged. Fun times.

Hood did something, and the seats stayed up without him holding them. He reached out a gauntleted hand and hauled her out of the box and out of the car.

Stephanie glared at him suspiciously. As her eyes adjusted to having light again, she could see Hood had cleaned himself up. No signs of blood anywhere, his armor and helmet impeccably clean.

He tried to prop her up against the car, but her limbs were all pins and needles, or maybe they were cramping up, or maybe her bad leg was worse than she thought, and she buckled to the ground. Only Hood’s crushing grip on her biceps kept her from crashing into the concrete floor.

She ended up sitting on the floor, Hood crouched behind her. She hated it.

They were in another garage, this one much smaller, just about big enough for two cars, the type that was usually attached to a house. Power tools on the wall, a tire iron leaning against a tool cabinet. The only vehicles were the car they’d come in and a red motorcycle.

Startled, she realized he was undoing her wrist cuffs. He threw them to a corner of the garage where they landed with a heavy clang. Steph winced as the sound reached her hurting brain.

Another moment, and she felt the gag coming loose. As soon as she could, she spat it out, using her tongue to help it along. As it fell, she started coughing, her dry throat and mouth finally having some kind of outlet.

She reached up to massage her jaw. Slow movements, nonaggressive. Playing along seemed the safest option for now. Especially if it got her untied. Especially especially if it got her taken to where Tim was. That was almost sort-of a plan. Then they could escape together. And Hood hadn’t actually hurt her yet. Not so long as she’d been cooperating.

So, yeah. Playing along it was.

She rubbed the feeling back into her face, her shoulders, her wrists, her legs. Hood’s body heat was close enough to feel behind her, but he didn’t object to the movement. Stephanie didn’t look back at him, didn’t want to consider what could possibly be waiting for her if he was giving her a break to prepare. This’ll work. Cooperate for now. Get Tim. It’ll work.

Everything was pins and needles and pain, and she couldn’t stop a few desperate keens and whimpers as she finally got proper circulation back and could fully feel all her wounds. And beneath the pain was a deep layer of exhaustion.

There was a crackle of plastic, and Hood gently placed an open water bottle on the floor by her knees. “Water,” he said. It was the first word he’d said since hauling her out of the car, and his tone was oddly flat, monotonous. Even more robotic than usual.

She eyed it, suspicious.

“If it makes you feel better, I can force you to drink it.”

Steph closed her eyes against her swirling headache. “I can do it.” Her voice was scratchy and dry, scarcely a whisper.

Speaking set off another round of hacking coughs, and when she reached for the bottle, her still-clumsy hand sent it sprawling. “sh*t.”

Hood rose from his crouch and batted the water bottle back, picked it up. It was still half full.

“S’okay,” he said, still eerily emotionless. He crouched down again, this time in front of her. He raised the bottle to her lips. “Drink.”

It wasn’t like she could stop him from forcing it down her throat, and she was ridiculously thirsty, so she let him pour thin sips of water into her mouth. And to her surprise, it was water. Not that there couldn’t have been something else in it, but definitely water.

After a few sips, she got impatient with his snail-like pace and grabbed the water bottle herself, gulped down the rest in less than a second. Some of it got on her face and her sweatshirt. She didn’t care.

Hood didn’t react at all to her snatching the water bottle. He just reached into a pocket and pulled out another one, cracked it open, and handed it over. As she drained the second one, he grabbed the empty water bottle and tossed it casually over his shoulder. It flew about twenty feet across the length of the garage and into a tiny little trash can waiting in the corner.

He hadn’t even looked.

Now, could Steph have made that shot? Yes. Could she have made it backwards without looking, as long as she knew where the trash can was? Yes. Was it still intimidating as all hell? Yes. This space is mine, said that throw. I know its every inch and I am in peak physical form. I do not even have to try. You should not even bother to try at all.

Never one to back away from a challenge, Steph chugged down the rest of her water and let plastic fly.

She watched its arc across the garage, and even Hood tilted his head a little bit. It struck her about a nanosecond after the bottle left her hand that she would be super embarrassed in front of the serial killer if she didn’t make the shot.

She made the shot.

“Kobe,” Steph whispered.

Hood made a noise that it took her a second to translate into a snort. “Nice shot.”

Stephanie glared at him. “Thanks.”

He shrugged and rose to his feet. “Alright, you wanna walk or be carried? There’s a lot of stairs.”

Walk, was the immediate answer that wanted to cross her lips. Now that she’d had a bit to stretch out, she was pretty sure she could, even with her bad leg and her ankles still chained. Especially if she could put some weight on a banister or a wall or something. But maybe she should be playing more injured than she was. Lull Hood into a false sense of security.

Apparently, she took too long to answer, because Hood stretched out and yawned and said, “Carry it is.”

Before Steph could do more than squawk, he’d scooped her up into a princess carry. Hardly dignified, but marginally better than being thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And it let her look around as they crossed into a shockingly normal-looking house, through a hallway and a cozily furnished open concept living room-slash-kitchen space. Outside was dark, but she could see snow and the shadows of trees. They were remote.

Hood shifted her weight a bit to free his hands so that he could open a door to a staircase that went down to a basem*nt. Great. She noted that he locked the basem*nt door after closing it behind them. The lock didn’t look too complicated, but who knew. Besides, she had a feeling that the lock would be the least of her problems.

Downstairs, there was a f*cking labyrinth. Corridors lined with doors. Hood kicked one of them open and flicked the light on with one shoulder before depositing her on a toilet.

“Bathroom,” he said, completely unnecessarily, as he knelt and undid her ankle shackles. She could see that it was a bathroom, shower and toilet and sink and suspicious bloodstains on the wall and all. “Soap, shampoo, conditioner.” He pointed to each as he named them. “Towel. Clothes.” Those were piled on the floor.

“Get the blood off, clean your injuries, we’ll rebandage and set anything that needs setting when you’re done. Just leave all your sh*t wherever; I’m gonna have to decontaminate this room anyway.” It was hard to tell with the helmet, but she was pretty sure he was glaring at the suspicious bloodstain she’d noted earlier.

He nodded once, decisive. “Twenty minutes. I’ll be outside.”

And he was out the door before Stephanie could say, “Um, okay.”

It was strangely generous. Suspiciously kind. Stephanie was about 99% sure it was some kind of mindgame, but, honestly? She was tired. She needed to pee. She wanted a shower. She’d deal with the mindgame stuff whenever it came to pass. Right now, she was just going to enjoy scrubbing herself clean beneath a spray of hot water for as long as she could.

And that was exactly what she did, working from her head on down. She went to the bathroom, then sat on the floor of the shower fully clothed and emptied about half the bottle of conditioner into her hair to work its magic while she scrubbed everything else clean.

There was no mirror in this bathroom, but she could sort of make out her reflection in the shower head. A bruise blossomed on her temple, and her jaw was all scraped up. Probing her head with gentle fingers, she didn’t find any other sore spots. So that was something.

Slowly, painfully, she stripped off her top and threw it on the floor. Either Hood was a sexual predator or he wasn’t, but either way, she wanted out of the bloody garments. She considered putting on the new clothes in the shower, but the probability of getting hypothermia if she wore wet clothes in some dank cell in this weather was too high for her to ignore.

So she took stock and scrubbed herself clean as quickly as she could. She had bruises all over, scraped knuckles, a sore spot on the back of her neck that she was pretty sure was where she’d been injected, and her shoulders were super bruised and aching. Functional, though. Nothing broken.

Unwrapping the bandages from her leg and pulling off her jeans was significantly harder, the fabric clinging to her wounds, but she managed it.

No sounds from outside, but Hood had shown he could move silently when he wanted, and the shower was loud. Quick, quick, quick. But not careless. She probed the injury with tentative fingers. The area from her ankle to halfway up her calf was one giant bruise, purple dark enough to almost be black, bordered by an angry red. There were puncture wounds on either side, in the middle of the bruise, and they were bleeding sluggishly and leaking some kind of fluid, just a bit. They weren’t too deep—she couldn’t see bone—but Steph was really worried about infection. Even if whatever jackass had set the trap had sterilized it before setting it up, the thing had been lying out on the streets of Gotham.

Nothing she could do but clean it to the best of her ability.

She rinsed out her hair, combing through it with her fingers as fast as she could, tearing out chunks as she did, and finished by actually washing it and then conditioning again. By the time there was a bang on the door and a yell of “five minutes!”, she was as clean as she was going to get.

Steph lifted herself out of the shower carefully and dried off. The clothes laid out must have belonged to Hood, because she was swimming in them. She rolled up the waistband of the sweats five times and cuffed the bottoms, let the dark gray t-shirt hang loose.

With one hand hovering over the sink—just in case—she tested out her leg. She’d been right; the leg would hold her weight, but it hurt like hell.

“You decent?” called Hood.

She was half-tempted to make a quip back that she’d never been decent once in her life, but ultimately decided not to. Too likely to come back and bite her in the ass. So instead she just said, “Sure.”

When he entered, Hood took a second to review the room, which was now just covered in splatters of blood and puddles from the shower. Her waterlogged and bloodstained clothes were lying all over the place. He didn’t say anything about it, though. Just reached out a hand and helped support her weight as he led her to another room.

This one was a medbay, which Steph was definitely not complaining about. Assuming this wasn’t step one of the torture part. Hood locked the door after they were both inside, so that was totally reassuring and not at all terrifying.

But honestly, Steph was still too exhausted and oversaturated with threats of torture to really be scared. She levered herself up onto the medical table and stared dully at Hood.

First thing he did was grab one of those medical flashlight things. “Pupil check,” he said, before stabbing light into first one eye and then the other.

“Motherf*cker,” Steph swore automatically and flinched back as the light seared into her eyes.

“Yup,” said Hood. “That’s a concussion.”

“Oh really?” said Steph, blinking back tears. “I had no idea.”

“Doesn’t look too bad, though.” He tossed her a small cylindrical container, and she caught it automatically. “Bruise cream,” he said, while digging for something else in one of the drawers. Another cylinder flew at her, and she dropped the bruise cream in her lap to catch that one too. “Antiseptic. You have any wounds besides the leg that might need stitches or bandages?”

Okay. This was good. This was actually very good. Especially the antiseptic. Maybe she wouldn’t die from infection. Just from the other stuff.

Reading the labels, Steph could see that the two containers were exactly what Hood said they were. Assuming he hadn’t switched them out with something else. Oh well, nothing for it. She uncapped the antiseptic and started rubbing it into her injuries. It certainly smelled right for antiseptic.

“No,” she answered his question. No point in lying; either she’d get medical treatment or she wouldn’t. Making up injuries if he was planning on treating them was just asking to fast forward to the torture. “Just the leg. And my shoulders are f*cked up, obviously, but not bleeding. Everything else is pretty superficial.”

“Okay.” He was still digging around in drawers, seemingly not paying her much attention. Steph was grateful that the dark t-shirt was loose enough that she could pretty easily reach up through the sleeves and get to all her wounds without revealing any more skin.

Hood finally turned around, hands full with bottles and boxes of stuff that he dumped down on the table next to her. Her eyes immediately focused on a wrapped syringe. There was no label on it.

Hood was washing his hands, pulling on medical gloves. He turned back to her and picked up the syringe. “Tetanus shot. Not optional.”

Steph swallowed. On the one hand, a tetanus shot would be a very good thing to have. One the other hand, letting him inject her with an unknown substance was probably a very bad idea.

She studied the blank reflective surface of his helmet. So far, everything had been pretty much exactly what he said it was. And on the video, the medical care he’d provided Tim was legit. Scary and threatening and nefarious, but legitimate medical care. Plus, it wasn’t like she could stop him.

“Fine,” she said.

He nodded and grabbed an antiseptic wipe from the pile of stuff he’d dumped on the table. “Normally, I’d go for your shoulders, but you’re pretty bruised up. Forearm or thigh?”

Thigh would hurt less, but… “Forearm,” she said.

He nodded and swiped the wipe against her skin. Quickly and competently unwrapped the syringe and injected its contents into her, discarded the needle into a sharps container. He sifted through the stuff on the table a bit more before coming up with a pill bottle.

“Antibiotics.” He handed her the bottle. “Take one for now. And Tylenol. I’m gonna look at your leg.”

Stephanie studied the labels as he squat down. The Tylenol did indeed appear to be Tylenol. The prescription was for Augmentin, which she’d never heard of, and was made out to a “John Peterson.” Active ingredients were 500mg of amoxicillin and 125mg of clavulanic acid. Take one tablet orally once a day for two weeks. Amoxicillin was definitely an antibiotic, so Steph shrugged mentally and popped a pill dry. In for a penny of potentially being drugged by unknown syringes, in for a pound of swallowing random untrustworthy pills handed to her by a serial killer and known sad*st.

Steph was making great life choices.

Hood had scrunched the sweatpants up to her knee, exposing her bruised leg to the air. He grabbed a thing of sterile water and squeezed it down her leg. Carefully flushed out the cuts. He pat her leg dry with some gauze, then she got treated to the gentle swipes of a new antiseptic wipe. He grabbed a topical antibiotic and smeared it on. Used some butterfly bandages to close the cuts up.

He examined his patch job from multiple angles. “I’m gonna wrap it back up so we can get a brace on it without disturbing anything. I think it should be fine, but just in case, you shouldn’t move it much. We can air it out later.”

Steph nodded. That sounded about right. She was super confused about why Red Hood was being so conscientious about her injuries, but she wasn’t about to stop him.

Hood wrapped the wound much more carefully than he had last time, then strapped the brace firmly to her leg.

Finally, he rose and crossed his arms, studying her. Steph stared back, met the empty gaze of the helmet.

“So what’s your deal?”

“…What?”

Steph fixed him with an extremely unimpressed look. “You’re being strangely considerate for a sad*stic serial killer who kidnapped me. I don’t get it.” She swung her legs in the air, just a bit. “So what’s your deal?”

Hood ran a hand over the surface of his helmet. “I don’t…I know you have no reason to believe me, but I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Steph definitely didn’t believe him, but she simply huffed and said, “Alright. What’s the endgame then? What’s your goal?”

Hood sighed and looked towards the door. “f*ck if I know.” It was the barest whisper of breath, but his helmet picked it up and broadcast it out.

Steph gaped at him. “You don’t know?!” An employer, maybe, who was calling the shots? Or, or, maybe she should revisit that split personality idea, and one of them was a sad*st who hunted Robins and the other (others?) was just along for the ride?

Hood’s blank faceplate turned back to her. “It’s been a long f*cking day.”

“That’s not—!”

“Slings,” he interrupted, and went to fetch some. “For your arms. You shouldn’t be moving them all that much either.”

Steph imagined both her arms in slings and just how much that would hamper her mobility. Maybe it was irrational, after she’d just let him inject her and feed her pills of unknown origin, but…

It’s no worse than having your hands tied up, Steph, she told herself. In fact, it’s better. Easier to get out of and it’ll help your shoulders heal right.

She had decided to cooperate. For Tim. For now. If Hood had asked her to put her hands out to be chained again, she would do it no question. The slings should be a much easier option. But for some reason it didn’t feel the same. The idea of her arms tucked uselessly away, pressed into her torso, like she was wearing a straightjacket…Buck up, Steph. You can this.

She took a deep breath and didn’t protest Hood’s decision. But she couldn’t stop a tiny flinch as he reached around her to tie the first sling.

Hood paused, looming over her. His helmet co*cked to the side. Then he stepped back, rolling the slings up into little bundles. He passed them to her, one at a time.

“Uh, thanks?” said Steph, baffled.

“Put them on before you sleep. You and Replacement can take it in shifts if it makes you feel better.”

Steph’s breath caught in her throat, and a sudden wave of relief threatened to overwhelm her. “I can see him?” she asked. Her voice came out smaller than she wanted it to, but she pressed on. “He’s alive?” He hadn’t answered her before, at Black Mask’s base, but now that he thought she wouldn’t get back words to the Bats…

Hood held out an arm. “Come and see.”

From the medbay, it was back into labyrinth. It was slow going, with Steph putting most of her weight on Hood and limping. But Hood didn’t rush her, or try to carry her again. He wasn’t even crowding her that much, beyond what he needed to to act as a crutch.

Again, Stephanie found herself wondering: what was his deal?

She knew before they came to it which was the door to the cell where Tim was. It was big and metal and barred with a gigantic beam. It was the kind of thing she’d imagine for, like, the treasury in a medieval castle.

Hood hoisted the beam out of the way and unlocked the door using a key he fished out from under his chest armour.

He steered Stephanie in front of him, so that she’d enter first, and she could feel her heart beating faster in anticipation as the door creaked open.

What state would she find Tim in? Was he actually alive, or was Hood f*cking with her? Would he be chained up, or so injured that he didn’t even need chains? Was he even in there? Was Stephanie just willingly walking into her doom?

The room was bright, and big, and Stephanie didn’t see Tim. She scanned over it once, twice, but she couldn’t see, she couldn’t see—

“Hi, asshole.” A familiar voice called from a pile of blankets on the far end of the room, sounding mildly annoyed. Steph froze, rooted in place. Tim. “You wanna tell me what’s going on? You’ve been gone all day; you missed dinner; I’m pretty sure the lights are supposed to be off by now; and this book is boring. We had a deal! I’m a good little murder-hostage, and you perform the bare minimum of treating me like a human being and keep a regular schedule. What gives?”

“Oh, cry me a river, Timbelina,” snapped Hood, shouldering his way in behind her. “One, I had sh*t to do. Two, don’t diss George Eliot in my house. That’s just rude. And three, I brought you a friend, so you can stop whining on and on about how bored you are. You’re welcome.”

The pile of blankets rocketed upwards, and Tim’s head emerged from somewhere in the middle. He looked…okay. Disheveled, but well-fed and his face wasn’t bruised. Much better than she’d expected. For the first time since storming out of the cave, Steph let herself hope for real, not just to make herself feel better.

Tim’s face went white when he saw her, and for a moment all he did was stare, wide-eyed and trembling.

“Tim?” She limped forward, away from Red Hood.

“Steph?” His voice was scarcely a whisper.

“Hey.” She laughed a little, a watery chuckle, and leaned on the random-ass orange couch in the middle of the room. “Gotta admit, this isn’t the super romantic reunion I imagined where I swoop in and rescue you, but…”

Tim was already running over to her, similarly drowning in Red Hood’s sweats, and he hovered his hands just above her face like he was scared to touch. “Steph?”

She curled her hand around his wrist and pulled it to her cheek. “Hey, Boy Blunder.”

Tim blinked at her. He was shaking. “You’re real,” he said. “It’s really you.”

“In the flesh.” She tried a smile.

Tim’s jaw tensed as his eyes caught at the bruises and scrapes on her face. His hand dipped down to her neck, two fingers pressed to her pulse point. She felt the thump-thump of her heartbeat pick up under the soft pressure.

She could almost see the thoughts whirling around in his brain, see him processing everything at a level she could never quite follow.

She was completely caught off guard when Tim spun around to face Hood, putting his own body between hers and Hood’s. “Is it catching?!” he asked.

“No,” said Hood, defensive. Then he clearly reconsidered. “Well…maybe? I don’t f*cking know.”

Tim stared at him, disbelief written across every muscle.

“Maybe it’s a curse on the position. That would explain all this bullsh*t.” Hood nodded sagely. “Fixable, too. I could shank a witch.”

Tim ran his hand down his face. “Oh my God, you’re such a dork. How do you not know if it’s the same stuff that happened to you? And why is she all bruised up, you f*cking asshole?”

“Cuz I don’t know how it happened, Replacement, geez. And don’t get all pissy; none of that was me.”

“What the f*ck are you two talking about?” asked Steph. There was obviously something she was missing, something big, and she was having a lot of trouble reconciling the Hood in her head—the one she’d seen torturing Tim on camera, the one she’d watched tearing apart men with his bare hands only a few hours ago, even the one who’d given her water and patched her up—with Tim’s obvious lack of fear now, with the easy back and forth they had going.

Tim looked back at her, then at the Red Hood. “Did you not…introduce yourself?”

Hood looked away. “Bit busy,” he said.

“Oh my God, you’re incompetent.”

“Excuse you, I noticed she was kidnapped hours before Daddy Bats even had even pinged she was missing from the Manor, so…there.”

Tim looked supremely unimpressed. “Wait,” he said, eyes flickering between Hood and Steph. “Bruce knew? That you were alive? You were in the Manor?”

“Um.” Steph paused, not sure exactly how to answer. How much did Hood know? And who was he? Was she supposed to have recognized him? What on earth was going on?

“She was on the comms last night planning a great Robin impersonation so that I’d come kidnap her and lead her back to you, or maybe Superman would get me, so…yeah, I’d say B knew she was alive and kicking.”

Steph felt a chill roil down her spine at the knowledge that Hood had been listening in. Their plan had been f*cked from the get-go.

“Oh,” said Tim. “That explains why you…” He trailed off.

Steph cringed at the sheer desolation in Tim’s voice. She wrapped her fingers in his sleeve, tugged him back to face her. “It wasn’t like—He wasn’t keeping it from you. He only found out that I was still alive three days ago.” It wasn’t like she wanted to defend Bruce’s communication skills, but Tim was hurting and that particular mess wasn’t B’s fault.

“Oh,” said Tim again, uncertain. “Okay.” He frowned. “How are you alive?”

Steph darted a glance at Hood. Just because Tim seemed all buddy-buddy with Hood didn’t mean the man was safe. Stockholm Syndrome was a thing. “It’s kind of a long story,” she hedged.

But at Tim’s desperate expression, she sighed and elaborated anyway. “Basically, I was really injured, but I didn’t actually die. Well, I coded a few times, but—Anyway, as soon as I was able, I came back to Gotham, found out you were kidnapped, then he kidnapped me, and now I’m here. Ta-da.” She gave them a pair of mediocre jazz hands. “Now, could we get back to the explaining what the f*ck is going on bit? Because I am so confused right now.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” said Hood. “Replacement can handle the exposition while I go to bed. I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it.”

Steph was more than happy to get Hood out of their hair, but Tim frowned at the man.

“Wait,” he said. “Has Steph—” He glanced at her. “Have you eaten anything? Dinner?”

“No?” she answered, confused as to why that would even matter right now.

Tim looked at Hood expectantly.

Hood groaned, loudly. “I just killed at least twenty people to get her away from that asshole Sionis, and I spent however many hours evading Batman, Nightwing, and f*cking Superman. So, no, I’m not making you a home-cooked meal tonight.”

Tim stiffened at the mention of Black Mask and whirled back to Steph. “Sionis?” he asked, quiet, even before Hood was done with his spiel. “Are you okay?”

“More or less,” she answered, similarly quiet.

The door clanged open, Hood heading out.

Tim looked over his shoulder at the noise. “Steph likes waffles,” he said, in a complete non-sequitur.

“I don’t give a sh*t, Replacement.” Hood flipped them the bird as he shut the door behind him. The lights all flickered off, plunging the room into darkness.

Tim sighed. “He says he doesn’t care, but I give it an 80% chance there’ll be waffles in the morning.”

“Hey, Tim,” said Stephanie, into the darkness. “What the f*ck?”

Chapter 18: I'm Not Okay (Bruce)

Chapter Text

It was shortly after seven AM. Bruce was lying in bed, flat on his back, staring at the canopy above him. He had not slept. He did not know how.

Gotham had retreated into an uneasy quasi-peace. There was no sign of Red Hood.

Stephanie had been missing for approximately twelve hours. Half of one day. Tim had been missing for eighteen days. Jason had been missing for one thousand, three hundred and twenty-three days.

Or, put another way, Stephanie had been missing for .038% of the time since Jason had disappeared. Tim had been missing for 1.36% of that time. Jason had been missing for all of it. One thousand, three hundred, and twenty-three days.

The room was dark. Plush, opulent. The mattress had been specifically designed for his body, the sheets calibrated to his personal preference. The windows were completely covered by blackout curtains. No light reached inside. Bruce only knew it was past dawn from the winter-sparse birdcalls that barely made it through the manor’s soundproofing. That, and the fact that he’d long-ago memorized a chart of approximate sunrise and sunset times by latitude, longitude, and time of year.

The room was dark. Comfortable. It should be easy to sleep.

He stared up at the canopy above him. If he could not sleep, he should at least be thinking useful thoughts. Something productive. Something to get Tim back. And Stephanie. And Jason.

No. Not Jason.

It was an old thought, familiar and aching and still raw, after all these years: You cannot bring Jason back. He is dead.

He forced himself, as he always did, to confront the pain of it face-on. Jason is dead. He is dead. There is nothing you can do about it. Jason is dead. You will never be able to fix it. Jason is dead. It will not be alright. Nothing will ever be alright again. Jason is dead.

The pattern on the canopy blurred and swirled in his sight. Burst of colors and light resolving into human faces and morphing again into darkness and shadow. Easily explained as phosphenes triggered by sleep deprivation and prolonged exposure to the dark and an unchanging visual landscape. A scientifically recognized phenomenon first documented in Hermann von Helmholtz’s 1910 Treatise on Physiological Optics. Known as real phenomenon for much longer than that, a result of the dark retreat, mun mtshams, practiced in the Dzogchen lineage of the Nyingmapa school of Buddhism.

The dancing shadows, twisting into monstrous visions before his eyes, were not cause for concern.

Bruce’s brain did not work like other people’s. He knew this. He remembered exactly where he had been—in the Kalighat district of Kolkata, calf-deep in muddy water and spoiling for a fight with the human traffickers that congregated in the area, on the evening of the 6^th of June, shortly after he had dropped out of college to travel the world—when he had read that particular section of Handbuch der physiologischen Optik. He could give an accurate accounting of the exact hallucinations he had experienced when locked in a grave-dark cell with no stimuli for five days, a bastardized and corrupted version of the mun mtshams practiced by the League of Assassins in Nanda Parbat. These thoughts—facts and dispassionate recollection—came unbidden and instantly as soon as Bruce registered the phenomena playing across his bed’s canopy—or, more accurately, playing somewhere in the interplay of his retinae, optic nerves, and visual cortex.

Most things were like this for him; Bruce absorbed data at a frenetic rate and recalled it with ease and startling clarity. It was effortless, automatic.

He was aware that it was a strange way to process the world, but it was utterly natural to him and generally beneficial. He understood how his brain worked, to an extent, and used it to his advantage.

But now all that brainpower, that memory, that processing ability, proved utterly useless. Worse than useless: instead of finding his son and bringing him home, he was staring at a piece of cloth on the ceiling, hallucinating, and recalling inane facts about an early 20^th-century German physicist. He could not call to light any facts that would aid in recovering Timothy. Nor Stephanie.

He did not know whether that was a fault of his recollection or a lack of relevant data. Either way, it was a flaw within Bruce himself: either substandard information collection, retention, or recall.

Bruce suspected the problem was recall. He had a…feeling that all the information he needed was right there, that the answer was staring him in the face.

For, despite the example of how well he could recall Handbuch der physiologischen Optik, Bruce was aware of a shameful truth about himself, one he had never verbalized, one he hardly dared ever even acknowledge in the privacy of his own mind:

He could not remember what Jason’s laugh had sounded like.

He recalled instances when Jason had laughed. He remembered late-night ice cream sessions on the roof, Jason’s razor-quick smile, the mischief in his eyes. He remembered the way Jason would throw back his head and cackle, his whole body shaking with delight. He remembered these things as facts, dispassionate and disconnected from any truth.

He could not, for the life of him, remember what that laugh—that pure, childish joy—had sounded like.

He was not entirely sure if he accurately remembered what Jason had looked like, or whether he had simply memorized the contours of photographs and superimposed them upon his most treasured memories, until the copies of those moments he was able to recall resembled an assembled fiction more than any sort of historical reality.

He suspected the same had long since corrupted all memories of his parents. He did not remember his mother’s face, nor his father’s. He knew this because in all of his memories of them—in every single one—they wore the carefully presented smiles of photographs and portraiture, and any other expression blurred and fuzzed, unable to resolve in his mind.

His mother always wore red lipstick in his memory, although when he’d snuck into his parents’ room—now his room—after their deaths, and brought her lipstick close to his cheek, trying to regain some echo of her kisses, the press of that soft, waxy, floral—almost musty—scent against his skin, it was indisputable that the majority, and the most used, of her collection were in corals and soft oranges, dusty pinks and salmons. Red had only been used for special occasions.

Yet, in all his memories, her lips were blood red.

He stared at the swirling phosphenes and tried to remember the last time he’d heard Tim laugh—really laugh, in true and unrestrained joy, rather than a dark chuckle or a soft huff of amusem*nt.

Several months, at least, and he could not remember when.

How long until he forgot the sound of it?

There was motion in the corner of his eye, then a sliver of dim light, partially blocked by a shadowy silhouette. The door closed silently, casting the room back into darkness.

Wordlessly, Bruce reached for his son, and he felt rather than heard the boy padding towards him. The mattress dipped down with new weight, then stilled.

Bruce frowned, half-sat up. “Dick?”

“Dad.” Dick’s voice, scarcely above a whisper, broke on the word, and suddenly the weight of a full-grown man was thrown on Bruce’s chest.

Automatically, Bruce held him close, sank back down into the sheets, and held tight as Dickie started sobbing, shuddering in grated gasps of air, his throat still raw from the blast earlier in the night.

“Shhhh. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re safe, chum.”

Dick only sobbed harder, half-gasping out words, keening in agony, and Bruce was helpless to do anything other than what he already was, rubbing circles of nothing into his son’s back, gripping him tight, holding him close.

“I’ve got you.” It’ll be alright. The words were on his tongue, but they tasted like a lie. So he swallowed, kept that sweet poison in. “I’ve got you.”

Eventually, Dickie cried himself out. For long, silent minutes, they lay there, father and son, clinging tight to each other for comfort.

Dick broke the silence first. “I’m not okay.” His voice was hoarse. “Dad, I’m not—I can’t—” He shook in Bruce’s arms, and Bruce resumed the useless circles. “I’m not okay.” This was said directly into Bruce’s sleep shirt.

“We’ll figure it out, Dickie. We’ll fix it.” The words felt hollow.

Dick must have agreed, because he shook his head against Bruce’s chest, burrowing in deeper as he did so. “It’s not...I can’t—I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“No, chum. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.”

“I’m not—I’m not…I can’t…I’m not—good. I’m not—I—I can’t. Please. Please, dad. I’m not okay. I’m not okay. I’m not okay. I’m not okay.” His voice got higher, more frantic, as he repeated the litany over and over, fading into a wordless whine.

Bruce didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to do. When Dickie’d been a kid, fresh from the murder of his parents, when he’d come into Bruce’s room fresh from a nightmare, he’d take him down to the—okay. Okay. Plan of action.

He shifted in the bed, one arm staying around Dick’s torso. The other he shifted down, until he had the proper leverage to hoist his son out of bed and rest his weight on one hip.

Dick’s too-shallow breathing stuttered. “What…?”

“Shhh. Just stay. Just like that, chum. I’ve got you.”

Dick stared at him for a second, then relaxed into his arms, nestled his head into Bruce’s shoulder. He wrapped his legs around Bruce’s waist, tight, and circled his arms around his neck, gripping the fabric on the back of his shirt in two desperate fists. It settled something in Bruce, to have his koala of a son clinging close to him like he used to. Though admittedly, it had been easier—even for Batman—to carry the boy before he’d grown into an adult-sized brick of compacted muscle.

Bruce carried him down to the kitchen. No one was there; it had been a late night for Alfred, too.

One-handed, Bruce set the kettle to boil. Despite Alfred’s and his children’s teasing, he did know how to make tea.

He took down three mugs, set them on the counter and fished out the tea strainers from the drawer where they lived.

“I can help—”

“No, chum, just stay.” He should get the humidified oxygen Dickie was supposed to be on, but the damage was less extensive than they’d originally feared and it was more of a precautionary measure at this point. Making the tea felt more important, right now.

“M’kay.” Dick nuzzled deeper into his shoulder.

It was awkward, doing everything one-handed, but the ritual was comforting. He’d helped perform it every night for almost four years, starting when when he was eight. Then again when he was twenty-three, and another broken-hearted little boy haunted by nightmares had come to live in the manor.

He hadn’t done this in years. Not since—not since Jason. And then only rarely. Jason had always been so reluctant to reach out for any comfort. Bruce knew his own shortcomings had only exacerbated that problem. Tim had never really lived in the manor, except for those few months when his father was in that coma. And even then, Bruce hadn’t dared to presume to treat Tim as a son. Another error on his part. He might never get the chance. Bruce felt his younger sons’ absence like two lodestones pulling at his soul.

Bruce took as much solace as he could in the familiar movements. Lay out the strainers; find a teaspoon; carefully measure the tea—Assam, Alfred’s old standby, kept in a large tin on the countertop; sift it into the strainers; pinch them closed; drop each into its own mug. Wait for the water to boil; give it a minute so that it wouldn’t scald the leaves; pour it over.

He had to bend down to draw a small tray out of its drawer. His knees creaked and protested as he squat down, shifting Dickie’s limp weight as he did so. At some point, the boy had drifted off to sleep, still wrapped around him. His breathing was pained, but deep and steady.

Bruce closed his eyes. He was getting old. Too many years running his body too hard.

There was nothing for it but to keep going. Bruce wasn’t sure he would even know how to stop. He retrieved the tray and set it on the counter, placed the mugs on top. Four and half minutes for it to steep, then remove the tea strainers and put them in the sink.

Drizzle honey from the dipper into each mug. Two seconds each for Alfred and Bruce, seven seconds for Dickie. Then cream, instead of milk. Tonight was a cream night. Or, this morning was.

Stir, saving Dick’s for last to avoid sweetness contamination. Tap the spoon against the rim of each mug twice as he finished stirring. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but it was part of the ritual. The tea didn’t taste right if you didn’t do two taps exactly.

The spoon also went into the sink, and he balanced the tray on his spare forearm. Dick stirred a bit as they left the kitchen. Then up the stairs and down the hall, right at the end of the corridor, down three steps to the half-story there. A left, and down the next hallway—this one cozier, windowless with a sloped ceiling—all the way to the plain white door at the end.

A warm light peeked out from beneath the door, and Bruce balanced the tray between his body and the door just long enough to knock softly and step back.

A few seconds later, the door whispered open to reveal Alfred, still in his pyjamas.

“Oh, my dear boy.” He stepped back, eyes sad and kind, to welcome Bruce and Dick in, and grabbed the tray from Bruce to set it on the small table near his armchair.

Dick stirred in his arms. “Wha’s goin’—?” His eyes settled on Alfred and the tea tray. “Hi, Alfie.”

Alfred’s eyes crinkled, fond, and he nodded to the bundle in Bruce’s arms. “Master Dick.”

He sank into the chair, and Bruce settled onto the carpeted floor at his knee, Dick still in his lap.

“You want some tea, chum?”

“Mmm.” Dick burrowed deeper into his lap.

“Was that a yes or a no, buddy?”

“Mmm.” That cleared nothing up, but his hands disentangled themselves from their deathgrip on Bruce and made grabbing motions towards the tea, so Bruce twisted and passed down Dick’s mug and a coaster before helping himself to his own.

The room filled with the sound of slow sips of honeyed tea and the soft clinks of mugs on tile coasters.

Bruce sipped his own tea slowly. Alfred’s free hand played softly through his hair, soft wrinkles and old calluses catching every once in a while, and Bruce felt the smallest amount of tension seep out of his body. He slumped back onto the base of the chair, rested his head on Alfred’s knee, and just let the older man stroke gentle fingers across his scalp.

Dickie had set his half-finished tea on the floor—on the coaster, of course; no one would dare otherwise anywhere in Alfred’s domain, but especially in this most sacrosanct of spaces—and was drifting off back to sleep.

Bruce set his own empty mug down and cradled his son against his body, brushed heavy fingertips through his curls, rumbled a tuneless refrain through his chest, and let himself melt into his own father’s steady and gentle hands.

Eventually, he fell asleep.

Bruce blinked into awareness some number of hours later as a warm pressure removed itself from his body. The light said it was early afternoon.

Bruce squinted through heavy lashes. Dickie was still dozing on top of him; Alfred snoozing in the armchair. No alarms. No alerts. Then what—?

Cassandra. She was stretching out sore shoulders silently, just in the periphery of his vision. He could feel the soft buzzing of blood and sensation returning to the side of his body where Dick wasn’t curled up. Cassie had been lying down with them, then, and he hadn’t even stirred when she came in and nestled into his side. Bruce checked his watch and did some math. She’d been back in Gotham for about three hours now, though he had no idea how long she’d been in the room, or even whether she’d been updated on the situation with Stephanie and Red Hood.

She gathered the mugs and coasters in absolute silence before turning to look at Bruce. Her face was solemn, but steady. Her gaze held a tangible weight. She knew, then.

She tilted her head in question. Come with me?

Bruce nodded, and extracted himself from beneath the pile of octopus-boy that had attached itself to him.

Cassandra took the lead on opening the door to Alfred’s quarters, and Bruce was happy to let her. He had never quite mastered the trick of getting that door to open silently. As far as he knew, Alfred and Cassandra were the only ones who had ever managed it.

Once in the hallway, he tried to take the tray of empty mugs and coasters from her, but she deftly stepped out of his reach and didn’t let go of the tray until she had safely set it down in the kitchen sink.

“It’s good to see you, Cassie,” said Bruce. “You were sorely missed.”

She looked up at him, and there was something unreadable in her eyes. She turned on her heel and left, the unspoken command to follow clear in her every footstep.

They ended up in the Cave, where Oracle was hunched over the Batcomputer’s keyboard, glaring at the screen.

“Barbara,” said Bruce. “Have you slept.” It wasn’t so much a question as a demand.

She shot a look over her shoulder at the two of them and turned back to the computer. “A few hours, this morning.”

Bruce sighed and nodded.

“I do have a possible lead. The registration on Hood’s car—the Impala—traces back to a John Peterson. John Peterson doesn’t exist, but whoever put him in the system was good. We’ve got a fake license that would ping as real on any system, with a picture that doesn’t match anybody in any facial recognition database I can access. But the associated address doesn’t exist, and the social security number is fake.”

She pulled up an image of the license and blew up the photo. Bruce stared at it. Male, early twenties, 6’3, dark brown hair, green eyes. Generic face, tan skin. A scar on his lip, a crooked nose. He was scowling into the camera. Bruce stared at it, but the image didn’t spark even a hint of recognition.

“My guess is either that’s Hood, or Hood looks close enough to that photo under the helmet that it would pass on most cursory inspections. At the very least, it gives us a vague description to go off of: dark hair, light eyes, light brown skin, heavy jaw, strong eyebrows, a nose that has been broken at least once.”

“Hn.”

“He’s got four other vehicles registered on that license, and I have all of them tagged as high priority. If any of them pass by a traffic camera anywhere in the country, I’ll get an alert.”

Bruce nodded. “Anything else?”

Her lips thinned. “Not yet.”

Cassandra leaned over Barbara’s shoulder and tapped a corner of the screen where the footage from Sionis’s compound stood paused.

Barbara glanced at her. “You want the security footage?”

She nodded.

“The compilations you sent me from the plane, or the whole thing?”

Cass held up one finger. The first one.

Bruce settled behind Barbara’s other shoulder as she pulled the footage to the main screen. He caught her eye and tapped his lips, sending a questioning glance towards Cass. Has she spoken, since getting here?

Barbara shook her head, eyes tight.

Bruce could feel his mouth settling into a grim line, but he turned his attention to the screen, to whatever Cass wanted to show them.

The clips seemed random at first, a mix of snippets of Red Hood from Titans Tower and the assault on the compound, and even a few from his crime lord days. All in all, maybe sixty separate clips all spliced together into forty seconds of actual content, quickly snapping between different locations with no seeming rhyme or reason.

Bruce frowned at the screen, trying to see what Cass had seen. It took him a few loops through to finally spot it.

“Those are League moves.”

Cass nodded.

“He’s not a member of the League.” He was too flashy, too undisciplined when he lost control, and he’d left none of the customary calling cards. Plus, Bruce would have heard from Ra’s long before now if Red Hood truly was from the League of Assassins.

Cass nodded her agreement.

“League-trained?”

Another nod. She waited for it to loop back to the beginning, then tapped the screen. “Sensei.” Five or so clips flashed by in a few short seconds. She tapped the screen again. “Tigris.” Eight more clips. “Talia.” This section was much longer, maybe twenty seconds and thirty clips. “Father.” The section detailing David Cain’s influence took up the rest of the spiel, the longest section besides Talia’s.

Bruce took in a shaky breath. “You’re sure?”

Cass didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead she turned to Barbara and made a circular motion. Play the next reel.

Oracle obliged.

Bruce watched the screen, and this time it didn’t take him even one whole play-through to spot the through line. It was a shorter collection of clips, just under twenty seconds, mainly from security footage of Red Hood moving around the city before he had attacked Tim.

Barbara got it only a second after Bruce, and gasped. “Bats,” she said. “Those are Bat moves.”

Cass nodded again, and even Bruce couldn’t deny it, as much as he stared at the looping footage and tried to do so.

Talia, he thought, was the key. She had the most visible influence, the closest connection to the Bats as a whole. She was the most likely to concoct some scheme using League resources behind Ra’s al Ghul’s back, the only one with enough power to actually pull it off.

A tap on his bicep brought him back to the Cave, and he followed its source to Cassandra. Oracle had pulled up profiles of all of the influences Cass had named on a separate screen, and Cass tapped David Cain twice, and then herself. Talia al Ghul twice, and then Bruce.

He nodded, grim. He would never have asked the girl to face her father again, but she was the only one he might open up to. It would be easy enough for her to get to his prison cell in Bludhaven, and if she was volunteering…

He couldn’t think of any better options.

Cass frowned into the middle distance, still chewing on some thought. “Onyx,” she said finally, and tapped herself again.

Bruce acknowledged it with a soft grunt. The ex-League member was most friendly with Cass out of all of them, and would be a good source of information.

“Then,” said Cass, still glaring at nothing in particular. “Then. Me, Connor, Bart, Other Cass. We will hunt the League.”

Bruce frowned. “Are you sure that that’s the best allo—”

“Not,” Cassandra interrupted. “Not asking. Telling.”

Bruce met his daughter’s eyes, and yielded.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. What do you need?”

Cass just shook her head.

“Let me know if you do need anything. And keep us updated.”

A nod, then a glance good-bye at each of them, and Cassandra crossed the Cave to her motorcycle and was gone.

Bruce sighed and massaged his temples as soon as the sounds of her engine faded away.

“Am I just f*cking up these kids more by taking them in?”

Barbara snorted, then seemed to actually consider the question. “Probably,” she said, “but we were all pretty f*cked up to begin with. All of us were out on the street before you even met us, and we’ll all still be out there after you’re gone.” She leaned back in her chair. “So, yeah, we probably are more f*cked up than we would’ve been without the Batclan, but, honestly, Bruce? I think most of us would be dead, if we weren’t here. Dead, or worse.”

Something sick curdled in his stomach at her words. “Except for Jason,” he said.

She closed her eyes. “That wasn’t your fault.”

Bruce stared at the still-looping footage on the main screen. “All of you chose to go out on the street before you met me,” he said, echoing her earlier words, “except for Jason.”

Barbara pinched the bridge of her nose. “Go call Talia,” she said.

Chapter 19: A Reunion of Robins (Tim)

Chapter Text

“Jason Todd,” said Steph, when Tim finally finished catching her up on everything he knew about their abductor. She’d been remarkably quiet during his explanation, though that could also be because she was in pain and really tired. Tim had done his best; stacking the couch cushions so that she could elevate her leg and cocooning her in blankets to ward off shock and make the slings feel less restraining. Now the both of them lay on the mattress, Steph on top of Tim, nestled into his arms. It was nice, having her weight pressed down on him. Grounding. It felt like home.

“Yep,” said Tim.

“Jason f*cking Todd.”

“Pretty sure his middle name is Peter.”

“I regret ever trying to rescue you or thinking that you were sweet.”

Tim grinned. “You think I’m sweet?”

“No, and obviously you’re not too smart either since you obviously didn’t listen to what I just said.”

“Oh, well.” Tim couldn’t even pretend to be upset. Steph was here. Steph was here. Steph was alive, and she was here, and she was pressed against him in what was basically a very extended backwards hug, and Tim honestly wasn’t sure when the last time someone had hugged him had been. Jason’s weird power play with the honey tea didn’t count.

Probably it had been Bart or Cassie, back with the Titans. But before that…when was the last time he held someone? When was the last time he’d let himself be held?

Bruce had held him, when they’d found his father’s body. Then at Steph’s funeral he’d refused any comfort from the man. After that…

“Jason Motherf*cking Todd,” Steph breathed, drawing him out of his thoughts. “So, what’s the gameplan?”

“Huh?”

“Escape, Tim. Or contacting someone? How are we doing this?”

“Honestly, I’ve been trying to induce Lima Syndrome in him. I admit, it’s a longcon, but…outright escape didn’t work. Maybe he might slip up with two of us here, but I wouldn’t bet on it. He’s pretty paranoid. Like, more paranoid than Bruce. Plus, escaping won’t get Jason back into the family anyway. So. Lima Syndrome.”

He could hear Steph thinking about his words. “That’s definitely the goal?” she asked. “Bringing Jason back into the family?”

Why would there be any other goal? “Yeah.”

“You’re sure? The guy tortured you.”

“Barely.” Honestly, it felt like that was a completely different person who’d done that. Hood, not Jason. “No real harm done. And of course I’m sure: it’s Jason.”

“Okay, Tim, I’m gonna say something you won’t like, and I need you to listen to me.”

Tim tried to push down the squirmy feeling in his stomach. “I already don’t like this,” he tried to joke.

“You don’t have to like, just listen. Hood—Jason—kidnapped you, tortured you, shot you, massacred Black Mask’s men in the most violent way imaginable, and is keeping us in a heavily fortified basem*nt-torture-dungeon. And you’re dismissing the torture as ‘not that bad,’ but I am somewhat of an expert on being tortured and I saw the video, and—”

“Wait, what? What video?”

“You didn’t—? Uh, yeah, Hood sent this whole video of him torturing you to B. It was bad, Tim. Like, I had to leave five minutes in because I was getting flashbacks to Black Mask bad.”

“Steph, I’m so sorry—”

“What the f*ck are you sorry about? You didn’t torture yourself. Hood did that. Jason did that. And—” Her voice cracked with unshed tears. “It’s not ‘no big deal, no damage done,’ Tim. It’s just not, okay? The video was two hours long, and it doesn’t include any of your current injuries. And the things he said…” She took a steadying breath.

Tim suddenly felt very trapped beneath her. “It’s not—I’m not…I’m not saying it wasn’t bad, Steph. Or that it was okay. But—it’s Jason. We can’t just…it’s Jason.”

“How sure are you about that?”

“Very.”

This was where B would ask for proof, for DNA analysis and possible theories of the resurrection mechanism. Steph didn’t do any of that. Instead she just accepted his word. “Okay,” she said. “It’s Jason. Why does that matter?”

Tim sputtered. Why did that matter? How could she even—? He tried to marshal his thoughts into some form of coherence that would make sense to her, but it was hard because that was just so—it was such a fundamental truth, and if she couldn’t even see that… “Because he was Robin,” Tim finally settled on. “And if we just left him here, if we don’t do everything we possibly can to bring him back, then—then we’re not Robins. Or we shouldn’t be.”

Steph was quiet for a really long time after that. Long enough that Tim feared she may have fallen asleep. He ran a thumb gently across her arm in steady circles.

But finally she sighed. “Just promise me, Tim. You’re trying to reverse-Stockholm this guy, but empathy’s a double-edged sword and you’re Stockholming yourself at the same time. Just…check in. And make sure you’re not putting his life above yours, okay? Can you promise me that much?”

Tim swallowed. “I promise.” He wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. Then the implications of her words hit him. “You’re in?”

She huffed a quiet laugh. “I’m in. Project Lima is a go. Now budge up. I can’t sleep with your bony-ass hipbones digging into my butt.”

“Pretty sure your butt is the one that’s trying to crush my well-defined hipbones.” But Tim budged up so that they were cuddling next to each other instead of Steph on top of him.

“You calling me fat, Wonder-Boy?”

“I’m saying you have a big ass.”

“How dare you.” Steph tried and failed to smother a giggle, and Tim smiled into her collarbone.

“I missed you,” he said, “so much.”

“Me too. So much.”

They lay like that for a few minutes, and Tim knew Stephanie had just said she wanted to go to sleep, but he was up now and his brain was racing.

“You said—earlier, you said you didn’t actually die, when...when. How did—? I mean, we thought you were—we mourned you. It was—it was so bad, Steph. I—” He tried to swallow down the accusations that wanted to bubble up to the surface. It was just…it hurt so much. First Darla, then Steph, then Dad. Dead, dead, dead, over barely half a week. And Dana was gone into her own head, and Kon was recovering from brainwashing in Kansas, and Tim was banished to Bludhaven, and Dick and Cass had left, and Tim had been alone, except for the Titans, but not even all of them, and Stephanie had been alive, she’d been alive that whole time. “Where were you? Why didn’t you—what happened?”

Steph swallowed. “I don’t know—I don’t know exactly how everything happened, in the beginning. I was…I was really bad off. Leslie was doing surgery on me, and I coded twice, and even when she got me stable again, she wasn’t sure I was gonna wake up, and I guess she thought, maybe it’d be a wakeup call to Bruce, if she told him I was dead. So. That’s what happened, and she smuggled me out of the country. I was was touch and go for weeks, according to Leslie. By the time I woke up, I’d been dead almost a month already and…I needed time.”

“Time,” Tim repeated. “You needed time. And you couldn’t have—have called, maybe, and said you needed time? So that I wasn’t—I thought you were dead, Steph.” He was crying, he realized. “You could’ve called. At least.”

“No I couldn’t!” Steph’s voice was ragged. “I couldn’t. Tell me honestly: if I’d called you back then, would you, Tim Drake, have actually given me space? Or would you have pried into everything and tried to take me away from Leslie?”

“I would’ve—”

“No, you wouldn’t! Because that’s not who you are. You don’t let things lie. You would have told Batman, and he would have come down in a caped vengeance, and I was weak, okay? I was weak! I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t even sit up on my own at first, I couldn’t stay awake for more than a few hours at a time, and even thinking took so much effort. I couldn’t—I couldn’t have held my own against Batman. I couldn’t have held my own against you. And you would have pushed and pushed and pushed, because that’s what you do!”

Tim tried to keep his voice level. “Steph. I don’t know why you—”

“Oh, don’t take that f*cking tone with me!”

“What f*cking tone? I’m just trying to be calm about—”

“That f*cking tone. The one where you’re all, ‘I’m Mr. Rational Better-Than-You Detective.’”

“I’m not—”

“You are! You want to know why I didn’t call you? Because I knew you’d do this! I knew you’d speak down to me, and—and judge me, for sparking off the gang war, for getting caught, for getting so hurt, for, for all of it, all of it, Robin and all the rest—”

Tim reared back at her speech, though his motion was severely limited by the blankets they were wrapped up in. “When have I ever judged you? I supported you against Batman, even when—”

“You spent half of the time we were together telling me to go home! That I wasn’t prepared enough or good enough to fight real crime! And you never trusted me—I never knew your name, and when I tried to figure it out, you treated it like it was, like it was some cute foible of mine, wanting to know who you were, like I was an amusing toddler, and you’d lecture me on it! Like when that friend of yours—that, that, Secret—when she tried to kill me, and you just sat us down and pat our heads like those were the same things, and how me trying to find out your name was me not trusting you, when you were the one who wouldn’t trust me, like that was fair, like that was okay, like it didn’t always put me beneath you, when, when—”

“Woah, woah, woah. You told me you were fine with not knowing my identity, and that was Bruce’s rule, not mine. I wanted to tell you! But you said it was fine so I listened to you and believed you when you said that, and you can’t be mad at me for f*cking listening to what you said!”

“Yes I can! I can be mad about whatever the f*ck I want, and you can’t tell me that, that—ugh! This. This is exactly it. You—you logic, and you twist things, and, and I just, I couldn’t do that, Tim! I couldn’t deal with your paternalistic bullsh*t while I was barely myself!”

“My bullsh*t? Sorry I wanted to know my girlfriend was alive when my dad had just been brutally murdered!! Sorry I f*cking cared about you, Steph!”

“Oh, give me a break. Newsflash: not everything is about you!”

Tim laughed, bitter. “Oh, really? Because you just said it was. You just said the whole reason you didn’t come back was because you didn’t want to deal with me, which, fine, I guess, I really could have used a friend, but if you can’t f*cking deal with me, that’s your call, I guess, but what about the rest of us? What about Barbara? What about Cass?”

Stephanie flinched. “It wasn’t about you,” she repeated. “It wasn’t even about Bruce. And it wasn’t about Barbara or Cass. It was about me. Okay? It was about me, recognizing that I’d been treated badly and discarded by all of you, and figuring out what I wanted, and building myself back up strong enough to set healthy f*cking boundaries. So that I could be there for Cass, and Barbara, and yes, even you, you f*cking sanctimonious prick!”

They were both panting, still tied together by the blankets. “Steph.” Tim’s voice came out strangled and broken. “I am so sorry for what happened to you, that you felt—discarded. It’s a really sh*tty feeling. But I don’t—I don’t understand. I never…I tried so hard to be there for you, and you kept pushing me away. If anything, I felt like I’d been discarded by you. You just—we were good, one day, and then you just stopped talking to me, you didn’t take any of my calls, you became Robin without even telling me, you wouldn’t even—I tried to go to your house, multiple times, but you never…and then when you did agree to talk, you never even showed up! You just sent Cass instead! It was like, you became Robin and suddenly I didn’t matter to you at all. Like I was just a means to an end, and then you were dead, you were dead, and I couldn’t even hate you for it.” He was sobbing into her shirt, fists clenched tight into the fabric of Hood’s tee.

“I wanted so badly for you to be alive, so that I could hate you for it,” he confessed into that space between them.

“Well, I’m alive,” she said. “You can hate me now.”

Tim shook his head. “No, I can’t.” He looked up to the vague shadow in the darkness that was her head. “I could never actually hate you.”

She was silent for a moment. “Help me with these f*cking straightjacket slings. I need to hug you.”

Tim swallowed. “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I know that, Boy Idiot. I want to. C’mon.”

Tim fumbled a bit with the straps as he freed Stephanie’s arms and she pulled him close. For a few long moments, they just lay there, hugging and breathing.

Steph broke the silence first. “I’m trynna think how to say this.” He could hear her chewing on her lip. “I think…our relationship was…not good. Or, no, that’s not quite right. Not healthy. Our relationship wasn’t healthy. And that’s on both of us. On my part, I was dealing with a lot of sh*t and I really—I don’t think I should have actually been in a relationship at all, then. I would’ve—I wanted someone to love me so bad. And I thought I had to give up part of myself to do it, and…I don’t think there was any way it would have ended well. But that doesn’t mean—you meant so much to me. You were the best thing in my life. You and Cass, you were the only people who ever saw me as a person, who believed in me. And you meant everything to me.”

Tim rubbed circles into her back, tried to hear what she was saying.

“I was so—when I saw you kissing that girl, I was so hurt, and I didn’t know how to even—I thought if I saw you, I’d do something horrible, and I really, really didn’t want to, because that’s not who I wanted to be, but I shouldn’t have just cut you out like that. I just didn’t know how—I didn’t know how.”

“What girl?” Tim winced. “Wait, no. That’s not the point of that—not the point of what you said. Um…uh, let me think.”

Steph snorted softly and he felt a bit of his hair fluff up in the air. “You’re a mess. And I don’t know her name. It was just this girl at your school. Um, dark hair, skinny?”

“Darla? Oh sh*t—that was, f*ck, Steph, that was—she kissed me, and I immediately made it clear that I was in a relationship, and…you don’t want to hear excuses right now, do you?”

Steph huffed. “I really don’t.”

“I—God, I’m sorry, Steph. For everything. For making you feel like you were worth…less to me, somehow. It’s not—you are so important to me, Steph. So important. And I should’ve—I should’ve been better at making sure you knew that.”

“I’m sorry too.” And he could hear the tears in her voice, but he could also hear the smile. “You will always be one of the most important people in my life. Always. Even if we’re not dating, got it?”

Tim huffed out a watery chuckle. “Got it,” he said, and hugged her closer. “So…friends?”

“Friends.”

He was exhausted, suddenly, all of hitting at once.

“I love you,” she said, “and I always will. No matter what.”

Tim squeezed his eyes closed, and a few tears worked their way down his cheeks. “I love you too,” he said, and it was an unvoiced whisper, but he knew she heard it. “No matter what.”

Steph hummed happily in his ear and snuggled deeper into their blanket nest. “And we’re gonna reverse-Stockholm the f*ck out of Red Robin Hood up there.”

Tim grinned into her neck. “Yeah we are.”

“But first, sleep.”

“Mmm, sleep.”

Steph laughed softly. “Good night, Boy Wonder.”

“Think it’s morning,” Tim mumbled, but he was already drifting off. He barely heard Stephanie’s fond whispered ‘Pedantic asshole’ before a comfortable darkness overcame him, and he knew nothing but sleep.

Chapter 20: Reflections & Realizations (Jason & Bruce & Barbara)

Chapter Text

Jason felt like absolute dogsh*t when he woke up. Just, the worst.

His head pounded like he’d been cursed with the hangovers of every last drunk in Gotham. He was bruised to all sh*t, and every bit of him was sore and stiff and aching. He burrowed his head deeper into his pillow and groaned. “No.”

He was not ready to wake up. Not ready to deal with stuff. Not ready to move.

His brain kept f*cking thinking. Remembering. The blood and bile and bits of broken bodies slathered over every inch of him. Joy, and laughter, and green, and fire.

A countdown.

Boom.

Dick, dead.

Dick, not dead.

“I can’t lose another son.”

A girl, flinching away from his touch even as he tried to help her.

“What’s your deal? What’s the endgame? What’s your goal?”

Jason rolled over, drew his pillow over his head, and shouted out a wordless scream.

“I know!” He yelled, into the feathery white void. “I f*cking know, okay? Let me sleep!”

The void had no mercy. The longer he was awake, the more he remembered he had to do. He had responsibilities. Duties. He’d kidnapped the two teenagers and locked them in his basem*nt, so he needed to take care of them. Because that was how that worked.

And…Dick. He should make sure Dick was okay.

He’d killed his brother.

He hadn’t, though. He had to remind himself: he hadn’t.

Pure luck, that he hadn’t.

Jason had killed Dick last night, and it was only because of Superman that he didn’t have to live with the consequences.

Was that worth it, for his revenge?

No. Of course not. The answer was automatic.

But what you’re doing to the Replacement, to Stephanie, killing them in all but actuality, that’s fine?

That was different.

Because—it just was. He wasn’t hurting them. It was fine.

You’re not hurting them anymore.

“Shut up.”

Not even that’s true, though, is it? You are hurting them. You will.

“Shut up.”

Remember when you blew up Dickie?

“Yeah, I f*cking remember.” He was talking to himself. Great sign of sanity.

Remember what your first thought was?

“Stop.”

Remember how joyful we were? How good it made us feel?

“Shut up.”

Remember the piñata?

“f*cking shut UP!” Jason threw his pillow against the wall.

Everything hurt.

You know how to fix this? How to make it all better?

He did. Give into the green rising within him. Make it all make sense.

Mmm.

Without the green running through his veins, Jason couldn’t be happy. He didn’t think he’d ever been happy, before the Pit. Since the Pit? His head hurt.

Without the green wrapped around him, without its protection, without its power, he couldn’t be safe. That was how he died, by listening to the voice in him that said trust, the one that said care, instead of the one that said hurt them before they hurt you. The one that said keep hitting until they don’t get back up.

He needed it.

Everything hurt.

Make it stop make it stop make it stop.

He reached for the comfort of the Pit. It would be worth it, to stop the pain. To get back that certainty. That exultant joy. That…high.

It was a high, riding on the green.

Jason lurched out of bed and threw himself into the broken bathroom, gagged up nothing over the toilet.

It was a high.

f*ck.

It was a high.

Jason’s responsibilities didn’t give a sh*t he was having an emotional crisis. Jesus f*ck, this was like the tenth one in the three weeks since he’d kidnapped the Replacement. He’d never had to deal with any of this bullsh*t before.

Jason forced himself up, stumbled to his tech closet, threw himself into the chair. He’d thrown his comm line out yesterday, but the channel still automatically recorded as it always had. He needed to know what the Bats were doing. He needed to make plans. Assess the damage.

He leaned his head against the wall, closed his eyes. It had been too much to listen to this sh*t yesterday, and he didn’t think it would be any better today. But he had to know.

He sped through the recordings until he reached the point where he’d thrown out his comm, then pressed play. He kept his mind carefully detached, floating somewhere where the voices on the line couldn’t hurt him.

As he listened, his mind kept spiraling back to his morning’s revelation. How much was he dependent upon the Pit to function? The answer was a lot, probably. Jason wasn’t particularly functional without the Pit. Case in point: he was currently on his thousandth breakdown or something in the last few weeks.

How many of his thoughts and actions were just to feed into the Pit, to keep the high going?

He was almost afraid to try and answer that.

He wanted Bruce to suffer. The anger he felt as soon as B’s voice registered in his ears spoke to that. He wanted the Replacement to suffer. That wasn’t the Pit, he was pretty sure. That was just…Jason. That was the boy who’d died in pain, who’d died abandoned and alone, and crawled his way out of his grave to find that there was another kid in his spot. Like he hadn’t died with his lungs on fire and come back drowning in acid. Robin was suffering, and pain, and how dare—how f*cking dare—how dare the Replacement stand there in his colors and not know the price of it? How f*cking dare Bruce put him there, and then have the f*cking gall to act surprised when the inevitable came? How dare he act outraged at the consequences for his actions?

Jason forced himself to pay attention as new voices came in through the comms, running mic checks. Young voices. The Titans? Except everyone was referring to them as Young Justice. Probably something he’d missed in his time being dead. Whatever, it didn’t matter.

He could scarcely believe the old man had relaxed his ‘no metas in Gotham’ rule so drastically in one night.

You did that. He’s losing it. He’s breaking.

The feeling burned in his chest, painful and jagged, a sort of vicious satisfaction. He’d done that. Him. Jason Todd. The f*ck-up, the gutter rat, the worseless spare. He’d made Batman break one of his cardinal rules, he’d called down the wrath of Superman, and they still couldn’t find him.

He’d f*cking done that. He caught himself grinning, the pride smoother now, less painful, elegant and sleek and…green.

f*ck.

Okay, he really needed to figure this out.

Jason breathed through his nose and closed his eyes. Tried to embrace the green and let it wash through him, like Ducra had showed him. Breathe. And again.

He tested the thought: Bruce and the Replacement deserved to suffer. Tested the glee he felt at the idea. Was it his or the Pit’s?

He couldn’t tell. Was there even a difference? The Pit was part of him. He didn’t think it would ever go away. He didn’t think he wanted it to go away.

Fan the green. Hold his breath and duck under the waves. Test the idea. Probe his mind, his feelings. Breathe in, let it rise, a tide breaking against sand, and let it drift back down, leaving him dry and bereft. Test again.

The differences were subtle, but he teased them out. When he was floating on the swell of the Pit, it wasn’t personal. That seemed backwards, almost, like it should be the other way around. But on the green, there was a kind of distanced logic to his thoughts: everyone who had hurt him deserved to die, everyone who got in his way, everyone who was there and might stop him, and who cared if he had loved them once, who cared about whether they were good people or children or innocents? Certainly not Jason. If they weren’t actively helping him, everyone was an obstacle, and he would take a righteous joy in breaking them down. He was an ice-cold furor of intent, disconnected and methodical.

Without the Pit, Jason’s rage burned searing hot. It hurt more. It was wilder, the joy intimate and visceral, the satisfaction personal. Without the Pit, it was like there was a flaming lump of coal in his chest, burning him from the inside out, all the pain that had ever been inflicted upon him, and if he didn’t tear it out of his own ribcage and force it down someone else’s throat, it would consume him alive.

Without the Pit, Jason hurt. He wanted Bruce to suffer because Bruce was supposed to be his dad. Because he hadn’t even noticed when Jason broke his fingers breaking out of his coffin. He wanted to break the Replacement because Jason had been broken, and he couldn’t bear it alone.

Jason let the comm channel—now completely dedicated to Dick and Young Justice—wash over him as he tried to unpick the tangle of his mind.

They were f*cking busy. The city was imploding. People were dying.

You did that. When you killed Black Mask.

He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t even thought—

You sure about that? Not even a little, in the back of your mind, when you told those guys in the chop shop what you’d done? There wasn’t some part of you that thought, hey, wouldn’t this be a good distraction for the Bats?

He didn’t—he didn’t remember. He’d been running on autopilot. Take in information, act. Almost no thought in the middle.

But Jason knew the city. He knew Gotham; he knew the gangs. He knew it all on an instinctual level, drilled deep into his bones even before his time on the streets. Maybe he hadn’t actively thought about it, but he had known. On some level, he had known.

He had known, and he had done it anyway. Did he regret it? He didn’t know. He didn’t see any other way he could have gotten in, gotten Stephanie, and gotten out with the limited time and resources he had.

Guilt. Shame. Second-guessing himself. Those were all things he didn’t feel when he embraced the Pit. Was that bad, necessarily? It made him more efficient, more effective. If he had stopped to think about potential regrets last night, he would be either dead or captured now.

But it made the guilt, when it did come, twelve times stronger. Superboy flew a young mother to the emergency room, keeping a running monologue of comforting nothings as he did so. Jason had gathered enough from the comms to know that she wouldn’t be walking ever again, if she even made it. Like Babs. When the f*cking Clown had shot her.

Except folks in the Narrows didn’t have the money to make their apartments accessible, didn’t have the luxury of jobs they could sit down for.

So, worse than Babs.

You did that.

He took only minimal satisfaction from listening to Wonder Girl punching her way through the gangs who’d got the woman caught in their crossfire in the struggle for power.

He tried to tell himself that he hadn’t shot that woman. That it wasn’t his fault. It felt like a lie.

And even if it wasn’t, there was plenty of blood on his hands. Many people he didn’t regret killing. But the Replacement’s blood was there too, and Jason was coming to think that that had been monstrous thing to do, torturing Tiny Tim, no matter how satisfying it had felt at the time.

Dick’s death had almost been on his head. And he wanted Bruce to suffer, but hurting Bruce where it actually hurt was also hurting Dick, hurting Timmy. Hurting Barbie and Stephanie. Hurting Bruce was also hurting his dad. And Jason loved his dad.

That had always been his problem. Jason loved too easily, cared too much. He’d loved Willis, even when the bastard was beating him black and blue. He’d loved Catherine, even when she did nothing to stop the beatings. He’d loved Sheila, even when she’d sold him to the Joker to die painful and bloody.

He’d loved Bruce, even as the man had thrown him away like the trash he was. Even though Bruce would pound him into the ground worse than Willis ever had, worse than the Joker had, if he ever found out what Jason had done to his real children. The ones who hadn’t been broken and buried and come back wrong.

And he’d be right to do so.

That was the main difference between himself with the Pit and without, he thought. Both Jasons knew he was a monster. But Pit-Jason didn’t care, and non-Pit Jason thought someone should put him down like the beast he was. He didn’t want them to; he’d fight anyone who pit themselves against him to the bitter f*cking end, but he knew somewhere deep in his soul that he didn’t deserve any better than a bullet in the brain and an unmarked grave.

If he was smart, he’d stay up on the green. Safe. Protected. Alive.

Jason had never been particularly smart.

Okay. Fine. Those were truths. What did it matter? What did it matter if Pit-Jason and non-Pit Jason were different?

Drunk Willis Todd and Sober Willis Todd had been two entirely different people—as had High Catherine and Sober Catherine—but that didn’t matter a f*cking damn when Sober Willis chose to get drunk every night and take out all his frustration on Jason and Catherine. Didn’t matter if Sober Willis wouldn’t’ve laid a hand on either of them—it was still Willis f*cking Todd who was attached to that hand.

So. Non-Pit-Jason and Pit-Jason were different people. But they were both Jason. He couldn’t seperate them out. Not entirely. Not for good. The Pit was just part of who he was now. And maybe he should be cursing Talia for that, but he couldn’t feel much else besides grateful that she’d given him back his mind. He’d just have to…figure it out. Yeah. Easy.

He groaned and slumped against the wall as last night’s recordings continued to wash over him. He’d figure it out later. Along with all the other things he needed to figure out later.

He’d almost given up on hearing anything useful when Barbie interrupted the main line to let them know that the Muffin Man was on the line. Young Justice started laughing at the name, but Bruce—Batman—cut in from wherever he’d been hiding out, voice serious and grave.

The whole thing reeked of a code, but if it was, it was from after Jason’s time. Muffin Man was ridiculous enough to have Dick written all over it though. Probably a pun of some kind.

Okay, Todd, think. He paused the recording and found himself sort of humming the nursery rhyme. Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man? Do you know the muffin man who lives on—

Drury Walker. Killer Moth. Was the code just saying that Killer Moth was out? That was a weird thing to have a code about. So, probably not.

Jason ran down a list of Killer Moth’s greatest hits and known associates in his head. In truth, there wasn’t much. Killer Moth wasn’t exactly an A-grade rogue. Okay, associations with moths in general…something about a light? The Batsignal was on? Except they’d been discussing that openly earlier.

Could it have something to do with that scene from Shrek? Was that why Dick had shushed the young heroes earlier? Jason wracked his brain, but couldn’t think of anything—torture, maybe, because that was what Farquaad was doing to the cookie guy in that scene? It didn’t really make sense.

Back to moth facts. Moths fly, they’re the opposite of butterflies, bats eat them? Not particularly helpful. What the hell else did he know about the stupid flying bugs?

…Oh. Bugs. Jesus f*cking Christ, Dickface. You’re a full-grown adult man.

So they knew he was listening to them. There went his biggest advantage. Oh f*cking well, I guess. Jason really couldn’t muster the energy to care right then.

It did mean he couldn’t trust anything on the comms. Might be good for figuring out where they wanted him, but all information from here on out was highly suspect.

Jason ended up just stopping the playback. He might’ve kept going if he thought he’d get anything out of it, but from now on, it wasn’t useful and he had sh*t to do. Still needed to go over the footage from the cell last night, listen to what the dynamic duo was up to. Clean the downstairs bathroom. Eat.

Hadn’t Replacement said something about waffles last night? That sounded nice. Breakfast for dinner, since it was already verging on 4:00pm. He’d slept through most of the day.

Problem with that though: he didn’t have a waffle iron. Hm. Well, Jason was nothing if not innovative. He was sure he could figure this out.

The cold wind whipped through his cape. The distant sound of sirens in the dusky gray evening. Trees all around him, but no other people. A flicker of movement behind him, coming down from the sky. He didn’t move, just continued staring at the gravestone in front of him until he heard the crunch of boots on snow. “Kal-El.”

“Batman.”

Footsteps coming up behind him, and a hand on his shoulder. Batman fought the urge to shrug it off. Alienating Superman at this juncture would be inadvisable.

“What do you need?” The problem with Superman was that Superman was also Clark, and Bruce couldn’t help but respond to him as a friend, rather than a colleague. Colleagues would have been easier.

“This is Jason’s grave,” said Bruce.

A pause. “…Yes? I was at the funeral, Bruce. I remember.”

“Is Jason here?”

Clark stepped up so that they were standing shoulder to shoulder. “Metaphysically? In spirit? I mean—”

“Literally,” Bruce interrupted. “Physically. Is his body here?”

He could hear Clark’s worried frown. “What’s going on?”

“Clark.” Bruce’s voice cracked. “Please. Is he here?”

A moment of silence, Clark staring at the ground. “No.” His voice was quiet, shocked. Definitive. “There’s nothing there. Not even a coffin.”

Bruce had braced himself for the blow but it still rocked through him with ungodly force.

He stared at the hard, snow-packed earth beneath his feet. Then he nodded, once, and swallowed. Turned on his heel.

“Bruce, wait—”

“Thank you, Clark. Go home.” He did not break his stride.

A fist like concrete grabbed his wrist. “Bruce. Let me in. What’s going on?”

Bruce had a chip of kryptonite inside each gauntlet. He could slip one out in less than a second, and he did. “Go home, Kal.” An order, from Batman to Superman.

Kal-El’s grip just tightened, though he’d turned gray and sweaty in the dim light. It was a human-strength grip now, though. Easy to break.

“Bruce, you absolute dolt, I’m trying to help you!”

“Let go.”

Blue eyes met his own. “Not until you stop being an idiot and explain what’s going on.” Clark was shaking with the effort of standing upright, but his gaze never wavered.

“Bruce.” His voice softened. “You don’t have to do this alone. You shouldn’t be alone. Tell me what’s going on.”

Bruce’s jaw tightened, but he flipped the kryptonite back into his gauntlet. “Current working theory is that someone from the League of Assassins, most likely Talia, is attempting to get me to believe that the Red Hood is actually Jason Todd.”

Clark drew in a sharp breath. “Jason? But—how would that even…?”

“He’s exhibited certain Bat-specific moves, and his continued use of ‘Replacement’ to refer to Tim all point to someone attempting to indicate that he’s Jason. Either Azrael didn’t really die after his fight with Biis and Scratch and has returned and is attempting to impersonate Jason for some reason, or someone—most likely Talia—is either using Jason’s body or otherwise attempting to make me think it’s Jason.” Batman gave the report in an emotionless spiel.

Clark was silent for a long moment. “What if it’s really Jason?”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know? Weirder things have happened than someone coming back from the dead. Especially to us. And doesn’t the League of Assassins have those Lazarus Pits?”

Bruce growled. “It’s not Jason.”

Clark’s eyes were sad. “How do you know?”

Batman met him with fury. “I held his body in my arms, Clark. He was dead. He was dead.”

His voice cracked, and he took a breath to steady himself. “The Pit can do many things, but it can’t bring the dead back to life. Just a shadow of what used to be. A reanimated corpse. Whatever that creature is that’s likely wearing my son’s face, it’s not Jason. If it even is Jason’s body. Perhaps Talia simply stole his casket to make me think it was a possibility and put someone else under the helmet.”

And oh, there was so much fury there. So much pain. But that was for later. When he actually managed to track her down. Assuming it was her who had done it. The fact that she hadn’t returned any of his calls made a strong case against her, though.

“I’m just saying, Bruce. It’s a possibility.”

“It isn’t.”

“It could be. I’m not saying it is, but it’s something you need to consider. Because that changes…everything if it’s Jason.”

Bruce grit his teeth. “It’s. Not. Jason.”

“It could be!”

“No, it can’t! It can’t be Jason!” He panted into the night air. “It can’t be Jason. Because Jason wouldn’t—he would never…It can’t be Jason.”

Clark was holding him, patting steady circles into his back. When had that happened?

Bruce sagged into Superman’s arms, all the anger suddenly gone, only the pain and a deep, deep sorrow left inside him. He took several desperate, shuddering breaths. “It can’t be Jason,” He whispered into Clark’s shoulder.

Clark drew him closer. “And if it is?” he asked.

“It’s not.” He spoke so quietly he was sure the man would never have heard him without superhearing.

Clark took a breath, but before he could say anything, Bruce continued. “He kidnapped and tortured a sixteen-year-old boy, Clark. I don’t care what happened in between then and now— Jason would never do that. That’s not—Someone who could do that, it’s not Jason. And to pretend otherwise is an insult to his memory. It’s just a cruel trick.”

“Bruce…”

He laughed, bitter. “It’s not even the first time she’s pulled this one. Do you remember that whole debacle with Hush?”

“When you asked me to heat-vision a tracker out of your head? Yeah, I remember it.” Clark’s voice was dry. “Talia was involved in that? When Clayface pretended to be Jason, and…”

“Kidnapped Tim,” Batman finished for him. “Yes. She was. I thought that…” He trailed off, shook his head. “But this is too much to be a coincidence. Someone’s trying to get to me. Talia. Or maybe even Ra’s.”

Ra’s al Ghul’s words played back in his head, from that time, Whoever has manipulated you into this state of mind, they are to be commended. It would be just like the man to compliment himself like that. Ra’s would never sully one of his precious Pits with anyone else, though. Grave-robbing and a body double, however? That had the man written all over it.

One or the other of them. Bruce was going to track down the al Ghuls, and destroy them for the way they’d defiled his son’s memory, the way they’d defiled his grave. And whoever or whatever was under that helmet that thought it could take his children from him? Death or destruction would be a mercy by the time Batman was done.

In the meantime, he had a city to protect.

Barbara yawned and forced her eyes open. It was late, even by vigilante standards, but Bruce hadn’t come back yet and she needed to talk to him before Dick woke up.

Nightwing was benched for the time being. The damage from the smoke and heat inhalation wasn’t that bad and he’d probably be completely recovered within a week, but Dick was—to put it politely—off his game. To put it impolitely, he was a wreck.

Babs was worried about him, but she just didn’t have the time, or the capacity, to give him the help he needed right now. She knew he needed help, though. Maybe she should call Wally—they’d drifted apart since Wally’d become The Flash and joined the Justice League, but Donna was dead, Garth was in Atlantis, and Roy was in the the wind, so Dick was a bit low on friends at the moment. Oh, there were plenty of people he was friendly with, but for the real, emotional sh*t? It had always been her and the original Teen Titans roster. Kori, at one point, but that was…a long time ago now, and there was too much bad blood between them for them to ever be so close again.

As it was, she was dumping the entirety of Dick’s mental wellbeing on Alfred and Bruce, which was not exactly a recipe for success. But honestly? She wasn’t the right person for the job anyway. There was too much bad blood between her and Dick as well, after everything with Tarantula and…everything.

She rubbed her temples and made a note to call Wally when it was a time for normal people to be awake.

In the meantime, she was working on scrubbing all traces of Cass’s break-in to her father’s prison cell from any cameras or logs. That had been a hard conversation to listen to, over the comms. But they’d learned that David Cain had indeed trained a person who matched the general height and build of the Red Hood, and that he’d been brought to him by Talia al Ghul. He didn’t know the man’s name or story, or he wasn’t sharing it if he did. The most Cass had gotten out of him was that the man was young, in his late teens or early twenties, and driven. It wasn’t much.

But reflecting over that conversation brought up a whole batch of new worries. Cass wasn’t okay, either. Except unlike Dick, Cass wasn’t low on friends. She had no friends. No support structure. It had been Steph and Barbara for so long, then Tim and Barbara when Steph had died. “Died.” But now Tim and Steph were gone and who knew if they’d get them back, and it was just Barbara. No Wally she could call. Nobody.

She had no idea how to be there for the girl. Absolutely none. Especially when Cassandra was so adamant that she make her own decisions, and those decisions kept her isolated from Barbara. Plus Cass was still mad at her. She had every right to be, of course, but…it didn’t make things any easier.

At least she wasn’t physically alone. The Titans—or, Young Justice, she supposed, since they were the ones who had self appointed themselves as the ‘Tim-finding squad’—wouldn’t let her completely flounder.

“Any updates?”

Barbara jumped in her chair. “Jesus f*ck, Bruce! Make noise.”

He didn’t. The man hadn’t even turned on any lights, and only the dim glow of the Batcomputer illuminated either of them.

Barbara glared up at him. “No, nothing I didn’t brief you on on the comms. But we need to talk.”

“Can it wait?”

“No.” She ignored the tightening of Batman’s jaw. “Cass is tracking down the League side of things, but the list of people with Bat training is much shorter. I’m only coming up with two possible names, and only one of them makes sense in context.”

“Jason.”

She tried not to let her surprise that he’d actually acknowledged it show on her face. “Yeah.”

“I’ve already had this discussion with Clark. It’s not him, but it’s likely that either Talia or Ra’s are attempting to throw me off my game by insinuating that it is.”

Barbara’s lips tightened. “Okay. I just think we should acknowledge that it is a possibility, that it’s actually him returned from the dead somehow.”

“Acknowledged.” Batman’s reply was curt and dismissive, but honestly? This was better than she’d imagined bringing up Jason would go. And it was enough. She’d said her bit; he’d listened, even if he didn’t agree. Hell, Barbara wasn’t sure if she agreed. Someone attempting to weaponize and corrupt Jason’s memory made a hell of a lot more sense than Jason, that bundle of energy and enthusiasm, going so darkside that he’d kidnap and torture a child. Multiple children.

She started shutting down the computer. She needed to sleep. As the screens went dark, she took off her glasses and rubbed a hand over her face. “How are we going to tell Dick? Because…he’s fragile right now, B. This could break him.”

Bruce stood silent in the darkness for a long moment. “We don’t,” he finally said. “Not until we know for sure that this is what’s happening. He’s not in the field; it doesn’t impact his safety. If I can spare him that pain…”

Barbara was normally against Bruce’s uncommunicative, I-know-better-than-you style of handling everyone around him, but right now…she had no idea what the right option would be. Telling Dick now wouldn’t go well. Telling Dick later wouldn’t go well either, but hopefully he’d be in a better place when the blow struck. Somewhere where he’d bruise and not shatter. She just…she didn’t know.

“Okay,” she said. “For now. If we find more information or the situation might compromise his safety…”

“We can reconsider then.”

Babs nodded, though she had no idea if he could see her in the darkened cave. “And Cass? Alfred?”

Another pause, this one shorter. “The same.”

Barbara frowned and stared into the pitch-black darkness of the Cave. “The same,” she echoed.

Chapter 21: Operation: RSJ (Stephanie)

Chapter Text

Steph and Tim had the cell to themselves for a few hours after they woke up in what was probably the early afternoon. Enough time for Tim to explain exactly why this was highly unusual, and all of his other little niggling feelings and theories about Jason and Hood and everything. Enough time for them to do some serious scheming.

For some reason, Jason didn’t have the same automatic hatred towards her that he did towards Tim, so Steph was now Lead Outreach Officer on Operation Reverse-Stockholm Jason. The plan was she was gonna establish a rapport, do some probing, figure out just what the best tactic for convincing Jason to let them go was. And she was also gonna be the voice of reason who remembered that Jason was the Red Hood, a serial killer who tortured people.

Tim didn’t know that last part, and probably wouldn’t have agreed to it. But was for his own good. It was a great plan. Super safe. Super sensible.

Then Hood kicked in the door, helmeted and fully armored, his hands full with plates and supplies, and completely derailed all their neatly laid out plans within the first five minutes.

“So,” said Hood, letting the carton of orange juice, paper cups, and thing of maple syrup he was cradling in the crooks of his arms crash to the floor. “Didn’t have a waffle maker, so I improvised. You’re welcome; I accept any and all accolades and praise for my genius.”

He deliberately placed one plate in front of each of them, then kicked himself back onto the couch so he could look down upon them.

Steph examined the “waffles.” They were basically pancakes, except super fluffy and…crinkled? It was weird. There were straight lines going across both sides of the waffle-cake, making pretty deep divots. She frowned, trying to figure out how it worked. “Did you grill these?”

“Yup,” said Jason, and she could hear the proud grin even behind the helmet. “Waffle batter, beat the egg whites separate and fold them in to make ’em fluffy, low heat on a grill pan so the grooves actually take, cook long enough to get ’em crispy on the edges. Butter and powdered sugar. Don’t have the little well-holes for syrup-catching, but other than that, they’re basically all the best bits of waffles. Eat.”

Steph grinned, bemused, and grabbed the syrup to pour over. “Didn’t know you were so…culinarily inclined,” she said.

Jason scoffed and bounced a bit in his seat. “Eat.”

He hadn’t brought any utensils, so she just poured syrup over her stack of wafflecakes and dug in with her hands. Tim was watching her warily as he poked at his own stack, obviously letting her take the fall if they were horrible or poison or something. Such a gallant gentleman, her Tim.

Of course, part of his overt dubiousness was probably played up. They’d sort-of planned this out, with Steph being good cop and Tim being annoying cop. Unfortunately, neither of them was in a position where they could play bad cop. That would have been fun.

But this way, Stephanie and Jason could bond over giving Tim sh*t. It was devious and clever, and definitely not at all how she would normally be acting anyway, and she wasn’t at all looking forward to Tim making even more of a fool of himself than he usually did. No, sir.

Steph was fully prepared to start also giving Red Hood sh*t about his sh*tty not-waffles, because lying about enjoying food was not one of her strong points, but as soon as she took a bite, her eyes widened in surprise. They were good. Like, really good. Like, definitely better than most diner waffles, not pancake-y in texture at all, just the perfect amount of crunchy and sweet and fluffy and chewy and buttery with maybe just a bit of cinnamon.

“’s rea’y goo’,” she managed to say around her first bite, the delighted surprise in her voice unmistakable.

Hood leaned back and spread out, crossed an ankle of his knee, obviously pleased. “Ye of little faith,” he said.

“I had complete faith in your cooking abilities, Jason,” said Tim, the little sh*t.

“No you didn’t, you little sh*t,” said Jason, and Steph swallowed a snort at how on the same page they were already. “I saw you eyeing her all skeptical and wary.”

“I did!” Tim insisted. “I like your cooking. It’s just…Steph has pretty high waffle standards, and, well, they’re not really waffles, are they? So I was just a bit…worried.”

“Timberly, you wound me. Those”—he pointed a gauntleted finger at their plates—“are just as good as any waffle you’d ever find anywhere.”

“Might be better than waffles,” Steph agreed with a cheeky grin.

“See? Blondie gets it.”

Tim sputtered and glared at them both, settling on Steph. “Suck up.”

She just beamed and stuck her tongue out at him.

Jason waited until they both had their mouths stuffed full to say, “So, how’s Plan Reverse-Stockholm going? You feel good about that opening move? Establishing rapport”—he gestured between himself and Stephanie—“over our mutual disdain for Tim’s dumbassery?”

Steph froze mid-chew, and Tim started coughing through waffle and syrup. Mute, Stephanie reached over and thumped him on the back. It still hurt to use her arms, but they were functional, at least.

“Mmm,” said Hood, obviously enjoying their reactions. “Forget you’re being recorded, Timbourine?” He tsked. “Sloppy.”

There was an awkward silence.

“I think it’s going pretty good,” said Stephanie.

One head and one helmet swiveled to stare at her with incredulity. She rolled her eyes. “I mean, I’ve got these really good not-waffles out of it, nobody’s tried to kill anybody yet, there’s definitely been some rapport established even if you’re aware of our devilish schemes, so…yeah. Pretty good.”

Tim grinned hesitantly at her, eyes flickering to the couch to gauge Hood’s reaction. Steph couldn’t tell what the man was thinking at all, but maybe Tim would have better luck. He’d had plenty of experience at it, at least.

“It would be going better if you’d actually eat with us,” Tim said, finally. “Y’know, like you used to until this morning.”

Hood stared at him.

“Is it ‘cuz you don’t trust Steph? Because that’s kinda sh*tty. You’re gonna hurt her feelings.”

Steph looked back at Hood, made her eyes go wide. “Yeah, my feelings are real delicate.”

He was silent for a long moment. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, or even where he was looking. She kept up the wide eyes and added in a pout for good measure.

“There’s two of you.” Hood’s whisper sounded absolutely horrified, and Steph and Tim both broke out into startled laughter.

He kidnapped you, she tried to remind herself. He’s a murderer. He tortured Tim.

But honestly? This version of Jason, the one who had made special non-ironed waffles for her and enjoyed needling Tim with words and was blunt and sarcastic and gave her the opportunity to spit on Black Mask’s corpse and had wrapped her wounds and let her carry her slings instead of being tied down by them? She liked that Jason. She could see how Tim got Stockholmed if it had been three weeks of mostly this.

But she still couldn’t ignore what she knew about what he’d done, couldn’t ignore the pit of pure terror that formed in her stomach at the memory of that same man, covered in blood and threatening to drop her to a brutal and painful fate.

Steph pushed down her feelings. This was a mission. Focus. “Timmy’s right,” she said. “You should eat.” She turned to her ex-boyfriend and fellow captive. “Tim, give the man your plate.”

Tim squawked indignantly and moved to shield his food. “This is my plate! Give him your own if you’re so set on it.”

“But it was your idea,” Steph pointed out.

“I didn’t mean steal my waffles.”

“Timothy, Jason and I need to bond over causing you pain. Give me the waffles.”

“You’re the absolute worst,” said Tim, but he did reluctantly stop shielding his plate.

Steph handed it over to Jason. “Now you gotta eat them. Otherwise Tim’ll be happy, and that’s obviously antithetical to your point of being or whatever.”

When Jason didn’t take the plate, she set it carefully in his lap.

Jason was still for a few interminable seconds. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking under the helmet.

Steph slapped Tim’s hand away as it started creeping towards her stack of waffles.

Jason snorted. “Fine. You win.” He sounded more amused than upset. Good sign. He flipped his helmet off, set it beside him on the couch, and reached towards the waffles in his lap. Then he paused, gloved hands hovering over the syrupy mess. No utensils.

She thought he would take off his armored gloves to eat, but instead he pulled a six-inch knife out of nowhere and stabbed through the waffle stack.

Steph and Tim both flinched back at the sudden violent move, but Jason just used the knife to slide all of the waffles except one onto Steph’s plate. “You two share that,” he said, settling back into the couch.

Steph carefully refrained from cooing over his actions, but it was a close call. Tim just eyed the knife in Jason’s hands, but eventually snagged the top wafflecake for himself. Steph started in on the one beneath it.

Jason carved a piece of wafflecake from his plate and ate it right off the blade. Steph really hoped that knife was clean. For all their sakes.

“Okay. So, helmet’s off, good for establishing empathy or whatever.” Jason rolled his eyes, but shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “What’s your next move?”

Steph hummed and glanced at Tim. He just shrugged, eyes wide. Unhelpful. This had not been in their game plan. And as Lead Outreach Officer, she should probably be, you know, taking the lead on outreach.

“Honestly,” she said. “I originally figured we could start with our daddy issues. Figure there’s a lot of overlap there, what with your dad being an abusive criminal sh*thead, and my dad also being a criminal sh*thead. Plus Bruce. Who’s, well, Bruce. Then we could work our way up to the whole torture and dying thing, and eventually come to why I’m a healthy and well-adjusted person who sets boundaries and talks about my feelings, and you decided it would be a good idea to kidnap and torture a teenager instead of any of that.”

Jason made some kind of noise. Tim was staring at her, open-mouthed.

She ignored them both. “But since we’ve got such a good rapport going already, what with waffles and seeing each other’s faces and all, let’s skip to the end: what are you trying to accomplish here?”

She took a bite of her waffle and chewed, staring at Jason the whole time. Maybe she could have gone slower, been less aggressive about it, but honestly? Steph wanted everything out in the open.

Jason’s incredulous stare was overcome by coughing that quickly turned into wheezing. “What?” he asked.

She shrugged. “What do you want? What are you trying to do with—” she gestured to the room around them—“all this?”

She was slowly developing a theory that Jason didn’t have any idea what he wanted. It was brilliant deductive reasoning, based on the fact that he’d outright said he had f*ck all idea of what the endgame was when she’d asked him last night.

“Because honestly?” said Steph, “From where I’m sitting? It looks like you’re just trying to hurt Bruce by sabotaging and isolating yourself, except you’ve got the rest of us all caught up in it. And that’s not fair to any of us. Me. Tim. Barbara. Cass. Dick. Alfie.”

Jason stabbed his wafflecake with his knife. “f*ck off, Blondie. You don’t know sh*t.”

His eyes were glowing green. According to Tim, that meant it was time to back off.

Not awful, for a first foray.

“Just think about it, okay? One f*ck-up Robin to another.”

Jason raised an eyebrow and stared at her, judging.

“Two f*ck-up Robins to another,” Tim added, and Steph literally saw the green flare in Jason’s eyes, the knife flip up to human-stabbing position.

“Shut up, Timmy,” said Steph, before Jason could say anything. “You didn’t die. It doesn’t count.”

“Oh well, excuse me that my heart didn’t technically stop beating—” Tim sounded legitimately offended, but Jason’s death grip on his cutlery relaxed slightly. Interesting.

“Rules are rules.” Steph shook her head at Tim in mock sadness and then grinned, full of teeth. “Jason and I are in the Dead Robins Club, and you’re not invited.” She stuck her tongue out.

She could feel both of the boys staring at her, and didn’t let herself shrink under the scrutiny of their combined gazes.

Defuse, defuse, defuse. Deescalate. This was tenser than any bomb she’d had to disarm.

“…Dead Robins Club.” Jason’s voice was flat.

“Yup.” She turned to beam at him. “It’s incredibly exclusive. Only two members.”

Thankfully, Tim seemed to have gotten the memo that he was very much not helping and was now doing his patented stalker fade-into-the-background thing.

But Jason continued to stare at her. It was honestly super disconcerting, especially with his eyes still slightly too bright to be natural. Steph dealt with that by stuffing her mouth full with more semi-waffle and chewing as messily as possible. The solution to all life’s problems. Didn’t hurt that they were legitimately good, either.

Jason snorted, and the noise seemed to surprise even him. He shook his head, chuckling darkly. “Dead Robins Club. You’re something f*cking else, Blondie. What do we even do in this club? Do we have meetings? Does someone take minutes?”

“Hmm.” Stephanie propped her chin on her hand, ignoring the way it made syrup drop down her face and neck. Worth it, if he was engaging. “Honestly, it’s probably mostly us bitching about Bruce. But I figure you and me, we’re the founding and only members. So we make the rules. And I say first rule of Dead Robins Club is no one else is allowed in Dead Robins Club.”

Jason’s face had gone from begrudgingly amused to something increasingly intense over the course of her speech. sh*t. Where had she f*cked up? Okay, backtrack. Backtrack to…um…

Jason was nodding though. Slowly, his eyes focused on some invisible point in the air. “First rule of Dead Robins Club,” he echoed, soft and solemn. “No more dead Robins.”

“No more dead Robins,” he repeated himself.

“No more dead Robins,” Stephanie echoed him back, barely at a whisper, hoping to hell that it wouldn’t break the moment.

His head jerked up to face her, his eyes panicked as he flashed back to the present space. A smile started to work its way across his face, and Stephanie couldn’t help but blanch at the sight before her.

It was a terrible, manic grin that cracked itself across Jason’s jaw, up through his cheeks. Crooked and forced. Too many teeth. Split his lips bloody where they were dry. Pulled his skin tight across his skull. It didn’t reach his eyes. It was a Joker smile, painful and promising more pain.

“No more dead Robins,” whispered Jason, hoarse through the smile. He started laughing, breath bursting from him in painful, wracking gusts of air. “Can’t guarantee that, Blondie. Unenforceable.” He choked the words out between laughs. His eyes were glowing, both metaphorically and literally, lit up by something bright and poisonous inside. “As long as there’s Robin, there’ll be f*cked up monsters like me. As long as there’s Robin, then Robin will die. Again and again and again and again—” He faded out into hysteric cackling.

Steph shot Tim a panicked glance. He hadn’t mentioned anything like this when giving her the rundown last night. But Tim was looking equally panicked. He shook his head at her: he had no idea what to do, either.

Okay. It was down to Steph, then. She still had a better record at the not-setting-Jason-off-into-violence front. Because the laughter was…creepy. Unsettling. Utterly terrifying. But it wasn’t violent, except in the way that it seemed to tear through Jason’s body with a physical force.

“Okay,” she said, injecting much more confidence than she actually felt into the words. Loud, clearly enunciated. Not shouts. Not panicked. “Okay. You’re saying that no more dead Robins can’t happen if there are Robins. Easy solution: No more Robins.”

Tim made a sound like she’d just run over his cat. Or maybe like he was the run-over cat. She glared at him. Play along.

A hitch in Jason’s laughter. “No more Robins?” he forced out, unbelieving, and went straight back to cackling.

“No more Robins,” Stephanie repeated, firm. “No more Robins, no more dead Robins. Done. You said last night that you didn’t know what the end game was. Well, there you go: No more dead Robins. It’s a worthy goal.”

The laughter faded slowly, but Jason was still shaking, his face was still lit up from inside with that sickening fervor.

This is a horrible idea, Tim mouthed at her as Jason gathered himself.

Play the f*ck along, she mouthed back.

“No more Robin,” said Jason, voice hoarse. He still sounded like he couldn’t even wrap his head around the idea.

Neither Steph nor Tim dared to break the suddenly ringing silence.

Jason blinked, then straightened his posture, flipped his helmet from the seat beside him to his head in an easy, practiced movement.

“Eat the goddamn waffles, Blondie,” said Hood, any emotion washed away by the modulator. He dropped his plate on the floor, the syrupy knife still clutched in his hand, and rose. “They were a f*cking pain to make.”

It was a full day before Jason came back to their cell. And when he came back, he came back armed.

Well, he was always armed. With like, actual arms. Arms meaning guns. Because that was how words worked. He had actual arm-arms too, obviously, and the guns, but what she meant when she said that he came back armed was that he’d come back armed with a book.

Inwardly, Steph groaned. She now owed Tim five bucks when they got out of this. He’d said that whenever Jason was confronted with emotions, he’d disappear for a while and the next time they talked he’d bring a book and start pontificating about it. And, like a sucker, Steph had bet against him. It just seemed…out of character.

She took some pleasure in Tim’s obvious and exaggerated distress. “Noooo, Jasonnnn. Take pity on me. No more books. Books are dumb.”

Hood stopped. His helmet tracked Tim. “Watch your f*cking mouth, Timbert. I should shoot you for saying that sh*t. Everyone would understand. They’d say, ‘Hood, how’d you put up with that ignorant sh*tstain for so long before you shot him?’”

“I wouldn’t understand,” muttered Tim.

“Hate to say it, Hood,” Steph joined in, keeping her tone light. “But I’m gonna have to agree with—what did you call him?—Timbert here that that’s kinda not a good reason to shoot someone.”

Both boys swung their heads towards her. If Hood’s face hadn’t been covered by his helmet, she was fairly certain that his face would be a matching picture of betrayal to Tim’s.

“Oh no,” said Tim. “No. You are not going to—no. Nicknames is a no go. Not—” He rolled up to face Jason. “No. Jason, don’t you dare—”

“Don’t I dare what, Timberly? Tiny Tim? Tim-buck-too.” He drew the last one out, savoring each syllable.

Tim groaned and put his head in his hands, and Steph cackled. Tiny Tim. Oh, this was gonna be good.

“No, tell me, Timmy, Timbo, Timantha, Tim-Tam-a-lam my man, tell me what it is that I shouldn’t do.”

“f*ck you.” That was the voice of a defeated Robin.

“Aw, but Timbelina, we’re just starting to have fun. Timerella. Timberland.”

Tim sent a pleading look her way.

“I dunno, Timmerbelle, the man has a point.”

Jason snickered. “The Adventures of Timmerbelle and Timmer Tam,” he whispered to himself.

Steph grinned. “I thought it was Timmer Tam and Timdy.” She scrunched her nose. That last one didn’t work so well.

“Oh, thank God, someone who’s heard of a book! Take notes, Timelia Bedelia. That’s called a literary reference. About f*cking time there’s some cultured company around here.”

Tim sighed heavily and looked up to the ceiling.

Steph nodded, smug. Rapport, this was good. She was Lima-ing the f*ck out of Jason. “It’s a classic.” She said, nose in the air. “They spend all their time fighting Captim Hook and—” She snorted and wheezed, unable to keep a straight face. “Tmee.” She barely managed to force it out before breaking down in hysterics.

“Tmee,” Jason repeated, something like delight shining through even through the voice modulators.

“Tmeeeeee!” Steph whistled it out between shaking peals of laughter.

Then it was just the two of them, back and forth, ‘Tmee-ing’ at each other in increasingly ridiculous voices and cackling.

Tim sat cross-legged and put-upon, his chin in his hands. Steph didn’t see his lips twitch with suppressed mirth a few times, nosirree, not her.

Finally, though, their laughter petered out and Stephanie finally got herself together enough to ask about the book. It was thin, with a…space mercenary? on the front. Looked kinda like a video game. That was what Halo was, right? Space mercenaries?

She could hear the scowl in Jason’s voice. “I chose it specifically to cater to Tmee’s demanding and puerile tastes.”

“Oh, excuse me if I find books with plot more interesting than whatever boring-ass romance and clothes books you like.”

“It’s called literature, Timothy.”

“Oh, is that—”

“Anyway,” Jason cut him off. “It’s sci-fi and AI and a mystery and sh*t, so you’ll like it, Replacement.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “If it’s a mystery, I get to say who did it when I figure it out before the book.”

“When. Someone thinks highly of himself.” Jason’s helmet sighed. “Blondie bird? You okay with Captain Spoilers over here?”

“I mean, be a bit hypocritical if I was, considering that’s my whole thing.”

“…What?” Jason sounded baffled.

“My name.”

“Ste—? Oh. Oh, yeah.” He rubbed at the back of his neck

Stephanie bit her lip to keep from laughing at him. That would probably be bad for the mission.

“Whatever. There’s lots of shooting and explosions, so you’ll like it too, Blondie.”

“I feel like I’ve been typecast against my will.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Well, no, but—”

“See, I picked the perfect book for you chucklef*cks.”

“Do we need to read a book at all, though?” Tim seemed intent on getting Jason to hate him even more, but Steph could see the spark of enjoyment in his eyes as he needled at Jason.

Jason hissed, a scary sound through the helmet.

Tim met the helmet’s gaze, barely holding back a sh*t-eating grin.

“Timbit. Shut up. You dropped out of high school. You don’t get a say.”

“You dropped out of high school too! Both of you did!”

“We died.”

“Yeah, Tim.” Stephanie smirked. “We died.”

Jason’s attention turned to her. “You should go back to school.”

“I’d love to,” said Steph. “Just let me out of here and I’ll enroll right away.” She beamed at the expressionless red mask.

Silence.

Tim was shaking with the effort to hold back his laughter.

Red Hood stared at her.

“This book,” said Jason, completely ignoring what she said, “is chock full of like, ponderings on the nature of what it means to be a conscious being and what is humanity and memory and what makes a person, so we’ll force some actual thinking and themes and sh*t down your uneducated throats.”

Stephanie sighed. “Worth a shot,” she mumbled to Tim, loud enough for Hood to hear. Tim knocked a wrist against her knee in solidarity.

“I don’t have two copies of any of these books, so we’re gonna be doing story time. Listen up, kiddos. There will be a test.”

Steph raised her hand.

“What.”

“Will there actually be a test? Because, like, I thought you and Tim had this whole no-torture deal going.”

Hood took a deep breath in, held to the count of four. “The Murderbot Diaries One: All Systems Red. By Martha Wells.”

And then, no sh*t, the f*cking Red Hood started to read them a bedtime story.

Steph let the words wash over her. It was weird, hearing the robotic tones of the helmet over Jason’s theatrical cadence. Kind of fit the main character though, who was supposed to be a…half-human, half-robot? An android? An AI in a meat body? Something like that.

It was a bit hard to follow, too many names that weren’t real names and made-up words and technology, and Steph wasn’t really sure what was going on.

She let the words drift over her, only half paying attention. Jason was surprisingly good at reading out loud. The rhythm of the words was nice.

“Uh,” said Jason, sounding so awkward about it that Steph raised her head to see what was up.

Jason was still focused on the book though. “That was the point,” he read, “where I realized that I should have just not answered and pretended to be in stasis.”

Oh. Whoops. It was the character being awkward, not Jason. She tuned back in, trying to remember what was going on. There’d been a dinosaur attack, maybe? She kept thinking about Jurassic Park, anyway.

Jason continued his narration, oblivious to the fact that Steph was actually listening now. “I pulled the blanket around my chest, hoping she hadn’t seen any of the missing chunks. Without the armor holding me together, it was much worse. ‘Fine.’” The word ‘fine’ hung in the air, wobbly and uncertain.

Jason kept reading, his tone defensive now. “So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous.”

Steph huffed. That was a lot of nervousness for a ‘horrifying murderbot.’ Though Bruce was the most awkward person she’d ever met, and he was the terrifying Batman, so…maybe it was a thing. And she was beginning to think that ‘awkward murderbot’ might be an appropriate description for Jason. Maybe the better you got at beating people up, the more awkward you got. Though Cass wasn’t awkward, just…taciturn. So maybe that theory needed some work.

“Also, if I’m not in the armor then it’s because I’m wounded and one of my organic parts may fall off and plop on the floor at any moment and no one wants to see that.”

Steph was pretty sure that someone wanted to see that. People were weird.

Jason switched to his lead scientist voice. “‘Fine?’ She frowned. ‘“The report said you lost 20 percent of your body mass.’”

’Tis but a flesh wound, Stephanie thought.

“‘It’ll grow back,’ I said.”

Steph barked a laugh. Both Tim and Jason stared at her. “Sorry,” she said. “But are we sure that Murderbot isn’t a Bat? Because that is just quintessential Bat behavior right there: go back to your cold cave, alone, to look at your computer and pretend you aren’t injured and don’t have emotions.”

Tim laughed. “Excuse you, Steph, it’s a cubicle, not a cave. Totally different.”

“Oh, sorry. My bad. Batcave, Batcubicle—totally different. Hiding in your computer closet thing is much healthier and completely different.”

“Shut up,” growled Jason.

“Ooh, that hit a bit close to home?” she taunted.

“You’re doing a horrible job of making me like you.”

“You sure about that, Red?”

“Am I—? You are—ugh, two of you!” He made a series of incomprehensible noises and mimed strangling the air.

Tim caught Steph’s eye, and the two of them took the opportunity to practice their villain cackles.

They were pretty good, if she did say so herself.

Two hours into the story, and Jason’s voice started to flag, obvious even through the modulator. He’d started coughing more, and sometimes his voice would fade out into hoarse nothingness halfway through a sentence. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that he refused to take off his helmet to take a drink of water or get a cough drop or something.

Finally, Steph took pity on him and insisted that either he go drink some water, go to bed, or let her finish the book.

“We can’t stop now!” Tim protested. “It’s just getting good.”

“Thought you were too good for books, Replacement?” The taunt was severely undercut by another round of coughing.

Steph sighed and took the book. She was no Jason, but she knew how to tell a story, how to make her voice go big and small and dramatic and deadpan in turn.

Unlike Mr.-I-don’t-need-water-because-exposing-my-face-is-scary, Steph actually took pauses to drink and rest her throat.

Jason and Tim both listened attentively, Tim lying on the pallet, covered in blankets with his eyes closed, and Jason hunched over on the couch, forearms braced on his thighs.

An hour later, and they were almost at the end, Murderbot having been freed (bought?) by the good scientists.

“‘Can I still have armor?’” Stephanie read. “It was the armor that told people I was a SecUnit. But I wasn’t Sec anymore, just Unit.”

Her heart kind of hurt. Sure, Murderbot had basically been enslaved to be, well, a murderbot, but now it didn’t have an identity. Adrift. No one. It was a feeling she could uncomfortably relate to.

“The others were so quiet. She said, even and calm, ‘We can arrange that, as long as you think you need it.’ I didn’t know if I thought I needed it or not. ‘I don’t have a cubicle.’”

Poor murderbot, with no Batcubicle to go get patched up in. Even if the cubicle was kinda objectively sucky.

“She was reassuring. “You won’t need one. People won’t be shooting at you. If you’re hurt, or your parts are damaged, you can be repaired in a medical center.”

Steph reached for her water bottle and took a quick sip, let her eyes roam over the room as she did so.

Tim was right as she’d left him, but Jason had gotten more and more hunched over as she read. Now, he was practically curled up into a ball, head cradled in his arms. He was trembling.

Steph wasn’t sure what to do. Sure, the story was emotional, but not that emotional. Was something wrong? Was this a Lazarus Pit thing?

She decided to keep reading, act like everything was normal, with one eye still on Jason. “If people won’t be shooting at me what will I be doing?”

Now that she was watching for it, she saw the way Jason’s breath hitched erratically every few minutes, his lungs spasming, the motion almost completely hidden beneath his body armor and leather jacket.

He didn’t make a sound. It was weird.

A few pages later, she still hadn’t figured it out. “I didn’t know what I would do on a farm,” Stephanie read. “Clean the house? That sounded way more boring than security.”

Jason’s lungs started spasming again, but this time he didn’t manage to keep his body statue-still. His shoulders were wracked with the motion, his fists clenched against it. Like something was trying to force its way out of him.

Another fit of laughter?

“Maybe it would work out,” she continued, more anxious now. “This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want.” A breath, hesitant. Should she intervene? “Supposed to want.”

The spasming, wrenching fit stilled, and Jason pulled himself even tighter into his own body. He was still shaking slightly. No, not shaking. Shivering.

Steph bit her lip. “I’d have to pretend to be an augmented human, and that would be a strain.”

She was outright staring at Jason, now, but he didn’t look up. “I’d have to change,” she read, “make myself do things I didn’t want to do. Like talk to humans like I was one of them. I’d have to leave the armor behind.”

Jason had settled into mostly-stillness once again.

“But maybe I wouldn’t need it anymore.”

There was a section break, and Stephanie stopped reading.

After a few seconds, Tim spoke up. “Is that the end?” he asked drowsily.

Jason didn’t react.

It wasn’t. “Um, yeah,” she said, eyes on Jason.

“Oh,” said Tim. “Good ending.”

“Mm-hmm.” Stephanie drifted over to kneel by Tim. Slow moves. “It wasn’t the ending,” she whispered into his ear. “And Jason hasn’t said anything. Earlier, he was shaking, kind of. Spasming.”

Tim stilled next to her, suddenly alert. “More You-Know-Who laughter?”

“Yeah, definitely a Voldemort thing.”

He sent her a scathing look, and she shrugged.

“Should we…do something?” she asked.

He shrugged, but rose on silent feet. She followed right behind. Jason still didn’t move.

Tim signaled for her to go round the other side of the couch. She started to move before she found herself slammed to the ground, two hundred and forty pounds of muscled serial killer on top of her, all the air knocked out of her lungs.

She wheezed, unable to breathe, and Tim was doing something to Hood’s shoulder. She gasped as the weight left her, and forced herself to scramble back on the floor, to take in the scene in front of her.

Hood now had Tim pinned against the couch, gun to his chin, and Tim was frozen under him, very obviously trying not to set him off.

She and Tim locked eyes, and she saw her own terror reflected in his.

Slowly, slowly, Steph rose from the ground. Hood was panting, but he still hadn’t made a sound outside of the muted whump of his armor against their bodies.

His head tilted her way, and she knew he was watching her. She raised her hands in front of her. Easy. “Jason.” Her voice shook.

Hood stilled for a second, then abruptly pushed Tim to the ground and backed away.

Steph went to gather him up, eyes still focused on Hood, hands still up. What the f*ck? It had been going so well.

Hood was gesturing with the gun, emphatic, obviously trying to communicate something, but he still didn’t make a sound.

“Um,” said Tim, letting her help him to his feet. “Are we supposed to be able to hear you? Because right now, it’s not…” He gestured unhelpfully to his ear as he stepped away from her.

Hood tensed, pointed energy focused entirely on Tim, then pressed something on his helmet.

“What the f*ck, Replacement?” he growled. His voice sounded more distorted than normal. “And you, Blondie!” The gun swung in her direction, and Steph lifted her hands even higher. “Why the f*ck would you do that? What in the name of the sh*t-stained saint of assholes do you think you’re doing?”

Stephanie tried to be calm. “We were just—”

“Just what?” he snarled.

“Don’t f*cking yell at me when you’re the one who attacked us out of nowhere!” So much for calm. Oops.

Oddly enough, that seemed to settle Hood. He co*cked his head, considering her. And then he spasmed again, but this time she could hear it, a dry, hacking cough.

She blinked.

“Are you…sick?” asked Tim.

The gun swung back to point at him. “Don’t f*cking think about it, Replacement. I can still kick your ass. I can still kick both of your asses.”

Steph felt a hysterical little giggle bubble up inside of her and desperately stomped down on it.

Tim apparently had no such self-preservation skills. “Were you sleeping?” he asked, sheer delight crossing his face.

“I will kill you, Replacement.”

“Ooh, yay. Then I get to join your little club.”

Steph, who had been about to join in with Tim in teasing Hood, abruptly switched tracks. “Timothy Jackson Drake,” she hissed. “You are not going to die. Is that understood? No sacrifice plays. Vetoed. All of them. No martyring. Okay?”

“But what if—”

“Vetoed.”

Jason laughed. “Listen to your girlfriend, baby bird.”

Tim went red, and Steph felt a weird uncomfortable kind-of flip-flop in her stomach.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Tim muttered.

Huh. She’d braced herself for hurt, but the only thing she felt when Tim said that was a kind of relief. Weird. “Yeah, did you not hear our whole break-up conversation during your listening-in sessions?”

Hood scoffed, and the scoff quickly turned into another round of coughs.

“Seriously, dude, are you okay?”

“Don’t f*cking dude me, Replacement.”

Tim made a face and hummed out a mocking imitation of Jason’s words.

The hand with the gun went to Hood’s forehead, and Steph was pretty sure he wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose. Or massage his temples.

Instead, he holstered his gun. “I—Sorry.” He shifted his weight and jerked his head at each of them in turn. “For attacking you. You startled me. Won’t happen again.” He spun on his heel and marched towards the door.

Steph couldn’t say whether that was supposed to be a promise or a threat.

She rubbed at the aching spot just below her sternum where Hood’s knee had dug in. That was definitely gonna bruise. And she might have also added another layer to her shoulder collection. But no lasting damage. She’d received worse sparring. She wasn’t about to say it was all Gucci, but…

“Get yourself some cough drops!” she called after him.

“And honey tea!” Tim joined in. “It’s good for more than just scaphism, you know.”

Steph frowned at him. What the f*ck was scaphism?

Hood seemed to know, because he snorted. “You’re a real sh*t, you know that, Replacement?”

Tim grinned. “And proud of it. You want a blanket? Since I stole all of your good ones? Could come up, read you a bedtime story, tuck you in.”

“Go f*ck yourself.” But he caught the blanket Tim threw at him and didn’t let it go.

“You suuure you don’t want help, since you’re infirm and all?”

“I have a cold, Replacement. I’m not braindead.”

Tim shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

“Yeah, whatever. Get some sleep, baby birdies.”

The door closed with a resounding clang behind him, and the lights switched off a few seconds later.

Steph and Tim both drifted towards each other, and the bed. Steph fished her water bottle off its place on the floor from memory, and downed the rest of what was in it before joining Tim on their pile of blankets.

Neither of them said anything for a while.

“Well that was a real missed opportunity to sneak out,” said Tim.

She sighed in agreement. “He’s gonna be extra paranoid now, isn’t he?”

“Yup.”

She groaned and flopped back on the blankets. “I just wish I could let Cass know I’m okay. And Babs.”

“Either they’ll find us or we’ll find them soon enough.”

That’s what I’m worried about, she didn’t say.

She was pretty sure Tim was not-saying it too.

Chapter 22: Scranton (Jason & Barbara & Dick)

Chapter Text

Jason definitely had a fever. He could feel the haze and ache of it in his bones. Every inch of him was sore, like he’d been pummeled into the dirt. Or maybe he’d actually been pummeled into the dirt. He cracked open his eyes to check if his bruises were real or imagined, but the light stabbed into his brain and he had to shut it out again. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. Not well enough, anyway. His entire head was clogged, everything fuzzy and far away. Definitely couldn’t smell. His mouth tasted like stale phlegm and rust. His blood burned with fever curled just beneath his skin.

The pounding of his skull was only worsened by the hot, dry heat beating down on him. He breathed in through his mouth, and the air seared his cough-torn throat. Shallow breaths, or he’d start hacking again, and he definitely couldn’t afford that. But not too shallow: he still needed enough oxygen to fight. They were coming.

He pushed himself off the hallway wall, forced his body upright and into the sun. The floor lurched sideways, or maybe he did. He tightened his grip on his knife, just to be sure it was there. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, even beyond that he was sick. Shouldn’t he be in—? There was something he needed to—? The thoughts dissolved into nothingness even as he tried to grab them.

His heart pounded in his throat. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He needed to get—

Move. His body jerked even before he’d given it the conscious order. His eyes ripped themselves open and he watched, almost bemused, as a spiked flail whipped through the air where his ribs had just been, crashing into the wall with enough force to send dust and chips of stone into the air. It was almost pretty, how the debris hung suspended in sunlight, not quite yet succumbing to gravity.

Oh. Whoops. He should’ve been watching the flail-wielder, not the dust, because the man was already halfway into his next blow. Jason was normally faster than this, wasn’t he? Something was wrong.

He saw the trajectory of the spiked ball, how it would whip through the air at the end of its chain and crash into his calf. But moving was taking too long, his body lagging behind his already heat-clogged brain.

But the impact, when it came, came from behind. A sharp jab to his kidneys and Jason gasped, arching in pain, his elbow already flinging itself back to nail his second attacker in the cheek. There was a satisfying crunch of bone that echoed through his arm. He twisted to follow through but the flail crashed into his leg, metal biting into the flesh of his calf and pulling. It wrenched him back, ripped him forward, and Jason went down hard, all the air driven out of his lungs.

Two attackers. Maybe more. He couldn’t hear well. His head was spinning. Dust in the air. Blood in one eye. He choked on dust and snot, swiped blindly with his knife at where he thought legs might be, and was rewarded with the distinctive feel of metal slicing through muscle and tendons.

No time to celebrate his hit, because the figure was quickly falling down on top of him, flail-less now because the damn thing was embedded in his leg, but armored fists still ready and willing to do some serious damage.

Knife arm pinned by the weight of his assailant. His legs were free but he had no leverage, no target. His free hand scrabbled across the stone floor, searching for a weapon, for something, for anything—

A boot crunched down on his hand. Not hard enough to break, but any more pressure and it easily could. Jason writhed under his attackers as blow after blow rained down on him, blunt and brutal and unforgiving.

Blood in his eyes and his nose, blood and snot and dust running into his mouth, into the back of his throat, and he couldn’t help but breathe it in, couldn’t help but cough, except his lungs had no space to expand, so he was just choking, just choking on his own blood and spit and snot mixed with parched dirt. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t breathe, and the blows kept coming, everything was agony, he was dying, he knew this feeling, it was dying, this was what dying felt like and laughter was ringing in his ears he was dying again and he couldn’t breathe and the blows kept on coming and—

“Pathetic.” The voice was female, and familiar. There was something wrong about it. Something his brain was trying to tell him. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t—

Jason was hauled up to face the speaker, not that he could really see her between the blood and the searing light and the pounding in his head and the way the world went black and green and dizzy, blinking in and out of existence.

“A little head cold, and you’ve reverted to nothing more than a helpless, untrained babe. What kind of warrior allows himself to succumb to such frailties of flesh? Absolutely disgraceful.”

Jason’s every breath rattled with some unholy combination of liquids. He felt his failure in every cell of his body.

A sharp pain on his cheek. “Well?”

Oh. He was expected to answer. There were…there were words for this. He struggled to remember through the haze. “I apologize for my inadequacy at your instruction, and beg leave to redeem myself.” The words, even whispered, tore through his body in an excruciating and mindless litany.

“Hm.” She paused, considering him. “Again.”

The arms holding him upright suddenly dropped. Jason blinked and he was kneeling on the ground.

He blinked again and he was somehow pulling himself up the wall to a standing position. Every inch of him was pain. He swayed.

He blinked, and he was running down a different hallway. Fifteen minutes of grace before the hunt began again.

Blink, and he was on a roof, blindfolded with cotton stuffing his ears and ringed by assassins on all sides. Except hadn’t he just—?

Blink, and he was hanging out of a jeep, one arm broken and vision spinning in and out. Ignore the pain, ignore the weakness. Ignore the way his body screamed. It meant nothing, his pain. He hefted the grenade launcher with one hand, aimed, and fired.

He hit his target dead on.

Blink, and a different dizziness was running through him, one borne of poison, and he was running through an obstacle course. Different trainers, different masters. A whip cracked at his heels, a distraction from the sniper aiming down at him. Jason wasn’t fooled by the trick. Not anymore. He didn’t need even need to look. Aim, fire, dead, and Jason was the hunter now. It didn’t matter that his body wanted to be dead, wanted to rest, because Jason didn’t get to have that. Only blood and bullets and bruising, and it was much better to dole those out than to receive.

f*ck his pain, f*ck any desire for peace, Jason clawed himself into paranoia and dangerousness, and he was a predator now, not prey. Never again. They’re coming for you.

A blink again, and he was in a bed, his body still burning with fever and aching from layered beatings. He didn’t know if he could move. Sounds were far away, his head was slow, he needed to move, needed to—

Dawn. The light said it was dawn, and Jason threw himself from bed in a panic, nevermind his injuries, because it was open season now, because the hunt began at daybreak. He couldn’t hear properly, couldn’t think, but he needed to move.

A flicker in the corner of his eye and Jason already had a gun out, already had it aimed. Pull the trigger, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Take cover. He darted out the doorway and flattened himself to the wall, already reloading, breathing hard through blood and phlegm. He scanned the room for—

Wait. He blinked. This wasn’t—This was a kitchen-slash-living-room, obviously lived in, blankets and mugs and an almost cozy feel. Where was—?

Dawn’s light streaming in through the windows, gray light bouncing off…snow? He blinked. He knew this place. This was his place. This was his kitchen. His living room. His blankets and couch and mugs.

Harsh pants turned to coughs, and he brought his gun up to cover his angles, aimed it at everything and nothing as his head bobbed with the harsh motion of his lungs trying to escape through his teeth. An unacceptable liability, that he couldn’t even control his own body.

Coughs turned to ragged breaths, and Jason knew where he was.

Pennsylvania. League base in a state park. Two kids in the dungeon. No one else even anywhere near here.

She was dead. He had to remind himself of that. She was dead, because he’d put a bullet through her brain. Because he’d dismantled her corpse and left it for the vultures. She had been the first of his ‘teachers’ that he’d killed. She’d been nowhere near the last.

Jason suspected that Talia had sent him to the ones she wanted gone. She never said so outright, but…there had to be a reason she kept sending him back to sad*sts and monsters.

She was dead. It had been a nightmare. That was all it was. A nightmare because he was stressed and sick and it reminded him of—

You’re weak. Compromised. Prey.

There was no one coming for him. There was no one in his bedroom. He was safe. He was alone. Everything was fine.

He was safe. He was alone. No one was sneaking up on him. He had his back to a wall anyway. No one could sneak up on him.

But what if…?

Steeling himself, Jason swept back into the bedroom, gun-first. Empty. Bullet holes in the curtains, which were see-through enough that no one could use them to hide. No other potential hiding places in the room. Not even a closet—only a chest of drawers. No room to hide in there without tearing out the drawers, but he checked each one anyway.

He withdrew to the living room. He was alone. He was safe. He was—f*ck, he was sick. He was sick, because he was a f*cking idiot who had soaked himself head-to-toe in ice cold water and sat barefoot and dripping in the Gotham winter for long minutes before the car warmed up.

Kettle on. Tea. That would do…something. It was a plan, at least. Tea and honey and he positioned himself so he could see all the exits, and everything would be fine.

Everything was not fine.

He drank the tea, and maybe he tasted it, maybe he was calmer, maybe in actuality he was less sick than he’d been in the—dream, it was just a dream. But his being still thrummed with anxiety. Hearing is compromised. Reaction time is compromised. Compensate. Check your six, check your blindspots. Where’s your weapon? Ceiling. Entrances. Sip the tea—no, don’t: if someone hit you now, you’d choke. Put your helmet back on, you idiot. Check your blindspots, check your six.

He was compromised, and the damn need to check all his angles every six seconds wouldn’t go away until he was better. Until his head was clear and he could hear properly again and he could breathe without the raw scrape of blood stinging his throat.

Gun, check. Gun, check. Gun, check. Magazines, ammo, check. Explosives, check. Detonators, check. Armor—check, check, check. No movement. He was alone. He was safe.

Windows, check. Ceiling, check. Kryptonite, check. Knife one, knife two, knife three, knife four, knife five, knife six—check, check, check, check, check, check.

You’re vulnerable.

He needed—medicine. Yeah, medicine. Okay. Get yourself together, Todd. He’d bought that Tylenol for the Replacement, just a few—f*ck. The Tylenol was in the cell with Blondie. He’d just given her the whole bottle rather than appoint himself her med-keeper.

Double f*ck. He couldn’t go into the cell. Not like this. Not wired and paranoid and compromised. He’d—sh*t, he’d almost forgotten. He’d attacked Blondie last night. Triple f*ck.

Jason sagged against the wall, eyes darting—windows, doors, ceiling, six— and resigned himself to the inevitable. He needed medication. That meant either leaving the house, or going downstairs.

It wasn’t even a question. He grabbed his keys and headed to the garage. Sweep the room. Empty. Motorcycle. He remembered at the last second to change his helmet out for one that looked like a normal motorcycle helmet, and then he was gone.

A screeching alarm woke her. Babs bolted up, hand curled around the taser she slept with, other hand wrapping around the escrima she kept between her mattress and the wall. It took her half a second to identify the source of the noise: one of the alerts she’d set up to let her know of potential Red Hood sightings.

She pulled herself into her wheelchair, and was at her computer in less than five seconds, bringing up the search result. Traffic camera just outside Scranton, Pennsylvania. One of the license plates she’d flagged, on a red motorcycle. The guy riding it was the right height to be Hood, the right build. He was wearing a red helmet, but just a normal motorcycle helmet. Could be Hood, could be an accomplice. Could be unrelated. Either way, worth checking out now.

She sent out the call to mobilize. Hood couldn’t have timed it worse for them. Superman was in the middle of an emergency evacuation in Argentina. Cass and Young Justice were infiltrating a League base in Nepal. But seven minutes after she’d woken up, Dick and Bruce were in the Batplane, suited up and ready to go. She hadn’t heard the argument between Dick and Bruce that got Dick on the plane, but she assumed it had happened. Fine. They could use more than one body on the ground.

Should she tell Dick what they suspected? About Jason? It would completely throw him off his game, put him in danger by distracting him, but what if Hood—maybe Jason?—said something in the middle of a fight, something that threw him off even more?

So far, Hood hadn’t said anything outright that said he was Jason. He would probably keep that up.

She didn’t say anything.

She sent them the coordinates and they were off. Five minutes from Gotham to Scranton in the jet if they were going top speed. They may be too late anyway.

It might not matter how fast they could get there if Babs couldn’t find him again.

“What do we have?” Dick cut off a yawn, and then she heard the distinctive sound of Dick’s ‘wake up’ stretches, which were more rightly called safety hazards to himself and everyone around him.

“Traffic cam right outside Scranton picked one of the flagged license plates up. I-380 heading north. Alone, on a red motorcycle. Right build to be Hood.” She sent them the still she had. “I’m trying to pick him up again now.”

Babs set several programs running to hack into Pennsylvania traffic and security cams. Unlike the areas surrounding Gotham and Metropolis, she didn’t have automatic access set up to the cameras that far out. While those programs were running, she opened a new line.

“We’ve got a potential Hood sighting in Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

Crackling silence. Then, a balm to her troubled heart, three taps came across the line. Acknowledged. Can’t talk.

“I’m sending you the coordinates now—asking for you and YJ to come in as backup as soon as you can safely extract yourselves.”

Another three taps. Acknowledged.

“Thanks, Cass. Keep me updated.”

Babs focused back to her camera search programs. Okay. Okay. She had a hit.

Mute Cass’s comm, switch over to the new, secure Bat-line. No point in laying false chatter on the compromised line; the Bats wouldn’t normally be on it this time of day. “He’s just pulled off onto East Drinker Street. Evidence points to him heading somewhere in Scranton. Sending you coordinates to a landfill with enough open space for the plane to land.”

Now that he was in a city, it was easier to follow Red Hood through her cameras.

Barbara noted a ping from the Army Reserve Center and another one from the Air Force about the disturbance in their airspace. She gave them both the proper clearance codes to make them back off.

“He’s just pulled into a Rite Aid parking lot, and he’s going into the store.”

A grunt from B. “Landing in one minute.”

“Sending you directions. You should be able to make it from the plane to the Rite Aid in five minutes. Minimal traffic. Do you want me to reroute cars out of the area?”

A negative grunt. “Not unless we’ve engaged. Then make an effort to clear out civilians.”

“Copy. He’s still in the store. Got him on security cameras—cold and flu aisle. He’s got black hair with a white streak in the front. Brown motorcycle leathers and a generic red helmet. Armed. Can’t get an angle on his face.” She couldn’t tell if it was—if it was someone wearing Jason’s face. She swallowed and continued flipping through feeds.

Don’t think about that.

B landed the plane, and he and Nightwing were off on bikes the second it hit the ground. Barbara tracked their progress on one screen, and kept an eye on probably-Red Hood—he couldn’t be Jason, could he?—with the other. He was still in the first-aid aisle, helmet on his hip, guns plainly strapped to his legs, with a basket slung over an elbow that he was quickly filling up with medical supplies. Babs was surprised no one had called the police on him yet. Then again, Pennsylvania was an open carry state.

While waiting for the Bats to get there, she sent in an email taking a sick day from work. Her shift started at 1:00pm, and there was no way she was going to make it.

She pulled up the Rite Aid’s building schematics. “I’m counting at least eight exits. Main entrance, two emergency exit doors on either side of the building, loading dock, employee entrance to the pharmacy, employee entrance to the break room, windows in the break room, and windows behind the cashiers’ desk.”

A grunt from B, and Nightwing hummed in displeasure. She could hear the air whipping by their helmets as they sped down the streets. “What’s the plan, B?”

“Civilians in the store?”

Barbara tabbed back to the security camera view. “Approximately twenty-five. One employee at the front registers, two in the pharmacy, one stocking shelves, two in the break room. At least ten adult shoppers. Three of them have baby strollers, and I count two older children with parents or caretakers. Several camera blindspots, so I don’t have a 100% accurate count.”

“Hng.”

Barbara agreed. The situation was much too porous. She didn’t like it at all.

But there was nothing she could do about it. She would just have to trust that Bruce and Dick had it handled.

The problem was that she didn’t.

Hurry, Cass, she thought.

It felt weird to be working in daylight. Dick didn’t like it. He felt much too exposed.

It was one thing when he was a cop. But when he was Nightwing? Well, Nightwing was Nightwing for a reason. But he couldn’t let it bother him. He sped down the street, B at his side, cutting corners and sweeping through slush and ignoring the gaping stares of civilians.

The world was cold, crystalline. He had failed too much recently, had failed every last one of the Robins who came after him. He couldn’t mess this up.

He couldn’t.

Oracle directed them around the back, so that Hood wouldn’t be able see them pull into the parking lot. Apparently he was standing in line now. Nightwing had a very hard time imagining the Red Hood standing in line behind some lady buying diapers. But Oracle said that was what was happening, so that was what was happening.

“We need to get a tracker on the bike. Follow him back to his base of operations. Don’t engage except as a last resort.”

Dick growled. It made sense, the best way to find Steph and Tim, but everything in him screamed that he needed to take Hood down now. “How, B?” He snapped. “He parked right in front of the window, far enough back that he can see the whole thing, there’s absolutely no cover, it’s broad daylight, and the bike’s not going to be out of view between now and when he leaves the store.”

“You’ll have a five-second window between when he checks out and when he exits the front door when he’ll be perpendicular to the window. Blow dart from the roof.”

Dick ran a hand through his hair and sighed, but he couldn’t think of any better options. “Yeah, okay. Oracle, can you signal me in?”

“Yes,” Barbara’s voice was terse. “You’re going to want to get in position now.”

Dick tightened his lips, but propped his bike up in the shadow of the loading bay and scaled up the wall. B remained on his motorcycle. He’d follow Hood if Dick wasn’t able to place the tracker.

Feeling absolutely ridiculous, he army-crawled his way across the flat roof. The angles meant he was in full view from the road, and again, it was broad daylight. But as long as he stayed very low, he should be relatively unseen. The last thing he needed was someone looking up at him and tipping Hood off that there was someone on the roof.

Dick lay flat and set up a tracker that could latch itself onto the bike. Five yards. He could make that shot, easy. The question was how closely Hood would examine his bike before getting on it. There was no way to plant the tracker somewhere completely hidden from this distance. Still, Dick aimed carefully. If he could get it on the swingarm, it would blend in with the black metal and be partially covered by the suspension.

He breathed, breath hanging in the air before him, and waited for Barbara’s signal. The world went calm. There was nothing but him and the vast expanse of air in front of him. The feeling of peace right before you let go of the bar and hung only in empty space. He would make the shot.

“He’s finished ringing up his stuff. Paying in cash.”

That meant he was up. Dick didn’t tense; he had much too much experience to do that. Instead, he let the words wash through him, breathed, relaxed into certainty. He would make the shot.

“Now.”

A puff of air from his lungs, and the tracker was flying. For a moment it hung suspended in the air, before slamming into place with a soft click that Dick had to be imagining. “Bullseye,” he breathed into his comm, as the electronic doors swung open.

Hood stepped out, and Dick had to bite back a hiss at the sight of the man who had tortured his brother. No sound, no movement. Hood couldn’t know he was here. Not if they wanted to find Timmy and Steph.

But Hood wasn’t moving, still standing just outside the doorway. Why? He couldn’t have made them. He couldn’t have.

“Hey, Marcia, did I leave my wallet in there?” Hood’s voice was loud, undoubtedly Gotham, and it carried as he spun on his heel.

“He did not,” said Babs in his ear.

“f*ck,” Dick breathed. “Do you think he made us?”

“I don’t know. Don’t see how, but this is ripe for a hosta—”

A bolt of fear rolled through him. “O?”

No response.

“B, come in.”

Not even static. sh*t. He’d give it five seconds before he was jumping in there through the window.

He listened intently, braced for screams.

Three seconds.

“B, O, come in.”

He coiled, ready for the jump.

A side door flew open, a bulky figure sprinting out. Hood. Carrying his helmet, rather than wearing it, but unmistakably him.

Nightwing twisted, beginning his own sprint across the roof, intent on Hood’s heels. A wingding flew from hands, but Hood dodged without even looking back. Hood jumped a low barrier between two parking lots and barreled into the next building over.

It wasn’t until Dick had almost reached the edge of the roof that he realized a problem with this scenario: everything around here was single-story buildings. Flat. Not enough vertical space to swing.

But he didn’t slow down, turning his leap into a neat roll onto the asphalt. He grunted at the impact—no matter how good he was, he’d still just jumped about twelve feet down onto a hard surface—but popped up and kept chase. He was through the same door Hood had used only fifteen seconds behind the man.

A woman gasped and screamed. Dick ignored her as he scanned the room. Light, airy, filled with Christmas decorations. Tinsel, gift baskets, little packets of cookies. No Hood, but there was a broken window at the front of the shop, at an angle from where he’d come in. Nightwing was out of that same window before the woman could even finish her scream.

Another parking lot.

“Nightwing, come in.” Oracle.

“In pursuit of Hood. Parking lot outside of—” a brief glance at the store he’d just left—“Nibbles & Bits.”

A car started and immediately squealed out of the parking lot, flattening a mostly brown excuse for a snowbank as it did. “Gray Toyota Camry. License XGH-4492.”

“Got him,” Oracle confirmed.

Nightwing jumped out of the way of a cheap shot through the back window, and threw another wingding, low.

“Got the right rear tire.”

The car swerved, but Hood got control back easily—he’d driven with blown out tires before, then.

B’s voice. “In pursuit. N, get your bike and O will direct you.”

“He’s headed northwest on West Drinker Street. It’s a residential area. No cameras.”

“Hn.” B grunted his acknowledgment, speeding past Dick as he sprinted back to his own bike.

“What happened to the comms?” Dick asked as he ran.

“Localized EMP,” Barbara answered.

Dick had just thrown his leg over the seat when B’s voice crackled over the comms. “I have him in my sights. Four blocks ahead.”

A pause. “He just hung a right.”

“sh*t,” Babs swore. “That’s an elementary school.”

Dick could hear B’s engine revving in the background as he pushed his bike to its limits. “Cameras?”

“None I can access. I’m trying to get a live satellite feed, but nothing’s in the right area right now.”

“Hng.”

Dick tore out of the parking lot, desperate to catch up with them.

“Car’s been abandoned. I was thirty seconds behind him. He didn’t have time to hotwire a new car.”

“You think he’s in the school?”

“Or in one of the cars, out of sight. I’m doing a thermal scan now. Nightwing, circle around to the back of the school.”

“Two minutes out.”

A low growl from B. “He’s not in any of the cars.”

“The school, then?” Dick asked, heart sinking. Hood wouldn’t—he wouldn’t hurt a bunch of kids, would he?

Tim was a kid, and Hood had exulted in torturing him.

B was obviously having a similar train of thought. “Oracle, what’s the ETA on Superman?” His voice was grim.

There was silence on the line for a few seconds, and then: “Three minutes. He’s just wrapping up now.”

Dick hoped it would be enough, but the sinking feeling in his gut told him it wouldn’t be.

The bitter December wind whipping through his armor and leather as he sped down back roads had done more to ground Jason than any number of breathing exercises. By the time he pulled into the drug store, he was almost settled in himself. At least settled enough so that he wasn’t worried about what he might do in a building full of civilians.

He even managed to let a woman with a stroller walk behind him as he stared at medicines. Could be a bomb in there, instead of a baby, said his brain.

Shut up, said Jason, but his shoulders relaxed when the woman turned at the end of the row. Check the cameras, check your angles. He was down to every thirty seconds now, and had no doubt it would be better as soon as he got out of this place with so many people. So many hiding spots, so many entrances. No real security.

He cracked open a thing of DayQuil in the check-out line and chugged straight from the bottle, making sure his face was angled away from any cameras.

Jason wasn’t sure what it was, when he came out of the pharmacy, plastic bag of meds and supplies swinging from his arm, but everything screamed at him STOP. TROUBLE. THEY’RE HERE.

RUN.

He froze in the doorway. f*ck, this was a bad position. It was only leftover paranoia from his nightmare, almost certainly, but he was too high-strung right now to fight against it.

He’d just leave out a side entrance, hide out somewhere for a bit, and circle back around later to grab his bike. f*cking stupid, is what it was, when there was no logical way anyone could be after him here, but they’re here, they’re here, they’re here, chanted his brain, and he couldn’t ignore it.

You’re prey.

He turned back into the store, calling out to the store clerk—what was her name? Marcia, he thought, recalling the name tag he’d checked four times for any sign of forgery—as he did so. Plausible deniability. Just in case they were really here. They being...the League? No, he was still following Talia’s plan, as far as she knew. The Bats? Maybe. f*ck.

If it was the Bats, then they had Nightwing, Oracle, and Bats himself. Maybe Superman. If it was the Bats, then they were on a channel he didn’t have access to. And all while he was running a low-grade fever, couldn’t breathe properly, and felt like he was moving through molasses.

f*ck.

Jason squeezed his eyes closed and rubbed his temples. Nothing for it. He’d worked through worse pain and illness before; he could do it again.

Okay. Kryptonite at the ready. He strode to a camera blindspot near an exit and fiddled with his helmet, setting off a short-range EMP as he did. Then it was out the door in a dead sprint.

For a long moment, most of him felt ridiculous. This was such an overreaction.

Then a projectile came flying out at him from the roof.

Okay. Not an overreaction.

Jason’s brain suddenly clarified, everything that wasn’t fight or flee or figure out a plan suddenly evaporating. The anxiety that had plagued him all morning was gone—after all, they were here. Now he just had to deal with it.

It was freeing. Easy. Almost joyful in the release of tension.

Let’s have a hunt, shall we? Jason grinned.

He dodged the projectile without looking—wouldn’t do for Dickiebird or Bats or whoever else to see his face, especially since he wasn’t even wearing a domino, and barreled into a neighboring gift shop. Out the window—thankfully his armor, gloves, and motorcycle gear shielded him from the glass; grab a car—a Camry because it was close and he could hotwire it in his sleep; and he was off. f*cking Nightwing was just behind him, but on foot, so Jason sent a shot at him, forcing him to move for cover. The asshole managed to blow out his rear tire even while dodging bullets, so that sucked, but Jason knew how to f*cking drive even when his vehicle was compromised.

Okay. No Superman yet. That might change. Priority one was to get out of range of Oracle’s cameras, so he veered towards a residential area. Batman was in his rearview, a few blocks back. Out of Batarang reach. Barely. But B’s bike had better speed and maneuverability than the piece of sh*t he’d hijacked. Jason floored it and made the next turn he could, his stomach swooping with adrenaline.

School, playing fields. f*ck. Nowhere to go without involving literal children, and that wasn’t cool at all.

Think. Trees, behind the building. Okay. He could work with that.

He dumped the car and jogged inside, tucked his helmet under his arm and tied his jacket around his waist, covering the guns from view. Wouldn’t do to scare the kiddos. Ignored the friendly administrator yelling at him that he couldn’t go into the school. Hung a left at the first intersection, then a right. Took out two blocks of C-4 and stuck a magazine in each. Slapped the whole mess about eye-height on a load-bearing wall—distraction for the Bats, and hopefully too high up for a little kid to wander by and try to eat the bullets out of the mag. Or sample the C-4. Otherwise, there was no actual danger. But it certainly would look like a potentially armed bomb. Used up his last bit of his duct tape to secure them, though, which was annoying.

Jason swayed, blinked, shook his head. Move.

He scanned the windows inset into classroom doors as he passed them, until…there.

He very rudely barged into what he knew was “Mrs. Cabrera’s 3^rd Grade Classroom” because of the large construction-paper letters outside. A teacher, presumably Mrs. Cabrera, rocketed to her feet from where she sat in the front of the classroom, reading a book while the students sat cross-legged in front of her.

“Sir, you can’t be in here.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Cabrera, I’m just passing through.” Jason winked at her. The room spun. He might be sicker than he thought. He caught sight of the book in her hands. “The Tale of Despereaux? Great choice. Love me a Migs.”

He palmed a pack of stickers as he strode through the room. “I’m just gonna take these, and I’ll be out of your hair. Stay in school, kiddos!”

And then he was out the side door, sprinting for the woods. Chills on chills running down his body. He shifted back into his jacket as he moved, pulled out a spare kryptonite bullet. Three were already chambered in his left-hand pistol, but they wouldn’t do him much good if Superman got to him before he could shoot.

He flipped open the sticker packet’s plastic covering with a thumb and flicked it to the ground, silently apologizing for littering as he went. Then he mashed the stickers to the bullet, and the bullet to his helmet. His hands were shaking, and he had to pause twice to let the coughs wrack through his body.

A few more layers of “Good Effort” stickers with a truly horrific anthropomorphic apple giving him a thumbs up, another spare bullet, and he now officially had enough unshielded kryptonite attached to him to seriously weaken Superman if the man came too close. He slammed the helmet back on his head, and sent the rest of the stickers careening to the forest floor to join their plastic brethren.

Now. Resources and advantages, Jason: kryptonite; guns; helmet; tree cover; a plastic Rite Aid bag filled with cold medicine. They didn’t know who he was, and would hopefully divert resources to the fake bomb Jason had left behind. Disadvantages, Jason: literally everything else. He didn’t even have ears on them any more, and he was sick. f*ck.

He needed…he just needed somewhere to hide. If he could stay out of their sights long enough that the search got too broad, he’d eventually be able to steal a car and slip out unnoticed.

There was snow on the ground. Not much, especially compared to the thick layer in the woods outside his place, but enough so that every step left a clear footprint. Either he’d need to hide his very obvious trail somehow, or take to the trees. As if that wouldn’t also leave a trail. f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.

Had to get back to a populated area somehow. Get lost in the crowd. He blinked against the haze in his mind. Town was back the way he came. He could double back? Or keep going?

He braced himself against a tree as his lungs tried to leave his body forcefully via his mouth. Now that he wasn’t actively running for his life, the adrenaline spike was easing down, the cold was catching up to him. And the actual cold.

f*cking ridiculous, that after he’d dug himself out of his grave, he’d be done in by the common f*cking cold.

Need to move.

Jason started jogging in a random direction, no plan whatsoever, every sense perked for signs he was being followed, and painfully aware that his clogged head and the burning fever pressing out on his eyes meant that he’d never hear Batman coming.

Barbara was blind. She hated being blind. But if the school had cameras, they were on a closed system. No way for her to hack them remotely. She cursed the fact that all their drones were packed safely away in the Cave.

Superman was two minutes out, his emergency finally dealt with. Red Hood was human, probably. They’d get him.

“Oracle, I need you to evacuate the school as quickly as possible. Potential bomb threat.” B’s voice came crackling over the comms. Or maybe they wouldn’t get him, and he’d blow up the school.

“Nightwing, to the northwest hallway. Direct traffic away from the bomb.”

Babs’s fingers were already flying over the keyboard. Notify emergency services, notify school admin, remotely trigger the fire alarms.

“Hostages?” she asked.

“Unknown.” The sounds of screeching alarms and chattering children almost drowned out B’s growl. “No sign of Hood.”

“I’ve got the bombs,” Nightwing reported. “B’s searching the building. Bombs appear to be two bricks of C-4 with embedded detonators in closed metal casing—looks like repurposed handgun magazines. No visible detonation mechanism. It’s either remote, or on a timer.”

“f*ck,” Babs swore. Anything could be hidden within that metal casing—if Dick even tried to move the detonators, they might be rigged to blow.

The first of the first responders showed up at the same time as Superman.

“Superman, can you get a visual on Red Hood? Confirm whether he’s in the building?” She’d patched Clark into their new comms line as soon as she’d requested his presence.

A hum acknowledging the request, then a long pause. “He’s not in the building or the immediate vicinity of the school,” Clark finally said. “But now that the police, fire department, and EMS are here, there are too many moving people of the right general age and build…Definitely no one with his helmet. Just a normal motorcycle helmet this time, right?”

“Yeah. And dark hair with a white streak.”

A pause “No one matching that description inside the school.”

Dammit. Okay, think. If you were Red Hood, where would you go?

“He left the building before the bomb threat was called,” Dick’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Exited from the southwest side of the building, headed for the trees.”

“You’re sure?” B asked.

“Kid asked me if they had to leave the building because of the weird funny tall guy with the skunk hair and motorcycle helmet. Apparently he cut through the classroom during storytime and stole a pack of stickers.”

“…A pack of stickers?” Babs asked.

“That’s what the kid said. Her friend backed her up on it.”

“And he didn’t hurt or threaten anyone?”

“Kids didn’t say—I was trying to get them all out as quick as possible.”

“Got him,” said Clark, and Barbara exhaled in relief. “He’s moving through the trees at the east end of the cemetery. Alone. Going in to apprehend.”

Babs sent Superman’s tracking data to Dick and B. It was easier than trying to direct them in a place with only winding footpaths through trees and gravestones.

“Heading to Superman’s coordinates now. Nightwing—”

“I’m still on evacuation and disarming the bomb, yeah.” Dick’s voice held an edge she didn’t like. “Can’t have him holding the school over us when you get him.”

“Superman, status on Red Hood?”

There was no response.

“Superman, check in.”

Babs pulled up her tracking program. “His comm is undamaged, but he’s not moving.”

“Superman, check in.” Barbara watched as B’s tracker grew closer and closer to Superman’s.

“Sorry,” came Clark’s voice a few seconds later, tight with pain. He was panting. “He has kryptonite. Shot me. Twice.”

The two trackers were almost on top of each other now. “I’m fine,” Clark was saying. “Nowhere vital. He went that way.”

There was a very brief pause, and then Bruce’s tracker was off again, following some trail she could not see.

“O, I’m patching you into the bomb squad. B needs backup.”

Barbara swallowed down her fear at the dark, almost robotic tone Dick was speaking in. She could worry about that later. “Yeah, okay, give me a number.”

Nightwing relayed the phone number for the bomb squad technician, and then his tracker also sprinted off—though he went to his bike before rocketing through the woods. Babs winced. The bikes were good tech—great tech—but they weren’t really made for off-roading. Especially not at the speeds Dick was reaching.

But she wasn’t about to tell him to slow down. Not when he and B were so close—and so far—from catching Red Hood.

Hood, not Jason. Because there was no way Jason would do any of the things Hood had done, and there was especially no way that Jason would blow up a school. Or even threaten to.

Whoever or whatever he was, it wasn’t Jason.

Just some monster wearing his skin.

All Babs could do now was coordinate medical pickup for Superman, follow the bomb squad’s progress, and listen to frantic breathing over open comm lines.

A gunshot echoed in her ear, and Dick swore.

Another gunshot. Another. Another.

A whirring sound that made her wince, then a crash, bang. Metal on stone and something catastrophic falling onto frozen dirt.

This time, Dick didn’t swear. Dick didn’t say anything.

Barbara really hated being blind.

Chapter 23: Graveyard, Part I (Jason & Bruce)

Chapter Text

There’s an angel in the snow. Tall, much taller than the graves around it. Raised on a pedestal, it looks down on him. Gray stone against pale sky. It feels right, somehow.

Jason looks up at the angel, and his fingers ache with the memory of clawing at the lid of his coffin. Metal and blood and satin and dirt and bone and wood all scraping together into a dead boy, risen. He can’t run any more. He’s so dizzy. He shot Uncle Clark. He wants to lie down, under the angel. Let the steadily picking up snow fall on top of him. Rest.

He wants to want something else. To fight. To throw up. To scream. To rage. To cry. He doesn’t have the energy.

He stops under the angel’s sheltering wings, leans against her granite base, and waits. He doesn’t lie down.

Instead, he draws his guns—one in each hand—walks forward to stand unsupported and alone, shifts into a ready stance, and braces for the fight.

He thinks, perhaps, that the only reason he isn’t dead is because he doesn’t know how to be.

For a few precious heartbeats, the graveyard is occupied only by the dead.

Then Batman emerges from the trees. An inkblot on the snow-bleached earth.

Jason raises one gun. His world grows small. Focused. He aims unerringly at Batman’s face, where the man wears no armor. If Jason pulls the trigger, Batman will die. His hand does not shake.

“Batman,” he says.

“Hood.”

There is a script to be followed. Jason knows it well, though he has more experience in the opposite role. “Stay back,” he says. “I’m sure you saw the gift I left for you at the school. Superman was your one and only warning.”And a dull sort of horror seeps into his lungs at what he is implying, but he is too numb to fully recognize it. This is how the scene goes. This is how it is. He’s dug his grave, now he has to lie in it. Or, refuse to lie in it. Whatever.

Batman’s mouth thins. He doesn’t acknowledge the threat. But he doesn’t come closer, either. His hands are hidden in shadow. “What did you do to my son.” His voice is cold, with no articulation.

“Aw, Batsy, the whole point of the thing is you don’t get to know. Pretty sure I was clear about that in the video.”

“Jason.”

Jason blinks. Panic roils through him, so hot as to be cold. He can’t breathe. How does he know? How does he know? How does he— “Jason?” says Jason. “Who’s Jason? I didn’t kidnap any Jasons.”

A low growl. “My son. Jason. What did you do to him.”

“Your—your son. Jason. Your—” He shakes his head against the too-much feeling inside of him. Pushes it down. Fumbles to get back on script. “I kidnapped Tim. Geez, Bats, I know I called him Replacement, but even I didn’t realize they were that interchangeable.”

“Enough.”

The command cuts through the air, and Jason jerks to attention before catching himself.

“What have you done with his body.”

Jason frowns, confused. What body? “Who says there’s a body?” he stalls. “Maybe I didn’t kill him yet. Maybe he’s still a real boy, all flesh and bones in a sack of skin. Walking and talking, free of strings. Maybe he’s locked up somewhere, underground, screaming for you through layers of dirt.” He gestures at the graves around him. “Maybe brave Robin is here.”

His heart is pounding fast-fast-fast. It’s too close. This is all too close. He is tipped on the knife’s edge of a flashback, stomach already swooping in anticipation of the fall.

“Jason,” says Bruce, and Jason flinches inside the helmet, “has been dead for years. Whatever you have, it’s only a corpse.”

And damn if that doesn’t ring true. “What are you talking about?” he asks anyway, because he has no idea what’s going on in Bruce’s head.

“What did you do with Jason’s body. You and Talia.”

“Talia? What the everloving f*ck are you talking about?” How did—? Had she betrayed him already? Made her move with that kid of hers? Snowflakes spin in the air around him, and the ground is dizzy beneath.

“You desecrated his grave.”

Jason blinks. “What.”

“You stole his body.”

“What.” Jason’s mind takes a few moments to catch up. And when it does—oh. That’s kind of funny, isn’t it? He laughs, and now that he’s laughing, he can’t stop, but that’s fine: that’s part of the script, everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s fine.

“I did do that, didn’t I?” He adjusts his grip on the gun, lets Bruce know he sees the man trying to flank him while he’s distracted. “Took you long enough to notice. It’s been years.”

For the first time, Batman wavers. “Years.”

“Yeah, Bruce,” Jason spits out. “Years. Three years, now. And you finally f*cking noticed. Father of the year, everybody. Tell me, daddy dearest, you care so little about all of your so-called children, or was Jason just special?”

A growl.

Jason laughs. He is enjoying himself now. Feverish and bright. Everything is dancing. “What made you finally notice—you said something about Talia? Were her plans not going fast enough, so she led you to the grave by that chain she keeps locked around your balls?”

Batman’s jaw tenses. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to get out of this, but that body doesn’t belong to you.”

Jason co*cks his head. He’s not sure if things aren’t quite making sense because he’s so out of it, or they’re making too much sense. Or maybe Bruce is just talking nonsense. “Why do you think I have a body?”

Does he have a body? Or is he just inside one that isn’t his?

Bruce doesn’t answer, instead attempting to glare him into submission.

“I told you,” says Jason. Focus. “You don’t get to know if and when I turn Robin into a corpse. Either of them.”

Bruce shifts, almost imperceptible, but Jason knows Bat well enough to know that Bruce is uncomfortable, caught wrong-footed.

He puzzles over it. Why would… “Oh,” he says. “Oh. You forgot about Stephanie, didn’t you?”

The awkward loom of black shadow answers his question.

Jason huffs and shakes his head, half-disbelieving. “Poor f*cking girl. And I thought Jason had it bad. She comes back from the dead and gets kidnapped by the same f*cking psychopath who tortured her to death, and you don’t do a f*cking thing. No, you don’t even remember to think about her when another f*cking monster kidnaps her! When she gets taken by a nutcase who named himself after the motherf*cking Joker, who’s already shown he would torture a kid! What the f*ck is that about, B?”

He’s aware that he’s ranting, that he’s talking about himself in third person, that his thoughts and his feelings and his role and his self are all mixed up, that he can’t tell where Hood ends and Jason begins, or even if there is a divide—there has to be a divide, right? Because Hood facing down Batman is very different than Jason facing Bruce—he doesn’t know who he is or what he’s doing, but he just doesn’t care. He has—he has questions. He needs to know.

“Is that what you would’ve done if Jason came crawling back to you, fresh out the grave? Sell him out to the f*cking Joker, again, make sure the job got done right? Is that why he’s still alive, B? Because you want to watch him beat another child to death? To do your dirty work? What you’re too f*cking self-righteous to do yourself? Because some sick part of you gets off on sending children off to die, bloody and screaming?”

Bruce jerks, and Jason realizes his gun is no longer pointing at the man, too busy being used as a prop to emphasize his speech, and Batman has taken advantage of that to creep closer. Jason fixes that, retraining his sights on the decidedly displeased line of Bruce’s mouth.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” he snaps. “Why else would you let those kids out in the street, again and again and again and again?”

He laughs, desperate. “It was so easy to take them, B. So easy to take them and break them and snap those little hollow bird bones. That’s on you, pushing the chicks out the nest before they know how to fly.”

He pants into the stifling confines of his helmet. “Well. What do you have to say for yourself, old man?”

A heartbeat of silence. “I don’t accept criticism from men who torture and kidnap children.”

“Hypocrite.”

B ignores him. “And I certainly don’t accept criticism from a man who would dig up my child’s grave to—what? Besmirch his name? Throw me off my game? You can tell Talia that that trick is getting old. I know my son, and he would never be a killer.”

Jason blinks a few times. “You think that I…” He trails off. His voice hardens. “So sorry to disappoint. Your son was always a killer. I got two words for you, B: Felipe Garzonas.”

Eyes narrow beneath the cowl, almost imperceptible, if Jason didn’t know masks and the faces behind them. “I don’t know how you know that name, but Jason didn’t kill him.”

“You sure about that? No cameras, no witnesses, just the balcony and the ground below. Plenty of time for it. Who’s to say, if it was a fall or a slip?”

Silence. “My son was not a murderer.” Every word hangs heavy and dangerous between them. “He was light and joy and everything good. He tangled with the darkest dredges of humanity and never let them tarnish him. You are a fool if you think you could tarnish his memory.”

Every word hits like a knife. “Your son,” he says and the words twist up with a sneer. He hates him, in that moment, that Jason who died a martyr in a faraway land, that Jason who lives in Bruce’s head. Angelic and pure and too good for this world. How tragic. How sad. It’s not even a pretty lie, a peeling paper maché caricature with a sunshine sticker face, trying to pass for a real flesh human boy. “f*ck you, old man. Your son was always f*cking rotten, always tainted, he was never anything but tarnish and you’ve f*cking lost it if you’re deluding yourself to think otherwise. My son is not a murderer,” he growls in parody of Batman’s affect, and laughs, a bitter thing with none of the Joker in it. No, this one’s all Crime Alley: all low expectations and lower hopes; all slow, dry amusem*nt at any idiot who thought a boy born that low down could crawl to the light.

“f*ck you, Bruce,” he says. “You have no idea how many people I’ve killed. How many people I’ve murdered. f*ck you, ‘My son’s not a murderer.’ You don’t f*cking know me and I’m not your goddamn son!”

I’m not your goddamn son.

Something breaks in the air, like spiderweb cracked glass finally falling in on itself. Like bullet casings and pearls clattering on concrete. A single instant, and it’s too late to take back. A father’s sharp intake of breath. The moment after the fall. This his son was dead, and is alive again.

This his son is alive again. Perhaps it is foolish, naive. Batman’s paranoia blares in the back of his mind, cursing him for a fool, but Bruce is dumbstruck with the certainty of his knowledge.

Bruce and Jason—Jason—stand in the cemetary, ringed by graves. Both are masked. Both are still. Snow falls around them in swirling eddies.

“Jason…” The word is soft. A prayer.

“Hi, B.” His voice is defeated, even through the mechanical filter.

“Jason.”

“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”

Bruce takes a step forward and Jason recoils. Bruce freezes, gloved hand half-raised between them. “My boy.” His breath fogs in the air. “You’re hurt.”

Don’t think about how or why. Don’t think about what—what he’s done. What he’s doing.

It’s unsustainable, Bruce knows, but…just for a moment, can’t he have this one miracle? A few breaths more before he has to confront the nightmare of his child killing his child.

Jason shies away from his outstretched arm, far back enough he is caught by the rough stone of an angel’s pedestal. “I’m not your boy,” he hisses. “I’m not yours. And I’m fine. It’s a f*cking cold; I’m not dying.” He snickers, and the sound cuts through Bruce’s lungs. “Again.”

Bruce breathes in a meditative rhythm, to push down the pain. He can see it in the air, soft puffs of warmth in the chill emptiness before him.

“I’m not yours,” Jason says again, and he spits it like a dagger, like a shield.

Bruce is stone-still, another winged statue to watch over the dead. “Jason,” he says again. “My son.” The words come out in a possessive growl. He doesn’t know—He doesn’t know. “You need help.”

Help, like it’s that simple. Like there’s a solution to this horror show. What help could Bruce possibly offer? He thinks of Harvey, good and then blown up and then gone, in and out of Arkham in a constant downward spiral. He can’t—Jason is his son.

Timothy is—was?, no don’t think that—his son as well.

Justice must be served.

What that means, he has no idea.

Bruce just wants his sons back. He can’t see a way forward.

“Too late,” Jason hisses. Breaks the tentative thread between them before it even has the chance to form. “Broke the precious rule, Bruce. No strikes, you’re out. And I’m way past three. Bona fide serial killer, here, and I don’t regret it. Not even a little.”

Bruce listens, and all he can hear is the scared twelve-year-old yelling that he pawned all of Bruce’s cufflinks so the man might as well get rid of him now.

“I enjoyed it.” There’s a taunting grin in Jason’s tone now. “Murdering people. Torturing them. Making it hurt.”

Bruce winces at his words. Absorbs the blows. Centers himself, and looks right where Jason’s eyes should be, into the glowing lights of his helmet.

Jason hadn’t pawned the cufflinks at all, merely stashed them in a ziplock bag in the tank of a rarely-used toilet. But he's seen Hood kill. Seen him torture. This isn't a child's bluff.

“I know,” says Bruce, and he tries to keep his voice level. Acknowledgment, not judgment or pity. “You’re the Red Hood. I’ve seen the tapes. You have done horrible things. Things that can never be undone. And you will face justice for your crimes. If I have to take you down today, I will. But you are not irredeemable. And you are still my son.”

Jason flinches, violently, at that last pronouncement.

“I killed Tim,” he spits back at Bruce. “I killed your son.”

Bruce can’t breathe. He’d theorized—he’d acknowledged the possibility, intellectually, but to hear it aloud, in this graveyard…

Bruce thinks he might shatter.

Jason isn’t done.

“You think I’m Jason?” he asks. “You think I’m your son? Your son is dead. Your sons are dead. Because you’re too wrapped up in the myth of redemption to protect them. Jason is dead. And the Joker’s alive. And that f*cker’s never gonna be redeemed.”

And Bruce—Bruce can’t deny that he’s had that thought before.

“Jason is dead and the Joker is alive.” The words come out of that red helmet calm, measured, mechanical. “Tim is dead, and I’m alive. And as long as we live, no little birds will be safe to fly. Ever. There is no redemption. Not for monsters like us.”

The promise of violence hangs in the air. Bruce feels like he’s witnessing a train crash, too slow, too human, too frail to do anything but watch in horror. He sees the words in his mind before Jason speaks them.

“Kill me, Bruce. Kill me or it will never stop.”

And that—unacceptable. “No. Jason, please. You are not beyond redemption. No one is.” He has to—he has to believe that. Because if he doesn’t…

He couldn’t live with himself.

Jason barks a laugh and shifts, ready for a fight, ready to force his hand—and Bruce—he can’t. He can’t. If he can just—he just needs to take Jason down. Just make him listen. He clocks the snap of branches, the rumble of an engine to his left. Nightwing.

Dick. Dick, who doesn’t know that this is his brother.

Would he even believe it if Bruce told him now?

It doesn’t matter. Take Hood down first, and then they can—they can talk. They can fix this.

It has to be fixable.

It has to be.

“You are not beyond redemption. No one is.”

Oh, f*ck him. Jason imagines Bruce’s eyes must be pitying beneath the mask. f*ck him. f*ck him.

He wants to wrap himself up in green, to run away and fight and let blood run red until one of them is dead.

He needs this to stop. Because as long as Bruce is standing there, unflinching and unfighting, looking at him like that…he has power over Jason.

Jason hates him for it. He hates him.

It’s not fair. Stupid, for him to ever think it could be, but for a few brief years…Bruce had given him hope. An unwavering belief that he could be better than what the world thought of him. That he could be something other than a victim or a thug. What a f*cking joke. How dare he? How dare he play Jason like that? Like he’d actually believed…

He can’t wipe his cheeks dry through the helmet.

Breathe. So Bruce had f*cked him over. So what. That was life.

And then he’d done the same thing to Tim. And Stephanie. And now he is trying to do it to Jason again. And what…he thinks he deserves forgiveness? Redemption?

There is no such thing. It may have taken being beaten to death to finally pound it into his head, but Jason’s learned his lesson. Some people are monsters. Some people pretend to be your parents, pretend you could possibly ever be safe, pretend you could possibly ever be loved, and then they beat you and OD and leave, and then they sell you to the Joker and move right on to the next kid.

f*ck that. Jason’s a scarier monster, now. A monster that not even a mother could love. The thing nightmares have nightmares about. He wraps his pain around himself, lets it sharpen into a shield and a blade. The heartbreak and betrayal and the fear and the rage. The fury that is his, and his alone; the wrath that is the Pit’s and is his as well. These feelings are Jason’s, they are his, they make him, and they do not belong to anyone else. He does not belong to anyone else. He will not surrender himself for false dreams of being loved. Never again.

No. This will end in death, or not at all. Jason’s blood is singing. He can see the man breaking in front of him. He needs, he needs—

Bruce shifts into a fighting stance, and Jason growls in anticipation. Bruce’s stance is tricky, not quite what Jason would expect for a one-on-one deathmatch. Slightly angled, but not in…oh, of course. A rumble, the snap of dead wood. Where there’s the Bat, a bird always comes flapping in behind. Here comes Robin.

One shot at Batman, two. Make him duck behind a gravestone for cover. Weave away from the Batarang flipped at him in return. A lithe shadow on a motorcycle rockets into the clearing from the opposite side, and Jason takes aim. He doesn’t want to kill Dick, not even now, but Bruce doesn’t get to have him. He doesn’t get to have any of them.

And Jason has really good aim.

Fire—the tires are reinforced, of course they are—and fire again. The bike flips end over end, launches over Jason’s head.

He watches, almost in awe, as Nightwing relaxes in his upside-down seat overhead, lets himself fall in a graceful arch and kick at the back tire, launching himself up into a spinning backflip maybe fifteen feet in the air as he draws his escrima in a smooth motion.

It’s such a beautiful maneuver, the type of thing that only Golden Boy Dick Grayson could ever pull off, that Jason almost forgets to track his arc and send a bullet to meet him. Almost. His clips Dick in the shoulder, barely even throwing off the man’s trajectory, and then he’s diving for his own cover as the bike slams into his guardian angel.

Stone cracks and metal crumples with a horrifying screech before settling with an unsteady and muffled thump. Jason peeks out and sees the angel has fallen directly on top of the bike, which has ended up in a crumpled heap at the base of the pedestal. The angel’s bare feet still rest on their stone base, though now at an impossible and uncomfortable angle. She looks like she is trying to dive into the earth, into the hole to hell the smoking motorcycle has cleared beneath her.

Dick, the bastard, catches himself on his fingertips and flips into a ready stance.

It's barely a second before Jason is dodging again, Dick’s infernal wingdings this time. He sends back a shot or three and ducks behind a different grave. Dick’s maybe fifty feet away and Batman is—Batman is—

f*ck, he’s lost Batman.

Jason doesn’t have time to worry about that because Dick is on him, and Jason barely manages to slide underneath him in a frankly idiotic move. He gets two wingdings embedded in his side for his trouble.

Dick growls and twists back towards him in a move almost too fast to track, and f*ck, Jason’s way outmatched. Maybe if he wasn’t sick, if he wasn’t still reeling from that conversation with Bruce, if he wasn’t slow and sore and starting on the back foot…

But maybe not. Dick’s always been annoyingly perfect. Almost impossible to beat. While normally Jason would try and get him pinned, try to force him into a grappling match where Jason can leverage his size and strength against the man, he knows he’s in no shape to get anywhere near Nightwing right now. Jason’s only bet is to keep him back, make it impossible for Dick to close in on him. Guns have a longer range than stupidly named bird-knives.

And Batman is still out there.

Somewhere.

Think.

“You forget about the bombs, Dickolas?” he calls out from his newest sheltering gravestone. Feels the cuts in his side. Pretty shallow. His jacket and armor took the brunt of it. “School go boom?”

No response, except a f*cking smoke bomb landing a foot away from him. Jason doesn’t bother to move—his helmet will let him breathe and track heat signals when the air turns dark with smoke.

He flips to thermal imaging and sends a shot at Dick’s feet when he attempts to move forward. “Come a step closer and I’ll blow the school.”

“Dick.” Batman’s growl comes from somewhere to his left. Jason scans the area with his thermal vision on, but…f*ck, he’s forgotten that the cape reflects back heat, making the man practically invisible in the smoke and the snow.

“Stand down.” Jason isn’t sure if the terse order is for him or Dick. Either way, he’s not standing down, and takes the opportunity to reload.

“I’m not letting him get away.” There’s an edge to Dick’s voice Jason’s never heard before. He doesn’t think he likes it.

“No,” says Batman. “We’re not. But we’re playing this smart, N. Hostages are at stake. People’s children.” His voice almost cracks on the word. Jason is torn between shame and satisfaction.

Dick doesn’t respond.

“Yeah, Dickiebird, listen to Daddy.”

“Keep joking, Hood.” Dick’s voice is colder than the air around them. “I’m gonna see how long you can keep it up when I rip your teeth from your gums one by one and shove them into your lungs. The hard way.”

Jason blinks. “Well that’s a new one.”

A snarl, and Dick’s escrimas crackle as they charge.

“Nightwing.” Batman’s voice is more pleading than he’s ever heard in the field. “We need him to find—to find Robin. Robins.” That’s definitely a hitched breath, the kind that holds back utter collapse. Jason tightens his grip around his pistols.

“Fine.”

The world goes ominously quiet. Jason leans back against his headstone, head spinning. His breath catches in his throat, and he starts coughing again, gun bobbing at the end of his arm. f*ck. That would be such an embarrassing way to go. Done in by the common f*cking cold.

“Hood.” And that’s B again. “What do you want?”

“Nothing you could give me.” Jason’s tracking Nightwing’s progress as the man circles around him. He still can’t place Batman precisely.

“Then who can?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know what he wants. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly how he got here, but he also has no idea how how he got here. His head is screaming.

“No one,” he calls back. There’s no helping him.

“There doesn’t need to be any more bloodshed, Hood.”

“No,” Jason agrees, “but it certainly is a bonus.”

“Let us help you, son.”

And Jason—he wants it. Sharply. He wants it so bad it hurts. Despite knowing that Bruce’s brand of help would be Arkham, if he was lucky. He wants it like curling up into his mother’s chest, his head rising and falling with the rhythm of her lungs, slow, then slower, then—. He wants it badder than every time he’d wanted that next breath. All those nights when he’d thought that was it. And then the one when it was. He barely holds back a keening cry between clenched teeth.

It is cruel, he thinks. The cruelest thing a man could do. To offer such an option when they both know that there is no help for people like him.

When he doesn’t respond, Bruce says again, “Son, let us help you.”

“I am not your f*cking son!” He punctuates the shout with a bullet. “You don’t get to have me! You don’t get to have anyone.”

His brain is buzzing. Static and green and red. He doesn’t know what to do. Even with the Pit pulsing behind his eyes, he doesn’t know. None of that easy certainty the Pit always brought him before.

He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know...is it because he knows, now? Knows that he’s poisoning himself and everyone around him? Is it his sickness? Or is it B, so f*cking close, so inexplicable and cruel? Dickwing? What is the f*cking point of a high without the f*cking high?

He wants it back. He wants it back. Nightwing and Batman are circling him, drawing closer and closer with each lap. He’s running out of bullets.

They’ll be on him soon.

One clip left. Plus the kryptonite bullet stickered to his helmet. f*cking waste of money; he could probably buy a mansion for the metal in that bullet alone, but metal was metal. It would cut through human flesh just as well as Kryptonian. He scrapes the stickers off and—oh, there’s a problem. The stickers are all wrapped about the bullet, and it’ll take more precision than he’s got in his hands—what with the cold and the gloves—to get them off. He’s never going to be able to load it in time. Oh f*cking well. A shot in B’s general direction. Another in N’s. And another because Dickwing is a dipsh*t who thinks he’s unkillable. Maybe Jason needs to teach him a lesson too.

He mashes the kryptonite sticker mess back on his helmet. Just in case Clark comes back—it’s better than nothing.

Something changes in the air. He can feel it, a sharpening.

“Decoy detonators, Hood?” Dick’s voice is poisonous sweet as it drifts through the snow. “Really?”

Well. He’s screwed.

“You’re the idiots who fell for it.”

A pause. “You didn’t want to blow up the school.” That was B, much too close. Maybe fifteen feet.

Jason’s first shot hits square on his body armor, the second skims the unprotected area at the inside joint of his elbow.

“Maybe I forgot my detonators when I went out for a pharmacy run.” He hadn't. They're still in his pocket, practically useless.

Only one bullet left. He’ll have to make it count.

“You don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t have a f*cking clue what I want.”

“You haven’t shot to kill once today.”

“Oh, f*ck off. We all have our off days.” He shuffles his guns around, mindful of the one with the bullet.

“This isn’t an off day.”

Jason huffs. “It’s the offest of days.” And it really has been. Just. Such a sh*tty f*cking day.

“Enough,” Dick growls. “He isn’t gonna suddenly have an epiphany, B. You can’t cure evil, however much you try.”

Jason winces. “Ouch, Dickie,” he says, to cover how much that actually hurt. “I’m wounded.”

“You will be,” says Dick, darting between graves.

“And little Robins two, three, four will still be dead, dead, dead. I wasn’t gonna go for the complete set, but since you’re here—”

Jason aims and pulls the trigger. Click.

Empty. He curses and shoves the gun in its holster. Draws a bootknife, but Dick is closing in on him, obviously realizing what that click had meant.

Wait for it…

Dick is five feet away when Jason pulls up his other gun. Even the great Dick Grayson can’t dodge a bullet at point-blank range. And unlike Batman, his suit isn’t bulletproof.

It takes less than a second, and Jason’s gun is trained on Dick’s heart with the unerring accuracy that was whipped into him in the League, and he could do it. Shatter all of Bruce’s illusions about family, and hope, and redemption.

He could do it.

He pulls the trigger and the shot goes wide. Doesn’t even graze Dick down as he slams into Jason with all the momentum of a cannon ball.

They crash to the ground, and then the real fight begins. Jason’s got reach and strength on Nightwing, but Dick’s fighting like a man possessed, snarling out threats, and Jason…Jason’s tired.

He barely manages to deflect a blow from a wingding aimed as his throat, and the thing embeds itself into his forearm armor instead. He hisses and moves up and into the next blow, catches Dick’s stomach with his shoulder and bodily throws the man off him.

Dick twists in midair and lands on his feet. Like a goddamn cat, the show-off.

Jason hasn’t even fully regained his footing when he has to duck into a roll to avoid Batman grabbing him from behind. The movement jars the three f*cking Dick-knives embedded in him—the two in his side from earlier and the new one in his arm—but there’s no time to recover before Dick’s swinging high with his escrima and Jason’s backpedaling fast.

He spins out of the way of Nightwing’s next swing, but B’s right there and he grabs Jason by the helmet and pulls him down into his rising knee, hard enough to crack the outer shell of the thing.

Jason stumbles back, dazed, and ignores Bruce’s command to surrender. It’s all downhill from there. Jason’s on the defensive, desperately backpedaling to have any ground to stand on, and the one-two team of Batman and Nightwing is relentless and flawlessly coordinated.

This is the original Batman and Robin, after all. The paragon of teamwork and righteousness that none of the inferior copies could ever hope to match.

Blows keep coming, one after another, and Jason keeps falling back. Block. Dodge. Counter. Jason gets in one or two good hits, but it’s clear where the fight is going. More and more hits are getting past his guard.

One of Dick’s escrima hits him in the ribs with a crunch and a crackle, and Jason doubles over, wheezing and vision going black as the electricity courses through him. For some reason he’s thinking about Rice Krispies instead of anything useful. Snap, crackle. Just need the pop.

And oh, ow. He’s in darkness and pain, and it takes a few blinks to realize that he hasn’t passed out or gone blind, but his helmet’s optics have shorted out.

His arm comes up automatically to block a blow, and Jason thanks all his sh*thead teachers for insisting he fight blindfolded and muffled so much. Still doesn’t regret killing them, but their training sure is coming in handy. His whole body shudders with the strength bearing down on him, but he manages to catch Batman’s fist before it can hit anywhere vital.

He’s too slow to pull back when the man switches tactics, twisting his hand to grab Jason’s wrist and yanking out and back.

And there’s the f*cking pop as his shoulder is wrenched out of its socket.

Jason bellows and rises with B’s pull, and he doesn’t stop. He slams the top of his helmet up into Bruce’s chin, and the man hits the ground with a wet thud. Much harder than he would have landed if he was still conscious.

It’ll buy him a few seconds, or so he thinks until a strong arm wraps around his neck and starts to choke him out.

Jason claws at the arm crushing his throat, but Dick has all the leverage and Jason only has one fully functional arm—if you can call an arm with a f*cking bird knife embedded in it functional—and his vision’s going a black that’s not just his empty helmet.

He can feel Dick fumbling for the helmet’s latches, and he almost tries to stop him before he remembers that this is his disguise helmet, not the full Hood getup, and there aren’t any explosives built in.

The thing scrapes up his face as Dick pulls it off none too gently and spins him around, kicking him hard into the wet and unforgiving ground and following on top of him, escrima already pulled back for a blow.

Dick pulls back his fist and blanches.

“Whassamatter, Dickiebird?” Jason’s voice is rough from his near-strangulation. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He laughs at his own joke and feels the snow beneath him melt into his hair. That's a free ice pack, basically. Right? Gotta count his blessings.

“Who are you?”

“Don’t tell me a few years is enough to have made you forget this ugly mug, Goldie.”

Dick’s face twists into something rage-filled. “Why do you have his face?”

“I got this face from my mother, Dickiebird, may she rot in hell.” He turns his head to spit, and it lands pinkish red on the slush.

He isn’t particularly surprised when a shock of electricity starts coursing through his body.

“Not…exactly…the…homecoming…welcome…I…expected.” Jason forces out the quip and grins, teeth bloody.

“Who the f*ck do you think you are?” And Jason’s never heard that chill in Dick Grayson’s voice, that rage that’s burned so hot it’s cold again, blue and brittle and still.

It scares him.

He swallows and pants on the ground, fixes Dick with as unimpressed a look as he can manage from his vantage point pinned beneath him. “You really need me to answer that?”

“You’re not Jason.” The words are only just above a whisper, and they’re cold.

“Mm. You sure about that, Dickiebird?”

“You don’t get to use that name.”

The electricity this time courses through him with no warning, ice and lightning and blue-hot pain. He can feel his muscles cramping up, dancing against the ground, can feel a scream ripped from his throat, but he can’t hear anything, can’t see anything, nothing but blue-white agony, unceasing, neverending, oh God it’s not ending—

It ends. Jason pants on the ground like a beached fish for a few long moments, unable to do no anything else.

There’s no weight on top of him. Huh. That…doesn’t make sense. Jason forces himself to concentrate through the aftershocks.

There’s…hmm. Voices? Yeah, voices. And fighting? Dickie and—Dickie and B. They’re always fighting.

Except this time, the fighting is punctuated with crackles and blows.

Jason pushes himself up on one elbow and squints at the scene in front of him.

Batman and Nightwing, meeting each other blow for blow. It’s a beautiful fight, almost choreographed in its perfection. Two of the greatest fighters in the world, at the top of their game, black silhouettes on a pale gray sky.

“—going to kill him, B, and you can’t stop me.” Nightwing jumps over a low blow, and bounces lightly off a headstone, heading once again towards Jason, but Batman’s already moving to cut him off, cape swirling.

“Dick, please.”

Nightwing’s forced to break his momentum against his father. He ducks away from a grab and rolls through rapidly graying slush, popping to his feet a few yards to the side, already charging towards Jason again.

Jason knows he should be getting up, should be taking advantage of this to slip away, but he doesn’t have the energy to sit up. He’s not even that injured—he thinks just a cracked rib and a headache that’ll probably develop into something more. Spasms from the electricity. His nose is clogged, which makes breathing a real bitch. The rest is all superficial bruising or cuts. Even the three wingdings are mostly bit into his armor, not his flesh. He starts to ease them out and—yeah, those won’t even need stitches. Anything more than that is beyond him, though. He feels like a wrung-out washcloth, somehow both soggy and crusted with grime and blood.

“No!” Nightwing dodges another grab, but can’t get any closer through the ever-shifting wall of shadow that is Batman. “You should have let me kill the Joker! I am not making that mistake again. Move, B.”

B moves, but it’s to rebuff another dash towards Jason. Blinking, Jason realizes that Bruce is playing defense.

Bruce is defending him.

“You know that would have destroyed you, Dick! And I refuse to lose two sons to that waste of space.”

“Yeah, well how’s that going for you? Three Robins to the Joker or his deranged fanboy. You should never have brought him back.”

Joker fanboy? Jason sees green. Oh, great, now he gets that Lazarus fuel. Coulda used that back when Dick was frying him to death.

And then the rest of what Dick said catches up to him. You should never have brought him back.

He—Did Bruce bring him back? Is that why he woke up in his coffin, beaten to sh*t and unable to breathe?

“It would have shattered you, Dick! You know how you were afterwards, how you were after Blockbuster.”

Dick takes a few steps back, a mirthless smile fixed to his face. “That’s different.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is.” There’s a warning growl in Dick’s voice. He’s circling around, closer to Jason and the fallen angel.

“You turned yourself in for murder, Dick, and you hadn’t even killed him! Don’t tell me that if a death only partially on your hands weighs upon you that much that you wouldn’t be broken by a murder dealt by your own hands!”

“I’m already broken!” Dick’s voice cracks. “If you hadn’t brought him back—”

“I’m trying to protect you!”

“I don’t want, need, or deserve your protection, Bruce. If you hadn’t brought him back, I’d still be broken, but the Joker would be dead.”

The Joker would be dead. The words echo around Jason’s head. The Joker would be dead.

“You killed the Joker?” He’s standing. He doesn’t know when it happened, but he’s standing, he’s got three Batarangs and five knives, and all his injuries are far away and unimportant.

The two heroes angle themselves to keep him in view without turning their backs to each other.

“You killed the Joker,” Jason repeats, and he sees on both their faces that it’s true.

“You killed the Joker.” The world realigns around this new fact, clicks into place with a chilling anguish as he looks to Bruce. “And you brought him back?!”

Chapter 24: Graveyard, Part II (Dick & Jason)

Chapter Text

“You killed the Joker?”

Dick whips his head around to face the monster impersonating his brother. Sloppy, he chastises himself. He’d let Bruce draw his focus, could have let Hood get away. Again.

Never again, he promises himself.

No room for error. He’d thought Hood would stay down longer, after that, but the man is standing, if somewhat unsteadily. Dick goes cold. He shouldn’t be standing.

“You killed the Joker,” Red Hood repeats, studying them. He stabilizes himself using a headstone. Blood wiped across granite. Dick’s stomach lurches. It’s disrespectful to the dead.

Yeah, I killed the Joker, he thinks, and the overwhelming guilt, the deep shame he usually feels at that thought—the repulsive disgust at the memory of bone crunching beneath his knuckles, the pained choke of a man as Dick beat him to death with his bare hands, as he made it hurt, made it personal, refused a human being even the mercy of a quick death; the horror at his own capacity for horror that threatens to choke him whenever he remembers how he watched Cat raise the gun and stepped aside, how relieved he’d felt as he helped a man be murdered in cold blood—all of that, it feels far away. Unimportant. He meets Red Hood’s gaze, and he knows, even if he has nightmares every day for the rest of his life, even if the guilt never leaves, it will be worth it. For Jason. For Tim, and Stephanie. For everyone in the future this psychopath will tear apart.

For Robin.

“You killed the Joker.” Hood stands without support now, eyes glinting green—and he’s not even a good impersonator: he’s got the wrong eye color; he’s too big for anyone Jason might have grown into, after all his childhood malnutrition.

Hood’s focus switches away from Nightwing, aimed now solely on Batman, and Dick feels a growl rumble in his chest at the disrespect, at the challenge.

He prepares to attack, one eye on Batman, to see what the man will do. Which side he’ll come down on. And the fact that that’s even a question stokes the fury in his belly, the fear. How could Hood have possibly compromised Batman?

Bruce’s expression is pained, but there is no indication that he’s going to stop defending the man cosplaying as both his son and his son’s murderer.

The man who is currently staring at Dick’s dad, eyes wild and stance unhinged. “And you brought him back?!”

Hood moves faster than any man his size has any right to, especially one as injured as he must be. He throws himself at B, all unrestrained rage and knives.

A wingding, thrown high; then another, low. Batman dodges the projectiles easily, but their cover allows Hood to get in close, to draw his final batarang and start stabbing into body armor.

B blocks, steps back, and Nightwing takes advantage of that to intercept Hood’s next blow, slamming into his gut and grabbing his left arm—the one that’s already been dislocated once—twisting it back in what should be an effective hold.

Should be, because Hood just ignores him, leaping for Batman’s neck with no care for his trapped arm as it slips from its socket once again.

Startled, Dick loses his grip, and Hood surges forward, pulling his arm back into place as he does.

A flurry of blows between Hood and Batman, and Dick winds up for a hit, escrima solid in hand.

Except just before the strike would land, Batman swings Hood around so their positions are switched.

Cursing, Dick pulls his blow. Even so, there’s a splitting crack of body armor under his stick. If B hadn’t been armored, that hit would have broken bones, even checked as it was.

“What the hell, B?” Because there was no way Bruce didn’t do that on purpose.

Bruce just grunts, too busy fighting for his life. Because there’s no doubt in Dick’s mind that Hood is trying to kill him. This is the man Bruce just tried to save?

And he keeps doing it. Blocking Dick’s blows, leaving himself open, checking his own hits. One such idiotic maneuver leaves Batman open for Hood to tackle him into the snow, and now the two of them are so intertwined, grappling against each other on the melting ground, that Dick can’t get a hit in on Hood without a risk of hitting B too.

The two of them wrestle on the ground, evenly matched only because B has idiotically handicapped himself, Hood producing a seemingly endless stream of knives that are thankfully deflected into the snow for the most part.

They’re both soaked through with snowmelt, and Dick hesitates for a moment before he decides f*ck it, and charges his nightsticks. The batsuit is insulated, and if it takes out Hood, he’s not complaining.

Electricity crackles. Hood and Batman both seize up, but then Hood twists back and grabs the head of the still fully-charged escrima, pulls it close, Dick stumbling after it, and then reverses, catching Dick in the stomach with his own weapon, and Dick goes flying.

He lies gasping in the snow, stunned, for maybe five whole seconds. Terminably long in a fight like this.

When he finally struggles to his feet, Batman is backed against the pedestal of the statue that his bike had crashed into. No room to really move, and Hood has the leverage.

Dick runs back into the fray, cursing his boots. They really don’t have the traction for running over ankle-deep sludge over frozen ground.

Dick’s maybe ten feet away when Bruce ducks down and sweeps Hood’s legs from under him. Hood leans into it, hooking his arms around Bruce’s knees, and then they’re both on the ground again, sliding through slush over and over each other, neither gaining a clear advantage.

And now they’re practically under the fallen angel, propped as it is between the pedestal and the wreck of his bike, and Dick can’t get an angle.

Hood is snarling something. He thinks they’re supposed to be words, but he can’t make it out between the growing manic and maniacal laughter.

It’s the Joker’s laugh, a cracked and cruel screech that shrieks across shattering ice to cut into his ears and into his gut.

And Dick’s there, suddenly, church pews and vinyl flooring, red and orange stained glass, the crunch of a nose beneath his fist, cackling laughter and taunts. I hit Jason a lot harder than that. His name was Jason, right? Shoulda videoed this. A lewd, almost sexual moan.

And here, again, a Joker, deranged, calling upon Jason’s name, claiming Tim’s murder, and Bruce still trying to save him.

No. Never again. Who cares if giving in to his anger is what the Joker would want?

Ice-cold water goes flying as the two men grapple on the ground. The Joker’s laughter echoing all around them. Dick’s entire being has narrowed down to one goal.

He grabs Red Hood’s foot, the only part of his body he can reach with any kind of leverage. The suspended stone statue covers almost everything else.

Hood kicks back, but Dick just adjusts his grip, braces himself against the pedestal, and pulls.

A snarl, breaking the laughter, and then a hideous metal screech. There’s suddenly almost no resistance, and Dick goes flying back, Red Hood on top of him.

He thumps into the hard ground, and time goes liquid. He sees Hood, in front of him, falling into Dick’s pull. He sees Hood’s outstretched glove, how his hand is just now uncurling from the handlebars of Dick’s bike. He sees his bike, crumpled metal more than a vehicle, and the slippery, icy trail pressed in its wake. He sees the statue, the slate-colored angel, rock back and teeter as its support is pulled out from under it. He sees Batman, beneath, already injured and unable to gain traction, his feet slipping across the slicked-down water-on-snow polished into smooth flatness by their earlier wrestling match. He sees the statue hang in the air, and he sees it fall.

There’s a whump, vibrations through the earth, and the world is very far away, the sounds and the smells and the sight. Batman isn’t moving.

Batman isn’t moving.

Hood pushes himself off the ground, then collapses, the leg Dick had been pulling refusing to bear his weight. The man lies back on the snow. He’s laughing.

He’s laughing.

And Dick’s focus zooms back in. Barbara’s voice in his ear. Unimportant. Tim is dead. Stephanie is dead. Jason is dead. Bruce isn’t moving.

He rips the comm out and drops it at his feet. Rises. Walks slowly, purposefully to where Hood is lying. He’s numb and hot and cold all at once.

He hauls Hood up by the collar of his body armor. “You think this is funny?”

Jason—not Jason, it’s not him—grins up at him. “Yeah, Dickie. The Golden Boy sending a few hundred pounds of concrete and stone on top of daddy dearest? I think it’s hilarious.” He’s shaking with the force of the laughter wracking through his body.

Dick drops him, and follows down after, his fist already raised for a blow.

And another. And another.

Hood doesn’t fight back. And he doesn’t stop laughing.

So Dick doesn’t stop.

The hits come in quick succession now. Arm, ribs, legs. He feels something in his wrist snap, and it’s so like the last time that Jason can’t help but laugh. The bar coming down, over and over and over, and he’s lying in the snow in Scranton and he’s lying in the dust in Ethiopia, and there’s electric green and laughter and pain. It’s poetic, he thinks, but he can’t remember why.

Symmetry, maybe. He can hear the Joker laughing, hear it bouncing off the tombs. He’d clawed his way out of the dirt and now he’s getting pounded back into it. The graves are already here. Maybe they can get a discount, this time. Jason would die for a cheap, easily breakable coffin.

Ha. Die. He’s funny.

He’s going to die, and he can’t stop laughing.

He’s in so much pain.

“Where. Are. They.” Each word is punctuated with a punch. “What have you done with the Robins?”

Jason’s head is spinning with each blow, red and green and red again as the soft snowfall sizzles on his skin. Christmas colors.

“Where. Is. Robin.” The Joker hisses above him.

Jason doesn’t know. He thinks maybe he should. But all is red and green and fire and pain and cackling echoes.

“Where. Is. My. Brother.”

Jason can’t stop laughing. “Here,” he says, and he’s not exactly sure what he means. “Right here.”

The Joker’s silhouette is burned onto the inside of his eyelids.

“Look around you,” he says. “The birds are all broken or buried. Where the dirt is doesn’t matter.” And he laughs. “Too late.”

And it is. There’s no way he’s getting out of this now, and no one’s coming to save him.

He lets himself sink into the pain, and it almost feels like peace.

A shadow passes overhead, the snap of a cape. Jason automatically relaxes at the sound. Batman…?

No, Batman never comes in time. Not for him.

But the shadow passes between him and the Joker—or, no, that’s not right, is it?—and there’s no new pain.

He lies on a mix of melted snow and blood, and tries to breathe.

This is a real nice dream, he thinks. Or maybe it’s real sh*tty. He can’t tell the difference anymore.

Something’s holding him down, pinning him flat against the earth, and Jason can’t move. Huh. He thinks he would have noticed if they tied him down, but maybe not. Or maybe it’s just the heaviness of his own body, too wracked with pain and finally realizing that he’s an interloper and shouldn’t have control anymore.

The Joker is still laughing, in time with Jason’s ragged breaths. The horrifying cacophony of it bounces back between the gravestones. He wants to cover his ears, but even if he could move his arms he doesn’t think it would help. He’s pretty sure that it’s not real.

A shadow pools on the ground beside him. Voices. He can’t make out what they’re saying over the laughter and the pounding of his heart in his ears.

Some kind of shift, and a demon stands over him. An amorphous being of shadow. It crouches down, and Jason can feel pressure on either side of his jaw. Its formless visage stretches above him: no eyes, no mouth, just inky black and night.

Maybe this is Death, but Jason doesn’t remember this bit from last time.

The pressure on his jaw increases, closes his mouth, and Jason can’t breathe, he can’t breathe—he tries to writhe against the vision before him, but he’s still bound fast to the ground, unable to fight, and he’s dying, he’s dying again—

“Stop,” says the demon, and Jason is so surprised at the word that he does, for just a second. The Joker’s laughter stops with him, and now it’s just the soft howl of the wind and the frantic beat of his blood.

“Breathe,” says the demon, and the pressure on his face lessens, but doesn’t entirely stop. He thrashes and is surprised when his head turns on his command. The rest of his body is still paralyzed, unmoving.

The pressure—hands? definitely not skin, but maybe gloves—moves with him, framing his face. They’re warm.

“Breathe,” the demon says again. Its hands leave his face to rest on chest, and then it pushes down.

Jason panics as the air leaves his lungs in a painful wheeze, and he still can’t move—can’t move, why can’t he move?—except for his head, which he whips back and forth in a deperate no.

The hands let up their pressure and Jason desperately sucks in a breath of air, now that his lungs can actually expand.

Before he can truly register that he actually got to breathe, the air is being pushed out of his lungs again, and there’s nothing he can do except go along with it, no way to fight, no way to move, and he doesn’t understand—he doesn’t know what’s happening, he can’t, he can’t—why the f*ck can’t he move? Because not even his fingers will twitch at his command, and he can’t feel any restraints.

Is this hell? A dream? He doesn’t know.

Nothing he can do except let the shadow above force air in and out of his lungs. There’s a steady rhythm to it, at least, and Jason struggles to match it with his own breathing. Hurts less that way, and he slowly realizes as he gets more and more in time that if he breathes along the pattern it has set, the demon will ease up the painful press on his ribs.

Eventually he is breathing entirely on his own, two hands like brands resting loosely against his bruised chest.

“Good.” The demon’s voice is low, female. As the world coalesces around him, he sees a figure, sinuous and clothed black, laid out beside him. The man is staring at him in unrestrained fury, one blue eye peeking through a cracked white lens. Nightwing, says his brain. And then, Dick.

Just like that, he remembers where he is—Scranton, and the graveyard, snow melt beneath him soaked into his clothes, and Dick, and the Joker, and Batman—

He gasps and tries to buck the demon off him, to stop the pain digging insistently into his sternum.

When his eyes finally lock on the demon’s face—or lack thereof—it (she?) nods, and the pain abates. “Breathe,” she says.

“f*ck you,” Jason chokes out. “I’m breathing.”

Her hands settle over the tender spots where she has already pushed deep bruises into his muscle and maybe his bones.

“I’m f*cking breathing,” Jason insists, and there’s more fear than he’s comfortable with in his voice, as he frantically attempts to get some of that previous rhythm back.

“Hmm.” But she doesn’t breathe for him as he wrestles his lungs into compliance.

A crunch of snow near his head. Jason tries to whip his head up, but can’t manage any more range of motion than before. His eyes settle on Dick, who’s glaring now in the general direction of this new threat.

“Let me up,” Dick hisses.

“Sure thing, dude,” comes a voice he thinks maybe he should recognize. “You gonna keep trying to kill the only person who knows where my best friend is? Like, I get it, yeah, but you’re better than that, man. That’s the whole point of being a hero, isn’t it?”

Dick glares, but eventually drops his gaze. “Whatever.” His voice is low, defeated. “Just let me up, Kon.”

“Sorry, no can do. BG’s calling the shots right now, and no offense, but she scares me a lot more than you do.”

Kon-El. Superboy. Looks like backup has arrived. Where the f*ck is his kryptonite?

Oh, right. With his helmet. Which is…somewhere. Or maybe not, if Superboy is standing there and using his powers.

Like you have any chance now, kryptonite or no.

So if that’s Superboy, the demon on top of him is probably a Titan. He doesn’t think any of their power sets match the terrifying shadow monster above him, but the answer becomes obvious almost as soon as he looks at her with something approaching lucidity. Black leather, pointy ears, yellow utility belt, and…oh yeah, the huge honking Bat symbol emblazoned across her chest.

“The new Batgirl, I presume?”

She looks at him—or he thinks she does; hard to tell with that faceless mask—but doesn’t respond.

“Apparently I’ve met your dad,” Jason says, because he’s never been stuck a hole and decided to stop digging. “He’s a real f*cking asshole.”

No reaction.

“Wow,” says Jason. “Stone cold. I can respect that.”

Scary Batgirl ignores him, looking instead at where he thinks Superboy is. She nods, once, and Jason feels the force tying him down to the ground loosen.

He immediately tries to rocket to his feet, but before he even knows what’s happening, Scary Batgirl is driving him face-down into the freezing bloody water that used to be snow. He twists his head so that he can breathe, and feels her grip on the muscle at the base of his neck.

Half a heartbeat of anticipation, and then she twists. Jason bites back on a scream as spots start to form in his vision. Trapezius pinch, some part of his brain says. Painful, but unlikely to cause lasting damage.

Thanks, brain.

She lets go and drags him up, forces him into a sitting position, back rested against a gravestone.

“I don’t lose,” she says, one hand wrapped in his hair and the other pushing his torso against the granite behind him. “And I am better than you at pain.”

She shakes him, a little, and it’s all Jason can do to not to puke blood all over her.

“Okay, okay,” he says, “I get it. No trying to escape, Jesus.”

She nods and crouches down near him, just outside of kicking range.

Jason takes the opportunity to scan the scene. Superboy stands a few yards behind her, arms crossed and staring at him with laser-like focus. No actual lasers, though, so…yay? At his feet lies a still-prone Dick, glaring at him with the same intensity and a hell of a lot more rage. He doesn’t see any new arrivals, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Batman’s boots stick out from under the angel. As he watches, one of B’s legs slowly starts to curl up, his foot dragging through the gray snowmelt. Alive, then.

“Congratulations,” he says. “You’ve managed to bag yourself one freshly-caught Jason Todd. Now what you gonna do about it?” He coughs, and blood flecks the snow, still mostly undamaged and white over here.

He grins, and he knows his teeth are red. “Well? You think this means anything? You’re still out two Robins, and it’s not like I ain’t been tortured before. What’s the game plan, assholes?”

Dick growls and Superboy steps forward, but checks himself at Scary Batgirl’s outstretched arm.

“Where is Stephanie? And Tim.” Scary Batgirl’s voice is carefully measured.

“Dead,” Jason spits, because he can’t—he can’t, Batman is still right there, and he doesn’t—he doesn’t care, so he doesn’t get to have any of them. He doesn’t get any of them.

Scary Batgirl nods, slowly. “You’re lying,” she says, calm certainty sure in her voice.

“What?” says Jason, blinking.

“You’re lying. Stephanie and Tim are alive. Why?”

Jason struggles to get his composure back. “Denial’s not a good look on anybody. Even on you, Scary Batgirl.”

Batgirl just shrugs. “I know. When people lie. You are lying. Why?”

“Like a meta thing?” He hasn’t heard anything about New Batgirl being a meta, but the calm certainty in her voice, in her posture, is really unnerving him. He shifts to get a better look at Bruce, still stuck under the angel. The man’s pulled himself up to a sitting position, one arm thrown over her dress, and it almost looks like the angel is lying across his lap. He’s pale, even for Bruce, and his breathing is pained. Good. “You letting metas in Gotham now, Old Man?” The green flares. “Willing to break that rule, huh, if it benefits your crusade?”

“Jason, it’s not—”

“Shh!” The harsh noise interrupts the motherf*cking Batman, and suddenly Batgirl is obscuring his view again. Her and her cape taking up basically his whole field of view. She’s closer now, but he doesn’t think trying to take her down would be a good idea.

He snarls, but his glowing anger is already fading into a grudging admiration as Batman actually shuts up.

“You are hurt,” she says.

Jason snorts. “Yeah, no f*cking sh*t. Between you, Bats, and Dickie here, I’ve spent the last however long as a veritable punching bag. Kinda hard not to get banged up after that.”

Even forgetting the rest of him, his right leg is all kind of f*cked up from where Dick tried to wrench it off his f*cking body. He’s pretty sure his adductor muscle is pulled, maybe torn, and he’s twisted his knee. Jason’s honestly not sure if he’ll be able to stand.

He can’t see it, but he has the distinct feeling that Scary Batgirl is rolling her eyes.

“Inside,” she says. “You are hurt inside.”

“Yeah, I probably do got some internal bleeding going on, what in my general”—he waves a hand aimlessly—“thoracic and abdominal regions. And the rest of them. The…limb-ular regions and”—he can’t think of the word—“head.” He pats himself on the head and immediately regrets it.

A pointed silence.

“What.” She is really, really unnerving him. Torture, he could handle. Interrogation. Getting beat up. But this calm, unflinching certainty, those blank leather eyes that he feels can see into soul? He hates it. He hates it.

“Scared,” she says. “And angry over top. Hurt. Betrayed.”

“f*ck you, creepy bat, you don’t see me coming into your house and psychoanalyzing you.”

A pause. She looks up, at the empty gray sky stretching into nothingness. “This is your house?”

“House, home, same thing,” Jason quips. “I’m amongst my brethren.” He leans back against the grave and lets his arms flop open.

She looks back at him, and God, Jason can’t get a read on her at all.

“You know, the dead? Since I’m a zombie and all. Revanant, whatever.”

“You think you should be dead.”

“Well, I mean, I did die, but I’m not exactly itching to get back in the grave, either.”

“Not what I said.”

“Yeah, I heard you.” He forces himself to meet those lack of eyes.

Another pause. He’s beginning to sense that that’s pretty common with this Batgirl. “Is Stephanie hurt?”

“Irrevocably.”

Her head tilts. “That means…yes?”

“Yeah.” Jason frowns, confused.

“Okay. I see.” She hums. “Still a lie.”

“Bullsh*t. Your meta powers or whatever ain’t working.”

“Mm. Is Tim hurt?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see the video.”

“Guilty.”

“So you did see it.”

“Saw it. You are guilty…ashamed. Is Tim hurt now?”

“Still got the bullet holes in him.”

She studies him. “Truth. Hiding something, but truth.”

Jason sighs theatrically. “I guess even a stopped clock’s gotta be right twice a day.”

“Hm?”

“Your powers or whatever were actually working that time.”

Silence.

“But not the others,” he clarifies.

More silence. Jason rolls his shoulders, testing his range. Not horrible. Not great, but not horrible either.

She co*cks her head. “Nightwing was going to kill you.” There is a tightly leashed anger in her words. He’s not sure who it’s aimed at.

“Yeah, and…?” Jason presses when she doesn’t elaborate.

“You are not angry or hurt at him.”

“Oh, excuse me for not externalizing my rage enough. Didn’t think that was a problem I had, but, hey. You live and you learn.”

“You do not want to hurt Nightwing.”

“Yeah, well.” He can’t summon up the energy to lie. “He killed the Joker.”

“And that makes you…not want to hurt him?”

“Yeah,” Jason repeats. “He killed the Joker. Unlike some f*cking people, he actually did something!” He huffs. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, Dickie’s an insufferable jackass, but at least he doesn’t have his head stuck up so far his ass that he won’t stop more people from getting hurt. At least he f*cking cared!”

Jason’s panting now. “He cared.” He says it soft, like it’s still a revelation. Because it is.

Batgirl nods, slowly. “He almost killed you,” she points out.

“Yeah,” says Jason, “exactly.”

A sharp intake of breath, from somewhere beyond the cape. “Jay? Is it really…?”

Dickie. Jason swallows.

Batgirl shifts. She looks over her shoulder, then opens herself up so that Dick is in view, still lying on the ground, tied down by an invisible force.

Jason tears his gaze away. He can’t look at his brother right now. More movement in the corner of his eye, black and blue shadows shifting around, talking in that silent language of bats and birds. He doesn’t care.

Soft footsteps, the swish of water melting into the crunch of snow. A shadow looming to his right, then folded down beside him. “Jason?” The voice is soft. Tentative.

“Hey, Dickie.” He stares straight ahead. Ruined snow, broken graves and muck. He’s so tired. “Came back wrong,” he mutters, ashamed. Swallows against tears. “Shoulda put me down when you had the chance.”

A soft touch on his chin. “Oh, Jay.”

Jason doesn’t move. He’s trembling.

“Talk to me, Little Wing.”

Jason doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry.” Dick is crying. “I’m so sorry. I thought—It's not an excuse. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

“S’okay,” Jason mumbles. Moving his jaw takes too much effort. “Nothing to be sorry for. I said. You shoulda finished it.” He still stares straight ahead. “Deserve it.”

A soft hand rubbing his shoulder. Circles on his back. “No, Jay. You don’t deserve to die. You never deserved to die.”

Hot tears on his face. “You’re wrong.”

“No, nope. Big brother privilege. I’m right about this.”

Jason exhales a shaky breath. The hand is still rubbing warm circles into his back, difficult but not impossible to feel through his jacket and body armor.

“You think you could answer a few questions, Jay?” His tone is carefully gentle.

“‘M not a kid. Don’t need to manage me.”

“Okay, Jay. Okay. I’m sorry.” A breath. “You said—with Cass—Jason, is Tim alive?”

He nods, the tiniest of all possible movements. Barely a twitch.

An exhale. “Okay. Good, that’s good. Thank you. And Stephanie?”

Another tiny nod.

“Good. Great. Can you bring them back to us, Jaybird? Come home to us?”

A shake of his head, similarly miniscule.

“Okay, that’s okay. Why not?” The steady circles continue, and Jason doesn’t move.

“Can you tell me why not, Jaybird?”

The view before him blurs and trembles.“Too late,” he whispers.

“No,” says Dick. “It’s not too late, Little Wing. I promise, okay? I promise. It’s not too late. Come home to us, Jay.”

Jason flinches, shaking his head violently. “No,” he says.

And then louder, “No.” He scrambles away, away from that warmth and that false comfort, back into the open cold. “No!”

“He doesn’t—” Jason is shaking, all uncontrolled shivers and wracking trembles. He can’t get his legs beneath him. “He doesn’t get to have them. He doesn’t—He doesn’t care! It’s not—It’s not…”

He’s crying, his nose is running, and he has to gasp in huge gulps of air to continue. “I died! I died, Dick, and it didn’t mean a goddamn thing! You replaced me, like me dying didn’t even matter! And fine, maybe that’s understandable. Moving on. You didn’t know I’d be back. Hell, I didn’t know I’d be back. But you didn’t—he didn’t—you didn’t change. The Joker’s still alive, and you did it again and again and again! Blondie was tortured until her heart gave out, and none of you were even looking for her! Black Mask had more power than ever! It’s not—you can’t—what the f*ck?! What the f*ck is that about, Dickie?”

The words rip from his throat in a painful scream. He’s not looking anywhere. He can’t see. He can’t stop shaking. He can’t stop. “He doesn’t care, Dick! He doesn’t care about any of us! It’s—it’s not…”

“Bruce?” A hand settling on his shoulder. “Jay, I promise, I swear, he cares. He cares so mu—”

“No, he DOESN’T!” Jason lashes out with a vicious backhand that hits only air. “He doesn’t! If he did, I would have been the last! I would have been the only one! If my life—if my death—if I meant anything, anything at all, Sionis would be dead, and that f*cking clown, and I would never have been able to take Timmy from the Tower. Blondie wouldn’t’ve been wandering about town alone with no backup when she’d already died once and her f*cking murderer, her f*cking torturer, still ran the goddamn city!! Tiny Tim wouldn’t be living all by himself in Bludhaven with his f*cking fake family that doesn’t exist, dropping out of school and stitching himself up alone! You woulda—you woulda got me sooner, as soon as I started f*cking threatening to kill his f*cking children, and you wouldn’t-a got blown up by my stupid f*cking bomb! If he f*cking cared, the Joker would be dead even if he didn’t kill him because all he had to f*cking do was not f*cking bring him back! How f*cking hard is that? Or—or, or, or, at the very f*cking least, he woulda f*cking noticed when I crawled outta my own goddamn grave!”

“What—?” There’s a soft horror in Dick’s voice, but Jason doesn’t have the space for it.

“And don’t f*cking tell me that it was hard to notice, because Talia Al f*cking Ghul noticed. Talia noticed, and you didn’t and he didn’t and none of you—none of you! So don’t f*cking tell me that he cares, you f*cking sanctimonious prick. Don’t f*cking—he doesn’t f*cking care, okay? And he doesn’t get to have us! He doesn’t get to have any of us!”

He gasps in desperate breaths, doubled over on the ground. “He doesn’t get to have us.”

A hand reaches towards him, but Jason snarls and it’s quickly snatched back.

A deep breath in, shaking, somewhere near him. “Okay, okay. He doesn’t get to have you. I hear you, Jay. Okay. How about—how about Cass and I come, yeah, to wherever Tim and Stephanie are? Just me ’n Cass. No Bruce. Just so we know they’re okay? So we know you’re okay? Get you some medical attention. We can go, and we can figure it out from there, okay?”

Jason stares into nothing. There’s something wrong with this plan, but he’s so drained. He can’t think. He needs…he doesn’t know. He’s so tired. He doesn’t want to fight any more.

“He doesn’t get to know,” Jason finally says. Conditions. He’s got bargaining power. He’s not pouting. “He doesn’t get to know where they are. How they’re doing. He doesn’t get to know anything. No comms. No trackers. No…recordings. Phones. Any of that sh*t.”

“We need to be able to check in somehow, Jaybird.” When Jason’s head snaps up, Dick raises his hands in surrender. “No details, no locations, but if we can call in, let Alfie know we’re alive every so often, okay? You can listen, no hidden messages, just ‘we’re alive, everything’s okay.’”

“Alfie…” His jaw aches.

“Yeah. He worries, you know.”

Jason sighs, exhausted. “Fine. You can use—a burner. I have a burner. No…nothing else. Nothing from you. Nothing Bat.”

“Okay. C’mon, Little Wing, let’s get you somewhere warm. You think you can stand?”

Chapter 25: Son of the Bat (Cassandra)

Chapter Text

Cassandra is…upset. This is not the right word, but she can’t figure out a better one. Her head and her heart and her lungs are…wrong in how they sit inside her body.

She doesn’t like it.

Stephanie is alive. Probably.

Stephanie was always alive, even when Cassandra believed she was dead.

But now she is maybe dead again for real, and it makes Cass’s head and her stomach and her breastbone too fast and too fluttery. She knows they will not settle until Stephanie is solid against her skin. Until she is either a warm hug or a cold corpse.

She does not like this feeling at all. Usually, she has very good control over her body. To have parts of herself…wanting to do something she cannot control, it is very…she does not like it.

She chews her lip, under her Batgirl mask. She likes her mask. It is safe. She can make her own faces and have her own thoughts and no one will get mad or hurt because of it. She can see everyone, but no one can see her. She is not a person, when she wears the mask. She is a nightmare, a shadow. A Bat.

Stephanie always saw her as a person, even when she was wearing the mask.

Stephanie is de—not dead.

Probably.

She forces her focus on the here.

Here is Nepal, the Himalayas. A base for the League of Assassins. Heartbeats and stone walls. A room where papers are kept, piled on desks and tables.

Hard to get to the here, unless you can fly. Kon-El and Other Cass can fly. Makes it easy to get to.

Bad planning from the League of Assassins.

But Kon-El and Other Cass cannot sneak. Bart cannot sneak either, but there was an argument between the Young Justices and they decided that Bart should go with her. Cass could not follow the words of the argument—too fast, too many references to things she does not understand—but Bart was chosen because he can read the fastest, and he knows the most languages. Something about reading an entire library? That is a lot of words to know. She believes it though, watching him flit through the room, skim paper after paper in seconds.

Cass thinks that Other Cass would probably be better at sneaking. Not good, but probably better than Bart. But when Other Cass suggested herself for sneaking, Bart and Kon’s eyes both went wide with horror and they vomited out many words to explain why this was a bad idea.

Apparently there are lots of past examples of just how bad Other Cass is at sneaking.

There are also lots of past examples of how Kon and Bart are very bad at sneaking, but those don’t count as much for some reason she cannot understand.

It doesn’t matter. Other Cass made the final decision of who goes where, and she knows the team much better than Cassandra does.

So she and Bart are inside the base, doing the sneaking. Bart is there to do the reading, and Cassandra is there to make sure the sneaking stays sneaky. Bart zooms through words and Cass makes sure the papers fall back into neat piles, instead of the everywhere hurricane Bart leaves behind.

She is very gentle with the sheets of paper. With the books. She knows they are precious, although they are nothing to her. She is…more careful, now, in rooms with books, ever since Barbara and the library and the fire. They must be very important, to matter so much to Barbara.

Worth more than you, who can only destroy.