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Note to self: Harley is off limits.
Jason hadn’t really had any plans to go after her, but Ivy has just made it abundantly clear that if he had, he should rethink them. Immediately.
He distantly wonders what the turning point was. What made Harley finally give up on the Joker. He knows Ivy and Harley had always been friendly, but — it was always the Joker for Harley. Jason doesn’t hold it against her. Not then, and not now. He knows a hell of a lot about abuse; Harley and Joker had been textbook. It hadn’t seemed like she would ever escape.
He’s — happy for her. Happy that she got out.
Less happy that Ivy took one look at him and made it her personal mission to try to squeeze and/or strangle him to death.
Jason can see where she’s coming from. Ivy has been around Gotham long enough — been around Harley long enough — to know what the name Red Hood means. He shouldn’t have been surprised she attacked. He shouldn’t have gone anywhere near Robinson Park.
He’s not dead, that’s what’s important. His ribs are a little bruised, and there must have been thorns on some of those vines, because his jacket is a mess and his hands don’t feel great now that the adrenaline rush is dying down. He pauses on a rooftop, a good few blocks away from the park, and pulls off his gloves to assess the damage.
The gloves aren’t Kevlar like the rest of his outfit; they’re significantly less damage resistant, and he’d been more concerned with getting out of dodge than he had with being careful. There are several spots where the thorns had torn through the gloves and into his hands. There are also a few scratches on his wrists and forearms, where the Kevlar suit hadn’t quite been flush with his gloves or where the struggling had bared skin to Ivy’s attack.
There’s a creeping numbness making its way up his arms.
Well, that’s not good.
Jason doesn’t have any antidotes for Ivy’s pollens or poisons. He hadn’t even known she was out of Arkham. Thank you, Gotham, for keeping your population well-informed.
He has a sudden urge to hack into Arkham’s cameras. If he didn’t know Ivy was out, is he sure the Joker is in? Maybe the GCPD is lying. Maybe the Arkham staff is.
What if he’s already running free in Gotham? What then?
No. No.
He can check that later. He needs to deal with this right now. No antidotes, but that’s all right. He’s spent years with the League, building his immunity to poisons, and if that fails, there’s still a more than negligible amount of Lazarus waters running through his veins. Not only does it help him heal faster, it helps to counteract any poisons or drugs that make it into his system.
(It’s probably fortunate he was never a big fan of drinking, even before he was ever old enough to touch alcohol. He burns through it quicker than most people, speedsters excepted. At least it’s useful for undercover work.
He doesn’t want to discuss how annoying it is that caffeine is only of limited usefulness.)
Jason can ride this out in one of his safehouses. It’s going to be fine. He’s Gotham, born and bred. Ivy is a fact of life. He can deal with this.
He just needs to get to a safehouse. He has one fairly close by. He shouldn’t even need to use his grapnel, which is good, given that the numbness in his hands has shifted to pins and needles, and he’s starting to shiver.
Ah, hell.
If she was trying to kill him, why the fuck were Ivy’s thorns coated in cuddle pollen?
Whatever. At least it’s not poison in the traditional sense. It’ll burn through his system quickly enough. He faintly imagines he can already feel the Pit perking up at something to chomp down on.
It’s an amusing mental image.
Jason jumps the gap between buildings and heads toward safety.
He blinks, and he’s three streets over, in the opposite direction of where he’d meant to be heading.
What…
Blink. Another two streets.
Where…why…?
Voices, in his ear. The comm channel for the Bats. When did he…?
“Robin, report,” Batman says.
“All clear,” Robin says. He keeps talking, but Jason is beyond listening.
Green drags him down.
“All clear,” Tim says. “Ivy’s long gone. Looks like she got into some kind of fight, though.”
Batman grunts. Poison Ivy hasn’t been a top priority for them; she and Harley have had something of a mitigating effect on each other, especially when they work together with Selina. Batman is keeping an eye on them, but the Bats have larger problems.
Of course, that might change depending on who Ivy had tussled with.
Even if Batman wouldn’t have been happy with it, Tim wishes Ivy had stuck around. Maybe he could have asked her. All they’d had to go on was a report of a disturbance near Robinson Park. From the top of a building across the street, it’s easy to see the disturbed patches of earth, the new vines sprawling along the edge of the park.
Tim swings down to ground level, carefully staying on the sidewalk instead of stepping foot into the park, but — yep. Some of those vines were cut by a knife, and there’s blood on no few of the thorns.
Ivy must have been pissed.
Very carefully, Tim slices a few of the bloodied thorns free of their vine and slips them into a small container, which he then slides back into his belt. Once that’s done, he hightails it away from the park. He doesn’t want Ivy to come back at exactly the wrong moment and get even more mad. If she isn’t around to answer questions, though, then Tim will just have to figure out the answers on his own.
His grapnel catches on the edge of the roof. He looks over his shoulder as he ascends, but there’s still no sign of Ivy, no strange movement from any of the plants he can see. He lets out a sigh of relief, clambers fully up onto the roof—
Someone is waiting for him.
Red, is all he registers for a microsecond, and his heart nearly stops at the thought that Ivy ventured out of the park to attack him here, except that’s not red hair, that’s a red helmet.
Uh-oh.
One of those larger problems that the Bats have been focusing on instead of Poison Ivy?
Red Hood.
An up and coming crime boss, one who’s been taking over the drug trade in Crime Alley and the Bowery, who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty, and who’s using a name that makes the Bats very concerned.
Subtly, Tim hits his panic button.
“Red Hood,” he says, voice as calm and level as he can make it. Thank goodness he’d left his comm line open while he’d investigated the park.
“Robin,” Batman says. “I’m heading your way. Don’t engage. Get out of there.”
“I’m only a few minutes out,” Nightwing adds.
Red Hood’s head tilts very slightly. He looks — mussed. The leather jacket he wears over his armor is scuffed and ripped in a few places, and he’s missing the gloves he’s been wearing in every photo they’ve managed to grab of him. Actually, now that Tim’s noticed that, there are scrapes all over his hands, and maybe his forearms, too.
Tim thinks he may have solved his Robinson Park mystery.
“Replacement,” Red Hood says. He lunges.
Oh shit he’s fast! is all Tim can think, panicked. He manages to avoid that first lunge — not attack, it hadn’t seemed like Hood was trying to hit him for some reason — and barely skips out of the way of a second grab, but there’s an eerie speed and grace to Hood’s movements, bordering the edge of unnatural. He isn’t lucky or fast enough to dodge a third time.
Hood tackles him to the ground.
Tim kicks uselessly at him. Hood has him pinned, quickly moving to bracket his legs, and Tim can’t get good leverage to try to buck him off. He’s big, nearly Batman’s size, and it’s all too easy for him to overpower Tim, no matter how much training Tim’s had.
“Stop—” Tim says. “Don’t—”
“Replacement,” Hood says, in the exact same way he’d said it earlier. Even through the vocoder, it’s intent. Focused.
Then Hood is shifting them around, quick as a snake, so that they’re sitting up with Tim’s back to Hood’s chest, and Hood’s arms are — wrapped around him? One arm crosses his chest, anchoring onto Tim’s bare right arm with a bloodied hand, while the other hand reaches up to curl in Tim’s hair, gently stroking through it. Hood props his chin on Tim’s shoulder.
“Replacement,” he says again, like that’s the only word he knows, but this time, there’s something like relief in it. His hold borders on too tight as he keeps Tim clutched against him, but Tim can feel the way an underlying tension drains out of Hood’s body.
Bloodied hands. Thorns and vines. A fight with Poison Ivy.
Tim can put the pieces together.
Okay. Okay. Murder’s probably not in the cards then.
If Hood needs someone to hold, then he needs Tim alive. And given the way Hood has stopped where he has, hands on bare skin but firmly above Tim’s waist, with no attempts to remove his uniform—
Tim blinks tears out of his eyes.
It’s fine. This is fine.
(It could have been a lot worse.)
He sits there in Hood’s grasp, running scenarios, trying to figure the best way out of this. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to do it alone for long.
“Get off of him,” Nightwing snarls as he lands on the rooftop. His escrima are drawn and crackling.
The hand holding Tim’s arm grips tighter. The one carding through his hair stops. Hood’s whole body tenses.
Tim is very, very aware of the danger he’s in.
But.
“Nightwing,” he says carefully. “I’m pretty sure he’s who Poison Ivy was fighting.”
And Tim is wondering if Ivy changed her formula, because Hood seems out of it. Usually cognitive functioning isn’t targeted overly much, and even if Tim has only had about five minutes exposure to Red Hood, it’s pretty easy to tell that there’s something weird going on with him mentally.
“I have some of Ivy’s thorns in my belt,” Tim continues, as much for Nightwing’s benefit as for Hood’s, in case Hood is cognizant enough to care about that. Hood’s hold on him isn’t enough to stop him from, with a bit of wiggling, getting the container out and tossing it with an underhanded pitch toward Nightwing, who tucks one of his escrima away in order to catch it. He doesn’t let up on the glare he’s aiming at Hood.
Hood’s definitely been hit with pollen. All he cared about while Tim rooted around in his belt was making sure he didn’t lose his grip on Tim. No real attempt to prevent his escape, or even to keep him from moving. Useful, for whenever Tim needs to actually figure out how to get free of him.
Speaking of.
“You don’t happen to have an antidote on you, do you?” Tim asks Nightwing.
“No,” Nightwing says with a grimace.
“I do,” Batman says from behind them.
Hood stops breathing. His hands twitch spasmodically.
“B—” Tim starts, and then wheezes, as Hood crushes Tim even tighter against him.
“Replacement,” Hood says in a tone that screams DANGER and BACK OFF in 10-foot neon letters.
Why does he keep saying that?
“Let Robin go,” Batman says, circling around so Tim can see him. Tim can feel the way that Hood’s head, still propped on Tim’s shoulder, shifts slightly to follow him. Hood doesn’t say anything else. His newly tightened grip doesn’t loosen.
“I think Ivy changed her formula,” Tim volunteers. Calm, he’s totally calm, see how calm he is, Hood? Wouldn’t it be nice to mirror Tim’s body language? “I’m not sure how much the antidote will help, but Nightwing has the thorns I picked up from the scene, so even if it doesn’t, we can synthesize a new one.”
Old antidotes hardly ever hurt. At worst, they don’t mitigate all the effects that a more up-to-date antidote does. Not that there aren’t exceptions, of course, but it’s usually worth the slim risk.
It would be really nice if they could reason with Hood. They need to risk it.
(Tim would really like to be able to take a full breath, please and thank you.)
Batman takes a step toward them. Tim can’t help his wince as Hood’s grip on his arm hits bruising strength. Batman stops.
“Maybe…maybe toss it to me?” Tim proposes.
The syringe lands neatly in Tim’s lap. Batman backs up a few paces. Hood relaxes infinitesimally.
“Don’t freak out,” Tim says. He’s not sure if he’s talking to himself, to Hood, or to Batman and Nightwing. He uncaps the antidote, checks it over quickly, gauges his memory of how low the collar of Hood’s suit was versus the position of Hood’s chin digging into his shoulder. “Don’t freak out,” he says again, and uses Hood’s previous chill attitude towards him moving to twist awkwardly in Hood’s grasp until he can stab the needle into Hood’s neck.
…Hood might want a higher collar if it’s that easy to get at his jugular vein.
There’s a burst of static from Hood. He must have made some kind of noise the vocoder isn’t equipped to handle. Other than that, he doesn’t react. In fact, he’s gone back to stroking his hand slowly through Tim’s hair.
It’s — weird.
It’s also the very end of Nightwing’s patience. He swoops in like an avenging angel, taking advantage of Hood’s brief distraction. He jabs Hood in a nerve cluster at his wrist and pulls Tim free from him in nearly the same movement. Nightwing puts himself between Hood and Tim, escrima stick raised defensively. He has to use it, too, because Hood staggers to his feet and follows.
He doesn’t try to grab Nightwing. The antidote can’t have taken effect yet, he’s clearly shivering without Tim’s body heat to mitigate the pollen, but he doesn’t grab at Nightwing. He’s trying to get around him, to get to Tim.
Batman comes up from behind Hood, pins his arms at his sides and folds them down to the roof in a remarkably similar position to the one Hood and Tim had been in. Hood doesn’t take kindly to it. Even with one hand out of commission due to Nightwing’s nerve strike, he scrabbles frantically at Batman’s arms. His chest is heaving.
Body contact is enough. It’s always been enough before. Even through armor, Tim thinks, in a frozen moment of horrified analysis.
Hood should be calming down. He isn’t.
That’s about when he starts screaming.
Batman yanks off one gauntlet, grabbing at Hood’s hands, because sometimes skin-to-skin contact is needed, sometimes holding hands has a psychosomatic effect that kicks in before the rest of the body gets in on the program. It isn’t working here.
Hood keeps screaming, one long, unending wail. Keeps twisting in Batman’s arms, his whole body shuddering with cold and agony.
“REPLACEMENT,” Hood screams.
So what if he’s a criminal? Tim isn’t going to stand here and watch a man be tortured in front of him.
Tim crosses the roof before Nightwing can stop him. He copies Batman; he takes off his gauntlet, and he takes Hood’s hand.
The sudden silence is jarring. Hood’s breathing slowly evens out.
“I think we’ll need the new antidote,” Nightwing says into the silence.
Batman nods. “If he can’t leave Robin—we’ll need to take him with us.”
“I’ll let Agent A know,” Nightwing says. “Batgirl and Spoiler can keep an eye on the city until we’ve taken care of this. Can you get them down on your own?”
Tim’s not sure Hood is even conscious. His body has gone almost completely lax, though whether that’s from the absence of pain or the absence of consciousness, it’s unclear.
“Get the Batmobile,” Batman says, in lieu of a simple yes.
Nightwing disappears over the side of the roof. Batman levers himself to his feet, taking Hood along with him, and Hood must be semi-conscious after all, because he isn’t dead weight as Batman starts walking them toward the rooftop access door. Hood’s fingers stay tangled with Tim’s; Tim thinks he would be leaning on Tim instead of Batman if Batman weren’t purposefully keeping him from doing so.
They tie a blindfold around Hood’s helmet. It’s an unspoken consensus that they don’t want to chemically knock Hood out when they don’t know how Ivy’s new pollen functions, so all they can do is make sure he won’t be able to find the Batcave later. If he even remembers any of this later.
It’s also an unspoken consensus that they’ll deal with his helmet and his identity once they’re in the Batcave. Trying to remove it out in the open, while he’s under Ivy’s influence and unable to let go of Tim, seems like it has the possibility of going deeply wrong.
Hood hugs Tim like he’s a teddy bear the whole drive. Held that way, Tim can feel the way Hood’s breath hitches in and out in silent sobs.
They pull into the Batcave. Nightwing and Batman peel away from them immediately to start running analysis on the thorns. Agent A is ready for them; he’s prepped one of the containment cells. Hood follows Tim there docilely, lets Alfred clean and wrap the scratches on his hands as long as he has at least one body part pressed against Tim.
Without having to be asked, Hood unlaces his boots. Divests himself of weapons. Reaches up, presses against various latches.
Pulls his helmet off.
Jason Todd stares at Tim with dilated eyes, huge pupils surrounded by a thin ring of literally and ominously glowing green iris.
Then he tips Tim over onto the bed with him, buries his head against Tim’s shoulder again, and passes out.
On the one hand, Jason is tired and mostly comfortable. On the other hand, he’s only mostly comfortable: he’s verging on too hot, one of his arms is numb, and he’s pretty sure there’s something he’s supposed to be worried about. He cracks an eye open, then immediately back shut.
Oh, and his head hurts. Can’t forget that. Christ. It takes a lot of effort to get him drunk; did he go on a fucking bender last night? Is that what he’s supposed to be worried about? A hangover?
He grumbles very quietly to himself.
“Jason?” someone asks.
Jason freezes. No one knows his name — or at least, they shouldn’t.
What in the fuck did I do last night?
Cautiously, he opens his eyes. This time, he’s more prepared for the pain that tries to split his skull open when the light hits him.
He’s significantly less prepared to be staring right at Dick Grayson’s stupid face. And for something in his arms to shift. Jason looks down to see he’s holding a whole-ass teenager.
…That would explain why one of his arms is numb.
Hold on. He recognizes this teenager.
Replacement, the Pit purrs in the back of his head. Not the vindictive purr he’s used to, not the one that fills his heart with vengeful glee at idea of every punishment he could rain down on Robin III. This is wholly without rancor, a fond and possessive claim that’s been staked while Jason wasn’t paying attention.
What the fuck?
He looks back up at Dick. Past him.
He’s in the Batcave. In one of the containment cells. With Dick and the Replacement. Obviously maskless, unarmed, and unarmored.
Nope. He’s not doing this right now. He closes his eyes again.
This can wait ’til morning. Or until his head stops hurting. Whichever comes later. He’s going back to sleep.
“Jason, I know you’re awake,” Dick says.
Jason pulls the blanket over his and Tim’s heads.
“Jason!”
Jason clutches Tim to his chest and falls back asleep.