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Cursing, Jason slaps a hand against the hole in his side, gritting his teeth through the pain. He’s fished out the bullet, but it doesn’t really help anything – tonight has been a shitshow.
Things have been picking up for the past couple of months now that everyone in Gotham’s criminal element is slowly coming to accept that Joker’s territories have been ungoverned ever since he broke out of Arkham, and it’s looking more and more unlikely that the Clown’s going to be coming back to claim them any time soon.
No one’s been brave enough to actually say that he’s dead, except for a couple of enterprising morons who thought that doing so would help make a name for themselves – those attempts were quelled quickly, via something Jason would call natural selection whenever he's pressed for answers. (Tim had snorted when he’d said as such after the kid had brought up the topic, but he’d gotten a hit to the arm for being “insensitive” and how it's “not something we should be saying”.)
Despite this, the bolder gangs have started poaching territory here and there, and Jason’s been trying his fucking best to keep the bloody turf wars that have been breaking out as a result contained. Tonight, he had the pleasure of going up against a normal street gang, some of Black Mask’s idiots, Penguin’s goddamn goons, and fucking Batman along with the chick that replaced Barbie.
The new batgirl had just kept to the fringes of the fighting, preventing people from leaving, but mostly just watching. It was creepy, even for someone who grew up with Mr. Surveillance himself for a couple of years. Still, it had been rough enough to deal with a four-sided attack that he ended up feeling grateful for whatever reason she had to not drop in and fuck up Jason’s night. Talia’s reports on the newest additions to the batclan have been... lacking, he’s realized, but from what he’s managed to find on his own, he does not want to go up against anything or anyone related to David Cain.
Even though none of his opponents had been working together it was a pain in the ass to deal with, as evidenced by the annoying amount of hits he ended up tanking. Foolishly, he’d even taken the bullet he’d just fished out of his stomach for Batman, of all people. The Bat had been distracted by his own set of attackers, and Batgirl had been occupied with taking out the gang of four making a break for it – there was an idiot with a gun pointed at Bruce, and Jason’s stupid Robin training had kicked in.
He’s slimmed down a lot since he’d first arrived back in Gotham, realizing that that much muscle wasn’t conducive to the kind of acrobatics he needs to keep up with the Titans’ more energetic antics early on. He hasn’t slimmed down enough to pull off the same moves he’d used as a skinny little runt dressed up like a traffic light, he learned. He'd taken the gunman had gone down, but Jason hadn’t been able to redirect the bullet to one of the more heavily armored parts of his costume, and he’s paying for it.
Bruce probably didn’t notice - he hadn’t even looking in Jason’s direction. Batgirl, however, had fucking cocked her head at Jason in a way he really doesn’t like, staring right at him while she restrained her marks. That, along with the fricking bullet in his gut, had made the rest of the fight grating.
Once it was just down to the last couple of losers, Jason had decided to cut his losses and get the hell out of there before the Bat decided he was more interested in a crime lord than he was in the no-name thugs trying to beat him up. He thought that he had managed to get away relatively cleanly, limping to an alley a decent distance away that was under his protection.
Now, right after pulling a bullet out of his stomach, he's treated to a very unwelcome visitor. Turns out, the only reason Batman hadn’t gone after him was because he’d sent fucking Batgirl instead.
Baring his teeth even though the affect is lost under his helmet, Jason shoves the bloody bandages and tweezer into his jacket pocket, not willing to potentially leave behind any DNA for the old man to test. He doesn’t want to deal with Bat Drama, and he certainly doesn’t want to deal with Family Drama – he misses Alfred, but even the promise of the Englishman's company isn’t enough of an incentive to get him to willingly let Bruce know he’s alive again.
Batgirl pauses, like she can tell that Jason’s trying his hardest to project his anger towards her. She doesn’t say anything, just stands at the entrance to the alleyway Jason’s tucked himself into.
Jason waits her out, not willing to give a fucking Bat any ammo to use against him. Usually, he’s all for talking shit and rubbing their failures in their faces, but tonight’s been fucking trash, and he doesn’t really know much, if anything, about B’s newest player.
Batgirl takes a step closer, pausing again when Jason tenses up. Tilting her head, she moves her hands in something that’s not quite ASL, but it’s close.
Narrowing his eyes at her, Jason keeps his distance. He doesn’t think that last baseball bat to the head had connected hard enough to actually do any damage, but it almost looks like she’s offering to help.
She repeats the gesture, movements slightly faster, like she’s getting frustrated. Quietly, she whispers, “Help.”
Fuck him, she is trying to help. Is this a ploy to get close enough she can incapacitate him easily? Probably not, Jason assesses. He’s taken a hell of a beating, and he saw how clean her work was earlier – she wouldn’t need to get his guard down to take Jason out. Is it to get DNA samples? To build up trust between him and the closest thing B has to an unrelated party?
Batgirl huffs, stepping forward and into Jason’s personal space, batting away his hands. “Help.”
Jason’s next breath hisses through his teeth at her sudden movement, and he flinches instinctively. “I don’t need your help, Bat.”
Batgirl makes a noncommittal noise, miming needle and thread, ignoring Jason’s refusal.
Is she dumb? Why is she helping him, he’s the enemy! “I said, I don’t need your –”
Batgirl shoves a hand in his face, fingers placed over the pressure point in his throat before he can even react. “No. You helped, now I help.”
Fuck, message received. Jason’s not gonna try and pull anything while she’s still up in his business.
“I didn’t do shit,” Jason bites back, but digs through his pocket for the suture kit he was about to use anyways. He’ll have to deal with the fallout for this crap later, but he may as well have someone with presumably steadier hands stitch him up if she’s offering. “You know how to use this?”
She should, but again, Jason doesn’t actually know much about her, other than how high Talia estimated her threat level to be (very high, do not engage. Wait until she is no longer in the country before going on your crusade, Jason).
Without responding, Batgirl takes his kit with the hand she used to threaten him, pushing his hands to the wound so he can lift up his shirt again. They manage to get through most of the stitches without incident, but it wasn’t meant to last.
“No kill.”
“What? Fuck that, I’ll kill if I want to.”
She tugs harder than necessary on the next stitch. “No,” she repeats. “Bad.”
Jason feels like he’s being scolded like a dog. “They’re the fucking bad ones, and I’m doing everyone a favor by putting them down.”
Batgirl’s quiet at that, but he can tell that she doesn’t agree. “Chances.”
They deserve chances? “They’ve had their chances. None of those pieces of shit learned their lesson, and they won’t until someone makes them. Since the Bat’s too chickenshit to do it, I’m here to clean up the mess instead.”
She finishes the last stitch, cutting the thread. “Rude.”
Jason snatches the supplies back from her, grabbing her hands and wiping them down roughly with a wet wipe doused in special alcohol to break down his DNA and render it non-viable for testing. She lets him, watching his movements with what he’s gonna say is curiosity.
“That’s me, don’t forget it. Don’t expect anything else, either. I don’t make a habit of being nice to bats,” he spits, ensuring he gets the backs of her hands and down to her wrists, in case anything dripped down while she was working.
She hums, sounding amused for some reason. Shaking her head, she takes one hand back, pointing at his helmet. “Nice. Rude.”
Jason blinks, trying to understand. Is she saying he’s both? “No, I’m just rude. I’m not nice.”
She pokes his helmet, and he lifts a hand to try and grab her wrist again. It doesn’t work. “Nice. B, tonight.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jason grits out.
“Lie.”
“It was a fucking accident,” he tries.
“Lie.” She sounds very amused. “Nice, Robin.”
“I barely even see the kid, with how tight of a leash the Bat keeps on him,” Jason scoffs. As he’s started to come to predict, it doesn’t work on Cain.
“Lie!” She sounds happy, now. “Nice, family.”
Jason freezes. “Fuck off. You’ve never seen my family.”
Cain shakes her head, reaching up as she pats his helmet. “Brother.”
Jason runs.
...
He couldn’t tell that he was being tracked before, and he knows that he’s in no condition to tell if he’s being tracked now. Batgirl wouldn’t just let him slip out of her fingers that easily, no matter what she seems to think his connection is with the Bats – if he goes back to one of his safehouses, he’ll have to burn it.
Jason isn’t thinking, panic from her words racing through his veins, the words “brother” and “family” repeating over and over in his head.
He’s still got a myriad of other wounds he needs to patch up. He can’t go back to any of his safehouses, or into any of the little hide-aways he has prepped in case of emergency, but he knows that he can’t spend the whole night trying to outrun Batgirl.
He needs to get somewhere safe.
Fuck, maybe those hits his helmet took actually managed to do something, because the only place he can think of right now is the last place he should be running to, ever. Especially not after he had a run-in with the bats.
His next step hits the pavement wrong, and Jason grits his teeth as a painful jolt shoots up through his busted ankle. He stumbles, jostling his stomach and ribs, and to top it all off, his dislocated shoulder smacks into the alley wall before he can stop it. He’s so tired. He just wants to rest, to be able to sit the hell down, relax, patch himself up, and get the hell out of the fucking wet-ass mist Gotham’s spitting at him tonight.
The sound of a grapple latching onto a nearby railing pierces through Jason’s jumbled thoughts. There’s no time to think, no time to try and plan around this unknown. He has to act.
Racing around a corner, Jason adjusts course for the closest Zeta tube, and hopes that he isn’t making a mistake.
A notification pops up in the command center, and Tim startles awake from where he’d dozed off at the keyboard. Honestly, fuck Hood for putting a limit on how much caffeine he can have in the Tower, and fuck his teammates for freaking tattling on him any time he tries to sneak in more. It hasn’t even been two days since he last slept, but his productivity is in the damn toilet, thanks to their stupid meddling.
Grimacing, he rubs ineffectively at his eyes, forgetting that he’s still wearing his domino. Blinking hard in an attempt to get his vision to stop blurring, he squints at the screen.
Someone used the Zeta to get to the Tower, which isn’t unusual. Checking the code, Tim feels his eyebrows raise high enough they feel like they’re going to fly off of his face.
That’s Jason’s code. B_R02 has requested and been granted access to Titans Tower.
With a few keystrokes, he brings up both the security camera footage for the section housing their Zeta, and a log of the past month’s activity.
There’s nothing in the past showing evidence that the code has been used, but even as he’s looking at tonight’s notification, it disappears before his very eyes as a familiar helmet appears on the camera’s visuals.
Well, that would explain why Tim couldn’t figure out how he kept breaking into the Tower without leaving any traces. Sure, Hood’s mixed it up now and then, breaking in through various windows, connecting tunnels, and once, through the ventilation system, all in the name of pinpointing and eliminating various vulnerabilities in the Tower’s defenses, but now Tim finally has an answer for those quiet days he just seemed to randomly appear without making his entrance into a big lesson on the necessity of paranoia.
Tim didn’t think that Hood was that good with technology, but his estimation has clearly been inaccurate if the older boy managed to not only write a program capable of hiding in the Titans’ security system, quietly deleting any log data for a specific code, but also hack the Zeta tubes to override the biometric scans. He’ll have to ask him how he did it, once he works up the courage to mention the second Robin, Hood’s childhood friend.
Another thought strikes him, and Tim frowns, pulling up the calendar. It’s not Hood’s scheduled day to check in on them, and at this time of night, he’s usually in the middle of wrapping up his patrol. Hood’s never cut out early, before. Pushing himself to his feet, Tim forwards any further alerts to his personal comms and makes his way to the hall.
Something’s up, and he has a sinking feeling that it isn’t going to be anything good.
...
Cursing under his breath, Tim sends out message after message as he follows in Kon’s figurative footsteps, running to the medical wing.
Hood, apparently, does cut his patrols early, but only after getting beaten to hell. Always one for fucking dramatics, he’d gone and changed out his helmet and jacket before collapsing against the wall. When Tim had reached him, the other had swatted at him, mumbling something about being fine, which was clearly horseshit since Tim could see the blood starting to seep out from under his shirt.
He’d called for Kon, then – Tim’s gotten way stronger after being put through the ringer that is Robin training, but there was no way he would have been able to haul Hood’s heavy ass all the way to medical before the idiot bled out.
Now, he just needs Bart here so the burnet can check for signs of a concussion or further headwounds, and he needs to let Cassie know she’s on security monitoring, since Tim’s going to be pretty damn preoccupied for the next hour taking care of their pet assassin.
“What’d he do, try to win a fight against every thug he could find?!” Bart yelps, waiting for them to finish coming through the door and put their patient onto the bed in front of him. “At least he isn’t wearing his helmet, I can actually...”
Bart trails off, his mumbling picking up speed until Tim loses track. Taking stock of the crime lord’s injuries, Tim starts sanitizing his hands and arranging the medical tools Bart had remembered to lay out for him.
Judging that the worst was the gut wound, which had already been patched up, Tim speaks. “Kon, go grab his extra clothes and The Blanket. He’s not bad enough to need TTK, so you should be good once you drop off the goods.”
Without arguing, Kon nods, his face drawn tight. He’s been swapping between playful exasperation and fake antagonism towards Hood, but this is the first time he’s seen the man so badly injured. The half-kryptonian doesn’t look like he’s handling it well.
“Grab some soft foods, too. You know how he gets about making sure we always have snacks available,” Tim prods, not exactly gentle. Still, it snaps Kon out of it, and the taller boy spins on his heel to follow instructions without further incident.
“He’s got a mild concussion, and I bandaged his head, but other than that he should be okay,” Bart speaks up.
Taking that as his cue, Tim lets his eyes wander above the man’s chest once more.
He knows how easy it would be to unmask the budding anti-hero, to find the answer to a question the World’s Greatest Detective has been grinding his teeth over for months, but he doesn’t. Just like every other time he’s had the chance, he reminds himself that the issue isn’t worth jeopardizing their friendship for – if Hood slips up while he’s in Gotham, then it’s fair game. But here, in the Tower? Where they’ve only ever treated each other with familiarity and, at worst, annoyance? It would destroy everything, if Tim let his curiosity overrule his manners like that.
Instead, he takes in the neat bandages wrapped around bright red hair, noting the way no blood seems to be seeping through the fabric, and moves on.
In short order, Tim lets himself fall into the routine of patching up one of his teammates after a rough mission, cleaning and bandaging. Kon comes back at one point, and Tim has to get Bart to swat at him for trying to stretch The Blanket over Hood’s broken ankle that Tim clearly hasn’t gotten around to fixing yet.
By the time he’s got everything taken care of, the sun’s starting to peek through the windows, piercing directly through Tim’s skull in the form of a terrible headache.
Ripping his gloves off and tossing them into one of the biohazard bins, Tim grabs a bottle of water and a granola bar out of the small pile of snacks Kon brought up. Chugging half of the bottle, he turns to take in the rest of his team – Bart’s up and pacing, shooting nervous looks at Hood every second. Cassie’s slumped over in one of the chairs they’ve got set up on the edges of the room, brow furrowed as she keeps her eyes locked onto their patient. Kon is almost worse than Bart with his fidgeting – he’s been re-arranging the assortment of snacks, repeatedly going back to the kitchen and swapping out various flavors of granola bars for others, even going as far as picking up some of the books they’d found lying around the Tower after a while, thumbing over the pages without actually opening them.
They’re acting like Hood’s on his deathbed. Rolling his eyes, Tim crosses his arms. “He’s fine.”
“He’s still unconscious,” Kon says, poking at Hood’s copy of The Scarlet Letter he wouldn’t be caught dead with in any other circumstance.
Shrugging, Tim takes another swig of water, swishing it around his mouth and grimacing. He needs to brush his teeth. “That’s just the blood loss and concussion. He’ll bounce back in a couple of weeks, and he’ll be back to annoying us as soon as he wakes up.”
Cassie’s mouth tightens, clearly unhappy about something. “Can we move him?”
Blinking, Tim turns fully towards her. “Yeah, it should be safe. Why, though?”
“I just don’t want the medbay to be the first thing he sees when he wakes up,” she mumbles, bringing her hand up to her mouth and worrying at her nails. “Don’t think he would react well.”
Nothing in Tim’s file on Hood suggested that he’d have a negative reaction to that kind of stimulus, but Cassie may have picked up on something he’d missed. Either way, it won’t hurt anything to move him.
“The couch, then?” Tim asks, moving to grab the rest of the snacks as Bart rushes through cleaning up the various instruments he’d used. “We haven’t been able to try and get him to overheat in a while. I think we may have an actual chance at it, since the weather’s getting warm again.”
Cassie smiles at him gratefully, flanking Kon as the two lift Hood as gently as they can, carrying him between the both of them.
Tim follows them down, dropping off his goods as they situate the unconscious man on the couch, before making a detour to his room to quickly take care of a few things before getting ready to crash on the couch.
Five minutes later, he rejoins the rest of his team, touched to see that they left Hood’s right side open for him. Clambering into the mess of blankets and limbs, he squishes himself between Kon and Hood, grabbing part of the worried boy’s red blanket and pulling it over himself as he settles.
Without a mission or caffeine, there’s nothing to distract him from the stabbing pain building behind his eyelids. Adding onto that, Hood’s presence has the unfortunate side effect of making him feel warm and safe, and it seems like every time he gets tucked against the man’s side, he ends up falling asleep.
Oh well. Tim sighs, turning his head into the scratchy fabric of Hood’s blanket so he can block out the sun. Two days isn’t any kind of record for him, but he might be able to get a hair-ruffle from Hood if he tells him how he voluntarily went to sleep before he hit the 48-hour mark.
It’s warm, and Jason feels like he’s floating.
Through the dulled throb of pain, he can feel the familiar pressure of nosy-ass teens invading his personal space. Ah, he must be in the Tower. He doesn’t remember coming.
Did he pick up enough groceries? Sure, they have food here, but it’s never actually enough to feed three hungry teens and Bart. They also never have vegetables, for some reason.
Trying to open his eyes, he lets out a quiet groan. The pain swims closer to the surface whenever he moves.
Something shifts next to him, and someone flicks lightly at his hairline – Cassie, probably. Tim and Bart are too chicken to try and raise a finger against him, and Kon’s still working on making sure his control is perfect when it comes to smaller shows of strength.
“We’ve got breakfast covered today, Red. Just rest a bit longer.”
Oh, joy. She never actually remembers to add seasoning to her shit, so today’s breakfast is gonna be plain ass eggs. Eh, food’s food. With that responsibility taken care of, he decides that whatever else he has to do can wait. He’s warm, it’s quiet, and he has all of the kids around him, safe and sound.
Slowly fading, he’s distantly aware of the teens moving around, eventually leaving the warm pile that Jason’s buried under. There’s still one familiar bony shoulder tucked into his side, his Replacement’s face shoved into his chest. Adjusting so the kid isn’t twisted around trying to block out the sun, Jason smiles, falling into a hazy dream where he’s surrounded by Tim, Alfred, and Dick, gentle sunlight streaming in through the manor’s sparkling windows.
Dawn has passed into full on morning, and Dick’s still in his suit, worrying.
Patrol had gone long, since Bludhaven’s criminals decided that they wanted to embrace the warmer weather by going outside and enjoying a long night of crime, and he’d missed his self-appointed check-in time with Tim and his team.
It’s only been two weeks since the disastrous video incident, but even after talking to Tim once he’d woken up from his NyQuil-induced sleep, he isn’t happy about their situation.
Tim had been, surprisingly, unforthcoming with information, acting almost as cagey as the rest of the Titans. He’d answered all of Dick’s questions, even if he had given him that “Are you kidding me? Seriously, you’re going down THIS line of questioning, instead of the obviously correct one? Okay, that’s your choice I guess, let me know how it works out for you” look. Honestly, it had kind of hurt to be on the receiving end – usually, Tim reserves that particular stare for Bruce when he’s being particularly dumb.
The Red Hooded Ninja had broken in with unknown but presumably violent intentions over seven months ago, only to be derailed by Tim in a way the shorter boy refuses to elaborate on. Since then, he’s returned usually three to four times a month, shadowing the Titans on various missions and teaching them generally acceptable (and some more creative) interpretations of what seems to be completely normal advice for young adults trying to live on their own for the first time.
Tim coughs up a rough estimate of the man’s demonstrated skills, potential skills he hasn’t seen in action but probably has, and, weirdly enough, a list of his favorite books.
Unfortunately, after an update to the Tower's security system a couple of years back deviated from Bat standards, the security footage from everything before four months ago has been automatically deleted, so Dick doesn’t get to dissect every interaction the man’s had with Tim’s team. What he does see is confusing, lining up with the Titan’s accounts of how weird but ultimately harmless the assassin is towards them. The footage, as grainy and corrupted as it usually is when the Red Hooded Ninja enters the screen, is innocent.
The scarce clips and pictures he’s managed to dig up through Wally’s family group chat back the teens’ sentiment up as well, mostly just being of Red cooking or sitting on Tim, who’s in various stages of falling asleep.
He’d figured out the other man’s schedule almost immediately, but the assassin must know that Dick’s onto him – neither of his previous checks on the Tower led to an actual encounter with him. The last one, just a couple of days ago, he’d been so close, the food the ninja made for the Titans had still been steaming.
(There had been a plate set out for him, and after Dick had done his due-diligence in testing the hell out of everything for drugs and poison, he’d eaten it. It was good, almost reminding him of Alfred’s meals, but there’d been so much rosemary, the herb had overpowered pretty much every other taste. When he’d stolen a bite from Tim’s plate, the food had tasted way more balanced, flavor-wise. It had clearly been a targeted statement aimed at Dick, and he doesn’t know how the Red Hooded Ninja knew this would work to get under his skin – only Alfred knows how much he dislikes the aromatic herb, since Jason used to dump literal fistfuls of it into whatever he and the Englishman had been making whenever Dick had eaten at the Manor.)
He'd sent Tim a text earlier, but the other boy hasn’t opened it yet.
There’s no reason for this to cause any alarm – Tim swings between being surgically attached to his phone and forgetting that it exists for sometimes up to a week. Him not responding isn’t uncharacteristic.
Gritting his teeth, Dick stands. No, he’s going to check on Tim. If nothing’s wrong, then he’ll get to spend more time with his little brother, which he’s been meaning to do anyways. The kid’s always so reluctant to come over to the manor for anything other than patrol, and Dick’s been preoccupied in Blud for the past couple of months, so he hasn’t seen Tim as much as he’s been wanting to.
Mind made up, he vaults over the side of the building he’s been perched on, grabbing onto a nearby windowsill and swinging himself down into the alley below. He’s got a Zeta he needs to get to.
...
Staring at the whole reason he’s been a ball of anxiety for the past two weeks, completely unable to do anything, Dick bites the inside of his cheek.
Tim, lounging against the sleeping form of the Red Hooded Ninja, glances over at him from his phone, and snorts. “He’s still asleep, N, and you staring at him won’t change that.”
Pouting, Dick darts his eyes around the Tower. The Titans hadn’t been thrilled, exactly, when he showed up, all of them on edge – “Red” had apparently come back late last night, banged up from his latest mission. The kids were hovering, and it had taken Tim waving them off and promising to keep Dick from “bothering Red” for them to agree to even leave the room.
By now, Wonder Girl and Superboy had retreated to the training room, leaving Impulse to inhabit the kitchen. The fire alarm hasn’t gone off, even if he has heard a lot of normal alarms ring from the Speedster’s phone, so he probably won’t have to worry about that just yet.
The Tower looks fine, no signs of tampering or distress hidden anywhere. Dick still can’t believe it, not really.
There’s a League assassin right in front of him, and instead of being on guard or trying to restrain him and figure out his plan, Tim is using him as a pillow. Tim’s teammates scolded Dick and made him promise not to upset their pet assassin. The sheer absurdity of it all is enough to make him pinch himself, checking to see if he fell asleep on his way over to the Zeta.
Nope, that stung. Not a dream.
Reaching out, Dick tries to poke at the long hood hiding the ninja’s face in shadow despite the strong sunlight pouring in through the windows.
Tim slaps his hand away.
“Quit it,” he grumbles, glaring at Dick. “Let him rest.”
“Baby Bird, I just wanna see what his face looks like,” Dick whines, trying again.
Tim’s next swat has more power behind it, shifting him from his spot on the assassin. “Stop it, you’re acting like a child. Since you’ve actually seen the Red Hooded Ninja before, shouldn’t you already know what he looks like?”
“He was a lot shorter, back then,” Dick says, snatching his hand back and cradling it to his chest with more truth to the movement than he expected. Damn, Baby Bird hits hard. “I just wanted to check and see if he’s the same person.”
“The same League assassin you fought on Infinity Island, who you reported to be dangerously skilled and completely unresponsive to anything other than violence? The one who never spoke, not even once?”
Grimacing, Dick nods. He knows why Tim’s so skeptical – all of the evidence he has of this new personality the Red Hooded Ninja displays paints a clear picture of someone too in love with dramatics to keep his mouth shut for any length of time. “He’s a lot mouthier now, too.”
Tim raises an eyebrow.
“Hey, it’s perfectly logical that, if it’s not a front, he would act differently when not actively on a mission, under the direct control of Ra’s and his men!”
Humming, Tim dismisses him, going back to his game. “Sure. That’s definitely the only explanation.”
“Well, I’d be able to tell you whether or not he’s the same person if you’d just let me –” Dick leans forward, grabbing at the assassin’s face. He gets close enough to tug the hood back a bit before Tim’s on him, shoving an elbow into his side.
“I said stop it, Nightwing! Leave him alone, he’s trying to sleep!”
“I just wanted to see if he’s got the same bone structure!”
A soft rustle of fabric cuts off their loud argument, and both pairs of eyes snap to the form shifting on the couch. The hood, jostled by Dick’s tampering, creeps up, exposing an inch or two of smooth forehead the same shade Dick vaguely remembers. The assassin grumbles, sounding so very young, and Dick’s breath catches.
He’d forgotten just how young the Red Hooded Ninja had been, last time.
Tim hops off of Dick, hurrying back to the boy’s side. For his part, Dick shuffles closer, moving to poke at the blanket covered form in the hopes of waking the other up enough to answer some questions.
Tim won’t like it, but if he manages to get a few candid answers out of someone when their guard is down, it’ll do a lot to help quell the continuing worries Dick’s had about their whole arrangement.
Baby Bird straight up hisses at him when Dick jostles the boy’s arm lightly, but the Red Hooded Ninja groans again.
“Red,” Nightwing sing-songs, using the Titan’s nickname in an attempt to keep him off guard. “Red, I want to ask you something.”
“Nightwing,” Tim warns, even as the Red Hooded Ninja wriggles an uncoordinated arm out to swat at Dick’s hand.
“F’ck off, D’kwing.”
Dick blinks. That sounded nothing like the light, accented tones of the League members he’s had the misfortune of talking with before. It almost sounded like a Gotham accent, rough and slurred. Despite the mismatch, it might just be the same assassin if he can recognize Dick as Nightwing from just his voice – though the cursing is certainly new.
“No,” Dick whines, still keeping his tone light. “I wanna know more about you!” He grabs the exposed hand, pulling at the sleeve slightly in an attempt to get a blood sample while both Tim and the assassin are distracted. The thin needle hidden in his hand pricks skin, and “Red” flinches.
Before Tim can reprimand him for causing the recovering assassin distress, said assassin slips his hand out of Dick’s hold and shoves it in his face, charmingly displaying his middle finger. Muffled and still half asleep, he rasps out, “Fuck off ‘n lemme sleep circus boy, or I’mma tell Alfie ‘bout your fuckin' cotton candy stash.”
What. Dick hasn’t had a hidden stash of cotton candy in years; the last time he’d tried to squirrel away a tub of the stuff, despite just how humid Gotham gets, it had ended up with the whole thing getting ruined by rain and ants. Dick remembers staring at the waterlogged container, thinking about how hard Jason would have laughed at his misfortune. Even if the Red Hooded Ninja has a high enough position in the League to know their identities, there’s no way he would have known something so trivial or outdated.
Tim’s eyes widen, and he breathes out like he’s just been punched. “Holy shit.”
“Robin?” Dick asks. Clearly, he’s had some kind of revelation, and Dick wants in on that.
Ignoring him, Tim reaches out to gently jostle the Red Hooded Ninja’s shoulder, getting a grumble in return. Trying again, Tim whispers, awestruck, “Jason?”
The world falls out from under Dick’s feet as the assassin complains wordlessly in the same manner he’s heard a dozen times before, turning into Tim’s hand despite everything.
Desperate, Dick grabs onto his other shoulder, hard enough to get an unhappy, “Tryn’a sleep, Dickie.”
“Little Wing?”
The boy moves like he’s going to twist out of Dick’s grip, and his hood shifts enough to reveal bright red hair.
Jason had been so self-conscious about his hair, back when he’d first come to the manor. According to Alfred, he’d been so dirty it had looked brown when Bruce had first picked him up, and he’d immediately tried to hide the bright color using as many baggy hoodies as he could find after getting clean. He’d wanted to be Robin so badly, he’d dyed his hair to copy Dick.
Lunging forward, he envelops Jason into a desperate hug. “Jason!”
Jason yelps, flailing at the sudden movement, and Tim lets out a startled sound at getting displaced.
“What the fuck, who – Dick?”
“Jason!” Dick sobs again, squeezing tighter. Jason immediately starts wriggling, like he always did.
“Lemme go, you fucking octopus! Dammit, don’t you know better than to fucking latch onto someone who’s injured?!”
Refusing to let go, Dick clings to his little brother. “Jason, you died!”
“Yeah, and I feel like I’m gonna die again if you don’t let me fucking go, you ass! Timbit, a little help, please?!”
“...Robin?”
Jason freezes in Dick’s arms at Tim’s hesitant voice. Like the kind big brother he is, Dick loosens his hold enough for Jason (holy shit! Jason’s alive!) to turn and see their babiest brother. “... not anymore. That’s you, remember?”
Tim’s breath hitches, and Dick swings around too, alarmed. Why is Tim crying?!
“No, I’m just a placeholder. Jason, you’re back, you can be Robin again.”
Jason’s muttered cursing is the only warning Dick gets before he’s elbowed away, the younger man shoving out from his hold and reaching towards Tim. “That’s bullshit, Timmy. We’ve already gone over this, you’re fucking Robin – you’ve got the right attitude, you’ve got the right drive, and you’ve worn the figurative scaly panties for too fucking long to still have this much self-doubt.”
Shaking his head, Tim tries to smile. “That’s just because there weren’t any better alternatives, but now that you’re here –”
“Tim,” Dick says, frowning. Where’s all of this coming from? Tim’s one of the most confident people Dick knows, once you get him really started on something. He’d been the only one who could actually force Bruce’s hand, the one to track down their secret identities in an attempt to keep Gotham safe.
Jason grabs Tim, pulling the boy into a hug that looks just as tight as the one Dick had trapped him with a minute ago. “I’ve been back for a while, Baby Bird, and it doesn’t change shit.”
“But –”
“If I hear you say ‘but’ one more time, I’m going to sit on you,” Jason threatens.
It’s such an older brother move, Dick feels his eyes prickle – Jason always wanted to be a big brother. Tim’s always needed more people to care about him. The solution is simple, and he’s so glad he can see it in motion.
Letting out a joyous laugh, Dick launches himself at the two, enveloping both into his arms. “Robin pile! If you’re in the pile, you’re a Robin, past and present. As the first and most handsome Robin, I will accept no objections!”
Jason complains at the sudden movement, but Dick focuses in on Tim, who freezes before melting into the double embrace. “I’m not –”
Jason thunks his head into the top of Tim’s, sighing loudly in false irritation. “Don’t try to fight Dick on this one, Baby Bird. Trust me, it won’t go well – he’s too stupid to listen to anything like logic.”
“I’m too happy to let your words get to me!” Dick sing-songs, rocking back and forth slightly with the world in his arms. “I have both of my brothers, and nothing can hurt me!”
Jason mutters, “Even if I stab you?” at the same time that Tim asks in that painfully quiet tone, “Brothers?”
Hoo, boy. He can get to that after hugs – right now, he’s content to just be blindingly, inconceivably happy.
...
Still trapping his brothers with physical affection, they’ve since migrated back to the soft couch after Jason had complained about his (unfortunately real) injuries.
After re-assuring Tim that yes, he is still Robin, yes, he does deserve to be Robin, and yes, he is their brother “you little shit, there’s no way to wriggle your way out of this now”, as Jason succinctly put it, they’d moved onto other topics.
“How are you alive?” had been met with “Death decided it didn’t wanna see my face anymore.”
“How did you come back to life?” was answered with, “I just stopped being dead. Come on Dickie, it’s simple.”
“Why were you with the League of Assassins?” got him, “Talia decided she wanted to practice being a mom,” which is highly concerning.
Last but not least, “Why didn’t you say anything the last time we met?” had led to Jason, finally free of his goggles and mask since there’s no reason for him to hide his identity anymore, raising an eyebrow.
“When did we last meet?” Jason asks, tone casual. Tim, recovered slightly from his Robin/Jason revelation, is watching their interaction with keen interest.
“On Infinity Island?” Dick says, suddenly doubting himself. “You fought against my team.”
Jason frowns at that, thinking. “How long ago was that?”
“About three years, now.”
The confusion clears from Jason’s face. “Oh, that’d be because of the brain damage.”
Immediately, Dick twists, digging his hands into Jason’s hair and trying to feel for injuries through the neat bandages wrapping his head. He gets swatted for his efforts, but thankfully Tim just seems thoughtful instead of upset that Dick let him go.
“Fuckin’ quit it, asshole. I don’t have brain damage right now,” Jason complains.
“Well,” Tim starts, purposefully trailing off in a smug tone that’s guaranteed to tick their brother off.
As expected, Jason glares at Tim. “The concussion doesn’t count, and you know it.”
Innocently, Tim tilts his head. “I mean, technically...”
Fed up, Jason shoves his hand into Tim’s face to shut him up. Dick would be thrilled that they’re getting along well enough to trade friendly ribbing, apparently skipping the whole actual fighting stage most siblings run into, but he’s more preoccupied by Little Wing’s alleged brain damage.
“The League gave you a traumatic brain injury?!”
Jason makes a face at Dick, acting like he just said something utterly stupid. “The League didn’t give me that shit, they cured it – before, I was just the walking dead.”
Dick makes a high-pitched noise at that disturbing image. Had he been fighting against his brother’s partially re-animated corpse?!
“Like, were you a zombie, or are you being figurative?” Tim asks, poking at the new white streak in Jason’s hair.
Snorting, Jason swats lazily at Tim’s hand. “’M being figurative, of course. They’d done plenty of tests that showed I was back, but no one was home. I thought Talia was making shit up the first time she told me about how I’d been running around as her little errand boy back then, but they actually had footage and paperwork to back her claim up. Plus, the muscle memory stayed.”
“So, you were basically comatose?” Dick asks, still panicked. On one hand, he didn’t fight his zombie brother, he didn’t fight against a Jason who was so upset with him he decided he just didn’t want to tell Dick he’s alive again, but on the other hand, he’d fought his baby brother while he wasn’t capable of actually thinking.
“What was that like?” Tim wonders, morbid curiosity peeking through.
Jason shrugs. “I dunno, don’t really remember anything from that stretch of time. If I wanted to put it into nerd speak, I’d say it was the equivalent of just... constantly giving those autofill responses. Like, if someone punched at me, I’d block it or whatever, or if you gave me a book I’d flip through it, but I wasn’t actually there.”
Forcing himself to look past the horrifying implications of that, Dick makes himself find a silver lining. “Does that mean, when you got better, you decided to ditch the League and that’s why I’ve never seen the Red Hooded Ninja around after that?”
Jason straight up laughs at him.
“After I was in possession of a working brain again, I jumped head-first into training,” he says, miming stabbing someone. “The Red Hooded Ninja wasn’t gone, I just got better.”
“Are you still in the League, then?” Tim asks, curious.
At that, Jason shrugs, which – how can he be unsure about whether or not he’s a part of the Al Ghul murder cult?!
“I mean, maybe? T’s basically stopped sending me missions, but we still chat every once in a while. She wasn’t too happy about it, but after I saw the shitshow that was Timbit’s support network I had to step in, and that took precedence.”
Tim’s face goes bright red, and he tries to bury it in Jason’s shoulder to hide from any potential teasing. Dick, on the other hand, is processing that statement. “You quit the League for Tim. You’ve been following the Titans around, but since Tim’s Robin, you probably followed him specifically, maybe even back to Gotham.”
Jason hums, neither confirming nor denying Dick’s words. His shoulders are tight, like he’s hiding something.
Tim, going missing. A warehouse, a set of memories so patchy even Alfred would give them up as a lost cause, and Bruce’s refusal to give him a solid answer on just how they’d all gotten out of there alive. A flash of red.
“You were there,” Dick breathes, unconsciously grabbing onto Tim’s wrist to feel for his pulse. “You got Tim out of the warehouse. You got all of us out of the warehouse. You killed the Joker.”
Jason flinches, a nasty sneer creeping across his face, just like it always used to when he tried to use anger to deflect. It breaks Dick’s heart to see him feel like he has to use it on Dick right now.
“So what if I did, huh? The fucker deserved it. I’m not a fucking saint, I didn’t quit the League of Assassins because I thought killing was wrong. I’m –”
Cutting off an argument that would no doubt hurt far more than help, Dick crushes Jason into his embrace again, using the hand still buried in his hair to bring his head into the crook of Dick’s neck. “Thank you,” he gasps out, “Thank you. You saved Tim. You saved so many people, now that he’s dead. Thank you, Jason.”
Little Wing makes an aborted sound into Dick’s chest, but doesn’t fight.
Tentatively, Tim wraps his arms around Jason, still unreasonably hesitant. “You already know my feelings on that subject. The fact that it was him doesn’t change that.”
Jason makes another noise at that. It takes him a minute to regain his footing, but when he turns his head to the side, he isn’t angry, isn’t trying to lash out to make those around him hurt just as much as he is. “...you’re not gonna try and arrest me? Throw me in Arkham?”
There is no force on this earth or outside of it that would be able to pry Dick off of his brother, at this point. Still, if Jason’s like how he remembers, there’s no way the younger boy will accept that answer. Instead, he says, “We’ll have to have a talk about the whole killing thing, but I’m not going to send you to Arkham, Jason.”
“Not even if I try to stab B?” Jason asks, only partially joking.
Dick winces, but clings onto the rapidly dissipating strings of lightheartedness they’d been basking in not too long ago. “I mean, we’ve all been there. How about this: do you want to rain havoc down on Gotham, killing an unimaginable number of people?”
“No,” Jason grumbles, since he no doubt knows where Dick’s going with this. Well, too bad for him. If this is what it takes to keep things light while also re-assuring his little brother that he’s not going to have to fight against his own family, then this is what’s going to happen.
“Do you want to cause insane amounts of property damage because you prioritize your own personal values so highly that human life becomes inconsequential?”
“No,” Jason repeats, sounding annoyed.
“Are you going to strap yourself into a kite and drop bombs on random civilians while shouting out your name?”
“Kiteman?!” Jason gapes, staring at Dick incredulously. “Are you seriously trying to reassure me by making me affirm to myself that I’m not like fucking Kiteman?!”
Frowning playfully, Dick prompts over the sound of Tim’s giggles, “Answer the question, Jason. Is that a yes or a no on becoming Kiteman 2.0?”
“Jesus fuck, Dickie, obviously it’s a no!”
At that, Dick beams. “Then you’re in the clear! Any further discussions can take place at a later date, when I’m not trying to bask in the fact that my brother is alive again.”
Jason bitches, but he settles down in Dick and Tim’s combined hold.
“Are you gonna tell B?”
Tim immediately scoffs at Jason’s question, scornful. Did Bruce do something to the Baby Bird to make him this irritated?
Dick scrunches up his nose, thinking for his own response. On one hand, he really should, but...
Bruce clearly has a theory about something big, something that he’s keeping Dick out of like he’s still a child. The man refused to give him details on an incident that almost killed his brother, even going as far as forbidding Babs from spilling the beans. Overall, he’s kind of been pissing Dick off for a while, now.
“Hm, not yet. I’ll still need to run the DNA sample to appease his obsessive need to know everything, but if I run it on the Titans' database, he won’t have access to the results unless he goes looking for them. I vote we let the old man stew for a little bit longer on this one.”
“See how long it takes the “World’s Greatest Detective” to figure out something that’s been literally under his nose the entire time,” Tim adds on lowly, full of judgement.
He can feel the tension leaving Jason’s body at their answers, and he sighs internally. Clearly, there’s a lot his little brother has to work through regarding Bruce, but that’s an issue for a later date, just like his whole killing thing.
For now, there’s no threat of an outside League assassin trying to kill Tim and his team, he’s got two brothers in his arms, and they’ve got more than enough time in the future to figure everything out.
With wide eyes, Cassie and Kon trade incredulous looks before rounding on Bart, who just offers them both a cookie.
The snickerdoodles are slightly tough, since he did what Hood says is the cardinal sin of “overworking the batter”, but other than being kinda chewy they taste great!
His teammates take the cookies, but Cassie hisses, “Back from the dead? Brothers?!”
Kon’s so nervous, he accidentally breaks his snickerdoodle in half. “Red’s Robin’s brother?”
Shrugging, Bart grabs two more cookies and shoves them in his mouth. “Yep! But, like, at this point I think he’s kind of all of our brother? Since he, you know, broke in and just... stayed?”
Cassie frowns, worrying her nails as she darts her gaze back to the couch in the living room for a second. “Does that mean Nightwing was actually right about Red being an assassin coming over to kill us?”
Scrunching up his nose, Bart waves his hand as though clearing away the awful thought. “Nope. I don’t know too much about the whole assassin thing, but the worst he was probably planning on doing was fighting Robin, since, you know, the whole dying and getting replaced thing would’ve been touchy.”
Both of his teammates look uneasy at that, with Kon even shivering. “Ugh, I can’t believe you’re making that kind of thing sound normal for them.”
Blinking, Bart tilts his head as he tries to remember all of the things he’s heard both from his original timeline and from his family here. “Nah, it totally is their normal. Bat drama’s wild, and Robin drama is almost worse.”
Chewing on her lip, Cassie crosses her arms. “Well, even if he came to the Tower with bad intentions, I’m glad he was distracted by Robin’s squishable face. It’d suck to have to try and fight him if he actually did want to kill us.”
Bart and Kon nod, emphatically agreeing. Hood can be a menace on the best of days, and if his playful ire is this bad, they don’t wanna know what he’s like when he actually gets mad.
Finally putting some of his cookie into his mouth, Kon mutters under his breath, “I can’t believe I’ve been asking Red for advice on how to be cool in front of Robin. How has he not killed me yet?”
Cassie snorts, slapping a hand over her mouth to keep quiet. “You went to Red for help being cool? He’s the dorkiest dork here! He reads Shakespeare for fun!”
Muffling his own giggles, Bart pokes his friend. “Maybe that’s the reason Robin’s been so annoyed with you, lately. Hood’s been giving you bad advice on purpose, and you’ve been going along with it like a dummy.”
Kon’s eyes go wide, and he gapes. “Oh crap, I think you may be right.” He puts his head in his hands. “Why would he ever help me impress his little brother? Oh my god, I messed up. Rob probably hates me now, and Red thinks I’m the dumbest person on the planet.”
Cassie reaches over to ruffle his hair, highly entertained by his unskilled fumbling. “Nah, Robin’s all about competition and snark – you’re fine. If he hated you, you’d wake up with a green knife sticking out of somewhere important.”
“...”
Clicking her tongue, Cassie makes a face. “Maybe Robin’s spending a bit too much time with an assassin if that’s his go-to move for people he doesn’t like. Maybe we’re spending too much time with our assassin if we all know and are chill with knowing that’s how he would react.”
The three stand in contemplative silence, munching on their cookies, before collectively shrugging.
“Nah,” Bart says. “I’m pretty sure we’re fine.”
(Nestled between two people who might actually care about him enough to consider him family, ensconced in the safety of Titans’ Tower, Tim feels weightless.
He’s terrified that all of this is just a dream, that Dick will change his mind about them being brothers, that Jason will realize Tim’s just been fooling him and that he doesn’t actually deserve to be Robin.
Despite how he knows better, he’s hopeful that this has all been real, that he’ll be able to have this.
Also, he’s pissed. He really thought that he’d been onto something with his “Hood is Jason’s childhood friend” theory, but this completely debunked all of that. He’s thrilled to have Jason back, to have had the experience of Robin, his Robin, telling him that he’s worthy of wearing the name. And, judging by the not infrequent peeks he’s taken into Bruce’s working files on the Red Hood, he’d been way closer than anything the World’s Greatest Detective – ha! – had thought up, but still.
It’s weird that Dick’s certainty that Jason was the weird ninja he’d fought against years ago had turned out to be actually true, but it does explain where the older boy went and how he got some of his less Bat-approved training.
Settling further into his haze of comfort, Tim smiles to himself. Regardless of what he got right and what he got wrong, it’s going to be great watching Bruce freak out over something, for once. The idea of actually holding all of the cards, of knowing the whole picture, is so nice. Lately, Bruce has been on edge, and it’s felt like he’s been pushing Tim out of the way – not including him in planning out patrol schedules, in cases, always ordering him to go stay in the Tower instead of Gotham, his home.
Jason had obviously been nervous about going back, even though Tim doesn’t know why, aside from the obvious anger issues, but he’d settled once Tim and Dick reassured him they wouldn’t rat him out to B. Now, he can bask in this weirdly content environment, close out a long-standing list of questions he'd had rattling around in his brain about the Red Hood, and start thinking up all the different ways Bruce will try and fail to realize what Tim had figured out months ago.
Life, surprisingly, is good.)