Chapter Text
Jason hasn’t even been in Gotham for more than a couple months when things go to shit.
He’s been back from the dead for while now, he’s bided his time training with the League of Assassins, and he even has a decent handle on the Lazarus Pit’s lingering side effects with the help of meditation and breathing exercises that he’s learned.
He’s still fucking pissed at Bruce for leaving his killer to run the streets and take more lives every time he decides to break out from Arkham to take the city for a joyride, sure, but that one’s all Jason, and entirely justified.
He’s going to make Bruce decide — shoot the Joker, put the bastard down once and for all, or shoot the son that the Joker already murdered once. Bruce will have to decide what’s most important to him — to break his rule to save the Joker or break it to save Jason.
But here’s the thing — Jason isn’t letting Bruce walk away with the Joker if he picks wrong. If Bruce shoots him, he’s got enough explosives stashed away from supply shipments he’s liberated to level the entire building and take all three of them out.
Talia thinks his plan is fucking stupid, but Talia is still in love with Bruce more than a decade after their relationship ended messily, so he’s content to ignore her advice on the matter of dealing with Bruce.
Jason has spent months agonizing over the details of his plan, crafting contingency plan after contingency plan. He’s been working full time since he’s returned to the city to establish his identity as Red Hood, toppling the right pieces here and there as he works his way into power through the underbelly of Crime Alley.
Sure, maybe he’s over-prepared the whole thing, he used to be a fucking Bat — or maybe a Bird, actually? He’s not entirely sure how they categorize them now that there’s more of the themed vigilantes running around the Gotham rooftops at night. Are they all Bats? Batman and his Batlings who are also Birds?
Jason shoves the thoughts he’s muddling through out of his head and finishes off his drink, tuning out the murmur of the conversations around him.
It’s ten o clock at night on his fuckin’ birthday and he’s tucked away in some shithole bar in Crime Alley, drinking alone.
He’s not entirely sure what he just drank, actually. The last thing he remembers ordering was a fourth jack and coke, but the smooth minty flavor he gulps down this time definitely is… something else. He stares at the empty glass, frowning. It wasn’t bad, just unexpected. After a long moment, he flags the bartender down.
“Imma get another one o’ these,” He says, voice thick with the alcohol in his system, gesturing at the glass in front of him. She eyes him critically for a moment, and then nods and he tracks her movement as she heads over to mix the drink, some deep-rooted paranoia forcing him to be aware of his environment, of who’s handling his food and drink.
The motion is enough to make him dizzy and leave his head spinning, so when she drops the drink off, he tucks it close enough that it can’t be tampered with and rests his head on the cool, slightly sticky surface of the bar next to the glass for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut and listening to the ambient sounds of the bar around him.
The volume on the TV playing the news is turned up, and across the entire bar, all conversation goes silent. The hair on the back of Jason’s neck prickles, and he shifts his attention to the public safety announcement blaring on the news.
An Arkham breakout. Again.
Jason sighs and knocks his forehead back against the bar counter. He’s in his civvies and has drank way too fucking much to jump in to help with this tonight. He’s not even sure if he could walk back to his nearest safe house right now to gear up, let alone take out fucking—Killer Croc or something.
Plus, getting involved would inevitably draw the Bats’ attention. While he’s sure they’re aware of a new player working in the shadows and taking control of portions of the criminal element within the Bowery, it’s best to not tempt fate until the rest of his pieces are in place.
Black Mask is certainly starting to feel the pressure of Jason’s raids on his supply lines and the storage warehouses he’s blown up, but he’s nowhere near desperate enough to free the Joker yet.
Half a dozen B-list rogues and criminals have busted out, which will be enough to keep the Bat Crew busy. Probably not an all hands on deck situation, although Nightwing might pop over from Bludhaven to help. But they’ve got it handled.
He listens casually as the news details which vigilante has been spotted pursuing which villain, and yep, before long Nightwing is spotted in town jumping into the fray.
Jason downs his final drink, slaps a hundred dollar bill on the counter for the bartender to close his tab with a generous tip, and hauls himself to his feet to start on the walk to the little apartment that’s set up halfway between a home and a safe house, when there’s an urgent update on the news broadcast.
The Joker has taken advantage of the chaos and decided to spring his own escape, using Batman’s preoccupation to slip out, and was spotted hauling ass in a stolen car directly towards Amusement Mile.
On Jason’s fucking birthday.
He doesn’t even remember stumbling out of the bar, but he knows he’s not heading in the direction of the safe house apartment anymore.
He’s done with the dramatic plans, the clever actions meant to provoke reactions that will build towards a finale worthy of a best-selling novel. It’s all worth fuck-all if more innocent people die at the hands of the madman in the time between now and then.
The Joker, in all his insanity, can be really fucking predictable sometimes. Jason understands him, more than Batman ever will. Even loose-limbed and swaying on his feet, he knows where he’ll go. And against the little ringing alarm bells of his brain that try to tell him run away run away run away, that’s where Jason goes, too.
He knows what he’s gonna do is probably something he should be in his Red Hood gear for rather than his street clothes, but his place is the opposite direction at this point and he always keeps a gun on his person anyways, so he just keeps an eye on the cameras, shuffling through blind spots and keeping to the shadows.
Jason finds the Joker in exactly the type of place he expects to, lying low in some creepy-ass abandoned bowling alley that’s been decked out in clown decor by some of his goons while they waited for his inevitable escape. The fucker wasn’t expecting company, having counted on Batman being preoccupied with the other escapees, and was clearly intended to stay quiet for the time being, seated on a couch with a handful of henchmen, laughing away.
The alcohol dulls the fear that the laughter would trigger on any other day. Jason just. Slips into the building, pulls his handgun from his concealed carry holster that he wears when he’s out in his civvies, checks the magazine, and puts a bullet right into the back of each of their heads. He doesn’t even use the entire magazine, just five quick shots and it’s done. The laughter stops, and each of the bodies drop before any of them even have a chance to react.
Jason waits for a moment, and then another. His reaction time is slowed, but his brain eventually catches up to what he just did. A sense of relief trickles through him, and he’s… suddenly more relaxed than he can remember being in years.
He ditches the bodies there and leaves. Someone will eventually report the gunshots, the bodies will be found. He doesn’t really care, but he also doesn’t plan to be here when the cops show up. It’s a toss-up whether Gotham’s finest would feel professionally obligated to arrest him for murder, or to let him go because it’s the Joker. Knowing the city and the sheer magnitude of people whose lives had been forever altered or taken by the clown, he thinks the latter is more likely.
He slips back out the rear entrance that he came in through, belatedly tucks the gun back into its holster, adjusts the jacket so it sits naturally once again, and wanders back towards his Crime Alley safe house.
He’s so fucking tired, as if all the buzzing energy that’s pushed him for so long has suddenly vanished.
Jason makes it halfway back to the safe house he has in mind before he hears sirens approaching, heading towards the direction he came from. He stumbles into the closest alley and waits for them to pass, and then has to wait some more to vomit behind a dumpster. The alcohol burns worse as it comes back up. He really, really regrets drinking on an empty stomach.
Eventually, once his stomach is empty, he wipes mouth on his sleeve, grimaces, and musters up the willpower to make it to his safe house.
He considers heading to the bathroom, to bask under the water pressure and brush his teeth until his gums bleed, but his exhaustion drags him directly to the couch instead. He ends up laying along big green monstrosity, head propped up against the armrest on one end and booted feet on the other in a way that’s sure to do his neck no favors in the morning. He’s asleep before he has a chance to even consider taking the boots off.
********
Bruce is in the middle of apprehending one of the Arkham escapees, occasionally touching base with the others for status updates on their own progress in the mop up effort, when the comm comes on with a soft click as the group channel opens. There’s a long pause, long enough that Bruce feels a flash of concern, before Oracle speaks.
“Got an update for you guys on a developing situation. GCPD reports say a tip led to five bodies being discovered in the old bowling alley by Amusement Mile.” Oracle sucks in a sharp breath, and then continues. “Preliminary findings indicate one of the bodies was the Joker. I’m working back through nearby surveillance footage now. Is anyone available to follow up on the ground to confirm their findings?”
Bruce carefully finishes zip-cuffing the wrists of the escapee, attaching him to a street lamp and pinging the GPS beacon that he’s programmed to notify the GCPD of the location of a criminal they’ve caught.
He isn’t sure he believes the body they found actually belongs to the Joker. The rogue has been out of Arkham for less than an hour — the chances of him running into something he couldn’t handle in that time are next to non-existent.
But it needs to be followed up on, none-the-less.
Nightwing chimes in. “Robin and I aren’t too far and have finished up with the escapees we went after. We can drop by the scene and take a look. See if there’s any witnesses.”
Nightwing is the most experienced of his protégés and the best at handling people. Robin’s analytical mind and reasoning skills would be helpful in evaluating the scene and picking up on patterns. The two of them on the case would cover all avenues of approach.
“Acknowledged, report any findings,” Bruce grunts over the comm, and then checks the location of the GPS tracker he’d hit the last of the Arkham escapees with. He confirms that they hadn’t made it very far, and takes off along the rooftops in pursuit.
Bruce drops down on the woman, subdues her, and gets her detained and ready for police pickup within the span of a couple minutes.
The comm chimes as Robin connects.
“Well, it’s the Joker. No doubt about it to me, but I took a DNA sample to verify. He and four of his henchmen were dispatched by GSW to the back of the head. Ballistics indicate a handgun was used, and I’d say the shooter was experienced considering he took out five men before they had any time to struggle or react. Tall, too, based on the angle of the entry wounds,” Robin says.
The comm link chimes again a few minutes later as Bruce is driving through Gotham towards the cave.
“One witness, she reports seeing an armed white male exit the building shortly after hearing shots fired. At least 6ft, dark hair with a white highlight, wearing a dark colored jacket and jeans and a light t-shirt. Possibly injured, she said he didn’t seem very steady on his feet. She didn’t get a good look at his face, but the description should be enough for Oracle to track him along the cameras,” Nightwing reports. He pauses for a second, and when he speaks next, it’s laced with humor but a little more Dick Grayson than Nightwing. “So we’re buying this guy a beer, right?”
Bruce doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he waits for Oracle’s findings. Bruce is back at the cave in front of the computer before she connects in to the comm system again
“No hits matching the description on any of the nearby cameras, but I’ve got… I’ve got a match to someone who was spotted heading into Crime Alley about twenty minutes after the shooting. But… the guy I’ve got on the camera? He looks like Jason,” Oracle breathes. “I’m sending the footage to you now, Batman.”
Bruce freezes. Jason is dead, there’s no way that the man in the footage could be him. But if the resemblance was enough to make steadfast, reasonable Barbara say something about it, to warn him before sending the video…
His mind jumps through the possibilities as he waits for the video to download to the screen in the Batmobile. Shapeshifter metas, clones, illusion magic… because Jason is dead. It can’t be Jason, even if there’s enough of a passing resemblance to give Barbara pause.
The video plays on the computer screen, taken from a camera at the end of an alleyway. A figure — dressed much like the witness described, in a black jacket with a light grey shirt and dark wash jeans — stumbles past the end of the alley, and then doubles back to duck into the alley itself. A moment later, he sees the reason for the change of direction, as red and blue flashing lights tear past. The figure staggers a little and then heaves, leaning over to vomit on the ground of the alley, arm wrapped around his stomach. He’s facing away from the camera, but when he straightens up and glances around, there’s a moment where the camera at the end of the alley catches his face in three quarters profile, illuminated enough by the reflection of streetlights in the puddles to highlight his features in muted amber light.
The Batcomputer’s automated facial identification program runs, and pings a match. Bruce doesn’t have to look at it to know what it says, because that displeased twist of the mouth and furrow between the brows, the cheekbones and eyes, chin and jaw a little broader with maturity… that’s Jason. It’s not something imitating his appearance from before he died.
That is Jason, alive and several years older.
That is Jason, who just killed the Joker.
That is Jason, alone in Crime Alley.
Bruce ignores the buzz of rapid-fire questions coming through on his comm, drags his cowl back on, and tears out of the cave back in the direction of Gotham. He has to find Jason before GCPD does.
******
Bruce has been searching Crime Alley for hours and turned up absolutely nothing by the time Barbara sends Dick to bring him in for the night. Dawn creeps over the skyline of the city, and yet Jason is still out of Bruce’s reach.
“Listen, B. You need to come back to the cave to regroup and go over things, get some rest and we can look again tomorrow. Oracle has combed through the footage all night while you’ve been out here and hasn’t found any other sightings of him. If it is Jason, and not just a lookalike or something, he knows where to find us. He’s always been good at staying under the radar if he doesn’t want to be found,” Dick reasons, a hand on Bruce’s shoulder.
Bruce shakes his head. “Something wasn’t right with him. He wasn’t moving well, and the vomiting… He’s ill or injured, and alone out there in Crime Alley. He’s legally dead, he has no means of making money or renting a house. I can’t leave him like that!”
Dick frowns thoughtfully. After a moment, he replies. “Jason grew up here, Bruce. He knows how to survive on the streets of Gotham, how to get by and to stay out of trouble. He’ll be okay for one more day. We need a plan of action. You’re not going to find him by prowling the streets and interrogating any civilians you encounter.”
Bruce sighs, and concedes to the logic for the moment. He trails Dick back to the cave, works on his report of the night’s events, neatly avoids Alfred and the lecture he knows would be waiting for him, and heads into his bedroom.
Dick returns to Bludhaven, with his obligations at home. Tim heads back to Drake manor.
He doesn’t even last two hours before he slips back down into the Batcave and starts to pour over all the surveillance footage he can pull together from Crime Alley and the surrounding area.
Barbara was right, though. Facial recognition software doesn’t pick up on any more matches for Jason. He has no clue how long he’s been in Gotham.
Bruce does absently note some data about the patrol routes of the new player who’s taken over Crime Alley in the last few months. The Red Hood toes the line between vigilante and budding crime lord. His presence has the Bats on edge, not sure where they stand with the new player in the city and unable to pin him down for long enough to have a conversation about his motives — or his use of lethal force.
News articles start to pop up about the Joker’s death over the course of the day, the GCPD pulling a still image from the surveillance video and publishing it as a person of interest, providing a number to call for tips.
Another article surfaces a couple hours later, covering the efforts of the massive social media campaign that is flooding the tip line with misinformation and fake tips.
Gotham protects her own, and it seems that the entire city has come together behind the person who finally took out the Joker.
And then evening falls, and Bruce is back on the streets again, not having slept at all.
Crime Alley citizens don’t have much love for Batman, Bruce soon realizes, especially once they realize he’s looking for the man who killed the Joker. They scoff at his questioning, tell him to fuck off and that they aren’t narcs and they didn’t see anything, take off running when he appears, and even the street kids who are out this late shout things at him when they spot him, often along the lines of “ACAB includes Batman!”.
When Jason had been Robin, there had been a much friendlier response to Bats in the Bowery and the Narrows. They recognized the accent, his attitude, his desire to protect the place he grew up, and saw a kindred soul. Bruce hadn’t realized how much that had lapsed since Jason’s death, and he feels a twinge of regret that he’d let the trust the people here had for him fall away.
Bruce spends days tearing through Crime Alley with the civilians stonewalling him in every direction, and with each day that passes, his desperation grows. Jason doesn’t turn up, doesn’t seek him out, doesn’t get spotted on cameras anywhere in the city. And then the days turn into nearly two weeks. Bruce can’t sleep, hardly eats, can’t focus on his other cases, leaving more and more work for Robin to step up and handle.
It comes to a head when he decides to seek help. Because who knows Crime Alley better than its protector?
*********
Jason hasn’t left his safe house except to patrol since he came back after killing the Joker.
He’s fucking embarsssed that he got caught on a security camera without a mask on. He knows better, he was trained better, he just. Was maybe too drunk to actually do any better at the time.
With his goddamn face plastered all over the news, he can’t even head down to the grocery store to restock unless he’s decked out in his full Red Hood gear.
And based on the way Batman has been tearing up Crime Alley since the night it happened, he knows the Bats haven’t missed the shockingly high quality footage of the long-dead Robin stumbling drunk into an alley and puking his guts out after killing the Joker. Batman has been harassing every civilian he finds in Crime Alley after dark with a game of twenty questions, to the point where half the regulars are in hiding and the other half spit and curse at the name and beg the Red Hood to do something about it.
Jason’s life has gone to shit, in other words.
Eventually, Jason lands on the roof across from Batman. The black-clad vigilante has been standing around for nearly an hour in plain sight along one of the Red Hood’s patrol routes tonight, in a blatant attempt to draw the Red Hood out. Jason isn’t entirely sure if his identity under the helmet has been compromised and Bruce is here for Jason, or if he’s here to confront the Red Hood.
Either way, Jason faces him head on.
“Get the fuck outta here, Batman. You’re terrorizing my people in pursuit of whatever mission you’re obsessing over this time, and I’m not gonna put up with it any more,” He snaps at Bruce from across the roof, his posture bristling with barely concealed aggression. He’s not gonna give away anything and risk Bruce putting together the pieces if he doesn’t already know.
Bruce’s body language remains loose and calm, but Jason doesn’t let that fool him for a moment. Bruce is always ready to react even when he appears relaxed.
“I’m looking for someone,” Bruce starts, hesitant. “I have reason to believe he’s in Crime Alley, but I haven’t been able to locate him. I’ll agree to stay out of your territory, if you can help me find him.”
Jason tilts his head to the side as if thinking. Internally, he feels a rush of relief. Somehow, Bruce hasn’t managed to put two and two together to come up with the idea that Jason showing up in Gotham to kill the Joker came within a month of the Red Hood’s debut with a bag of heads is a little bit suspicious.
“Sorry, nope. Fuck that. I don’t do dirty work for Bats,” Jason scoffs.
Bruce takes a deep breath before he responds.
“Bruce Wayne has asked me to help find his son, who he has reason to believe is alive after several years... presumed dead. This is a… sensitive issue, because the missing son appears to be the man who shot the Joker. To be clear, Red Hood, I am not seeking this man out to arrest him for what he did. I am simply trying to help reunite him with his father and brothers.”
What the fuck. That was not the angle Jason expected Bruce to come at him with for this, and he’s honestly a bit blindsided. He’s thankful for the helmet that covers his flabbergasted expression.
And, fuck, with the Joker dead, his civilian identity exposed on a global level, why not have some fun as the Red Hood at Batman’s expense? And, speaking of expenses…
“Well, if Brucie is involved, I imagine he can afford to pay for my services if I agree to help look for this kid?” Jason asks casually.
“Wayne would pay anything to have his son back, Hood. He can wire you an upfront payment to start and you will be payed generously once he’s found.”
Score. Jason smirks under the helmet.
“Alright, you’ve got a deal. I find the kid for you and Wayne, you stay out of Crime Alley and quit harassing people, and I get paid. Now get the fuck out of here,” Jason drawls. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so excited to take a contract in his life.
Batman sets a device of some sort on the ground.
“You can contact me with this when you have an update,” He says in a gruff tone, before he steps off the roof and grapples away.
Jason investigates what he left and realizes it’s a comm, undoubtedly with a tracker built in. He cracks the thing open, plucks his toolkit out of his belt, and guts the device, removing and disabling everything except for the communication ability.
Jason pockets it once he’s satisfied that it’s harmless, and drops down to street level, sauntering into a nearby convenience store. It’s one he’s been shopping at every few days since his picture started floating around, and the teenager at the counter hardly gives him a second glance anymore, surfing their phone while they wait for him to gather his groceries.
Jason checks off his list mentally as he gets what he needs for the next few days, leaves a generous tip at the counter for the kid’s nonchalant acceptance of his presence, and heads back to his safe house in a roundabout path to shake any possible Bat-shaped tails.
He drops the comm on the coffee table, gets the groceries put away in the refrigerator and cupboards, and then starts making himself dinner. He gets bored later that night, and with a little adjustment and some subtle hacking into the Batcomputer, he adjusts the comm to tune into the main Bat lines rather than just the pre-programmed direct line to Batman that it was initially set up for.
Jason manages to hold out an entire two and a half more days before the boredom of being on house arrest when he’s not on patrol gets unbearable. He’s cleaned the house top to bottom multiple times, reorganized his furniture, reads through half the books in the shelf he’s been stocking, fucks around on his laptop for hours and hours, exercises and sleeps and cooks, but it’s not enough.
He’s sprawled on the ugly green couch in the center of his living room when he finds himself eyeing the comm device.
He doesn’t have a plan, really. He just knows he’s bored and has the means to fuck with Bruce a little, sitting right there.
He slips the comm into his ear, and holds the vocal distortion mechanism that he’s built to install into a replacement helmet close enough to his face that it’ll disguise his voice.
“Found the kid. Jason, right?” He says.
There’s a long pause.
“Who is this? How do you have access to this line?”
Oops. That’s Barbara. Jason had sort of forgotten that he’d reprogrammed the thing to connect to the main Bat comm line rather than directly to Bruce.
“Batman left a comm for me when he asked me to look into things in Crime Alley for him,” He says.
“He left you a comm that I set up to link directly to an airgapped private channel. Again, how do you have access to this line?” Barbara is pissed, probably trying to activate the tracker that Jason had removed in order to pinpoint his location. The tracker that’s broken and sitting at the bottom of the river somewhere.
“Is he here? He’s gonna wanna hear what I’ve got to say about Jason Todd,” Jason says, ignoring her question. He hears a sigh of frustration from her, and then after a moment, there’s a click as Batman connects to the line.
“Hood,” He says, voice a full-on Batman growl and clearly displeased. “I gave you a private line to reach me, you had no reason to compromise our main line. This is an unacceptable breach of privacy.”
Jason laughs. “Fine. I’ll fuck off, then. Man, no wonder the kid’s avoiding you guys,” And reaches up to turn off the comm and cut off whatever they respond with.
Jason takes a nap right there on the couch, and when he wakes up in a much better mood.
He heads out on patrol later that night, and of course, Batman drops in on him within the first hour. This time, he’s got Nightwing with him.
Jason guesses the little hacking display ruffled some feathers if Batman brought a bird along as backup.
Jason leans against the wall of the alley he’s in, an unconscious mugger next to him, arms crossed over his chest. The position leaves his hands near the holsters in case he has to shoot to get out of this one.
“Jason Todd,” Batman growls, and Jason’s pulse skyrockets for a split second until Bruce continues with, “Where is he?”
“He’s gone to ground and isn’t interested in letting you find him. Would be shitty to spill his location to you when he asked me so nicely not to,” Jason says. Batman’s mouth flattens into a tight line and Nightwing looks shocked for a second, before he schools his features back into neutrality.
“But you found him?” Nightwing asks. “He’s…okay?”
Jason laughs. “Yeah, I found him. He’s fine.”
“Did he say why he hasn’t gone home? To… the Waynes?” Nightwing asks hopefully.
Jason hums, taking a moment to decide what to say next, and then shrugs.
“Wouldn’t be welcome there,” He says with forced indifference.
Batman freezes. Jason doesn’t think he even breathes for a long moment. And then, voice more shaken than Jason can remember hearing it, Bruce asks, “What do you mean? Why would he think that?”
“He said Wayne accused him of something he didn’t do. Disowned him right before he died. And then he came back and actually did the thing that Wayne accused him of. So, the kid doesn’t really have a home to go back to. He says Wayne is just trying to save his public image and get control of him before the media puts two and two together and someone recognizes Wayne’s dead kid as the guy who killed the Joker.”
Jason may have put a little too much personal insight into that to pass muster as “this kid I tracked down told me this”, but it does the trick for the moment, because Batman is reeling from his words, radiating guilt, a hurt noise tearing from his throat.
Jason feels a vicious sense of satisfaction in Bruce’s guilt. But then, between one breath and the next, Nightwing turns, apparently forgetting all semblance of secret identities.
“You did what?” Dick hisses at Batman, fury etched across his features. He takes a step towards Bruce, who, to Jason’s astonishment, steps backwards away from him.
“I—“ Batman starts, but Dick lunges at him before he can speak, practically howling in rage.
“You fucking disowned him?! And then didn’t tell me he even died, didn’t give me the option of coming back from the mission early to go to his funeral? What the fuck is wrong with you, Bruce?!”
Dick punches Bruce in the face, and Bruce, against all odds, lets him.
Jason is shocked at Dick’s display. Sure, he and Dick had started to become closer before Jason’s untimely end, but when Talia had showed him the photos of his funeral, the articles noting Dick’s absence, he’d assumed that they hadn’t been as close as he’d thought they were.
But this? Hearing that Dick hadn’t known he was dead until after the funeral? Jason… doesn’t know what to do with that information. It doesn’t fit the world view he’s had since he came back to life, since he was ripped from his catatonic state choking on the Lazarus waters.
So Jason runs. He leaves Dick and Bruce brawling in the alley — although it’s looking awfully one sided from his perspective — and gets the hell out of dodge and back to his current safe house.
Once he’s home, he yanks off the helmet and strips down to his underclothes, tossing the gear haphazardly onto the bed and ducking into the bathroom. He turns the water on in the shower as hot as it’ll go, scrubs off the sweat and grime from patrol, and tosses on some clean boxers. He wanders out to the kitchen to grab some tea or something to settle down, when he runs into Robin climbing through the window.
They make eye contact and both freeze.
“Uh,” Jason starts.
“I’m sorry!” Tim Drake says, voice high and strained, “I was just checking into suspected Red Hood safehouses! I didn’t mean to — but I heard the conversation through the comms, I promise I won’t tell Bruce about this!” And then the window clatters as the kid throws his body back out the way he came and takes off with the swish of a grapple line.
Jason sits down on the couch, and drops his head into his hands with a long-suffering sigh.