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Jason first noticed the pair when he was on patrol. They were two kids about 18-19 ish walking around the Narrows with what looked like baseball bats, but when he glanced again was a pair of lacrosse sticks. He didn’t give it much thought at first, it was Gotham who knew what the crazies were doing today, as long as they weren’t harming anyone he didn’t care.
But then he saw them again the next day, baseball bats and all. They were hanging out next to the building whose roof he was using to scope out a dealer who sold to kids. He’d meant to go check them out after he’d taken care of his business, but when it turned out that the dealer was a front for a much larger operation that was setting up base near the Red Hood’s territory he ended up occupied by more important things than a couple of shady kids.
And besides, shady kids came with the territory. Jason himself had grown up as a “shady kid” who was frequently found loitering around buildings.
A couple weeks passed. The Red Hood burned the fledgling operation down before they could do any real damage, stopped an Arkham breakout, and helped some old women cross the streets. But then, like clockwork, the baseball wielding kids came back. This time they were sitting on a rooftop across from him, feet dangling over the lip of the building, kicking against the side. Jason felt as though the boy was staring into his soul, even though he had his Red Hood helmet on. The girl was sipping on a McDonald’s cup and tilted her head as she looked at him, almost like she was trying to pull him apart and see what was confusing her.
Jason decided he didn’t like it. Especially when the boy leaned over and whispered something in the girl’s ear, and she giggled with one brown palm coming up to cover her mouth. The boy gave this tiny little smile like he was proud of making his girl laugh. Nope, Jason didn’t like it one bit.
He especially didn’t like it when the boy turned back to face Jason and made the universal come hither gesture with the hand he wasn’t using to eat french fries. The smile on his face had dropped, in fact any emotion the kid had shown was gone, replaced with a blank mask.
But the Red Hood didn’t take orders from anyone, let alone two kids eating McD’s on a rooftop who thought they could just summon him with a flick of the wrist. So, he did what any slightly insane person would do: flipped them the bird, leapt off the rooftop, and high tailed it in the opposite direction.
~~*~~
If there was something Jason particularly hated besides clowns, self entitled assholes, and the restaurant three blocks down who refused to acknowledge his request for the olives to be removed from his orders, it was stalkers. While Jason’s worst case, as far as he knew, had been his Robin successor, the kids he’d spotted on patrol were getting to a point of more than just general annoyance.
They kept popping up near the building he used to scope to the neighborhood, near where he parked his bike, even though he kept changing the location, and one horrifying time, there’d been a large McDonald’s fries and milkshake left on the windowsill of his house. And yet, anytime he’d tried to go to them, they disappeared.
That final incident had been the only reason he’d decided to involve someone else.
~~*~~
“You want me to what?” Tim stared at Jason like he was crazy. Ok, maybe he was just a little bit off, but that didn’t mean he had to look at him like that.
“I need you to follow these kids who’ve been following me.” Jason said it a little more slowly this time thinking that the last concussion Tim had had might’ve been a little worse than they thought. When he said as much to him after Tim refused to acknowledge his statement, the kid stuck his tongue out at him and blew a raspberry.
“Ok but why me?”
“You’re the stalker extraordinaire aren’t you? You’ve also stalked me before so I figured you might know a little something.”
“ Hey, all of us are good at following people that’s not special.” He protested.
“Potato, pot ah to.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Look, will you do it or not?” He left Tim on the couch to think as the timer on his InstantPot™ went off and Jason went to go check on his noodles. Tim wandered over at the smell of food and dug around in the cabinets to find plates, forks, and spoons for them.
The conversation effectively stopped as Tim began to inhale the food he was served, while Jason ate at a more sedate pace. Once the younger had made his way through 2 whole servings and ate his third a little more slowly, Jason brought up his request again.
Tim stared at him for a moment slurping at the soup of the noodles instead of answering. “Alright,” He took another sip, “I’ll do it, but only on one condition.”
Jason looked at him warily, “What is it?”
“Come have dinner next week at the Manor-”
“No.”
“Jason, come on.”
“I said no didn’t I?”
“Bruce won’t be there, and Alfred’ll be happy to see you.” Tim wheedled, his tongue poking between his teeth as he looked at Jason. Jason looked back, unimpressed. “Alright fine, I just want to be able to have one over Dick when I manage to get you to come to dinner instead of him.”
Jason paused, imagining Dick’s look of shock when he would see Jason come in with Tim. It felt like something he’d like to see. “Yeah, yeah alright. Sounds like a deal.”
“Sweet. Now, do you happen to have any more of these noodles because these are a dream.”
~~*~~
They met on the same rooftop where Jason had first made contact with his stalker duo. “So you remember the plan right?” Tim was fiddling with a small camera, most of his attention focused on that. His hair was fluttering in the soft breeze.
“Yep.”
“Run it by me again.” Tim continued to stay focused on the little camera.
Jason rolled his eyes underneath the helmet, but went through it anyway. “I go through my normal patrol route. You follow me, at a distance, and then call me the moment you see the Stalker Duo. We good?”
Tim finally looked up, “Yep, I’ll see you around.”
Jason leapt off the roof first, and Tim followed after a moment or two. Making sure to keep a respectable distance between them. After about 3 hours of regular patrol, while being hyper aware of Red Robin at his back, Jason spotted the pair. They were on the ground talking to an old woman who kept patting the girl’s cheek lovingly and grabbing the boy’s hand like she was afraid they would disappear into thin air. The woman had tears in her eyes, and she was speaking in a language other than English since Jason couldn’t lip read her.
Jason tapped his comm, alerting Tim to his position. He sensed, more than saw, the younger land next to him, and once the old lady left they were getting ready to jump down but the two kids melted into the shadow of the building they were under.
Jason stared down at the space they used to be, “Um, what the fuck?”
“Metas.” Tim said automatically, “Be on -” But Jason didn’t hear what else he had to say because something told him to turn around. Next to him, Tim snapped his mouth closed as his hand crept towards his bo staff.
The tension in the rapidly escalated as they both subtly made eye contact and gripped their weapons tighter. As one, they turned.
Standing behind them were Jason’s Stalkers. Up close, Jason realized they were even younger than what he’d originally thought. Probably closer to 16 or 17, than 19. Neither of them appeared to be armed, and they weren’t attacking them so that was a good sign.
There was a beat of silence as the two teams sized the other up, then the girl stepped forward and held her hand out to Jason. “Hello sir, my name is Hazel, this is my partner Nico, and there are some things we need to discuss with you today.” Jason stared down at her hand, and then back up at her. After a moment, she dropped her hand with a slight frown.
“What?” Next to him, Tim blinked in surprise at them.
The boy, Nico, stepped up to stand next Hazel. “Jason Todd, right? We need to talk to you.”
Jason jerked back in surprise, “How did you-”
“Know your name?” Nico finished, he had this slight smirk on his face. “We’ve been looking for you Mr. Todd. Perhaps if we could find somewhere more comfortable to discuss, this would be easier.”
Mentally, Jason began to run through all the people who knew he was Red Hood. Considering the fact that they hadn’t turned to Tim cut out a small amount of their shared enemies, but not enough. Black Mask? No he wouldn’t shut up if he found out his identity, maybe Bane? But, Jason doubted he would hire a pair of nonviolent kids to catch him. Which only left one person.
“You guys are from the League aren’t you?” The kind smile on Hazel’s face wavered a bit.
“The who?”
Jason pulled out his guns and pointed it at them. Next to him, Tim also pulled out his staff. The two kids both looked at them, then each other, then back at them.
“Who’s the League?” Nico asked. Neither of them were drawing weapons or attacking.
“I think you know pretty well,” Jason scoffed. Nico and Hazel looked at each other, then back at them.
“Sir,” Hazel said easily, “I think you have us mistaken with someone else.” Her voice had a slight Southern lilt that was very calming and worked quite well with the social worker persona she was putting on.
Jason aimed at the gap between the two of them and fired. Neither of them so much as flinched, but Nico’s eyes hardened and turned cold. “Look, I didn’t want to tell you this right now, but we’re from the Committee of Resurrections and Undeaths. We’re only here because you’re not registered in the database.”
Jason faltered. Of all the things he’d expected them to say, that had not been it. The bo staff in Tim’s hands dipped as he startled from their words. “The what?” He choked out.
“The Committee of Resurrections and Undeaths.” Hazel answered promptly, “Sir, I know this might come as a shock to you, but were you aware that you were resurrected?”
Jason could only stare at them. Hazel’s copper eyes were glinting in the muted glow and streetlights, and around Nico the shadows seemed to stretch out towards him. Now that he was looking, he realized that there was something otherworldly about them.
“Can I see some ID?” Tim asked when it became clear that Jason wasn’t going to say anything.
Wordlessly, Nico and Hazel held out two cards. They looked like student ID’s complete with a little year at the bottom, but they both did indeed show that they were the chairmen of the Committee of Resurrections and Undeaths. “Alright then, I guess you’re here to talk to Jason.”
“Yes, sir.” Hazel smiled.
“That’s only what we’ve been saying for the past 10 minutes.” Nico rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“Yes.” Jason said suddenly, breaking out of his stupor he’d been in.
“Pardon?” Nico blinked at him.
“Yes, I was aware that I died and I knew when I was resurrected. But what I don’t understand is why you guys are only seeking me out now.”
“Oh well, that makes our job easier.” Nico didn’t exactly smile, but he did give a tilted little smirk. “And to answer your question, the Committee only came into existence a year ago and we’ve been going alphabetically through the list. You’d be surprised how many last names start with S.”
“There were more resurrections?” Tim frowned.
“Oh you’d be surprised,” Hazel laughed.
“Our security, so to speak, went down for a few months about 3 years ago. We’re still trying to sort through all the souls who managed to escape.” Nico explained.
“Are you-” Jason hesitated, “Are you going to send me back?” Both Hazel and Nico gave him reassuring smiles, it was a gentle smile that promised no harm.
“No,” Hazel said, “We just need you to sign your name to register your soul as living so that it’s not in perpetual limbo, and when you do return downstairs, we can easily track both your lives and accomplishments.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Yep, sign on the dotted line, reclaim ownership of your soul, and then go out for donuts or whatever it is you do to celebrate.” Nico shrugged.
“Well alright then,” Jason holstered his guns, “Let’s get this over with.” Nico pulled out a thin black folder with a green sticker on the spine out of the shadows to his left, with a motion like he was opening a filing cabinet and then he handed it to Jason.
“This is your soul file, do not read any of the pages other than the ones I show you. I’d hate to have to send your soul down under so soon after you’ve gotten it back.” Jason blinked at him, and Nico blinked back.
Hazel rolled her eyes, “He’s kidding. Ignore him. Do you have a pen?”
Jason frowned, patting down his pockets. When he came up empty handed, he turned to Tim, who also came up with nothing. Nico sighed as he reached to his left again and pulled out a heavy ink pen. “Where’s Percy when you need him?” He muttered.
Jason let Nico flip open the file to a page with a dotted line at the bottom and he signed Jason Peter Todd in neat cursive, just how Alfred had taught him years ago. Turning to the next page, he repeated the process.
Once he’d signed off on 15 or so pages, Nico closed the file and deposited it and the pen back in their mysterious shadow home where they’d once come from. Both him and Hazel stepped back and she waved at them. “It was lovely to meet you!” Nico just gave a two fingered salute before Hazel grabbed his hand and they both melted into the shadows.
Jason and Tim stood there in silence for 2 whole minutes before, “Well, that was really weird.” Jason said finally.
“Definitely. Wanna go to Batburger?” Tim nodded.
“You know what, why not. I deserve to celebrate tonight.” Jason threw a crooked smirk to Tim and they both leapt off the building.