Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

~ The Warehouse ~

Jason Todd, former Robin and current Red Hood, murderer turned vigilante, never claimed to be very lucky.

Clearly he wasn’t, seeing as his life was pretty much a never-ending shitshow of fear and death and pain that had only recently evened out into something mildly tolerable.

Even if his siblings were annoying sometimes, he’d been getting along with them really well lately. His relationship with Bruce was still slow going, but they were repairing it bit by bit.

At the very least the Bat trusted Jason, hence why the big Bat had sent him on a week-long infiltration mission up in the Narrows.

Which led Red Hood down a rabbit hole of gun trafficking, gangs, money laundering, and finally to the warehouses he was in now. Very lucky indeed.

It seemed almost too easy in some ways, a perfect opportunity to take down one of Scarecrow’s toxin suppliers if Oracle’s intel was good.

It was supposed to be easy.

So why the hell was Superman here??

“Red Hood.” Superman’s voice was strong despite the pounding sound of rain against the warehouse roof, making Hood feel impossibly tiny in comparison to the Man of Steel.

He touched down onto the corrugated metal across the roof. His gaze was pointed, eyes seeming almost more grey than blue between sheets of pouring rain.

“A little far from Smallville, aren’t we Supes?” Hood couldn’t help but roll his eyes under his mask. “I’m guessing Batsy doesn’t know you’re here? This place is his problem, not yours.”

He thumbed the distress beacon in his jacket pocket. Was Superman appearing in Gotham enough of an emergency to call in backup?

“Your trafficking ring is influencing Metropolis, which makes it my problem,” Superman responded. “I’ll be taking you in to be interrogated, but rest assured, you’ll be ending up in Arkham by the end of the week.”

Hood couldn’t help the small stir of irritation in his gut, green creeping up the edges of his vision. Fuck the distress beacon, he could deal with this without his siblings.

“Highly doubt that,” He quipped. “Where’s Batman? This’ll all go a lot faster if we skip past the arresting me part and just call him here directly.”

Superman just scowled, a twinge of irritation entering his voice. “Batman is off-world at the moment. The Justice League is keeping an eye on Gotham in his absence.”

Shit.

“Sounds like bullshit,” Hood shot back after a second, cursing the sudden waver in his voice. “I don’t doubt he’s off-world, but letting you in here? The only meta allowed in Gotham is Signal, and the Bat isn’t one to change his mind about this kind of stuff.”

Well, he was one to change his mind about the rule, but only when it involved one of his kids.

“You’re stalling,” Superman really sounded annoyed now. A bit of Clark Kent bled into his voice, and suddenly Hood was grateful that Tim made him research all the League members on his own time. “I’m taking you in.”

Time to go, then. There was no way in hell he could beat Superman in a fight or outrun him head-on, but Hood knew Gotham like the back of his hand. Getting to one of his safehouses should be a piece of cake.

“Good luck with that, Supes.” With a haunting laugh that would have made Dick proud Hood let himself tip off the warehouse, just barely hearing Superman yell before the whistling wind overtook his senses.

He rolled as he hit the fire escape below, already sending off his grapple down the alleyway.

It latched onto a brick wall, and with a tug he was off.

Wham!

Hood felt something hit his side midair, sending him flying into the metal warehouse walls.

His ribs felt like they were on fire, but he still managed to claw himself into a sitting position before a figure pressed him back down with a boot to his chest.

He felt his ribs shift, barely suppressing a yell as his vision went white with pain.

“I have him, Superman,” A woman’s voice Hood immediately identified as Wonder Woman said from above him. “Stay down, Hood.”

He tried to reach for the distress beacon, but he already felt himself blacking out on the dingy alleyway floor.

God, this was going to be a long week.

~ At the Manor ~

It was late at night on a Tuesday, and Dick Grayson was pacing in the Manor living room.

Jason was reckless at the best of times and downright suicidal at the worst, but he wasn’t stupid. Usually. Dick was really questioning that at this point.

“Big bird, at this rate you’re going to wear a hole in the carpet. Jason’s fine.” Tim told him from an armchair. A long-forgotten book lay open in his lap, pages forgotten in favor of watching his brother.

“I still think it’s weird that he didn’t check in,” Dick finally stopped pacing and flopped onto the couch, rolling over to glare at Tim. “He’s been sending us updates every day throughout the entire course of the mission, why would be stop the day before we’re supposed to come in unless something bad happened?”

“Todd has a distress beacon. He would have used it if he was in trouble,” Damian replied, sounding bored. “He may be an imbecile most hours of the day, but he’s not that dumb.”

“We also have his tracker, which last time I checked, is still at the warehouse he said he was checking out tonight,” Tim pulled his laptop seemingly out of nowhere. “If it makes you feel any better, we can check.”

Dick stood up, moving to lean over the back of the armchair as Tim pulled up the bat tracking system. Damian leaned in too, perching on one of the armrests.

A map was displayed on the screen, with Dick, Tim, Damian, and Duke’s icons all displayed at the Manor. Cass and Steph were out patrolling in the city.

“He should be right here,” Tim typed Jason’s name into the search bar. “See? He’s safe and- oh that’s not supposed to happen.”

“What? What is it?” Dick craned his neck, placing his chin on Tim’s head as the teen zoomed out to see all of Gotham.

“His tracker, it isn’t in Gotham,” He said. “Or anywhere, for that matter. He’s gone off the map.”

“...Shit.”

~ Chapter End ~

Chapter Text

~ the Watchtower ~

Jason woke up suddenly to the sensation of someone touching his neck, hands sliding under the rim of his helmet as if to unlatch it.

He felt like shit, for lack of a better term, his head pounding with the telltale pressure of a concussion, which instantly put him on alert.

He jerked on instinct, trying to slam his head into the person touching his neck before he could process who they were in the first place.

A little too late he realized it could have been one of his siblings, but as long as it wasn’t the demon child (who’d never stop complaining) they could deal with a broken nose for a few weeks.

 “Whoa!” The person reeled back quicker than a normal human would be able to, but that might just have been the concussion talking. “Careful, Red Hood.”

So, definitely not one of his siblings. Dick would have called him Little Wing, Damian would have insulted him, and everyone else was used to simply calling him Hood or Jay.

Finally, the world stopped spinning enough for him to somewhat get his bearings, and once it did he really wanted to slip back into sweet, sweet unconsciousness. It was a real shitshow.

He found himself in a white-walled room lit by blinding fluorescent lights, wrists and ankles handcuffed to a chair. A two-way mirror was on the wall to his right, a door just a bit further down.

The telltale ticking of a clock could be heard, but he couldn’t tell from where with the fogginess coating his brain.

His ribs had been bandaged with what felt like thin, itchy gauze, but if the pain was any indication they either hadn’t bothered with pain meds or didn’t know they didn’t work on him.

Oh, and the person he’d nearly headbutted was the Flash, who had skittered behind Superman and Wonder Woman with a nervous smile.

Great. 

 “Don’t touch the helmet,” Jason growled, doing his best to sound threatening. “It’s lined with explosives. You take it off incorrectly, my head and your hands go boom.”

He splayed his hands as best he could for effect, cuffs rattling against the metal chair arms.

It was an easy lie. Bruce had made him take them out the moment he found out they were in there, but it was believable enough to fool the League.

If any of them caught on to that fact, they didn’t show it.

 “You really are something, Red Hood,” Superman sighed, sitting down in the chair across from Jason. “Look, all we need to know is the names of your associates.”

 “Why would I tell you that?” Jason crooked his head to the side, leaning back in the chair casually. He needed a plan, that much was obvious, but what was he trying to achieve?

…what would Tim do in a situation like this?

 “If you tell us, we can put in a good word and get your time in Arkham shortened,” Wonder Woman proposed. “How does that sound?”

 “Arkham?” Jason breathed, mind blanking. That’s where the Joker- no, he was not going there.

 “Don't tell me you're afraid of the place,” Flash zipped around the room, inspecting him from every angle. “You’re really tense right now, so I’ll take that as a yes.”

 “Not the place,” Jason grit out, forcing his body to untense as soon as Flash mentioned it. “One of the residents there.”

 “Blackgate, then,” Wonder Woman amended, shooting Flash a withering glare. “Just tell us the names.”

 “Blackgate’s for sane people,” Jason grinned under his mask as Wonder Woman slowly got more and more ticked off. No wonder Bruce liked it here, this was fun. “I’m sure you see the problem with that. So, tell me, what do I really get in return for telling you the names?”

 “What do you want?” Superman shot back, placing a hand on Wonder Woman’s shoulders and steering her away.

Jason tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling, giving himself time to think.

What did he want? Well, he wanted to get back to Gotham in one piece, with his secret identity intact, the existence of his siblings unknown, and Batman as unconnected to him as possible.

How though…?

Keeping his siblings unknown would be easy enough on his end, he decided. Knowing them they would do something dumb and get discovered regardless, but it’s the thought that counts or whatever the hell Tim always says whenever he claimed being knocked out counted as sleep.

 “Simple. Stay out of Gotham until Batman’s back to enforce the rule himself,” Jason levelled, glaring straight into Superman’s eyes even though the older man couldn’t see his face. “As lovely as you seem after kidnapping me and all, I preferred Gotham when Signal was the only meta protecting it.”

 “Must not be a good vigilante if you like him.” Flash shot back, and Diana punched his arm. “Ow! Okay, I didn’t mean it like-”

Jason saw green .

 “Say that again, I fucking dare you.” He hissed, jerking forward in his restraints. He felt the metal bend, still holding- they better snap soon, he wanted to punch Flash - calm down, Jason. 

A different approach, then.

 “Well, Flash, if you’re going to resort to badmouthing other heroes to get a rise out of me, you’re not much better than me,” Jason said, keeping his voice light and smug. “At least I respect my heroes.”

 “Yeah well, you’re a murderer, so-”

 “Flash, take a walk.” Superman cut him off sternly.

A feral grin spread on Jason’s face. That was easier than he thought.

 “What-? Man, come on!” Flash groaned, but zipped out of the room.

 “One down, two to go,” Jason let that grin leak into his voice, basically gloating in their faces. Fuck murder, this was a dozen times more cathartic.  “This is fun, don’t you think?”

 “Let’s just send him to Arkham. We’re not getting anywhere with this,” Wonder Woman muttered to Superman. “He’s toying with us.”

Shit . That wasn’t supposed to happen.

 “Thanks for the praise, princess. I really do try.” Jason leaned back in his chair, trying his best to seem nonchalant despite the cold stake of dread currently pushing its way through his heart.

 “Let’s go.” Superman started to remove the handcuffs and place irons on him, that Clark Kent annoyance leaking into his voice-

Oh. That’s not a half bad idea.

 “I don’t know about that, Kent,” Jason growled under his breath, watching with simultaneous satisfaction and fear as Superman’s head whipped around, pupils glowing red for a split second and grip tightening around his wrist painfully. “Wouldn’t want everyone, and I mean everyone , in Arkham to know about Superman’s secret identity, would you?”

 “How-” Wonder Woman said, surprise infecting her voice.

 “Don’t think I don’t know yours either, Diana Prince,” He continued, letting his voice take on a menacing tone only enhanced by the mechanical nature of his helmet. “I did my homework. Barry Allen, John Jones, Victor Stone, Hal Jordan, Arthur Curry- I could go on, you know. I know everything .”

 He really didn’t. Not even Bruce could find Captain Marvel’s identity after all, and he’d forgotten half the League’s names the second he finished his research.

But his words had their intended effect if their expressions were anything to go by.

 “We need to contact the rest of the League.” Diana grabbed Clark’s wrist, who clicked Jason’s cuffs closed and let himself be dragged out of the room by the Amazonian.

Okay, so he was definitely not getting sent to Arkham. That was good.

He did get himself into a deeper pile of shit, though, so. Maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

He leaned back in his chair and all but deflated as the door clicked closed. That was… something. As far as interrogations went it couldn’t have gone any better, but that wasn’t the best when the fucking Justice League were the ones doing the interrogating.

How long had it been since he was knocked out, anyway? He could hear a clock in the room, but it was to his back.

He surmised he must have been out at least until morning, potentially longer, which meant he’d definitely missed check in and potentially the pre-raid meetup.

His siblings were probably freaking out right now.

~ Back in Gotham ~

Dick was officially freaking out right now.

Without Jason's intel they had no idea where to go with the warehouse bust, so that was put on hold. In the meantime, Tim had spent a whole night combing through Jason's tracker logs, trying to find his last known location. It ended up being a pretty nondescript warehouse in the Narrows.

Damian, despite his best efforts, was currently at school. Tim took a day off and called Jason in sick, though Dick didn't know the specifics of whatever lie he'd come up with to get them to give them both excused absences.

So, now Dick was sitting in the alleyway outside the warehouse while Tim was sweeping the inside passing evidence on to Barbara, and he found himself thoroughly confused.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary so far, except for two things. A human-sized dent in the outside of the warehouse next to the fire escape, and a set of skid marks in the ground leading to said dent.

There were two sets of shoeprints too, one pressed deep into the mud in a way that made them easy to miss at first glance and the second light enough that he was surprised they hadn’t washed away yet.

He took their measurements and a few photos, but other than that there was a suspicious amount of nothing . No tire tracks for a getaway car, footprints outside of the two pairs he’d found, not even a small blood sample. Damn the Gotham rain for making this that much harder.

 “Nothing in here,” Tim called from the roof. “Everything up here got washed away by the rain. Any luck down?”

 “Dent and skid marks, both made by a human body,” Dick told him, brows furrowing under his domino mask. “As far as I can tell, someone ran in and either slammed into the wall, or slammed someone else into the wall.”

 “Any chance it could have been Jason?”

 “Not the skid marks, there were 2 sets of surviving footprints there, with one matching the width of the marks, and they weren’t his size,” Dick walked up to it, running his fingers around the metal for anything. “And I really hope the dent wasn’t him, his ribcage would have been crushed in an impact like that.”

 “You know Jason though, he’s surprisingly durable,” Tim jumped off the roof, landing on the fire escape railing elegantly. “Honestly, at this point we should really start classifying him as a meta, a couple weeks ago he somehow hauled himself home from across Gotham with a collapsed lung and while actively bleeding out-”

Tim cut himself off suddenly, leaning over to look at something on the platform.

 “What is it, Red?” Dick asked, clambering up the fire escape.

 “Those are Jason’s bootprints,” Tim responded, pointing to two faint boot outlines. “Look, there’s bits of roof grit left on the prints.”

Dick looked at the prints, and- yeah, even from here he could spy the outline of Jason's specialized soles, the same ones that all of them had to help with parkouring around the city but modified to fit onto his boots.

 “Holy shit. Good catch Timbo,” Dick snapped a picture, sending it to Oracle quickly. “So, he jumped off the roof, landed here, and then what-?”

Maybe he’d grappled? Dick looked towards the back wall, and found exactly what he was looking for.

 “There,” He pointed. “That bit of brick is missing. it's too jagged to be caused by anything other than a grapple hook. He must have tried to grapple away from the warehouse, but-”

 “-Got slammed into the wall by someone before he could make it out of the alleyway,” Tim swore under his breath. “Fuck, this is bad. Oracle, you get all that?”

He tapped his earpiece. Dick mirrored him, Barbara’s voice coming to life over the comms once he did.

 “Got it, Tim,” She said. Her voice sounded concerned. “I’ll send you two a few reports of criminal activity in the area last night. I don’t think we’ll find much, but it’s worth a shot.”

 “Do you think we could get Orphan, Spoiler, and Signal to watch Gotham for a bit? This is a lot more serious than we thought,” Tim replied, already sinking deep into thought. “I need more coffee.”

 “Tim, no.”

 “Tim, yes.”

Dick facepalmed. One week. Bruce was going to be back in one week.

…it was going to be a long week.

Chapter Text

~ At the Manor ~

Dick couldn’t help the feeling of déjà vu passing over him as he paced the length of the living room, mind a storm of worry that made it hard to think and impossible to relax.

Tim was sat on a couch nearby, nursing his probably fifth cup of coffee whilst looking over the evidence on his laptop for the umpteenth time, searching for anything they might have missed.

Damian was out with Steph and Cass, still upset that he had to go to school instead of helping Dick and Tim find Jason the day earlier. Even disguised under his usual callous personality, Dick could tell Damian was worried out of his mind.

 “So? What are we going to do?” Duke was sitting on the ground, writing something in one of his notebooks. 

He’d been listening to his brothers talk over Jason’s disappearance for the last 45 minutes, absorbing everything they told him. His eyebrows had pulled together in a furrow about 15 minutes in, worry painting his face.

 “We need to contact dad,” Dick admitted begrudgingly. “It’s been two days since Jason went missing, and all we have is that he most likely got kidnapped by a meta that doesn’t fit the description of any villain currently out on the streets of Gotham. Like it or not, we’re out of our depth.”

 “That's not an option. He’s on a JLA mission, and you know what that means.” Tim said. The younger boy looked terrible, hair disheveled and face a mask of coffee-induced wakefulness.

 “He’d return in a second if he knew Jason was in danger and you know it, Tim,” Dick growled, immediately regretting his words. “Sorry. Just-”

 “Worried. Me too, Dick,” Tim sighed, placing down his laptop and rubbing his temples. “I don’t doubt he’d come back, it’s just that the only way to contact him is through JLA computers in the Watchtower. Nevermind that we don’t know where that is, or that dad pointedly told us to never contact the League.”

He flopped backwards onto the couch with a sigh, miraculously not spilling a single drop of coffee as he did.

 “I’ve met the Flash before, you know,” Dick grumbled. “…fine, you’re right. Secret identities come first, and if we somehow managed to leak dad’s identity he’d kill us. We should keep the option open, though.”

 “Meaning?”

 “…meaning he specifically said we weren’t allowed to contact the League, not that we couldn’t find and break into the Watchtower to contact him.”

Tim jerked up from where he was laying to stare at Dick.

 “Really? You’re letting me track down the Watchtower ? As in the only JLA base we haven’t been able to find, that B only talks about in passing and avoids questions about?” He breathed, a mischievous smile pulling at his features.

 “Is that even possible?” Duke asked.

 “Sure it is. We just need to retrace where dad’s tracker went before he left Earth and we’ll find it,” Tim chugged the rest of his coffee, lunging for his laptop and beginning to type something into it. “The zeta tube’s going to make it a bit difficult, but his tracker should have popped up where the base is.”

 “Not so fast, Timmy,” Dick pushed his laptop closed with a small thunk. “3-day rule.”

 “Hey!” Tim pulled it open again, closed a few programs, and shut it again at his brother's glare.

 “What’s that?” Duke asked, perking up. “I thought B had a 24-hour rule.”

 “Ah right, I keep forgetting you weren’t around during Jason’s kidnapping period,” Dick sat down across from Duke, a wistful smile pulling at his features. “Jason used to purposefully get himself kidnapped when he first rejoined the family, just for kicks. We implemented a 3-day don’t-do-anything-drastic policy, since most of the time we got halfway through rescuing him only for him to break out anyway. Usually all that resulted in more problems, since we have a tendency to be a bit impulsive when we think someone in the family is in danger.”

 “We don’t want to do anything stupid, and breaking into the Justice League HQ just to contact B would definitely qualify as stupid,” Tim said, rolling over onto his stomach. "But I should at least get working on it.

 “B prefers it when we obey by the rule, especially when it comes to contacting him while he's out on League business,” Dick explained. “So, tomorrow we start looking into the Watchtower.” 

 “Okay cool, I’ll start working as soon as I can.”

 “Nah ah ah Tim, if you start working before 10am tomorrow I’m going to bench you. You need sleep.” Dick chided him, flicking his younger brother's forehead.

 “I’m the one doing the research, I can just follow you.” Tim shot back.

 “Not with Alfred looking over you.”

The younger boy cursed under his breath.

 “Fine,” Tim relented, flicking his laptop open again. “I just need to finish typing up the report, then I’ll go to bed.”

 “Let me do it. You need the rest,” Dick closed the laptop again, shooting his brother a glare. “You haven’t slept since you found out Jason was missing.”

 “Neither have you.” 

 “I can do it,” Duke piped up. “You just spent nearly an hour running through the case with me, I can write it.”

 “Thanks, Duke,” Dick said, looking at his brother with a grateful expression. “You’re a lifesaver.”

 “What are siblings for, man? Get some sleep, I got this.”

But even as Dick got ready for some much needed rest, he couldn’t keep the mission out of his head. Jason had to be okay, he had to. And hopefully once Bruce was here, he’d be able to confirm that. A couple days wait, and Jason would be home.

All he had to do was wait.

...Dick hated waiting.

~ in the Watchtower ~

Diana was stressed. More specifically, she’d been stressed for the last two weeks.

Two weeks ago, Flash started acting weirdly. His usually lighthearted jokes became a lot more malicious, he became more aggressive and snappy during League meetings. That was enough to put her on edge, especially in light of Batman going on a mission a week later.

Not to mention that outburst during Red Hood’s interrogation. She’d been meaning to talk to him about that, but with him spending the two days since the interrogation holed up in Central City, she hadn’t exactly gotten the chance.

She could say that she wasn’t getting slowly driven up the wall by him, but if she did she’d be lying.

And then there was Red Hood himself. The man was impossible, constantly running circles around anyone they sent into the interrogation room. Clearly he was intelligent, seeing as he’d managed to figure out the League’s identities, but she wasn’t sure what he was trying to do.

For someone who seemed so quick-witted, getting himself sent to Arkham or Blackgate would have been the easiest way to escape. But he’d purposefully gotten himself stuck here in limbo, threatening to reveal their identities if they sent him away.

She didn’t know what game he was playing at, but it clearly wasn’t good.

 “Diana?”

She startled, turning around to find Clark offering her a cup of coffee.

 “Thanks,” She took the cup out of his hands, taking a long sip. “What’s going on?”

 “Nothing, just wanted to talk to you about Hood,” He sat down, nipping at his own cup and doing his best to suppress his nose from wrinkling with disgust. He hated coffee with a burning passion, but still drank it for some reason. “We can’t keep him here forever.”

 “But we can’t let him go, at risk of revealing the League’s identities,” Diana replied. “We need to wait until Batman is back. He’s a lot more familiar with Hood than we are.”

 “He won’t be happy that we went into Gotham without his permission,” Clark took another sip of coffee, failed to suppress a disgusted shiver at the taste, and placed the cup down. “Nevermind that Hood’s drug trafficking ring was leaking into Metropolis, and is still influencing Central City according to Flash.”

 “Is that why he has been so aggravated the last few weeks?” Diana asked. She knew that the ring had been influencing places other than Gotham and Metropolis, but she never would have guessed anywhere as far out as Central City.

Clark sighed, picking up the coffee cup decisively and drinking half of it in a single gulp. “I don’t know. He seems so… different than usual. I thought it would get better once we captured Hood, but it seems he was less involved in the trafficking ring than we thought.”

 “It’s not in Flash’s nature to deal with his problems with anger. Something else is going on here, but I’m not sure what,” Diana said. “Back to the issue at hand; Batman is returning next Tuesday. What should we do with Hood until then?”

 “Keeping him in a cell up here, I guess? Doing another interrogation might be worth it too, we still haven't gotten anything about the drug trafficking ring,” He said. “We need to find a way to use the Lasso on him.”

 “Remember the first time we tried to put it on Hood,” Diana shivered at the memory. The lasso had reacted to some sort of toxin in his veins, causing him to thrash even while unconscious and vitals to drop sharply. Hence why their initial interrogation had been done without it. “Atom took some of his blood to analyze, but the results aren’t back yet. Until then, we can't risk it for fear of killing him.”

 “We’ll just have to wait and see, then.”

Diana hated waiting.

Chapter Text

~ a cell in the Watchtower ~

Jason was not having a good time, to put it simply.

It had been three days since his initial kidnapping, two since they’d stuck him in a steel grey cell with no windows and barely enough space to walk around, and he was bored . He used to think captivity was fun, but apparently that was only true when his kidnappers were half as capable, twice as aggressive, and evil.

His healing factor had apparently decided to take the week off, since his ribs still burned when he breathed even though they should have been at least somewhat healed by now.

All in all, terrible.

His only source of relief were the one or two times a League member would come down and try to interrogate him. That, at least, was entertaining.

Jason was jerked out of his thoughts by a knock on his cell bars, and a tranquilizer dart hitting his neck.

The next time he woke up, he was in that damn interrogation room again, clock ticking behind his head. He really wanted to smash it- stay calm.

 “We meet again, Hood.” Wonder Woman said. She stood across the table as she usually did, Superman next to her and the Atom in the chair in front of them both.

 “Be weird if we didn’t, seeing as I’ve been stuck in your basement for three days,” He snapped. His patience was really wearing thin at this point. “So? I thought I’d hammered that you’re not getting anything out of me into your thick skull, Diana.”

 “On the contrary, we’re here because we think we figured something out about you,” The Atom placed a manila folder on the table, opening it to pages of test results. “We took a blood sample from you while you were unconscious.”

Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck-

 “Ye-yeah?” He stuttered, cursing himself for it. “Find anything interesting, Palmer?”

If Atom seemed surprised by Jason knowing his civilian identity, he didn’t show it. Great, there went his one and only intimidation tactic.

 “You seem to have an incredibly high concentration of chemicals I’ve only ever seen in one place running through your veins,” Atom affixed Jason with a curious, almost analytical look. “So tell me, when did you take a swim in a Lazarus Pit?”

  Shit .

 “Fuck off, I said you weren’t getting anything out of me.”

 “Unfortunately for you, we’re not giving you that choice this time.” Diana pulled out her Lasso, tying it into a loop.

 “So you finally decided to bust out the Lasso,” Jason was confused. Why now? “Any reason it took you this long, or did you just love my sunny personality so much you wanted to keep me around for a bit longer?”

 “The Lasso heals anyone it touches from toxins and poisons,” Diana explained, rolling her eyes at his antics. “It started burning through the Pit chemicals in your veins, which began to kill you. I’m sure you noticed the burn mark on your wrist from that endeavor.”

Jason twisted his wrist uncomfortably at her words, feeling a twinge of pain from the burn wound. He’d assumed it was just chafing from the rope, but considering how bad the burns were on only one wrist, that made more sense.

 “Luckily, Atom was able to synthesize a temporary suppressant that allows you to survive while being touched by the Lasso, which we administered in the dart earlier.”

 “Oh, lucky me .” Jason hissed as the edges of his right glove was pulled down, and the Lasso was slipped around his bare wrist. It was warm, uncomfortably so, teetering on the edge of burning.

 “Do you know what this is?” Superman held up two familiar canisters of toxin, one marked with green and the other with red.

 “Green canister’s fear toxin, red one’s anger toxin,” Jason said, words spilling out of his mouth involuntarily. Fuck, that was going to be hard to resist. “Made by the Scarecrow, nasty stuff. Where’d you get it from?”

 “We’re asking the questions here,” Diana leaned forward, taking the red canister and placing it on the table. “The chemicals in the anger toxin can also be found in your veins, or more specifically in the Lazarus Pit. How do we synthesize an antidote?”

Jason leaned away from the canister unconsciously, the smell of cinnamon and iron making him want to throw up.

 “T- my brother is better at chemical stuff than I am,” He said, biting tongue at Tim’s name. He’d gotten this far, there’s no way in hell he was giving away his sibling’s identities now. “My dad can synthesize one for the fear toxin too, but the anger shit is new, been around a few months maybe? They’re still working on an antidote.”

 “You have a family?” Clark blurted.

 “An annoying one, yeah,” Jason’s mind became a swirl of ‘fuck fuck fuck’ as words continued to tumble out of his mouth. “Four brothers, two sisters, dad, and grandfather.”

 “Where can we find this brother of yours?” Diana asked.

 “Gotham, duh,” Jason bit his tongue a second time, this time tasting blood. His vision went green with pit madness, the lasso heating up around his wrist. “I swear to god, if you go anywhere near him I’m going to rip your fucking head off -”

Suddenly his body was engulfed in white hot pain, bleeding any green from his sight in seconds.

The pain receded with his madness, senses clearing enough for him to notice a buzzing sound fill the air.

Not buzzing, screaming.

Oh, that was him.

 “-d Hood! Hood!!” He felt hands grasp his arm, his burning hot wrist, and remove the lasso and suddenly he could breathe again.

 “What the fuck was that?” He panted, gulping in sweet oxygen and ignoring the searing pain in his ribs as he did.

 “It- it seems that anger triggers your body to make more Lazarus Pit chemicals, thus burning through the suppressant in a near instant.” Atom explained shakily, writing something down onto his files.

 “Great,” Jason let his head fall back, glaring at the ceiling as if it could rid him of the black creeping at the edge of his vision. “Something tells me you’re not going to stop this interrogation despite that.”

 “Now that you have seen the damage your anger can do, you have an incentive to tell the truth.” Diana said simply.

 “Uh, you do realize you’re talking to the kid that has explosives in his helmet, right?” Not anymore, but whatever. The logic still applied. “There isn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do to protect my family, and that includes getting tortured by a magical rope because I have anger issues.”

 “We’ll curb the interrogation until another day, then,” Diana snapped as she gathered the rope, attaching it to her belt again. “This conversation isn’t over.”

 “Yep.” Jason popped the ‘P’, suddenly feeling very tired.

His vision went black.

~ ??? hours later ~

Jason woke with a start to someone knocking on the bars of his cell.

 “Already?” He groaned, rolling over with a pained groan (wow, his ribs were in a lot of pain now) to see who was there.

 “Hood,” Flash said, his voice upbeat as usual but with a barely discernible edge of malice to it that sounded wrong coming from him. “Look, I’m- I’m technically not supposed to talk to you, but I need to know more about this .”

He held up a canister of anger toxin, and Jason wished he could fall asleep and never wake up again because he really, really didn’t want to deal with this anymore.

 “Ask one of your JLA friends, I’m tired,” He tried to roll over and fall back asleep, but jerked into a sitting position when he heard a fist slam against metal. “Why the fuck are you punching my cell bars?!”

 “Just- they won’t tell me anything, nothing makes sense anymore, I-” Flash collected himself with a deep breath, plopping down to sit on the floor next to the cell door. “This stuff has been flying all over Central City for weeks now, and everything has been off since then. My temper is shorter, I’m scared and anxious all the time , and Atom did some tests, and I managed to find these in the City, but no one’s telling me anything anymore.”

 “…It’s anger toxin,” Jason explained hesitantly, heart twinging with sympathy for Flash. He'd never been dosed with anger toxin before thanks to his helmet, but he'd seen enough people be affected by it to know it wasn't pleasant. “You’re probably being dosed with it daily in Central City. Fear toxin too, if the anxiety is anything to go by.”

 “Is there an antidote?”

 “For the fear shit there is, Batsy can make you some once he’s back from whatever mission he’s on right now. For anger toxin there isn’t one yet.” Jason said, regretting his words as Flash perked up suddenly, jumping to his feet.

 “Yet?” He pressed himself to the bars, anger toxin canister dangerously close from slipping between his fingers.

 “Careful with that, Allen,” Jason warned him, and Flash removed a hand from the bars so that he could properly hold the toxin. “And yeah. Your little League already knows, so I might as well mention it. I know someone who’s working on an antidote, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up for it anytime soon. Your best bet is Diana’s Lasso right now.”

 “No, who? I want to talk to them.” Flash pressed, and Jason’s vision went dangerously green.

 “Not a fucking option. Touch him and I hunt you for sport.” He snarled, signature Red Hood anger leaking into his voice.

 “Okayyy then,” Flash held up his hands placatingly. He took a few steps back, and with him the green receded from Jason’s vision. “The Lasso of Truth, huh…?”

 “Talk to her about it or- something, I couldn’t care less and am now going to go back to sleep.”

 “Nope you're not, you’re telling me more about this. How’s it made?”

 “How the fuck am I supposed to know? The Scarecrow manufactures it, not me,” Jason flopped off the bed with an annoyed growl, levelling Flash with a glare before realizing he was still wearing his helmet. “Wait until Batman’s back. He’s fought Scarecrow hundreds of times, knows more about him than I do.”

That was a partial truth. B had tangled with Dr. Crane a lot more than Jason had, but after spending a few days infiltrating his labs, he knew a lot more about the process than he wanted to let on. Rather not make himself look responsible for all this.

 “Fuck- Spooky’s only gonna be back by Tuesday,” Flash took a few steps back before gripping the cell bars again, almost as if to hold himself up. “Too long. That person you mentioned earlier; would you be willing to take me to them?”

A green flash of anger spiked in Jason, and he had to take a deep breath to keep calm.

 “Kinda stuck in a cell right now, so no, ” He growled. "You're not going anywhere near them if I have anything to say about it."

 “What if- okay wow this is a bad idea even by my standards- I let you out in exchange for taking me to this person? I just want to talk to them once.”

 “Wow you’re right, that is a stupid idea,” Jason would have laughed if he wasn’t so ticked off right now. “What makes you think the League would ever let me leave?”

 “Well- I could just not tell them.”

Jason blinked. How stupid-? Nevermind, he’d have to talk to Bruce about his choice of coworkers later.

 “Say you let me go,” He hypothesized. “What stops me from hitting you over the head, or shooting you, or even just taking off my helmet while you’re running me there and blowing both of us up?”

 ”Killing me would just make the League hunt you down, so you wouldn’t.”

...what the fuck?

 “That’s… not going to stop me from killing you.”

 “Well- I’m stressed, okay?? I can’t think straight right now,” Flash complained, rubbing his head. "I want to trust you even though it's a really stupid idea, because you're my only hope of helping Central City. That make any sense?"

The gas must really be doing a number on him.

 Jason thought about it for a second. Flash had met Nightwing as far as he knew, so he could just find Dick and get word to Tim about the anger toxin through him. Hopefully he could then stay off the grid until Tuesday, when Bruce would get back and explain everything.

That could work.

 “Okay.” Jason said simply.

 “Okay?” Flash repeated.

 “You have my word, on one condition,” Flash looked at him expectantly, so Jason continued. “You’re not going anywhere near the kid. We’re meeting up with someone that knows them instead, someone reliable.”

 “Are you kidding me? That’s definitely a trap!” Flash shot back.

 “That’s all I’m offering, take it or leave it.”

Flash mulled it over for a second, pacing the length of the jail in a split second before speaking again.

 “I’ll… I don’t like it, but I’ll take it,” He said, voice taking on a harsh edge. “Just so you know, I technically don’t have clearance to actually open the door, so I’m going to have to bust it down. This better work.”

He secured the canister to his belt, zipped away, and then-

Wham! Hiss!

The cell door burst into pieces, sending shrapnel through the room as Flash plowed into it.

For a split second, Jason genuinely thought that this batshit crazy plan would actually work.

And then the alarms started blaring. Nevermind then.

And suddenly, his senses were overcome with the acrid smell of iron and spicy cinnamon, making him want to sneeze and throw up at the same time. Red flooded his vision, billowing through the room.

Luckily his mask kept him safe from the stuff, but that wasn't what he was worried about.

 “Flash! You need to run, the toxin-” Jason tried to say, only for his eyes to land on the red-clad speedster emerging from the smoke. “Oh fuck.”

The billowing red toxin seemed to blend with Flash’s suit, taking deep breaths of it as an alarm blared.

 “New plan,” He said, voice teetering on dangerous. He picked up a steel bar that had broken off the cell door. “Who’s this ‘kid’, and where do I find them, Red Hood?”

Well. Fuck.

~ Back at the Manor, around the same time ~

Tim’s head felt like it was about to explode.

He’d been combing through Bruce’s logs for the last 15 hours, to no avail. He'd lost track of how much coffee he'd consumed in that time, but it couldn't be good.

Despite the time Damian and Duke were sitting with him, the former with his nose in a sketchbook undoubtedly drawing scenes of violence he saw during patrol that day and the latter working on a school essay that Tim would probably have to catch up on once all this was over.

 “Huh…” Tim blinked a few times, highlighting a bit of code generated just after Bruce would have gone through the zeta tube if his meticulous searching was accurate. “None of this makes any sense, it just disappears.”

 “You must have done something wrong, Drake. That’s not possible unless he turned off his tracker when he went there.” Damian snarked, drawing a particular harsh line that Tim could hear from across the room.

 “No, the code here says it’s still pinging, just out of range,” Tim shot back, rubbing his face tiredly. “But that doesn’t make any sense!”

 “It’s not like it’s in space or something, it can’t he that hard to find.” Duke commented, not even looking up from his essay.

Wait.

 “…Duke, say that again.” Tim stood up, shaking off the blanket he’d draped over his legs to sit next to his brother.

 “What, it’s not like it’s in space-?” His eyes went wide. “Ohhhhhh.”

 “ That is not a half-bad idea,” Tim brought up a map of satellites. “Obviously I can’t actually track it in space right now, but if I configure the code to be transferred through a satellite, I might-”

 “What’s the point?” Damian cut him off, affixing Tim with a glare over the edge of his sketchbook. “If it's nowhere we can find on Earth, it just be in space, and we’re not getting onto it without going through a zeta tube. And as little faith I have in you, Drake, I don’t think even you are stupid enough to break in through the front door.”

 “Yes I am, except I’m going to do it properly,” Tim brought up another program. “D’you think we could get Oracle to hack the zeta tubes to give us access? She’s the one who helped dad create the system in the first place, so it shouldn’t take longer than a day or two.”

 “That could work…” Duke rubbed his chin. “We'll do it tomorrow. Dick’s going to be home from patrol in like half an hour, and he’s going to flay us alive if we aren't asleep by then.”

 “Tt, fine. Talk to me when you have an inkling of a plan.” Damian placed down his sketchbook and pencil, jumping off the couch and disappearing up the stairs to his room.

 “Well, at least he’s coming with us,” Tim sighed. “Night, Duke.”

 “Night, Tim.”

He just hoped Jason was still okay.

Chapter Text

~ The Watchtower (again) ~

All Jason could hear was laughter, cackling laughter all around him. It echoed off metal walls, punctuated by a crowbar slamming into his jaw that suddenly switched to a broken metal beam, hitting his legs, ankles, shattering his helmet in tandem with the crowbar shattering his jaw.

His surroundings flickered, switching between a dirty, rusted warehouse splattered red with blood and a prison cell, covered in shrapnel and engulfed in crimson gas.

He needed out, out, OUT-

Jason shot up, heart beating out of his chest as he struggled to suck in breaths.

He regretted moving instantly, head spinning so badly he nearly threw up. 

His entire body was sore, bruised and battered in an all too familiar way. His ribs felt as if they’d been re-broken, every breath burning in his chest. His ankle burned similarly, a thick, itchy brace strapped around it.

He brought a hand up to run across his helmet, fingertips brushing cracks and dips where bits of red material had broken off.

He followed the cracks to their epicenter, where his fingers found a missing piece of helmet, brushing the cold plastic of his domino mask. He spied what he thought was the helmet piece on the ground, a faint red blob in an otherwise sterile grey environment.

 “You’re awake,” Diana’s voice said from Jason’s left, startling him. Her voice was taut, sounding almost concerned. “How are you feeling?”

He tried to look over to her, and luckily his vision had cleared up enough for him to recognize the red, blue, and gold Wonder Woman costume quickly, standing on the other side of the cell bars.

 “Why the fuck do you care?” A bit of green tinted his vision, a swirl of irritation stirring in his gut. “I’m sick of this shit. Just- slap your Lasso on me, ask whatever questions you want, and let me sleep until Batman is back.”

 “We’re going to hold off on using the Lasso until you’ve recovered,” Diana explained hesitantly. “For now, I just want to know what happened. No Lasso, just from you.”

 “What’s there to know? You must have already interrogated Allen, and unless he lied about breaking me out in a half-baked plot to get his hands on a toxin antidote while high on the stuff, there’s nothing I can add.” Jason sneered.

Diana just sighed, voice defeated. “So, he was telling the truth. This toxin seems to be more dangerous than we thought.”

 “Congrats, you finally figured it out, can you kindly fuck off now?” He snapped. “Did you not ask Batman about any of this? He’s been fighting Scarecrow for years, you don’t need me.”

 “We already contacted him. He’s giving advice as best he can, but he can’t do much away from Earth,” She explained. “He’s returning tomorrow night.”

 “Cool. Let me sleep until then.” Jason eased himself back onto the bed, turning away from her and closing his eyes.

He found himself laying awake, though, memories of the day before playing in his mind.

He couldn’t sleep.

~

Dick couldn’t sleep. Go figure.

It was Sunday night, specifically 3 hours before he was heading off into the Watchtower to contact Bruce, and he could barely think through the thick fog of worry clouded around his mind.

Their plan was simple; Dick would go into the tower first around midnight, hiding his arrival with some code Oracle added to the system discreetly. Chances were that he wouldn’t see anyone in the Tower, but just in case he did he’d say Flash invited him up to check out the place if anyone questioned him.

He’d find engineering control, plug in a USB that’d spread a virus through the system giving Babs remote access, and book it back to the zeta tube as fast as possible. If he got captured somehow, Tim and Damian would give him 12 hours to get out before breaking him out themselves.

He’d studied the building map the second he got his hands on it (thanks to Damian spending 3 hours going through Bruce’s office to find the blueprints) and knew the whole building like the back of his hand, so he should be relaxed.

...right?

He sighed, pulling himself out of bed. He wasn’t going to get any sleep before he’d have to leave, so he might as well get ready.

Suiting up was quick as usual, though he spent a minute fiddling with the new comm Tim and Babs had fashioned together. In theory it’d work all the way up in space, but they hadn’t been able to test it at all so they weren’t sure.

He also slipped a new emergency beacon into his belt, one that would theoretically work in space too, but he doubted he’d need it. It was the Justice League, after all. They wouldn’t hurt him… he hoped.

Other than that… he glanced at a family photo he had on his nightstand. It was taken maybe 3 or 4 months ago, right after Jason rejoined the family. It was a shot Tim had taken, featuring the entire family during a movie night.

Jason had fallen asleep half-slumped on Dick, Bruce passed out in an armchair off to the side. Damian perched on top of the couch arms the entire night to spite Duke, who’d been forced to sit on the floor after Cass and Steph had claimed the rest of the couch after he got up to get popcorn.

It was a fond memory, even though he’d woken up with a sore neck and an arm covered in doodles thanks to Damian.

Jason was going to be okay, he told himself. He had to be.

He left his room.

~ Three hours later ~

Dick really didn’t like the zeta tube. The whole thing was bulky yet so cramped on the inside, making him feel choked.

Tim was standing outside of it, fiddling with the controls per Oracle’s instructions to make sure Dick’s arrival wouldn’t send an alert to anyone in the Watchtower. He looked a bit better rested than the day before, but that wasn't saying much considering his eye bags were deeper than the Mariana Trench and as dark as Batman's cape.

 “Ready?” He called into the tube.

 “Yeah,” Dick took a deep breath, pressing a black domino mask onto his face just as the zeta tube whirred to life. “See you in half an hour.”

The actual trip was disorienting, making his head spin. One second he was standing in the cool, humid Batcave, and the next all moisture seemed to have been sucked out of the air, leaving him cold in a steel grey room.

 “ Recognized: Nightwing R-1. ” Thank goodness, it worked.

The walls were lined with metal support pillars, curling up into a domed ceiling. Between the pillars were panels of windows, looking out into- yep, the vast emptiness of space. Definitely not escaping this place through anywhere but the zeta tube.

 “Nightwing?” Tim’s voice crackled through his comm, a lot choppier than usual, but the earpiece seemed to be working fine.

 “Red Robin,” He replied, tapping the earpiece. “You were right, it’s in space.”

 “Nightwing? Tim just repeated. “Okay, computer says your comm is still working, but I can’t hear anything, so I’m assuming that you can hear me but I can’t hear you.”

 “Ah, great,” Nightwing muttered to himself. “Something tells me the emergency beacon isn’t going to work either, so I guess I’m on my own.”

 "I'll update you if anything new happens on my end. See you soon, Big Bird." Tim's voice said, before his end of the comm switched off.

He thought back to the map; all he had to do was find the main dome and skirt around the edge until he found engineering control. It was 5 doors down, and as long as he was silent he should be fine.

It seemed that way, at least, as he slipped into a curving hallway and ran down, counting doors carefully. They were far apart, each seemingly opening with the press of a panel at the side.

He couldn’t help but marvel at the structure a bit. The walls all along the corridor were paneled with glass, a similar metal pillar design as the zeta tube room curving between each window panel.

As he ran, he could see Earth through the window in all its glory, continents alight with clusters of light. It was pretty, he had to admit, but he ripped his gaze away. He had a job to do.

Finally, Nightwing found the room he needed. The door looked the same as all the others, but he didn’t waste any time slamming a hand onto the panel, the door opening with a whoosh.

That was his worst mistake of the day by far, if you didn’t count getting the fucking room wrong.

It opened to Wonder Woman, Superman, and Flash sitting in a meeting room with Green Arrow and Black Canary.

Well then.

 “-lesson learned, don’t try to break murderers out of-” Flash was saying, but stopped at the hiss of the door.

Superman was the first to notice Nightwing, head snapping towards the hero.

He stood up abruptly, alerting the other heroes to the eldest Robin's presence.

Flash looked over, a look of surprise and then recognition passing over his face.

“Nightwing??” He blurted.

 “Uh-” He scanned the expressions of everyone in the room. Ah great, now B was going to kill him. “Wrong room?”

He then slammed his hand back onto the panel, door whooshing closed on the indignant yells coming from inside the room now.

 “Oh, fuck fuck fuck-” He turned on one of his escrima sticks and slammed the electrified end into the control panel, breaking it and hopefully trapping the League- oh my god this was bad - inside their meeting room for a bit longer.

He then booked it down the hall, desperately wracking his brain for where engineering control might be.

Why the hell did he trust the blueprints?? Of course they were out of date, they must have been from when the building was first constructed years ago, so they must have shuffled the rooms around, or built more of them, or-

 “Stop!” He heard Wonder Woman yell behind him.

Oh, fuck .

 “No thanks!” He yelled back, ducking under her Lasso easily and spying a stairwell as he did.

He jumped down it without any further consideration, pulling out his grapple in preparation for catching himself.

It only went down 3 floors, Nightwing catching the railing and dropping down to the floor with a roll to save his ankles from a dreaded superhero landing, finding himself in a lower light area, without any windows and a line of doorways.

He picked the third doorway from the left, threw it open easily, and slammed it shut behind him.

The room wasn’t all that long, with three cells lining it. One had been busted into if the shrapnel pushed into one of the now-open cells was anything to go by. He saw a door on the other end- that would lead him out and into a different part of the Watchtower if he remembered the plan right, but-

 “Dickhead?” A very familiar voice said, partially mechanized in a painfully familiar way.

He knew that voice. Nightwing turned, to the cell next to the destroyed one, to see a red helmet, shattered over the eye and under it a domino mask identical to his own in design.

He couldn’t believe it.

 “…Jason?”

~ 5 minutes earlier, in the meeting room ~

Diana’s head hurt, but that was expected at this point.

 “So, Hood confirmed your story,” She said to a downtrodden Flash. “We’re suspending you for the week, and putting you on probation for 3 months after. Everything you did down there was the worst thing you could have done in that situation, especially bringing a canister of anger toxin into the presence of a criminal without permission or proper safety precautions.”

 “The only reason you’re not being expelled from the League is because you were under the influence of the anger toxin,” Superman explained, his voice harsh. “But even before that, while you weren’t thinking straight, you still thought it was a good idea to free a dangerous criminal without our permission or knowledge, and go on a wild goose chase for an antidote that hasn’t even been created yet.”

Diana could tell the whole situation bothered him. He’d been the one to bring in Hood, after all, so knowing Clark he felt responsible for his injuries. She felt guilty too, but for a different reason; she hadn’t done anything to help Barry for weeks, leading him to this outburst.

 “I… I’ll take it,” Barry conceded, looking down. “I deserve more than that. As long as Central City is being looked after, I’ll deal with whatever punishment you give me.”

“No need for that,” Diana said. “All we ask is that you go to counseling with Dinah, and work on communicating more openly with. Some of the blame of this… incident is on us too. Firstly, for not checking on you earlier, and secondly for keeping you out of the investigation. It was foolish of us. My apologies.”

 “Accepted,” He waved her off, a bit of that lighthearted Barry charm re-infecting his voice. “We all made mistakes. Lesson learned, don’t try to break murderers out of-”

He was cut off by the door opening, and Superman standing up suddenly.

Diana whipped her head around to see a hero she was unfamiliar with standing in the door, looking like a deep in headlights.

 “Nightwing??” Flash blurted, face flashing with recognition.

The hero- Nightwing, apparently- scanned the room quickly.

 “Uh,” He said. His voice sounded on the younger side, probably in his early 20s. “Wrong room?”

He then slammed his hand on the panel, closing the door on all of them just as Canary and Arrow started to say something.

Flash zipped to the door only to find the panel shorted out.

 “Sit back down, you’re on probation,” Diana snapped at him. She kicked the door down easily, just seeing Nightwing disappear down the hallway. “Superman, with me. Canary, Arrow, get to the monitor womb and check that nothing’s been tampered with.”

She then sprinted after him, Lasso in hand.

 “Stop!” She yelled as she caught up with him, throwing her Lasso. It stretched toward him through the air, ready to capture him.

 “No thanks!” He yelled back, dodging the Lasso- how the hell did he dodge it - His head snapped to a stairwell leading to the lower levels.

Without a second thought he hopped down it, and by the time Diana caught up he was gone from view. Damn it, there were a ton of doors down there.

She jumped down just as a door slammed closed.

 “Superman, x-ray the rooms.” She said as Clark floated next to her.

 “On it,” His pupils glowed a soft red as he looked across all the rooms. “Shoot- he’s right by Hood’s cell.”

 “Fuck.” She said on instinct.

 “Language,” Clark retorted on instinct. “He’s stationary, so we should be able to sneak up on him.”

She opened the door carefully, to see Nightwing fiddling with the lock.

 “What the hell are you doing here, dickhead?!” Hood was saying, mechanized voice mixing with his actual one.

 “Nevermind that, I need to break you out,” Nightwing replied, clicking the lock open and stepping into the cell. “What the hell happened?

Diana saw her chance and took it, slamming the cell doors shut behind him.

 “I see you two are familiar,” She said simply, glaring at Nightwing as he turned around to look at her indignantly. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind staying here then, Nightwing.”

 “What the fuck did you do to him?” He hissed, slamming his hands into the bars with a murderous glare. “His helmet is bashed in, how did you manage-”

 “We’ll talk tomorrow, Nightwing.” She cut him off coldly. So, this “Nightwing” was on friendly terms with Hood. Just their luck, a criminal had managed to break into the Watchtower.

She turned, sweeping out of the room.

~ in Jason's cell ~

Dick slammed his hands into the bars as Wonder Woman left the room, flipping her off for good measure. He fished the distress beacon off his belt and pressed it three times, yet it didn't work. He expected it, but after that whole ordeal it made him want to punch something.

He was going to have a talk with Bruce about his choice of co-workers after all this calmed down.

He turned to his brother, immediately crouching at his side. He was sitting up in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed, looking dangerously injured if his hunched posture and splinted ankle were anything to go by.

 “What happened, Jaybird?” He asked, voice dropping to nearly a whisper. He didn’t see any cameras or mics, but he couldn’t be sure there weren’t any.

 “Her and Clark -” He spat the name as if it was poison- “found me while I was at the warehouse and apprehended me. Tried to escape, but Diana broke my ribs by slamming me into the side of the warehouse, and hauled me back here.”

 “Fuck,” Dick replied eloquently. “RR and I surveyed scene and figured as much, just- not that it was fucking Superman and Wonder Woman.”

 “Yeah, well, I was surprised too,” He grumbled. “Apparently Scarecrow’s been busy distributing toxins in Metropolis and Central City. Flash got a ton of micro doses across the span of two weeks, and broke a canister of anger toxin in here. That’s how that happened.”

He gestured to the destroyed cell.

 “He got your helmet?” Dick reached around the back of the thing. “I’m taking this off.”

 “Nope,” Jason caught his wrist. “I'm keeping the helmet on.”

 “It’s broken, Hood.”

 “Well, too bad.”

 “Little wing-” Dick started, pausing for a second. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. You’ve been missing for the better part of a week.”

 “…just put it back on before the League comes to interrogate us. That'll be tomorrow morning, so 6 hours.” Jason mumbled with an exasperated yet noticeably fond sigh. He moved to the side, giving Dick space to sit on the bottom bunk next to him.

Dick slid next to him, oh so gently prying off the helmet. 

His younger brother’s face came into view. He didn’t take off his domino mask for fairly obvious reasons, but even so he could tell Jason was bone tired. He was too pale, sweat-soaked hair flopping over his forehead with the white streak reflecting silver in the low light of the room.

 “Can I touch your head?” Dick asked gently, shifting so that Jason had space to rest on his shoulder.

Jason nodded wordlessly, leaning on his older brother like a sack of very injured potatoes.

As deft fingers ran through tangled, sweat-soaked raven locks, gently separating white hair from the dark surrounding it he started to talk, partially to fill Jay in on the plan and also fill the suddenly very tense silence.

 “RR and Robin should be coming for us in 12 hours,” He whispered as Jason’s eyes drifted shut, head against his shoulder. “I can pick the lock, but we wouldn’t get far without help, not with your ankle.”

 “I’m fine .” Jason grumbled, voice already thick with sleep.

 “Sure, Jaylad.”

 “Shut the fuck up.”

 “Love you too.”

 “…yeah yeah, Dickhead, love you back I guess.”

Dick Grayson may have been stuck in a dingy cell in the Watchtower for the next 12 hours, but he had his little brother back, and that was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

~ a cell in the Watchtower ~

Dick didn’t remember falling asleep, the last thing he remembered being the sensation of his fingers carding through greasy hair.

He awoke to a body shifting in his arms and a crick in his neck, domino mask pressing into his face uncomfortably.

Dick blinked his eyes open, removing one arm from where it was wrapped around Jason to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

 “…morning, Jaybird.” He murmured, poking his younger brother’s cheek to check if he was awake.

Jason slapped his hand away clumsily, pulling himself up with a small groan. Dick sat up too, one hand coming up to massage his neck.

 “Identities, Dickhead.” Jason grumbled in response, snatching his helmet from where it had been placed on the floor.

 “Hypocrite,” Dick snarked back as Jason slid the helmet onto his head, careful to not snag his domino on the broken edges. “Any idea when they’re going to interrogate us?”

 “No idea. My helmet display’s fucked, and without windows there’s no way to tell by sun location.”

 “Good thing my communicator just works enough to tell time,” Dick pulled his communicator off his belt, searching for the time display in the upper righthand corner. “It’s 8 in the morning. When do they usually pull you aside?”

Jason considered that for a second before replying. “Shifts change at 8 as far as I can tell, which is when they check on me. Chances are they’ll just drag us into an interrogation then and there.”

 “Not much time, then,” Dick knocked his head back, rubbing his face. “What’s our story?”

 “They’re going to use the Lasso of Truth on you, so it’s no use coordinating anything,” Jason murmured. “Try not to give too much away. It’s hard, but not impossible.”

 “Jesus. Don’t tell me they’ve been using that thing on you.” Dick’s brows furrowed with concern.

 “Only twice,” Jason held up his wrists, letting his sleeves fall down to expose red burn wounds that looked like rope burn on steroids. “Apparently Pit chemicals don’t mix well with magical ropes.”

 “They what?” He growled. Punching the League was sounding more appealing by the second. “I don’t care if you told them your full name, backstory, and family history, not getting hurt should be your only priority, Hood.”

 “Not on purpose, N, and I can handle-” Jason cut himself off suddenly. “Footsteps. Two sets… Diana and Clark, I think.”

Dick stood up, stepping half in front of Jason as the door opened.

Wonder Woman and Superman entered, the former wearing a hard gaze and the latter seeming more curious than anything.

Dick schooled his expression as best he could when he noticed the Lasso at her side.

 “Nightwing, Red Hood,” Superman greeted them, voice impassive. “We’re taking you out for interrogation.”

 “You going to drug me again, or are you actually not going to use your Lasso on me?” Jason snapped, standing up and trying to shoulder past Dick, who instead just pulled him back onto the bed to stop his younger brother from falling over.

 “I already told you I wasn’t going to use it until you were healed.” Diana’s brows furrowed.

 “Just me then, got it,” Dick grumbled, looking up to glare at the two Justice League members. “So? Are you going to do anything, or just stare at us?”

Just then he felt a prick in his neck, bringing a hand up to the spot to find a dart sprouting from that point.

He snatched the syringe and threw it against the floor, but it was too late as his vision started to slide in and out of focus.

 “Nightwing, you fucking idiot.” Was the last thing he heard before his vision went black.

~ the interrogation room ~

Dick woke up slowly, vision swimming as he came into consciousness. The first thing he noticed was sterile grey walls that were lighter than the cell walls, a dark two-way mirror to his left, and the sound of a ticking clock above him.

His wrists were bound tightly with glowing rope, and even though it didn’t burn the smooth texture of the lasso put him on edge.

Jason was sitting next to him, hands and legs handcuffed to a chair. Even with his helmet on Dick could tell he was pissed; his posture was tense, and his fingers twitched as if looking for the trigger of a gun.

Finally his attention rounded to the people in front of him; Wonder Woman, with Superman standing behind her like a bodyguard. 

A plastic bag was on the table between them, the inside containing his comm, emergency beacon, lockpick, and a few other gadgets Tim had bestowed upon him. Fuck, he needed those.

 "Now that Nightwing is awake, we can start the interview," She told Jason firmly, turning her unnerving gaze onto Dick. “What is your connection to Red Hood?”

 “He’s my younger brother,” Dick blurted against his will, cursing himself as his lips continued to move. “5 years younger, to be exact.”

Damn the Lasso felt weird, he thought.

 “5 years? I figured he was older than you.” Wonder Woman quirked her brow, and for some reason, the Lasso decided that was a question.

 “Pfft, Little Wing? He’s 17, still in high school.” He bit his tongue the second he said it, but it was too late.

 “Shut. Up.” Jason gritted out, turning his head to probably glare at Dick behind his helmet.

 “I’m sorry- a high schooler was running Gotham’s trafficking rings?” Superman asked, voice suddenly sounding pissed. That wasn’t good, was it? “How incompetent are we that a high schooler has been running circles around us for days on end?”

 “I just like bullying my kidnappers. It’s a good source of entertainment, used to be a hobby before dickhead here made me stop,” Hood drawled. “Can you get on with the interrogation now?”

 “Right,” Wonder Woman composed herself with a deep breath. “How did you break into the Watchtower?”

 “Combined efforts of my younger-younger brother and cousin,” Dick said. Describing Babs as his cousin didn’t seem right, but the Lasso seemed okay with that answer so he ran with it. “Once they registered me into the system it was as simple as making my arrival invisible and planning when the safest time to get here would be.”

Okay, the Lasso seemed to let him keep things vague. He could work with that, he thought.

 “Did you come here to rescue Hood?”

 “No,” He answered, unfortunately truthfully. “I came here to plug in a USB for O- my cousin so that she could get access to League computers. I just happened to find him here.”

 “This?” Wonder Woman held up the exact USB. Luckily Babs had the foresight to mark it with Nightwing’s symbol instead of a bat, but them having it still didn't put him that much at ease.

 “Yep.” He popped the 'P' at the end out of habit.

 “Why did you come here, then?”

 “Hood’s tracker obviously doesn’t work in space, so we were going access to your computers to help find him,” Dick supplied. Technically not a lie, though he felt the Lasso heat up against his wrist slightly. “It worked perfectly in the weirdest way.”

God, he was really grateful for the existence of half-truths right now.

 “Are we really just going to gloss over the fact that Hood isn’t even a legal adult?” Superman pinched his brow in frustration. “This isn’t going to go over well with the rest of the League…”

 “Hah, just wait until our dad gets back, he’s gonna raise hell,” Dick bit his tongue the second the words slipped out of his mouth. “He gets back tomorrow as far as I know.”

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. This was going to end badly.

 “Well, at least Batman will be back by then to deal with him,” Diana grumbled. “I think we’re done here.”

 “C’mon, already? I haven’t even bullied anyone out of the room yet,” Jason mock-whined, making Dick chuckle under his breath. “Fine, I guess I can settle for making Clark look like he was going to self-combust for most of the interrogation.”

 “Technically I did that.” Dick chided him.

 “Close enough.”

 “You-” Clark pinched his nose bridge, taking a deep breath. “Nevermind. Let’s just get you two back into cells.”

 “Wait- plural?” Dick asked, voice pitching slightly upwards as Diana slid off her lasso, and wrapped heavy cuffs around his wrists in place of it.

 “Separate us, I dare you.” Jason growled, a bit of that signature Red Hood menace seeping into his voice. It didn’t really seem to work on either of the League members, though, Wonder woman seeming completely uninterested and Superman just furrowing his brows a little.

 “Unfortunately, you’ll have to get used to it until Batman arrives.” Wonder Woman smirked slightly as she tugged a freshly handcuffed Dick to his feet. Superman had already cuffed Jason’s hands, undoing his ankle bindings easily.

Dick just managed to get a fleeting glance at the clock on his way out, but all he could see was that it was already 11. Damn it, they were running out of time.

The walk back was pretty easy, through winding hallways that Dick already recognized from when he’d first entered the Watchtower. After walking down the winding stairwell for what felt like forever (jumping down it would have been a lot more convenient) they finally made it to the cells.

And threw Dick in the bunk bed cell, and Jason in the last not-destroyed one.

Great.

 “Do we at least get breakfast?” Jason muttered, hobbling over to the bed while trying not to put too much weight on his ankle.

 “It’s nearly 12, so it’s a bit late for that,” Superman pointed out. “We’ll pull you out individually for another interrogation tonight.”

Dick just nodded. Nearly 12, huh… so nearly when Tim and Damian would be busting into here. He needed a game plan, since his old one just went out the window with the cell change and how much time he’d get to bust them out.

The minute they were out of the room, he turned to Jason on the other side of the room, who’d collapsed into the bed face-down.

 “Okay, the Robins are going to be here in-” He tried to check his communicator before realizing it’d been confiscated by the JLA. Dammit. “- actually I don’t know, but soon. What do we know about the security in this place?”

 “Busting down the walls by force sets off an alarm, but picking the lock works fine,” Jason tapped his chin in thought. “Uh… not much we can do about who’s on shift or anyone else in the Tower, but I assume you know the way to the zeta tubes?”

 “Yep,” Dick popped the P, pausing for a second to think. “Getting up the stairs with your ankle will be hard.”

 “I’ll live,” Jason grumbled. “I do know where our stuff is, actually. Turns out, being tranquilized with the same stuff for an entire week for mandatory check-ups and the occasional interview helps build a tolerance.”

That didn’t sound legit, which meant it was probably a Lazarus Pit thing.

 “Meaning?”

 “Meaning I was awake enough to see them pull your stuff of you and put it in a locker in the room over there.” Dick couldn’t see his brother’s face, but knowing him he was grinning maniacally right now as he gestured to the door to their right, the one opposite to the exit.

 “You’re a lifesaver, Little Wing,” Dick grinned at his brother. “And lucky for you, I happen to keep multiple lockpicks on me.”

He fished a spare lockpick out of his boot, waving the small tool at Jason.

 “In your boot? How did they not find it?”

 “Too small. Did they check your boots or something?" He responded, and then paused. “They confiscated your boot knife, didn’t they?”

 “I used it to pick the lock on my first night. Didn’t even make it to the end of the hallway before I got tackled by Green Martian. Apparently, he sensed me leaving or something like that.”

 “A for effort,” Dick shrugged. “Give me a minute to bust us out.”

It took him barely a minute to break his own lock, most of the mechanisms a bit broken from him lockpicking it the day before. Jason’s was different, so it took him maybe 3 or 4 minutes to break him out. (Rookie time, hopefully Jason wouldn’t mention it to Damian or else he’d never hear the end of it.)

The door to the evidence room was unlocked, and finding the locker was as easy as glancing at the still-unfinished report for the number.

 “Let me,” Jason plucked the lockpick out of Dick’s hands and hobbled to the locker. “Breaking into lockers is one of my favourite hobbies.”

 “Please don’t tell me you’re breaking into your classmates’ lockers for fun.” Dick turned to glare at Jason.

 “ Evidence lockers, but those too now that you mention it.” The lock swung open to reveal two escrima sticks, a selection of batarangs, and some smoke pellets.

Dick snatched those up as Jason moved on to another locker, that one swinging open to reveal his knife collection and a few guns that Dick recognized the lighter arsenal he usually kept on him for undercover missions.

 “This’ll work,” He strapped the guns to his side, slipping knife after knife into his pockets. “Think we can still find your comm, or should we get B to steal it back for us?”

 “Let him do it, we don’t have time.” He snatched Jason’s comm from out of his locker, checking the time. The thing itself looked as if it'd been partially crushed, but the display still worked somewhat.

12:06, damn it.

  “Let’s go.” Dick grabbed Jason’s arm and looped it over his shoulder despite his brother’s protests, heaving him down the length of the jail and up to the stairs.

It took them longer than Dick wanted it to to get them both up the stairs, between Jason having to catch his breath every level or so lest he hurt his ribs more and his ankle making everything twice as difficult.

Dick nearly offered to carry him, but one glance at Jason’s clenched fists and gritted teeth made him think better of it.

He glanced both ways down the hallway and all but dragged his brother down it, pointedly ignoring the door panel he’d destroyed the day before.

 “That you?” Jason asked, gesturing vaguely to the panel.

 “Yeah,” Dick murmured, jumping at a scuttle in the vents as they passed under a ventilation hatch. He was really starting to hate it up here, he thought. “Walked in on a JLA meeting, slammed one of my escrima sticks into the panels to escape, and booked it.”

 “So you finding me really was one big coincidence, huh,” Jason said, huffing a small laugh. “B is going to have a fit once he’s back. What, between me getting kidnapped, you breaking into the Watchtower, and the Robins probably causing problems on purpose right now, he’s going to have to explain a whole fucking lot-”

 “Shut, I think I hear something,” Dick pulled him away from where the zeta tubes were, where a familiar voice could be heard. “Is that-”

 “RR?” Jason breathed. “Fuck.”

 “-I can explain,” Tim said, and Dick could almost imagine the shit-eating grin currently pulling at his features. “I got curious what the famed Watchtower looked like is all, so I figured I’d come up here to check it out.”

 “Where is the child that was with you earlier?” Aquaman asked, voice ever regal.

 “What child?” He shot back. “Must have mistaken. In any case, I still wanted to see your meeting hall and if possible wherever you keep your big gun computers, so-”

 “Not so fast kid, you’re not supposed to be up here at all,” Superman said. “We already had a break-in not even a day ago, so we’re going to have to keep you here for questioning.”

 “Weird coincidence. Anyways-” God, Dick wished he had the level of nonchalance Tim had.

 “We need to get in there, don’t we?” Jason muttered, cursing under his breath when his older brother nodded. “We’re fucked.”

 “Wait,” Superman’s crisp southern accent cut clean through their conversation. “I hear something down the hall.”

 “Fuck!” Dick reeled back behind the wall. “Okay, uh- grab a gun, I’m gonna bowl two smoke pellets into the room. We get in there, grab Tim, and get out of here. Got it?”

Dick didn’t wait for him to answer, instead immediately hoisting his brother onto his back despite his indignant sqawks.

 “Fucking- put me down-”

Dick darted forward, bowling the pellets down the hallway. Jason shot one of them, making it explode in a burst of grey smoke.

Dick found Tim quickly, nearly running him over as he scrambled to grab his wrist and pull him in what he thought was the direction of the zeta tube.

 “Nightwing??” Tim yelled, scrambling to keep up with his brother.

 “Hey Red,” He grinned maniacally at his brother before gesturing to Jason. “Guess who I found?”

 “Fucking- Jason?!”

 “Names, RR!” Jason yelled, twisting on his brother’s back to shoot the second smoke pellet as it came into view just behind them. “Where’s Robin? I thought Dickhead here said he was coming with you!”

 “About that-” Tim didn’t get to finish, getting thrown to the side by Aquaman.

 “Red!” Nightwing yelled, scrambling back and nearly dropping Jason. He felt his brother’s weight be lifted off his back, and a swirl of air from a blur of red zipping around the room forced the smoke pellets to dissipate. “What the hell-”

He was cut off by Wonder Woman lunging at him with her sword. He barely dodged it, pulling out both escrima sticks to fend her off.

 “Why don’t we just talk about this?” He jumped forward, this time catching her sword between his escrima sticks and managing to roll away.

He needed to assess; Tim was on his feet across the room, fighting Aquaman trident against staff. He was holding his own, but that wasn’t what he was concerned about. Jason was currently being held in the air by Superman, thrashing and fighting as best he could.

 “How did you get out?” Wonder Woman growled. She brandished her sword, but seemed hesitant to attack. 

The battle seemed to be coming to a standstill now, Jason still thrashing but clearly losing steam. Tim’s staff was locked with Aquaman’s trident, the older hero managing to pin him against the wall with his own weapon.

 “Spare lockpick,” Dick grinned wryly. “You’re not very good at this whole ‘keeping prisoners’ thing, are you?”

 “That’s enough,” Superman’s firm voice boomed from above. “We’re taking all three of you to the cells.”

Dick felt cuffs click around his wrist, Wonder Woman’s rough hands circling his bicep to stop him from running away.

 “Shut the fuck up and put me down, Clark!” Jason thrashed, wriggling a knife into his hand and unsuccessfully stabbing the man of steel with it. It dropped to the floor, crumpled.

 “Careful, his ribs are still very broken!” Flash called up, coming to a stop next to Aquaman and handing him a pair of handcuffs.

Aquaman nodded thanks to him and cuffed Tim, who rolled his eyes in response.

 “And who’s fault is that, Barry?” Jason shot back with a snarl.

 “You broke his fucking ribs??” Tim jerked away from Aquaman, anger filling his voice. “What the fuck, I thought you guys were heroes!”

 “Get him into a cell, Aquaman.” Wonder Woman barked.

 “No, fuck you, why the fuck did the Flash break my brother’s ribs?!” Tim yelled, lips pulled into a snarl.

 “Brother?” Superman echoed, his grip on Jason loosening slightly.

At the same time Jason threw his head backwards, slamming it into Superman’s jaw with a sharp crack in an attempt to get him to let him go. His helmet shattered, pieces falling to the ground under him.

 “Mother fuck that hurts!” He cursed, shaking the red pieces out of his hair. “Man of steel my ass, steel is softer than whatever the hell you’re made of.”

Just then, Dick noticed something; a small rustle, and the quick glint of metal inside a ventilation shaft. Aquaman had mentioned something about a kid being with Tim earlier, could that have been-?

 “Can we all just agree to talk about this like civilized adults?” Dick asked. “All of this is just one huge misunderstanding, just- let me explain, please .”

 “How so?” Wonder Woman asked, spinning him around to face her. She was wearing a hardened gaze, but looking into her eyes, Dick could tell she was curious how he’d explain all this.

He glanced upwards. Again, that flash of metal, though this time he could properly hear the rustle of fabric against metal from his position close to the vent.

 “Look, I can explain, but can you please just put down Hood? He can’t run on that ankle anyway, and his ribs are fucked so keeping him held like that isn’t good.” Dick rationalized as best he could, ignoring Tim and Jason’s incredulous stares. 

He needed to get Jason on the floor if they had any chance of making a break for it, broken ankle be damned.

 “Very well.” Superman dropped to the ground softly, depositing Jason there easily.

The Flash immediately zipped forward, cuffing and holding him in place despite his angry snarl.

 “Now that that’s settled…” He looked up at the vents with a nod.

And all hell broke loose.

Firstly, Damian burst out from the ventilation shaft right above Flash and Jason, drawing his sword midair and slashing at Flash with it.

He managed to hit the hero’s knee, sending him backwards with a howl of pain.

 “What the fuck-?!” Flash swore, stumbling off towards the wall behind Superman.

 “I will not allow you to get away with hurting my brother!” Damian dragged Jason away with one arm, brandishing his sword threateningly with the other. “Release Nightwing and Red Robin this instant.”

 “Good timing, Robin,” Tim pushed away from Aquaman, taking full advantage of the elder man’s shock to slip away to Damian’s side. His cuffs clattered against the floor, along with a now-broken lockpick. “Those things were getting itchy.”

Dick felt the lock of his own cuffs click too, but he didn’t do anything while Wonder Woman was still firmly gripping his forearm.

 “Why- why do you have so many siblings?” Flash wheezed. “Why are they all walking nightmares?”

 “Dunno, you’d have to ask our dad that.” Tim replied casually.

Just then, the zeta tube chimed.

 “Recognized: Batman 02. ” The machine chirped, and in a swirl the Dark Knight of Gotham himself appeared.

 “What is going on?” Batman almost seemed to growl, voice filled with a mix of confusion and annoyance.

And Dick watched as a smirk spread across Jason’s face, the vigilante turning his head to make direct eye contact with Wonder Woman and Superman as he spoke.

 “Oh, hey dad.”

Chapter Text

~ The JLA zeta tube room ~

You could hear a pin drop as Wonder Woman, Superman, and the other Leaguers all stared at Jason with varying degrees of horror.

Bruce cursed his decision to adopt children.

 “Why are all of you up here?” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 “About that-” Tim started.

 “Well-” Dick tried to say.

 “It’s Hood’s fault-” Damian accused, glaring at Jason.

 “Out of everyone here this is the least my fault,” Jason shot back, sticking his tongue out at his youngest brother. “I’ll explain once Dickhead isn’t being held captive by Diana and I’m not about to be arrested.”

 “Already out, don’t worry,” Dick stepped out of Diana’s grasp, cuffs falling to the floor easily. He hopped over to his brothers, shooting Jason a worried look. “B can deal with that last one.”

Jason had slid down the wall, rubbing his forehead. He looked disheveled, greasy hair plastered to his forehead and a bruise forming on his cheek.

 “Batman, do you know these people?” Wonder Woman asked sternly, shooting a glare at the robins.

 “Yes, I do,” He swept over to stand between his children and the League. “I’ll ask again; what is going on?"

 “We arrested Red Hood on suspicion of running a trafficking ring,” Wonder Woman explained. “We were forced to keep him in the Watchtower cells after he revealed he knew our identities, and threatened to release them.”

 “When did all this happen?” Bruce remembered which trafficking ring she was talking about; he'd been investigating it before he'd gone on the mission, leaving it to his children. Clearly that went well.

 “Last week Tuesday. I was surveying a toxin storage warehouse when they scooped me up,” Jason cut in before Wonder Woman could say anything, voice tinged with annoyance. “And I wouldn’t have played the ‘I know your identities’ card if they hadn’t had threatened to send me to Arkham, so don’t even start.”

 “You threatened to send him to Arkham??” Dick echoed, glaring at the League.

 “I’m sorry, are we ignoring the fact that Red Hood just called Batman ‘dad’?” Flash pointed out. He’d pressed a hand to his sword wound, blood dripping from between his fingers. “Which Bats didn’t contest at all? Not to mention, that would make Nightwing, the red one-” he pointed to Tim- “and the angry child with a sword his kids too.”

At his description Damian started to draw his sword again with a snarl, which Tim pushed back into its hilt quickly.

 “Yes, they’re my children,” Bruce replied tiredly. “We can discuss this further in the Hall once I make sure none of my kids are too badly injured.”

The League, specifically Superman and Flash, visibly flinched.

 “By your reactions, something happened.” He deadpanned.

 “Oh, something happened all right.” Dick's voice was uncharacteristically angry, glaring at Flash in particular.

 “Don’t worry, we’ll have time to go into that later, Big Bird,” Jason stretched from his spot against the wall, pushing himself to his feet and attempting to take a limping step forward. Tim looped his arm around his own shoulder, supporting his brother's weight despite being a lot shorter than him. "Thanks for the help, but I'm fine, Red."

 “A little help here?” Tim asked, ignoring Jason completely to turn to his dad.

Bruce easily picked up Jason, ignoring the incredulous stares of the League and his son’s angry grumbles as he swept across the room, his other sons trailing after him.

 “Dad- I can still walk, my ankle’s not that broken,” Jason quipped, squirming in Bruce's arms to shoot him a glare. “You can put me down.”

Despite his annoyed tone he relaxed into his hold easily, heaving a small, barely audible sigh. 

 "Don't be an imbecile, Hood, your ankle is sufficiently broken." Damian sniffed, discreetly taking Jason's hand in his own.

Jason gave his hand a soft squeeze, not letting go either. " I don't know about 'sufficiently broken', Boy Wonder."

 “Sure, kid.” The Dark Knight stopped when he made it to the door, gesturing vaguely for the League to follow him.

They ended up in the Hall in the Watchtower, the line of Robins plus Batman sitting on one end of the large oval table and the League- well, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Aquaman- sitting on the other.

Jason had been placed in the middle of the Bats, Bruce and Damian to his left, Dick and Tim to his right.

 “So.” Wonder Woman said hesitantly.

 “So.” Bruce echoed.

 “Can we introduce ourselves first? After this mess, I doubt our secret identities matter all that much anymore,” Tim cut in. “Hood doesn’t even have his helmet anymore, and other than you he’s the most strict about identities.”

Bruce mulled it over for a second. “Fine. One of the reasons I didn’t tell the League my identity earlier was to keep them from discovering you, so I don’t see any harm in it. Any security risk is mitigated by us knowing your identities too.”

Bruce stripped off his cowl, smoothing his unruly hair. He hadn’t taken his suit off after arriving on Earth from his mission, instead directly beelining for a zeta to check in with the League. Stellar idea on his part, since he managed to walk in on his sons being arrested, but he was really getting sick of the costume.

 “Bruce Wayne??” Flash blurted, slapping a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, you’re- Batman? What?”

 “Old news! Introduction time,” Dick took off his domino, smiling cheekily. “Dick Grayson, B’s eldest. I was the first Robin, but right now I’m Bludhaven's- and occasionally Gotham’s- very own Nightwing.”

 “You’re a vigilante,” Superman said, nodding with realization. “We initially assumed you stole the batarangs you had on you, but this makes a little more sense.”

 “My turn? Finally, I’ve been wanting to take this thing off all week,” Jason peeled off his domino mask, dropping it onto the table with a look of mild disgust. “Jason Todd. Formerly dead, currently Red Hood. I’m the second eldest and second Robin, after Dickhead.”

 “Formerly dead?” Wonder Woman repeated.

 “Yep,” He popped the ‘P’, letting his head loll to the side boredly as he looked at the League with those piercing blue-green eyes. “Long story, not worth going into.”

 “Well, Batman having an undead crime boss son was not something I had on my League bingo card.” Flash quipped.

 “ Former crime boss,” Jason grumbled. “After I got over the beheading thing I went back into vigilantism. The crime boss thing is just a cover.”

 “We’re all vigilantes,” Tim pulled his own domino off. “Tim Drake, pleasure to meet you. I’m the third Robin, currently known as Red Robin.”

 “I’m sorry, what’s a Robin?” Aquaman asked.

 “Batman’s sidekick and protégé. Changes every couple years,” Dick explained. “There’s been five of us overall. The ‘angry child with a sword’ has the mantle right now.”

 “I am Damian Wayne, Bruce’s only biological child,” Damian said next, flicking his mask at Dick and sticking his tongue out at him. “And the current, true Robin, as Grayson said.”

 “Didn’t actually say that, but sure Dami.”

 “So, Batman straight-up adopted three kids?” Flash half-stated, half-asked.

 “There’s more of us, actually. Signal, who you know, plus Spoiler and Black Bat,” Dick told him with a smirk, watching the League look increasingly concerned. “Spoiler was the fourth Robin, but she got fired after roughly two and a half months.”

 “Speaking of which, I should alert them that we found Jay,” Tim said. “B?”

Bruce nodded, and Tim disappeared down the hall with a small wave.

 “I- seven kids??” Superman looked at Bruce with a look of utter betrayal. “How did we never know this?”

 “It was never any of your concern,” He replied simply. “All of them, save Dick, currently operate in Gotham, which I’ve clarified time and time again is my concern. Which leads into my next issue; why you entered Gotham in the first place.”

 “I agree,” Wonder Woman suddenly looked tense, gaze shifting to Superman and Flash. “Gotham’s trafficking rings were influencing Metropolis and Central City. We were already working on that issue before you left, but on Monday night we found out about Red Hood’s involvement and decided to intervene in your absence."

 "We figured you’d want us to watch Gotham in the meantime, as is League protocol whenever anyone goes on an off-world mission.” Superman supplied.

Oh, he'd completely forgotten about that. Damn it.

 “That was… miscommunication, on my part,” Bruce admitted, pointedly ignoring Dick and Jason's shit-eating grins to his left. They were definitely going to use that against him until the end of time. “I was so wrapped up in the investigation and the mission that I forgot you didn’t know about my team in Gotham, which is why I didn’t outright ask you to watch the city.”

 “And the investigation? Surely you wouldn’t have expected us to drop it until you returned.”

 “Jason usually handles most infiltration jobs because he, as he mentioned before, still has a reputation as a crime lord,” Bruce gestured to his second eldest. “A few days after the ring emerged, I sent him to survey the operation and take it down. He would have been finished by Wednesday.”

 “So what you’re saying is,” Superman started, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Instead of holding the head of the trafficking ring hostage for a week, we instead held your son, who was there to take it down in the first place, the day before he would have done it.”

 “Yeah,” Jason confirmed simply. “Sounds really, really stupid when you put it like that.”

Superman levelled him with an annoyed glare. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

 “Would you have believed me?” Jason shot back, glaring right back at the Kryptonian. “That, and B has a strict ‘don’t tell the League about the Batfamily’ rule. I may be a former crime lord, but even I'm not fucking stupid enough to break a rule like that.”

 “Jason, you’re allowed to break any of my rules if your life is in danger,” Bruce told him, concern leak into his voice. “That’s as true for you as for any of my other children, no matter what you did in the past or whether or not you follow my rules normally.”

Jason turned his head away.

 “Dick told me the same thing this morning,” He said, voice dropping nearly to a murmur. “I just- I don’t know, it didn’t feel right. I figured if I said anything, they’d think the others were criminals too and bring them in. And hey, getting my ribs broken once or twice to make sure my siblings are safe is a trade-off I’d make any day.”

 “How injured are you?” Bruce leaned over, tilting Jason’s head towards him gently and checking his eyes. “You have a concussion.”

 “Eh moderately,” Jason said, keeping his voice light. “Definitely not the worst I’ve had, but that’s kinda a redundant statement.”

Dick flinched at that last sentence.

 “Anyone care to enlighten me what happened to my son?” Bruce growled, turning his glare onto the League.

The atmosphere of the room went from semi-tense to as if someone had dropped a grenade in the center of the table.

 “Superman and I had to bring him in by force,” Wonder Woman conceded. “Our intention was not to hurt him, but we did.”

 “Intent won’t heal my ribs or un-concuss my head, Princess,” Jason cut in. “And you need to replace ‘we’ with ‘I’, Clark didn’t do anything as far as I remember unless it was his bright idea to try the Lasso on me.”

 “That actually was me,” Superman admitted with a small voice. “Which- sorry, about that.”

 “Don’t sweat it, Smallville,” Jason waved him off. “All you did was burn track marks into my wrists, but at least you’re better than Barry.”

 “What did Flash do?” Damian asked.

 “Oh, funny you should ask, ” That signature Red Hood menace entered Jason’s voice, smiling cynically in a way that didn't reach his eyes. “He managed to give me another concussion, re-break my ribs, and snap my ankle like a fucking twig.”

 “In my admittedly very meager defense, I got micro dosed with anger toxin for two weeks straight and broke a canister of the stuff right outside your cell, so-” Flash tried to defend himself, but that just seemed to make it worse.

Jason’s eyes flashed a toxic green, lips twisting into a snarl.

 “You beat me with a metal bar to try and get me to tell you where Tim was, all for an anger toxin antidote that doesn’t even exist yet,” He growled. “I thought you were going to fucking kill my little brother if I told you anything. Forgive me if I was a bit uncooperative because of that, Flash.”

Flash was saying something now, but Bruce could barely hear it anymore. How dare anyone, let alone someone who called themselves a hero, beat his son with a fucking metal bar-?

 “You what? ” Bruce growled, cutting the Scarlet Speedster off.

 “Yeah, um, I can really see how that comes off, but-”

 “Stop talking,” Diana hauled Flash to his feet with a glare. “Aquaman, take Flash to the med bay before he bleeds out.”

 “I’m not even bleeding anymore-” Flash tried to say, but Aquaman grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room with a kurt nod.

 "I'm going to be having words with him." Bruce did his best to compose himself, but it was difficult as he saw Damian reach over Bruce to capture Jason's hand again, squeezing it tightly like a lifeline.

 “Please tell me you at least reprimanded him.” Dick glowered in his seat, shaking with barely suppressed anger. He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, rubbing small circles into it with his thumb.

 “He’s currently suspended for a week, and after that will be put on probation for 3 months,” She explained. “The only reason he’s still in the Watchtower is to make sure the Lasso properly filtered all the toxin out of his blood.”

 “I’m sorry, a week’s suspension and 3 months probation for nearly beating someone you were holding captive to death ?!” Dick burst out angrily, shooting to his feet.

 “Dick, sit down,” Bruce shot his son a glare which turned a thousand times more threatening when it turned on Wonder Woman and Superman. He was pissed, supremely so, but if they were going to hit them they were going to hit them where it hurt. “After hearing what you put my son through, tell me; why shouldn’t I quit the League here and now?”

Superman paled. “Wait, B-”

 “Why shouldn’t I?” He asked again, this time more forcefully. “The moment I leave on a mission you enter my city without permission, take what you believed to be a Gotham crime boss captive without looking into him sufficiently beforehand, and injure him in increasingly violent ways for a week straight in a misguided attempt to get information. Clearly you have no respect for the lives of criminals, so, I’ll ask again, why should I waste my time working with you ever again?”

Silence.

 “B, as satisfying as that is to hear after the week I had,” Jason started, any green malice gone from his eyes and voice. “I don’t think you should leave the League.”

 “Todd, they-” Damian tried to say, hand ghosting on the hilt of his sword, but he was cut off.

 “Don’t get me wrong, they’re definitely stupid shitheads, but as far as I can tell they didn’t actually try to hurt me- well, this badly- on purpose,” He explained, much to the chagrin of literally everyone in the room. “Diana busted my ribs when she captured me because she thought I was metahuman, which apparently would make me resistant to blunt force trauma. Technically kinda am, but not enough to withstand fucking Wonder Woman.”

 “I… I admit to thinking he was more durable than he really was,” She said hesitantly, cheeks colouring pink. “We were- I was under the impression that he had a metagene, not that he was enhanced by the Pit.”

 “Exactly. Still fucking hate you, Di,” Jason shot her a smile that didn't reach his eyes. “But yeah, that’s basically what I’m getting at. Also- the reason Barry was so high strung was because in the wake of him becoming the worst teammate ever and testing positive for scarecrow toxin, these dipshits cut him off from the investigation. Which is what led him to committing Ethiopia 2.0, because that's what anger toxin and two weeks of constant stress does to you.”

 “Can you please not call it Ethiopia 2.0?” Dick muttered. "They don't even know what it means."

 “Sure,” Jason replied breezily. “Can’t promise I won’t say it to Barry’s face when I get the chance, but sure.”

 “What’s-” Superman started, but Wonder Woman cut him off.

 “Nevermind that,” Wonder Woman pinched her brow. “That won’t happen again. We weren’t sure what we were going up against  when Flash started acting differently, and foolishly thought withholding information wouldn’t… upset him as much as it did.”

 “Lotta mistakes for a single week,” Jason commented absentmindedly. “Are we done here now? I really want to get back to Gotham and faceplant into the closest bed.”

 “Dick, Damian, take him back,” Bruce said after a second. “I want to stay here and continue this discussion, hopefully with a few more League members.”

Translation: the JLA was in for a tongue-lashing and an overhaul of their rules, to accommodate for identity leaks and holding prisoners in the Watchtower.

 “One more thing,” Jason looked at Diana again with a smirk. “Make sure to tell him about the Lasso, because if he finds out later I don’t think anything can save you from his wrath.”

And with that Dick helped him to his feet, Damian supporting Jason on the other side, and they left the room.

 “Now,” Bruce turned back to Superman and Wonder Woman with a glower. “Care to explain what he meant by that?”

~ back at the Mansion ~

Jason wasn’t sure what to think of the Zeta Tube other than subdued panic at the claustrophobic tunnel, tightening his arm slung around Dick’s shoulder minutely as it turned on.

 “ Nightwing, R-1. Red Hood, R-2. Robin, R-5. ” The machine chimed, voice echoing through the Batcave.

Yep, he definitely hated it. His headache seemed to quadruple once his feet hit the floor, making his head feel like it was being split in half. Spots danced in front of his eyes, blinking a few times to adjust to the lower lighting.

His headache receded just enough to make him aware of his surroundings; more specifically, the familiar figure currently running towards him.

 “Jason!” He felt strong arms lift him up into the air and away from his brothers, making his ribs twinge painfully before he was set back onto the ground. “Agh- sorry, I forgot you have broken ribs. Tim mentioned that I think.”

Jason came face to face with Duke Thomas, a relieved, almost giddy smile pulling at his features.

 “Missed you too, Duke,” Jason slung an arm around his newest brother’s shoulder, leaning his weight on him. “Timbit already explain everything?”

Duke shook his head. “We’re waiting for Babs, Steph, and Cass to get here before we go over everything.”

 “B still ripping the League a new one?” Tim entered the room holding a pair of crutches.

 “You betcha,” Dick replied with a smirk. “He won’t be back for a while, I’m guessing, so we might as well do the debrief without him. You up for that so soon, Jaybird?”

 "After I take a shower, sure,” Jason took the crutches from Tim, making sure they were adjusted properly before extricating himself from Duke’s grasp. “Being held captive for a week isn’t good for hygiene, believe it or not.”

 “Yeah yeah, go do that,” Tim wrapped one arm around Jason’s shoulder in a half-hug before sliding over to the batcomputer. “Let’s see… you have about an hour before the Batgirls return. Dames already disappeared to get a first aid kid I think, so I’ll just have him put it in your room.”

That sounded heavenly. After stuff like this, Jason liked to patch himself up as best he could just to get a moment to breathe, away from his sibling's concerned words and affectionate touches. It usually took 30 minutes tops, maybe a bit longer if he had to stitch up wounds.

 “You’re a lifesaver, Timbit,” Jason said, silently thanking whatever deity had led him to this family. “We doing the debrief down here or in the manor?”

 “Living room,” Dick cut in. “After all this I think we deserve hot chocolate and a family movie night.”

 “Damn right.” Jason grinned.

Hot chocolate and movies? He should start getting kidnapped by the JLA more often.