Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Handcuffed to the bed like you're an animal

I don't even recognize you anymore

Tried to put you down like an old dog to sleep

Cut your branches off, but you're a dying tree

The doctors came and pulled the sheet up over your head

You're already dead, you just don't know it yet

You are sick

And I hate you and love you for it

[Creek Blues; by Nicole Dollanganger]

Tim was an unmoving mess of mousy, black hair and little else, where the comforter swallowed him up, and for once, Dick was grateful for the stillness. He needed the rest.

Something drew his attention to the door. Something that had him immediately standing from the armchair in the corner to investigate. His thoughts were kind’ve hazy and thick, like syrup. He didn’t know what had his hairs standing on end, but something was… off.

He slinked over on soundless feet, to peek through the open gap, and saw the same empty, low-lit hallway as it usually was. He pushed the door all the way open, stepping out to check in both directions.

It was clear.

He felt silly for even being worried in the first place. After all, the manor had likely the best security not offered on the market. Better, even, than the pentagon; No one could get in that wasn’t wanted.

They said the same about Titans Tower.

That niggling fear sharped abruptly, had him whirling around to put Tim back in his sights, and he froze.

Hood, standing over his baby brother.

Hood, gun to Tim’s head.

He fought the sluggish quality in his body to move, but he was too slow, he wasn’t going to get there in time, he was too late—

Hood warbled out a malicious chuckle, his helmet angled towards Dick to catch the agony in his expression, waited until his helplessness fully dawned before pulling the trigger.

Nononononononono

No—!

There was no bang.

Because Dick woke up.

He frantically pawed around under his pillow until his fingers caught on the square casing of his phone. His thumb was halfway on its journey to speed dialing Tim before his mind caught up with his body and he paused. He stared at the 2:14 AM grinning up at him, and ran a hand through his messy hair, patted down the wild cowlick at the center that always ran the grain, took a breath.

Outside, a thousand cars laid on their horns, and rain pounded furiously on his bedroom window, rattling against his crappy AC unit with every torrent of rain splatter.

He allowed the familiar sounds to calm his breathing down, took a moment to compose himself, glanced again at the glaring 2:17 AM , and threw the phone down.

The room was nearly pitch-black and suffocating, like a heavy weight on his chest. The darkness was familiar though. He wanted to wear it like a shroud.

He stuck his hand back under the pillow, and pulled out his loaded, police-issue Glock 22 instead. He flicked the safety off.

He didn’t feel awake.

But, he couldn’t sleep, not after…well, he wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while.

The Glock seemed to sing to him as he pet the barrel with his index finger, chirping at the attention, whining for violence.

He barely felt alive on nights like these.

Nights, where it was his screaming that woke him and not Tim’s.

He had to remind himself that Tim was alive, that he was safe, and tucked away beneath the wing of the bat. Dick should be there too, to keep an eye on Tim, because who was going to remind Tim that he was loved? Who was going to administer his daily dose of hugs and make sure he got the recommended amount?

Who was going to gently tuck the covers around him like a little Timichanga and smear a thick kiss all over his forehead while the boy hissed and tried (failed) to nerve pinch him from where his arms were snugged against his sides?

Dick loathed this separation, ached to be there for Tim (to make up for all the times that he hadn’t been) and for Alfred, and…well, he wasn’t ready to be there for Bruce, but somebody had to remind them all how to be a family again, even if seeing Bruce still made his blood curdle.

But the distance was necessary.

‘Someone has to keep an eye on him.’

‘Oh, Like you?”

He’d been doing a poor job of keeping Tim safe, and the boy was right. Hood had been left with too much freedom for far too long.

Dick had allowed a monster to live in his home, on his streets, his Gotham, all for the sake of avoiding an argument with Bruce. He thought the old man would handle it, but he’d been mistaken. Even now, such territory disputes went unresolved, even now, Bruce hesitated.

After Hood had maimed a Robin.

He watched the weapon in his hands, wondered when the guilt was supposed to kick in.

He raised it, tipped the barrel into the jut of his chin. I dare you to flinch. Guns used to scare him.

He flipped the muzzle and filled the wanted poster on the wall with a mag bangbangbangbang — he blinked with each round.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

He took a second mag and emptied that one too.

It wasn’t enough, but in the meantime he’d settle for feeding 30 rounds into the Red Hood’s ugly domed face. He could eat a few more.

Therapy over with, he threw down the gun and started dressing for the day. Night. Week . Whatever the hell this was about to become.

The day would be a nightmare for somebody, that much Nightwing could guarantee.

And from that soaked little window Nightwing flew, slipping away into the hazardous storm.

Chapter Text

The wind was stirring on this particular chilly night. Something sharp and bristling that snuck beneath parkas, and gaiters, and mits. The harbor was frozen stiff, petrified beneath a film of frost that seemed to cut and scrape against the harbor’s docked vessels with every gust of wind.

Beyond the whistling torrent, the shipyards lay almost eerily silent, muted by the heavy, abrasive winds.

One could hear the bustle of the graveyard shift, men packing and hauling cargo, but it was a kind of distant buzz, something eerie and tense as dozens of men worked together and said nothing to each other, superstitious and nervous, and perhaps aware of his presence, feeling the prickling of eyes like needles in their spines.

Further off from the loading docks, one could hear the crunch of snow and asphalt grinding against a leather sole as a man finished up his break and crushed a cigarette beneath his boot. A harried looking dockworker squeezed into a gap behind a dumpster and a heavy-duty cooling unit that hadn’t been in working condition since it kicked the bucket three summers ago, and was swiftly (and rather dubiously) replaced by bags of convenience store ice.

The man in question liked to store his extra pack of cigarettes inside the loose panel on the back of it, as well as a few extra pick-me-ups that he liked to roll up and smoke once the shift supervisor clocked out for the day, or, occasionally, before he clocked in to begin with.

By the look of him, he was a few months shy of liver failure, judging by the gaunt, yellowed quality of his skin and his clubbed fingers, or possibly late-stage lung cancer, by the way he wheezed and coughed between each breath, and sagged against the cold brick wall with a world-wearied look upon his face. He didn’t seem to care a whole lot about his declining health, either way, as he carried on puffing cigs like the world was some grand race to the finish line. He looked to be about mid-forties, so his life’s potential was hardly wasted; he’d done about all the living he’d ever do and that seemed enough for him.

No spouse, no kids, no savings.

He always took his smoke breaks a quarter till, hidden in the back alley between a fish cannery and an equipment warehouse, where he could soak up his ten minutes in blissful silence.

He was always alone during his breaks, but never at any point before or after, not when he was so busy running around issuing orders and yapping off the ear of anyone who might listen.

See, Nightwing had been keeping an eye on the guy ever since he caught a few rumors about a loud-mouthed foreman over at the docks who, by his own admission, supplied the Red Hood with everything he needed. Guns, ammo, information, food and board, in exchange for a generous cut of Hood’s funds, and ultimately, his protection; the weight of the Red Hood name.

He was, apparently, Hood’s right hand man.

This Chav Markof held no qualms about being loud and proud about his connections to Gotham’s corrupt underbelly, which made it laughably easy to track the guy down.

Very few boasted about being under the protection of the Red Hood, and even fewer would let their guard down late at night, alone, where no one could help them if trouble managed to make its appearance.

And, well, it was a dangerous thing to make an enemy of the Bats.

A discordant grind of steel on steel sounded off in the distance, followed by a shout, “fore’ we need you!”

He watched as the man heaved a sigh and yelled back, “‘m coming! Damnit, why I gotta clean up everyone’s messes around here?” He grumbled as he stomped out his cig and pried himself from the small gap, slipping out into the open with a scuff of his boots.

Nightwing didn’t let him get any further. He descended on him with a heavy kick to the shoulder, dropping Markof to the ground to enjoy the simple pleasure of a face full of snow slurry, dirt, and emission particles; and that crunch was certainly not just the snow compressing beneath his face.

“Hey, Clearance, I have a question for you.” He had him in heavy-duty zip ties before the man could even wheeze from how quickly the air had departed from his lungs.

“I hope you’re paying attention, Discount, because I’m only going to ask you this one time.” He rolled him over with the toe of his Kevlar boot, so they could have this conversation face to mask.

Markof sneered when his eyes finally landed on his attacker. Tried to, anyway, but he couldn’t seem to get his cough under control long enough to paint much of an impression, and the blood gushing from his nose only made him appear vaguely pained and immeasurably pitiful. His face was marred by a brutal wince and the copious flow of blood.

Nightwing crouched down and grabbed the front of his parka, pulling him up so they were more or less eye to eye. He watched the fear truly register on the man’s face as he caught the glint of his domino this close up, and finally, the man realized the gravity of the situation, who he was really dealing with.

“Where’s your boss?” Nightwing asked, his face hard and impassive.

At once, Markof’s eyes got shifty, and he coughed out a, “Who?”

“You know who.”

“Mr. Supe? He clocked out just a few hours ago, but I’m sure—“ Dick didn’t hesitate to reel his escrima stick back, driving it down with precision and fury.

Markof yelped as it sliced his cheek open with a hairs breadth to spare from his eye.

“Shit! I don’t know, no one does!” Dick raised his brow. “No one’s seen him in a few weeks, probably hauled up in a safe house somewhere. That’s all I know, I swear!” The man sputtered out, looking increasingly panicked.

“I know you know where he is.” He held up a crumpled receipt for Wacdonals, pressing it real close so Markof could make out the details printed on the front. The order for 42 burgers under the name Red Hood, that he found in Markof’s car.

“I know you’ve been bringing him supplies, I know you bring him food every two weeks to wherever he’s currently hauled up at, and I know you’re going to give me an address.”

“Listen, I—I’ve got a lot of hungry mouths at home, y’know? And my wife gets suspicious about how I pay for it all on a dockworker’s pay, it’s just a small fib for my kids—“

Dick ignited the electricity this time and reeled the escrima back once more.

“Lie to me again and see what happens.”

“No, Please! I’ll give you whatever you want, just don’t hurt me!”

“Where. is Hood?”

“He’s, It’s flat #413, tall brown building off of Henry and 4th, or, or maybe flat #310, but it’s definitely one of those, I swear!”

“You don’t sound very sure.”

The man winced. “…I could write it down for you?”

“Great.” Nightwing grinned. There wasn’t an ounce of mirth on his face. He patted the man down for tools, found a pencil and figured the crumpled receipt for Wackdonals would work, then he dragged the guy by his collar over to a pipe that ran the length of the wall.

He cut the current zip ties and had him bring his hands forward so he could zip tie one wrist to the pipe, granting him use of the other.

“Write.” He said, when Markof continued to hesitate, but he seemed to finally get the message and started scribbling, then he handed it back.

“These are all of them?”

“Yeah, that I know of anyhow.”

“And you’re not lying to me?”

“No! I swear, ask anybody and they’ll tell you ‘Marky never lies’. Just ask Foley, Kyles Foley, real tall blond fella, he’s my real estate guy, and he can totally back me on this, I swear.”

Nightwing considered this. Finally, he held out the scrap of receipt paper again, motioning for Markof to take it. He did with a sigh, and hurriedly scribbled Foley’s address down with the others. After quickly verifying it, he knew he’d struck gold. He grinned, something harsh and feral.

“Batman and co. Thank you for your cooperation,” He said.

“Yeah yeah…” he waved his untethered hand around, gesticulating lazily, “just, could you maybe not mention this when you see the boss?”

“You should really see a doctor after this.” Nightwing brained the guy harder than he meant to, violence churning in his gut. The guy would be okay, at least for a few more months, before his lungs inevitably gave out.

He left him there in the snow, both hands zip tied to the pipe, to be discovered and let loose by someone else.

He had work to do.

The address took him to Foley Real Estate, a place he presumed to be the man’s office and place of work. It took very little to break in through a porthole style window in the roof, and even less to interrogate Foley once he found him. The man in question was holed up in his records office, sorting through thick envelopes of money as he slowly worked through the stacks and counted out the cash.

Dick, from behind, smashed his face into the desk and twisted his hands behind his back. He pressed the tip of his escrima into Foley’s throat, once his hands were secured with a zip tie. Foley, though initially quite frightened by the attack, merely grunted and said, “what I done this time?”

“You know, Kyles,”

“If I did, you’d’ve been out of my hair by now,” he glanced meaningfully down at the weapon against his trachea, “Mr. Night, sir.”

“Where is Hood?”

“May I stand to show you?”

“You may.” He slipped the escrima down to rest on Foley’s spine, an equally brutal place to be stabbed, and one he emphasized with a meaningful tap.

Foley rose slowly, hands up, and walked over to the filing cabinet behind his desk. There, he went through the brief process of unlocking one of the drawers and rooting through it until he pulled out a file, which he carefully passed back to the vigilante pressing down on his spine.

Nightlong quickly flipped through it one-handed, finding an address to an apartment bought out in cash, lump-sum style. All the listed conditions of the property matched Hood’s needs perfectly, and that’s when he knew he had him.

“Good man, Kyles.” He dropped the file onto the desk to free up a hand.

“This isn’t personal, but I can’t have you squealing to someone when I leave.” He jabbed a hypo into Foley’s throat, tranqing him with a fast-acting sedative.

“Sorry about your face.” He said, as Foley went taut, just before his eyes rolled back into his skull. He carefully laid him down on the couch, still zip tied, and raced off to begin the hunt.

He considered calling in back up, as he approached the address, he was only one man after all, but he’d decided to fly solo from the very beginning of this mission, as he knew the Bat would not agree with the conclusion Nightwing had reached; Hood was too dangerous to be left alive.

He tried his hand at the address Foley had given him, an old brimstone building with a rusty fire escape that definitely wasn’t up to code, and scaled it quickly. He took his time investigating and fiddling with the window, searching for traps.

But once he cleared it, he flipped the lock, pried it open, and slipped inside.

The windowsill was covered in a thin film of dust when he settled onto it. He wiped it off with his gloves and his hands came away black with a soot-like substance.

The window opened into a shabby little kitchen-dining room combo, but he had a decent vantage of the living room beyond, where he could make out a figure splayed out on a fraying couch, vocoded snoring filling the room as trashy cable tv crackled in the background. Dick spared that red helm a venomous glare but otherwise focused on undoing the last trap standing in his way on the countertop. He’d only just disarmed the last trap and dropped from the kitchen counter when a shotgun blast went off in his face.

Chapter Text

He was incredibly fortunate that his hop from the counter had spared him the worst of it, some shrapnel hitting his face and shoulder but otherwise passing right by him.

He reeled back, ducking behind the fridge to survey his wounds and reassess the situation.

That rancid machine voice called out from the doorway of the kitchen, “Wow, took you two tries to get it right. The old bat would be pretty disappointed if he could see his golden boy now.”

Dick blanched, “How’d—“

“What, you think I’m an idiot? You beat up my guys, of course I knew you were coming.

“See, I got a very concerning phone call from sweet little secretary Madeline Hart about a break in and I thought to myself ‘gee, what kind of bumbling fool would trespass in my territory, in my house?’ And then I had an epiphany! Of course, only big bird himself would be smart enough to break in, and just stupid enough to try it.”

“You only have issues with breaking and entering when someone does it to you? But then I suppose I should’ve guessed. You are Red Hood, after all, the famed master of hypocrisy.”

“Oh, that is awfully rich coming from you, Dick. You were supposed to protect me, and you failed. You let me die!”

“What?” A second blast from the Shotgun shredded the side of the fridge and sent shrapnel flying across the kitchen.

“You’re insane, Hood!” He shouted, but a third blast splintered the kitchen tiles by his feet. He reeled back,

“What kind of hero even are you, beating up the common people like a thug.” The Red Hood hissed, it came out like static from the red bucket on his head.

“You seem smart. Figure it out!” He dipped into one of his pouches and tossed out a smoke grenade, in the direction of that smug chrome dome. Hood squawked, kicking it back his way, but Nightwing used the distraction to enable heat signature detection in his mask and bury a shot into Hood’s leg through the smoke screen that rapidly filled the small apartment.

“Shit! A gun?! That’s usually my purview, Dickhead!” He watched Hood’s form crumple and disappear behind the couch.

“Asshole.” Dick sniped back, then swiveled out of his cover to fire again— a bullet ripped through his firing hand and forced him to drop the Glock as his fingers spasmed.

He snarled, dropping into a roll to get the couch at his back. He didn’t pause, however, and pulled out one of his escrima sticks instead and charged the living room. He lunged over the couch to front an attack on Hood, only to barely avoid the next shot Hood fired.

He spun quickly, dodging it, and used the momentum to kick the gun from Hood’s grip.

It was a dogfight from there as they grappled on the ground. Hood somehow materialized two knives from somewhere, so they played a game Dick liked to call ‘try not to get gutted while taking a stab at a deranged psycho.’ So far they were down to one knife each.

“What’s got you so riled? You’re starting to resemble on old man I know, who breaks bones first and asks questions later.” The Red Hood groused, kicking out at Dick with his good leg.

“Oh wait,” you could hear the smugness in his voice, “I almost forgot about that little Robin I tried to carve like a sad little bird on turkey day.” He said with glee.

“Should’ve heard him, crying for his big brother batty. He couldn’t speak for very long, though, not after—“

“I’ll kill you!” Nightwing brought his elbow down on Hood’s sternum, hard, as he used his other hand to slap the knife out of his grip.

“No you won’t. You wouldn’t do anything that goes against your precious code, wouldn’t even save a kid if it meant pulling the trigger.”Hood caught his elbow at a bad angle and forced him to release his escrima. He snagged it and threw it across the room to clatter somewhere in the kitchen.

“You bats are all the same, you’d let him die!”

Dick snarled, his fingers finally finding purchase around Hood’s throat.

He jammed his fingers into the crook of the helmet, shoving hard until the man began to sputter around the pressure on his neck, and even farther, until the body beneath him thrashed with a mindless fury.

Hood jackknifed at the neck, smashing Dick’s fingers in the crease, and he definitely felt something break, but he only paid enough mind to yank his elbow up into the space instead, pinning the writhing body with sheer force of will.

“Fuck…off!” Came the garbled protest, modulated and jarringly static, before Hood wrenched the arm, that Bruce would’ve killed Dick for not keeping track of, into the whole mess at his throat, did some calculated movements with his fingers, and the whole thing slipped right off his head.

There was a brief grapple amongst them, as Hood finally sucked in a good lungful, and used Dick’s surprise to thrash him with the full might of his flailing limbs. He almost flipped the situation as he planted his feet and bucked with a fierce grip on Dick’s wrists, but instead Dick shook off his grip, and they split apart.

They both rolled up to standing, but Dick got a bottle shattered to the head for his troubles. He collapsed back against the ground, face mushed to moldy carpet as his vision lost focus. The last thing he saw was a head of dark, messy locks disappearing into the kitchen, before he heard a click, loud within the sudden stillness, and the smell of sulfur greeted him. Alarms were going off in his mind, shrill and visceral at the first scent of burning sulfur. He forced his body to move, despite the protest of his limbs, his hands, and his head.

He had only enough time to stagger, halfway to crawling, to the open kitchen window, before everything around him erupted into a fiery hell.

He was thrown by the blast, or, well, it might have been that the floor collapsed beneath him, or possibly some combination of both of these things occurred. Regardless, he was airborne for sometime, until he snagged an exposed support beam and jerked himself forcefully back onto semi-solid ground.

And while he lost quite a few seconds to the chaos, he recovered enough to realize that he needed to get out of there.

He dug himself an escape from the rubble, clawed his way to freedom with a complete disregard for the aches and pains all across his body and tossed himself through the nearest window, just in time for a second wave of heat to roll through and chase him out with a symphony of shattered glass and roaring flames.

He hit the ground hard, but alive, and singed, the finger pads of his gloves notably burned off.

He took a second just to lie there on the asphalt, to take in the ringing in his ears and remind himself that he was still alive, despite the frighteningly close call.

He took a few more seconds just to breathe, before he slowly levered himself to his feet and looked around at the chaos and ruin.

People were standing in the streets, caked with dust in a stupor, staring at the crumbled building, watching it all go up in flames. The smart ones, those native to these streets, were already long gone.

No one seemed seriously injured, as far as he could see. In some way it had been a mercy for their showdown to occur in a building which Hood happened to fully own and refused to rent, if only because the people of Gotham had been spared the worst of the carnage.

He wiped the dust from his face, and hacked up half his lungs trying to get the fine cement out of his airways.

He realized, only once his clarity fully returned to him, that the bastard had gotten away.

Hood had figured out he was coming, not altogether too surprising seeing how he’d brash and careless he’d been with his methods. The whole of Gotham already knew he was looking for Hood.

But this could not happen again. Hood could not be allowed to go underground, or he’d never be found again.

Haltingly, he reached up to his earpiece, and it came on with a buzz of static in his ear. He manually flipped through the channels till he landed on the one he reserved for Babs.

“Oracle, hey, come in.” He comm’d, speaking over the ringing in his ears.

“Reading you, ‘wing.” She responded almost instantly.

“Hey, O, can I…” he breathed, losing focus for a moment.

“…what’s up?”

“Could I ask a favor of you?” He said.

There was silence on the other end, presumably because Babs was waiting for him to speak, but he was terrified for a moment that his hearing had given out, until he heard her shift in her wheelchair, and sigh, something shaky and fragile. It was heavy over the comm. Line.

“Where is Hood?” He asked, to an intense sensation of deja vu.

“I lost him in the chaos of the explosion, but I know you’ve you’ve been keeping tabs on me, O. He’s injured so he’s probably moving by car, something he snagged from the nearby area. I just— my head really hurts.”

“Nightwing, listen, I know what you’re up to, and I know what you plan to do once you catch him.”

“Yeah?”

“I know, N, and I… I can’t condone it, I’m sorry.”

“I would never ask you to, but you know I’m going to do this regardless. I could use your help, O.”

“Wing…I can’t. I won’t help you break the code and lose yourself again. You were a wreck after… and everything with the Joker? God, N, it was awful to see you like that.”

“He hurt Red.”

“As long as you’re walking this path, you’re on your own. I won’t stop you, because I know nothing I do will heal this hurt you’re carrying right now, but I won’t help you either.”

“O, please. You didn’t see Tim after, you didn’t see how broken he was. I thought he was going to die, O, and he did, he died right in front of me over and over again and there was nothing I could do. There’s never anything I can do, I’m always too far away, or in the wrong place at the wrong time while my brothers are brutalized,” He choked off. He took a moment to recompose himself.

“Now there’s something that I can do, and I won’t quit till someone’s dead, you know that. I’m obsessive.

“If he gets away, I’ll never find him again, and what will he do to the rest of our family? After what that monster did to him, will Red ever be safe, or feel safe, again?“

She sighed, long, and heavy, and deep. There was nothing but static for a few moments as he slowly lumbered back onto the rooftops to the sound of sirens approaching around the block and the sight of flames painting a pillar of smoke into the sky.

Part of him wondered if she had silently disconnected, if that static was truly his only friend on the other side of the comm. but he knew her better than that.

“…he’s driving a silver Toyota Camry, cctv footage shows him stumbling out and taking it just 3 minutes before the building blew. He’s heading due north on Mission and Clarke, probably to the shipping docks, And, N, I’m sorry, for the record, I know how much he meant to you.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry too.”

He closed the line.

He pinged his bike and was soon off, ripping through the streets like hell was on his heels.

It didn’t take long for Hood’s stolen Camry to enter his sight lines. He chased him from upper Gotham, cutting through alleys and jumping barriers to keep pace with the road below, until he was able to plant a tracker with a carefully aimed birdarang.

He lost visual sight of Hood when he turned down a back alley and Dick was forced to find a way back around and through a tough spot of construction.

But the tracker lead him right to a warehouse, where the Camry had been stashed.

Oracle commed in with an update, confirmation that he’d ditched the car for a bike and was running wild through the warehouse district of Gotham.

Dick intercepted and took out Hood’s tires with his firearm. Hood himself made it about twenty feet more than his bike did, thanks to inertia, before Nightwing was on him.

He seemed to be unconscious, which gave Dick time to drag him into the closest condemned warehouse, and time more to get his head together while he prepped.

Oracle called in again, but he trashed his comm in a nearby dumpster before it could go through.

He was ready when Hood stirred.

The man in question was tied to an old, rickety chair, positioned in front of an old rainwater vat, full of slimy, green water.

He’d left him as is, in his plain old motorcycle helmet, black.

There was already blood dripping down Hood’s front, likely from a broken nose.

“Hood.” He said, once he noticed he was awake, “you’re a hard man to find.”

“Well you found me, didn’t you? Guess it wasn’t as hard as you thought.”

He kicked him in the foot, just to watch him squirm from the pain. Hood broke a number of things in the crash.

“So smug. So self-justified.”

“Who’re you talkin’ about right now?”

“You’re so disciplined, for a gangbanger, and yet you broke your own rules. Won’t harm a child, won’t let anyone else either, and yet you’ll try to kill a Robin?”

“Yeah, that’s right, and I’d do it all over again.”

“Watch it.” He tipped the chair back with his foot, just enough for Hood to spook at the falling sensation before he cut it short.

“What are you gonna do it about it, baby bat? Lecture me to death?”

“Actually, I had something else in mind. Eye for an eye, a punishment to fit the crime, if you will.”

“I’ve been tortured plenty, Dickhead, you’re just gonna bore me to death.”

“Mhm, we’ll see.” Then he let him drop, till the water came all the way up past the helmet. He watched it fill, propped him on the edge so he could watch Hood struggle against his need for air. It was brutal, something horrific that he wished he couldn’t stomach. Instead, he watched with a growing sense of vindication as time wore down hood’s defenses.

He’d let him struggle for longer and longer, before tipping him forward to tease him with oxygen. The floor of the warehouse was soaked.

“How does it feel? Struggling to breathe, choking it down. I ought to slit your throat and let you drown on that instead.”He settled the chair back onto all four legs.

“I considered frying you, now that you’re soaked through, but I can’t risk someone bringing you back. I’ll do this right or not at all.” He sized the man up, staring down into that expressionless visor, wondering what Hood was thinking, and feeling rage at knowing that Hood never stopped to consider the same for Tim.

“Should’ve never put that helmet on, hood.”

He pulled out his Glock, clicked the safety off and aimed it right at the center of his visor, just to watch Hood go still.

“I’ve got no choice but to put you down now.”

He hovered over the trigger, for seconds that felt like minutes, even dared to press on it with his finger, but he couldn’t pull it. It didn’t feel right, to take a life without a face to put that deed to.

“Are waiting for me to beg or something? I’ve already been around the block, pal, I don’t fear death anymore.”

Nightwing glared. He replaced the gun in its compartment, and instead reached for the helmet.

“Wouldn’t be right, with the helmet.” He said, before he tugged it loose.

But what he saw made him freeze.

His face…

His face was—

“…Jason?” He croaked. The helmet clattered against the ground.

Jason grinned, something feral and sharp-fanged, too toothy for his brother’s round face. This Jason was older, having shed the extra baby fat from his cheeks, and not a trace of kindness lingered in his green eyes.

“Hey, Dick.” He said.

“You’re— I’m so sorry, Jason, I’m so sorry.” He lunged forward to pull him into a tight hug, buried his face into those soft raven locks, always something so wild and frizzy, curls that couldn’t be tamed.

He’d regretted for years that he’d never taught him how to take care of them, one of those countless small ways he’d failed Jason as an older brother, and god— he still smelled the same. Like moth-eaten paper and dusty hardbacks, like life, and knowledge, and promise. He sobbed, cradling him delicately, for all that his hands had punished this man.

“Aw, poor little boy Robin, crying for his baby brother. I’d almost be touched, if he hadn’t died years ago. Too little, too late, I’m afraid.” Jason’s legs wrapped around his feet, pulling them out from under him to stumble face first into the concrete floor. He groaned, too slow to recover in time.

Jason’s chair shattered against the back of his head, and when that still didn’t take him down for the count, Jason heaved him up and dunked him into the water, where he held him till it all went dark.

He woke with his face bruised upon the stone.

He was delirious, thrashing against the hands holding his forearms until his blurry vision haltingly trailed up the black gloves to a familiar bat-shaped cowl.

He went limp, and a sob cracked open his chest where he lay sprawled on that warehouse floor, in a pool of water and blood.

“Jason!” He cried.

“Settle down, chum, it’s alright now.”

“Where’s Jason?” He was suddenly possessed by a need to find him, to see him.

“Chum…” hands sank into his curls, feeling along his head with gentle pressure until Dick violently shook them off and pressed back up onto his feet.

“I saw him, he was…It’s Jason.”

“Please, you have to know I’m not crazy, It was him, he was here.”

Bruce settled a large paw onto his shoulder, “are you sure?”

He nodded frantically, tears building behind his mask.

“okay, chum, I believe you.”

“We need to find him, B, we need to bring him home.”

“And we will.”

Jason…

It’s going to be okay.