Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"So, you're the Red Hood?" said a voice behind him. Jason swore softly enough that it wouldn't be picked up by his helmet mic. He turned from observing the unloading of the drug shipment to look at the Replacement. He saw the red, green and yellow of the costume for only a moment before his vision flooded with acid green.

The Red Hood plan had been going so well, too. He'd set up half-a-dozen safehouses and developed a number of reliable intelligence sources without—he'd thought—pinging the Bats' radar. Which was saying something given the skills of their new data broker Oracle. How had he slipped up? More importantly, how was he going to avoid dismembering this smug twerp ahead of schedule?

Grounding details. The feel of the Kevlar weave in his gloves. The weight of the four handguns. Jason took a deep breath and held in the stench of the Alley. When his vision was only slightly green-tinted, he straightened out of his crouch at the roof's edge to loom over the Replacement. Talia's dossier had said Timothy Drake was nearly sixteen, but that was honestly hard to believe; Jason had been bigger even before the Pit, and he'd had years of malnutrition. He doubted that blue-blood Timothy Drake had ever known a moment's deprivation.

The teenager spun his bo staff, showy and distracting; apparently the sainted Dick Grayson had deemed Jason's replacement good enough to train.

"You want to start running now," Jason said, tone perfectly level, and took a step forward.

The Replacement didn't give ground, but his weight shifted onto his toes. "If your gimmick is supposed to be mind control, it's not really working."

"No?" Jason asked, drawing a gun but keeping it pointed down.

"Woah, hey, I didn't come here to fight."

"Then you shouldn't have come to Crime Alley. And you still aren't running."

The Replacement backed up to the edge of the roof. "Touchy, aren't you? Fine, I'll go, but a word of advice, 'Red Hood'. That name belonged to someone else first, and the Joker doesn't like to share."

At the clown's name, an obliterating wave of Green took Jason. It blocked out his vision, roared in his ears, burned through his veins. There was nothing left but the rage and, finally, a target for it. It was a state beyond conscious thoughts and actions, beyond any sense of time, and when the Green receded Jason had to take stock.

He was still on the rooftop. No, a different rooftop; he could see Giovani's Cash4Gold, so he was still in Crime Alley but several blocks from where they'd started moments—hours?—before. His upper body throbbed with bruises from hits he couldn't remember taking and he tasted blood. He'd lost two of his guns, which was embarrassing but at least the biometric trigger locks meant they were unlikely to cause a tragedy. He was also, Jason noted, holding the end of a broken bo staff.

He was standing over the Replacement, who was crawling across the roof in a bid to escape. He'd lost his cape, staff and his batarangs. Jason couldn't see an earpiece, either, and he wondered if the teenager had gotten off a call for help before he'd lost it.

Finish it, the Green hissed. It would be so easy. A hard enough kick to the ribs would cave them in and puncture a lung, leaving him drowning in his own blood. A twist of the head to snap his neck. Or just a boot pressing down on his windpipe while he begged soundlessly for mercy…

No, no, that wasn't the plan . Jason wasn't ready yet. The Replacement's death would goad Batman into coming after the Red Hood; if he died now, before Black Mask broke the clown out of jail, the whole plan would be ruined. The Red Hood needed the Replacement alive, which meant Jason needed him to stop prancing around in the costume he'd stolen from a dead boy.

"Listen," Red Hood said.

The Replacement ignored him. He'd reached the low safety wall at the edge of the roof and was pulling himself up and over it. Either he still had his grapple gun, or he'd decided he had a better chance with a two-story drop than with the Red Hood. Jason grabbed his shoulder and flipped him so they were face-to-face. It… wasn't pretty. The Replacement's face was smeared with blood and starting to swell and darken from bruising.

"I said listen, R—" Jason started, and hesitated. Not Replacement, that would give the game away. Not Robin, Jason didn't think he could say it without the Green taking over again. "Timmy," Jason substituted, and the reaction was electric.

The Replacement gasped and tried to jerk away, but he had zero leverage considering his legs didn't seem capable of supporting him. "What? Who is—"

"Do not try my patience tonight, Timothy Drake, only son of Jack and Janet Drake, heir to Drake Industries. Would you like me to recite your cell number and home address too, or can we move on to what it will take to keep me from auctioning that information off to the highest bidder?"

The Replacement shuddered and ducked his head. Then he took a deep breath, looked Jason in the eye, and said in a voice that could rival Alfred in an emergency for calm, "If you know who I am, you know I could win that auction. So let's just skip the middleman. I want to know how you got that information. Name your price."

Goddamn billionaires thought their money made them untouchable. Jason slammed the Replacement into the safety wall just to hear him cry out. "My price isn't money, rich boy."

"Then what is it?"

Jason knew just how to twist the golden R of the Robin costume so that it detached and could be used as a large, oddly-weighted batarang. He yanked instead, damaging the tiny hooks so they would never hold it in place again. "This."

"...You want my birdarang?"

Jason was wearing a full face mask, so he went ahead and rolled his eyes. "Try again." There was a silence, and Jason wondered if he'd given the Replacement a concussion. It shouldn't be this hard to figure out. "I'd heard you're supposed to be smart."

"I won't give up Robin," the Replacement said.

Jason didn't remember drawing the gun, but it was pressed to the Replacement's forehead. "What was that?"

The Replacement just gasped and wheezed.

"Ah, right." Jason stopped crushing the Replacement's throat with his forearm. "Listen, why don't you head home to your giant Bristol mansion and think about it, hmm? Whether your dedication to the Big Bat's crusade is worth never seeing your sixteenth birthday. Whether that suit is worth your parents' lives.

"Because I promise you, Timmy, if I ever see you in that suit after tonight, forget the auction. I'll make sure every lunatic in Arkham knows where you and your family sleep. You may be rich, but I assure you: there's no security on the planet that can stand up to Batman's enemies."

For that final touch, Jason crushed the golden R. He held it for a moment longer than he'd meant to, looking at something he'd treasured and believed in, now warped into unrecognizable scrap. The Replacement was breathing in sharp gasps. Crying? Pathetic. Jason dropped the bit of metal and turned to go.

"Wait! How did you learn my identity?"

Jason considered the possibilities. Who would the Replacement most dread knowing his identity? Luthor? Scarecrow? Zsasz? In the end, though, not knowing was always worse. "Oh Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. I'll tell you next time we meet."

Next time, when he would end Timothy Drake.

"Damn, Bossman, who did you tangle with last night," Jane asked, "and do they have a hot younger brother?" The fourteen-year-old white girl wearing heavy eyeliner was perched on the edge of the picnic table in the middle of what had once been a warehouse break room. She was eating a tropical punch yogurt with Captain Crunch cereal mixed in; Jason tried not to make a face.

"I've told you not to call me that," Jason grumbled with absolutely no hope as he entered, carrying a couple of grocery bags. He was wearing his helmet as always—he didn't want to get recognized here in his old stomping grounds—but had traded his leather jacket and body armor for a tank top and workout pants. "You'll give others the wrong idea."

"And I told you the only other relationship where an old man gives a woman money and a place to live is Sugar Daddy." Jane tossed her brown hair and puckered her glossed lips in a way she probably thought was sexy.

Jason set the grocery bags down and went to get his own breakfast. He searched among the brightly-colored cereal boxes for his Protein Punch. "There is so much wrong with that sentence, I'm going to have to make a list."

"A numbered list?" Kareem asked in a serious tone. They were a year or two older than Jane—Jason had never asked—and racially ambiguous. Jason would have assumed Palestinian, if he didn't know the kid had chosen their own name. They cut their own hair too, buzzed on one side and long and black on the other.

"Of course it's a fucking numbered list."

"Jason, language!" Anna shouted, then dissolved into giggles. Someone, probably Kareem, had managed to get the hyperactive little black girl to sit still long enough to do her hair in little poufs. She seemed to have unraveled half of her left sleeve in retaliation. "Laaaan-guage."

These kids were never going to let Jason live down having said that once . He loved that about them. "Number one!" he said.

"One!" they more-or-less chorused after him.

"I am not an old man."

"Take off the mask and prove it," Kareem suggested.

"Or take off everything else. I'd take that as proof," Jane generously offered with an eyebrow waggle.

"Gross!" Anna said, and Jason agreed. Jane flirting with him was like a literal child flirting with him. Probably because that's exactly what it was. "Red Hood is old. Super old. Like, eighteen at least!"

"Number two!"

"Two!" they responded.

"You are not a woman."

"Excuse me?" Jane demanded. Kareem frowned.

"You're fourteen, Jane. That's a girl, not a woman."

Jane's expression darkened. "Maybe wherever you've been hanging out, Hood. Here in the Alley, even Anna—"

"Stop." He didn't raise his voice, because Jane did poorly with raised male voices, but he said it firmly. "Please don't scare her."

Jane stalked away from the little break room where they'd been eating breakfast to the area where Jason had set up a few things for exercise and hit one of the punching bags as hard as she could, over and over again. It was one of Jason's medium bags, so it barely moved, but not for lack of effort on her part. When she came back, she gave Anna a hug. "Sorry, pumpkin. I didn't mean it."

"But you did."

Jason didn't sigh over lost innocence. He'd known the score at seven, too, and it had kept him alive and out of the worst of harm's way during his time on the street.

"No, I didn't . The Alley used to be real real bad when I was your age, Little Bug, but these days the Alley looks after its own. And now Hood's here, and he's chopping off the fingers of all the bad men who touch little kids like you."

"I'm not little!"

"No, you're big, so tell me what you do if someone tries to grab you."

Kareem obligingly grabbed her shoulders and then threw themselves backwards to avoid getting kicked, elbowed or headbutted. Anna yelled at the top of her lungs, "RED HOOD! YOU'LL BE IN BIG TROUBLE I'M UNDER RED HOOD'S PROTECTION, LET ME GO OR HE'S GONNA—"

Jason swooped in to "rescue" her by tossing her in the air and then catching her. She squealed in delight and demanded a piggy-back ride, which brought Jason into abrupt re-awareness of the numerous bruises across his torso that were blossoming into color this morning. Considering that Jason had been wearing full body armor, the Replacement had done a surprising amount of damage with that staff.

Someone in a purple hoodie came vaulting up the stairs from the warehouse entrance, half-brick cocked back to throw, and yelled, "Anna! Anna, are you— Oh. Uh. Hi, guys."

Anna launched off Jason's back with a squeal of "Steph!" The blonde sixteen-year-old caught her and spun her around.

Jane grinned. "See, Anna? Even if the Bossman doesn't get there right away, any of his crew will come for you."

Jason wasn't sure he liked the kids thinking of themselves as his crew. They weren't a gang, just… intelligence assets. His very own Park Row Irregulars, like in the Sherlock Holmes novels.

"What did you bring?" Anna demanded, trying to open Steph's eggplant-purple backpack.

"Sorry, Little Bug, it's mostly medical stuff."

"Awww."

Kareem's disinterested expression was belied by the muscle jumping in their jaw. It melted into a smile when Steph tossed them a package of puberty blocking injections. Jason was relieved as well. Steph's mom worked as a nurse, so her stuff was safe and never cut or mixed with anything else. He was watching Kareem and didn't notice the ice pack until it clocked him in the side of his head.

"You look like you need it. Who'd you mess with last night, the whole False Facer gang?"

Jason was absolutely not going to admit that the darkening bruises on his arms and shoulders were from a fifteen-year-old he had at least fifty pounds of muscle on. The drawback of not feeling any pain when he was in a Pit Rage was that he always felt the damage the next day.

"You should see the other guy." If the Replacement was even alive, that was. He'd broken the cuckoo's metaphorical wing and left him on a roof in Crime Alley; a lot could happen before anyone responded to a panic button. Especially if, as Jason suspected, the Replacement hadn't told anyone he was going there. He doubted the old man had gotten less emotional about Crime Ally since Jason's death.

The building intercom buzzed. Which was startling, since Jason hadn't previously been aware the warehouse had an intercom. The buzzes were forming a pattern, and Jason found himself automatically counting: short (pause) short (pause) short short (pause) short short short (pause) short short short short short (pause)

Jason had it. "It's the—"

"Fibbonacci sequence," Jane, Kareem and Steph said simultaneously.

"Fibby sequins!" Anna cheered.

"Which means it's Alvin," Steph said with a sigh. "I'll go let him in."

"Wait, who?" Jason demanded. "You can't just let some strange guy in without clearing it with me."

"Getting jealous, Sugar Daddy?" Jane muttered, but quietly enough he could pretend not to hear her. As usual, Jane had put her finger on the exact problem and gotten it backwards. Jason wasn't sure he trusted some other teenage boy, around Jane's hypersexuality.

"We've known Alvin off and on for years," Kareem pointed out. "He's not gonna cause problems. You're the strange guy who showed up with a wad of cash and won't even show us your face. At least you turned off the Darth Vader voice shit."

"It's called a voice distorter. So no one recognizes my voice."

"Hate to break it to you, dude, but just 'cause you were born in the Alley doesn't mean anyone's gonna remember you, much less recognize your voice. Also, it makes you sound like a robot crossed with a dying cow." Jason had turned off the voice distorter because he'd been worried a heavily armed killer in a villain mask would be intimidating to a bunch of homeless kids. He should have remembered that the Alley grew them tough. Jason retreated to lean against the wall, resigned to waiting and watching

Steph and Alvin reached the top of the stairs, and Jason knew at a glance that Alvin was not from Crime Alley. It wasn't the kid's sickly-pale skin and shock of orange hair. Racial minorities were overrepresented in the poorest neighborhoods of Gotham, but they were still minorities; there was plenty of room for whites among the desperate. Nor was it the kid's clothing: his gray hoodie and blue sweats were out of style, second-hand at least, but not yet falling to rags; he could have gotten it at any charity clothing giveaway. 

No, what gave Alvin away as a tourist was that even in broad daylight, no one with any Alley smarts would have risked going out with such obvious injuries and a full backpack. The kid—he looked about twelve—had an arm over Steph's shoulders so she could help him limp up the stairs, so there must have been something wrong with his right leg. He had a bruise over most of the left side of his face, and there was a gauze pad taped in place above the right eye. He wore a turtleneck under the hoodie despite the warm weather, doubtless hiding more bruises; Jason thought he could see the shadow of one at the kid's jawline.

"Hey, Alvin. How's it going?" Kareem asked, and Jason shot him a look. The kid was beaten to hell and back, yet everyone but Steph was acting like they didn't notice.

"Oh, you know," Alvin answered, panting slightly as Steph helped him into a folding chair near the stairs. "Same old, same old."

Anna ran forward and demanded, "What did you bring me?"

"Sorry, Anna," he said. "I thought you'd all still be at the last place that didn't have electricity, so I brought a camping stove and propane."

Jason frowned when the redhead pulled the stove out of his bag. You couldn't get something like that at Walmart. It looked like the gear Bruce had used that time he'd tried to make Jason sleep in a tent to "bond" and "experience nature" (before Jason had impressed on him that he would never, ever voluntarily sleep outside again). Jason didn't know exactly how expensive the stove had been, but he didn't think Bruce knew how to buy anything that cost less than $300.

"What's camping?" Anna asked.

"It's when rich white people get tired of being comfortable and pretend to be homeless," Kareem summed up.

Alvin nodded. "Pretty much. Except they don't want to actually be uncomfortable, so they buy stuff like this. A stove that can be set up anywhere and doesn't need electricity." 

"That's really thoughtful, Alvin," Steph said, "but… isn't that expensive?"

Alvin started to shrug, but winced. Bruised ribs? Worse than bruised? "It's fine. My foster dad won't miss it." Jane, Steph and Kareem stiffened. "He's over his great-outdoors-bonding phase." 

"But Alvin—"

"I said it's fine." That shut down all further questions. Jason was surprised the three older kids backed down so quickly when they outnumbered him.

"You're a real sweetheart, Alvin," Jane said after an awkward silence, leaning over him. "Sooooo thoughtful. I could just kiss you!"

Jason was about to intervene—he'd need to talk to Jane about leaving younger kids alone—when Alvin responded dryly, "Please don't. Also please return my wallet."

Jane dropped the vamp act for an age-appropriate sulk. "How do you always catch me?"

"I'll tell you when I think that information isn't going to land you in more trouble than ignorance."

"Ugh, you sound just like Hood!"

"Just like who?"

"Our Sugar Daddy. The one who pays for electricity and makes your little gift useless." She gestured at Jason, who bit back a groan of frustration. That really wasn't the introduction he'd been hoping for.

The metal folding chair hit the floor with a resounding bang as Alvin jumped to his feet and stopped being injured. He wasn't limping any more as he backed toward the stairs and the exit to the street below. His ready stance was good, League of Assassins good, hands up in an open-handed guard. "Steph," he said evenly, "who is that?"

Steph looked at Jason imploringly, but Jason was watching the 'kid' who definitely didn't seem twelve anymore. Was he a League agent? What was his mission? Jason was wearing sweatpants and a tank top, no weapons, but he could see the agent's green eyes checking all the places Jason could be carrying.

"Alvin, it's okay. He goes by the Red Hood, but he isn't involved with—with the clown. He goes crazy if you even mention the J-word." 

Alvin gasped out something like a laugh. "Does he really? What is he doing here ?"

Not one of Talia's agents, then, if he was surprised to see Jason. Good; she always got pissy when he killed her ninjas.

"He's helping us," Kareem said. "He got us this place, pays for food, electricity—"

"Chill, Alvin," Jane said. "I was kidding about the Sugar Daddy thing. He won't even look at me."

Steph said, "He's not going to hurt you. He doesn't hurt kids."

Another strangled laugh from Alvin. "You actually believe that?"

Jason felt the tension ratchet up as all the kids' Alley-born paranoia focused on him, and he wanted to rip the interloper apart. He stalked forward. "It's time for you to answer some questions. Why were you faking those injuries? What's your mission?"

"What?" Steph said, "No, wait! Hood—" She moved to intercept Jason and didn't see Alvin lunge at her back.

Jason shoved her aside and took the force of Alvin's attack. He grabbed the redhead's weapon arm and squeezed. Jason could feel some sort of armor under the hoodie and squeezed harder until the hand spasmed open—

There was no weapon. Then why—?

"Run, Steph!" Alvin shoved away from Jason, turning towards the stairs, when his right leg buckled and he went sprawling.

Was Steph the target? Did the agent have a partner waiting outside? "Don't leave until I say you can," Jason barked. The agent wasn't moving. Unconscious? Suicide because he'd failed his mission? What the hell was his mission and why did it involve a bunch of homeless Crime Alley kids that Jason had taken under his wing?

"Woah, hey, Red Hood," Kareem said. "It's me, man. I'm not a threat."

Jason looked up from where he was checking the agent's pulse in his wrist (present, but slow enough he was either unconscious or meditating to simulate it). Kareem was standing well out of arm's reach, hands raised and open. "What are you talking about?"

"You're not gonna attack me, right?" Kareem was standing in front of Jane and Anna, who were hovering near a side exit. Both had their go-bags.

"Of course not."

"That's good. Glad to hear it. Only you kind of flipped out there, man. Going after my friend Alvin. And then Steph."

"I didn't—" Except he had shoved Steph. "I was only—" How many times had Jason heard that excuse? It was an accident. I didn't mean to shove her. I didn't mean to hit her, at least not that hard. She was just in the wrong place. She just made me so mad. She just said the wrong thing…

Steph rose to her feet, arms crossed, glare that could melt steel. "I cannot fucking believe you two."

"Steph, I am so sorry, but he was coming at your back—"

 She kicked Jason in the shin and Jason discovered the stylish pointed toe on her boot was reinforced with steel. "Ow, shit!"

"You aren't fucking listening to me. I don't need your protection, and certainly not from Alvin. Asshole." She knelt next to Alvin and checked his pulse and breathing. Her hands were shaking. "What I need from you, Hood, is a ride to Doc Thompkins, because my badly injured friend just passed out and might have hit his head. Can you do that?"

Her tone reminded him of Babs at the end of her patience, and Jason found himself agreeing immediately. "Yes, but doesn't he need a hospital for a head injury? The Doc won't have the right equipment."

"Seriously, man," Kareem said, "Where have you been the last five years? She's got better scanners than Gotham General these days."

"And we aren't taking Alvin to a hospital," Steph insisted. "They'd call his foster father."

"Okay, okay, we'll take him to the Doc's," Jason agreed and went to pick the—agent? kid?—up.

"No, I'll carry him," Steph protested.

"I know you're strong, Steph, but are you sure that's best for him? You won't have to jostle him or shift position?"

Steph ran a hand through Alvin's hair, probably checking for contusions. "Promise you won't hurt him?"

"I promise I won't attack him." Self-defense or defense of others didn't count as attacks, right?

Jason maneuvered the kid into his arms and immediately felt more of that armor under the hoodie and loose sweats. Asymmetrical, which was unusual for the League; they preferred to give no indication of strong and weak sides. Left forearm, yes, but also his right knee, which was an odd place for armor… but a very normal place for a knee brace. The kind of thing you'd definitely need if you'd wrenched your knee and needed to get clear across Crime Alley without anyone spotting the weakness.

It wasn't like Jason hadn't seen it before. There was the time Deadshot thought he'd missed Nightwing entirely, only for the vigilante to collapse from blood loss the moment he'd handed the assassin over to the police. Bruce had been livid that his son hadn't called for backup, as if the usual way Jason found out Batman had been injured on patrol wasn't the trail of blood he left between the Batmobile and the Computer. (There was a reason the Bats mostly dressed in dark colors.)

Jason didn't like to think that a civilian preteen had so much experience with hiding serious injuries that he could successfully do so from Jason . Particularly since Alvin wasn't from the Alley. He hadn't even been running on adrenaline or the endorphin rush from the original injury; either the kid had a sky-high pain tolerance, or he was sky-high on pain killers.

Alvin let out an almost-silent gasp of pain and stiffened when Jason maneuvered him down the stairs, so probably not the latter. Jason wondered how many of the kid's injuries he was aggravating or jostling, despite his best efforts. Then the breathing evened out and the body relaxed, way too quickly to be natural sleep.

"Kid. Alvin. I know you're awake." No response. Fair enough, Jason wouldn't have given up on his bluff so quickly if the situations were reversed. "You fell and hit your head, so Steph and I are taking you to the Doc's." Would he know who that was? "Doc Thompkins, I mean."

"Alvin knows who the Doc is. Probably on a first-name basis with her, after all the time he's spent in her clinic."

"Steph?" Alvin said, opening his green eyes and turning his head. "I thought I told you to run."

"I thought I told you that you may be in charge when it comes to chemistry—"

"Just ionic bonding," Alvin interjected. "You're going to glide right through equilibrium and thermodynamics."

"You may be in charge of ionic bonding, but I'm in charge of what?"

Alvin sighed. "Surviving in the Alley, first aid, fashion, and breakfast food."

"Surviving in the Alley. Like not running out of a secured location just because my friend panicked." Alvin flushed and tucked his head. "I know you have a… thing… about avoiding Masks, and particularly the J— the clown. But Red Hood's been around for a number of weeks now and he's mostly been doing good, which is about the best you can hope for."

The distrust on Alvin's face wouldn't have been clearer if it were written on his forehead, but he nodded tightly.

"Great," Jason said, heading for his car and hoping no enterprising thief had taken off with any necessary part of it overnight. Yes, it was in a garage, but that just meant that the thieves who did go after it were of a higher caliber.  "Let's get this show on the road."

Chapter Text

Crime Alley wasn't one street, despite the name. Sure, there was Park Row, the original "Crime Alley", but the gang activity had spilled into neighboring streets, chasing off the businesses that could afford to move elsewhere. These were quickly replaced with liquor stores, pawn shops and neon advertisements for cigarettes and payday loans. Soon enough, the only vice you couldn't get fulfilled in the neighborhood was a craving for a fresh fruit or vegetable. It took five minutes to navigate from the four-story derelict warehouse Jason had set up for the kids to the Doc's clinic, thanks to roads that were more pothole than asphalt and the occasional barricade thrown up as part of a turf struggle between the Escabedo and Penitente cartels. Jason hoped they stuck to posturing until he was ready to challenge them both; an open gang war would significantly delay his plans.

Jason pulled his car—missing the radio and cassette player, but still with all its wheels—into the drop-off spot and found himself arguing with the patient. "Just let me carry you in."

"I'm not letting anyone see me carried into Doc Thompkins' clinic," he retorted. "The safe zone only extends to the end of the block."

Jason blinked at the kid, then took a look at the street. He could spot it, now that he knew what to look for. There was no one lurking in the alleys with a knife on this block. A cluster of homeless adults had set up in one, but Jason didn't detect any threat from them. A man with both legs amputated above the knee gave Jason a friendly nod and drank from his thermos. If it really was a safe zone, that meant someone was keeping it that way. A lot of someones, apparently: he spotted a low-ranking Maroni family member sharing a cigarette with a counterpart in the Dimitrov family at one end of the block, and on the other end a man in Ghost Dragon colors was watching the street with a woman in Innocent Devils colors. Someone had brokered an actual neutral zone in the middle of Crime Alley.

Alvin tried to use his distraction to slip out of the car, but Jason blocked him by simply not moving. "You've already fallen once, and your knee is fucked up. Let me carry you."

"Or get into the wheelchair," Steph offered, arriving with one and flipping on the breaks.

"Let me help you into it, at least."

"No."

Jason ignored that, half-lifting the stubborn idiot into the chair and starting to push him inside.

"Thanks," Steph said, firm and a little cold. "I've got it from here."

Jason hesitated. "He's going to need an MRI and—"

"I said I've got it. You should leave." Jason heard Alvin's sigh of relief when Steph pushed his chair towards the sliding doors of the clinic.

Jason pulled out of the drop-off zone, but brought the car to a stop in front of the two lookouts in gang colors. They both came alert at the sight of his mask, so Jason held up his hands to show he was unarmed. "Hey, is it true this is neutral territory?"

"What's it to you?" the man asked, posture aggressive, flashing his gun.

"Relax, Leung. I think I've heard of this guy. Red Mask?"

"Red Hood. I'm new in town."

"Then you should keep moving straight out of town," Leung suggested. "We don't need any more masked freaks."

"Leung, it's Neutral. Territory. Do you want me to report to Lynx that you tried to start something?"

Leung backed down, and the woman leaned against the car, blocking him from seeing what she was doing with her right hand. "You heard right. Neutral territory. The Gangs, the Families, the Cartels, the Triads, the Eastern European Mafia, Sionis' crew; anyone who's anyone protects the Doc's peace."

"Who the hell pulled that off?" Getting any of those parties in the same room was asking for a blood bath, but you couldn't make a deal like this without face-to-face negotiation.

The Innocent Devil flashed a smile. "Depends who you ask. The Families say it was their idea. The Triads say the same. Sionis says orchestrating the signing is proof of his power, not that anyone is listening."

"What do you say?" Jason asked, leaning towards her, giving her the perfect opportunity to attack with her hidden knife.

She didn't take the bait. "Me? I think it was everyone's idea. Maybe a little bird whispered it in their ears as they were sleeping. Or maybe they took advice from an oracle."

Jason hadn't realized Oracle got involved in underworld politics, much less—by little bird, did the woman mean Robin? "As I said, I'm new in town. Is there a compact I need to sign? Rotation on guard duty?"

The woman looked delighted. "A little fish with plans, I see. Don't worry about it. When you're big enough to bother with, we'll contact you." She pushed away from the car, hiding the sheathing of her knife in a motion to adjust her sleeves. "See you around, little fish."

Jason got breakfast-to-go at Paco's Diner, which had seen plenty weirder than a guy in sweatpants and a face-covering mask at 10am, but the thought of eating it didn't appeal. He ended up giving it to old man Nicky at the corner. The nickname had been a joke when Jason was little; Nicky had been in his thirties at most, harmless if his various indecent exposures didn't bother you. Now, less than a decade later, he seemed old: weathered skin, unfocused eyes, missing several teeth. He gummed determinedly at the breakfast burrito and Jason left him to it.

After a bit of aimless driving, Jason found himself in what was locally known as the Tail-light District. "Can't afford any colored lights," Mirabel had said with a sly smile when she'd explained, "but stop your car for fifteen minutes and you'll get yourself some tail." Mirabel herself was the only one outside, it being too damn early for most street walkers and their clients. She'd set up a card table on the sidewalk and seemed to be doing her books in the sun.

"Nice day for some accounting," Jason offered.

"Fuckers cut off our electricity again," she said without looking up. "I keep telling the company it's not my fault someone is tapping into their power lines, but they charge me double what the meter says anyway. What can I do for you, Red Hood?"

"Just wanted to stop by, make sure there weren't any issues."

Mirabel paused in her writing and looked up, eyes squinted against the glare. She was in her mid-forties, hair dyed Copper Cowboy and lips painted carmine, handsome rather than beautiful. She pursed her lips and held out a hand. "One-fifty up front."

Jason sputtered, "I didn't come for your services—"

"You came to talk about your problems. I'm happy to listen. One hundred fifty dollars for the first hour, three hundred if it takes longer than that."

"Come on, even licensed psychiatrists—"

"Licensed psychiatrists don't know shit. I'm here, I know plenty, and I'm willing to listen for one hundred fifty dollars."

Bemused, Jason handed over the money. Mirabel counted it—twice—then packed up her books and invited him into her "office", a utility closet already sweltering with the heat of the day, and handed over a luke-warm bottle of water.

"Mirabel, I'm stunned by your generosity."

"It's two dollars, I'll put it on your tab. Now spill, I want to be out there for the lunch rush."

Which is how Jason found himself in a stuffy closet, telling a Crime Alley madam how he'd scared a bunch of homeless kids shitless. Jason felt lighter afterwards, which was either the relief of getting it off his chest or a sign of oncoming heat stroke.

"So what did they say when you explained it?" Mirabel asked.

"What?" There were dark spots in his vision. He took another gulp of water.

"Marcia, Cindy, Peter and Jan."

"Who?"

"The kids! Your little homeless Brady Bunch."

"I haven't yet."

"You really haven't asked them what they think about it?"

"I haven't explained. I can't just go back there—"

"Why not?"

"Because I—" acted like Willis Todd "—scared them. I need to stay away, for their own good."

"So now you get to decide what's best for them? What are you, CPS? Batman?"

"I—"

"It's their fucking lives! They're Alley smart. If they think they're safer in a warehouse than with their parents or in the system, they're probably right. If they think they're safer with you than without you, they're probably right. Either way, it isn't your fucking call. Stop trying to be a hero, Red Hood, and be what we need."

"Okay, okay." Jason stood from the little wooden folding chair and had to grab the wall to steady himself through the head rush. "What about the kid I hurt?"

"You mean the kid who panicked, fell over and hurt himself?" Jason hadn't really thought of it that way. "I'd say trust your instincts. What kind of kid goes to Crime Alley for safety?"

Jason frowned. "If his foster dad is powerful enough, all the shelters would send the kid back to his abuser, at least as long as he's too afraid to report the abuse."

" Is the boy afraid of his foster father?"

Jason thought back to when Alvin had originally mentioned his foster dad, and everyone had winced. Alvin hadn't winced. He hadn't even seemed worried about stealing from the man. If he wasn't afraid of the man, though, what was he doing hiding in Crime Alley of all places?

"That's all the time we have for today," Mirabel announced.

Jason checked his phone. "It's only been twenty minutes. I paid for an hour!"

"It's an efficient service. An hour's worth of pull-your-head-out-of-your-own-ass in only twenty minutes. I suppose you could just leave the homeless kids waiting while we continue to chat, but I warn you I'm instituting a hundred-dollar-per-minute surcharge if you want to talk about daddy issues."

Talia had generously funded Jason's revenge spree, but not that generously. He took the better part of valor and retreated.

When Jason returned to the warehouse bearing apology pizza, Kareem was the only one there. "Jane took Anna out for ice cream and to get the latest news," they volunteered. "Keeping up our side of the bargain."

"That's good," Jason said, putting the pizza boxes on top of the stove, then realized what he had said. "The ice cream, I mean, and uh, making sure Anna's okay. Is she…?"

"She's confused. Honestly, so are the rest of us. We know that you're dangerous, that you sometimes… flip out. Go green or whatever."

"What?" Jason said. "I know Steph and Jane have seen me lose it, but how do you know about the Green?"

Kareem crossed their arms and leaned away. Jason forced himself to loosen his body language and lean back. "You, uh, you mutter sometimes. Talking to yourself. Not like a crazy person, just mantras and shit. Saying you're safe here, saying not to give in to the Green."

Jason was pleasantly surprised his self-talk was so positive. Apparently also out loud without him realizing it, which wasn't as much of the good. Jason sighed. "Listen, Kareem, I'm dangerous. I have weapons, I have training, and I was exposed to a toxin that makes everything…" Jason had no idea how to describe what the Pit had done to his mind.

"Venom? Jane said you laid out six guys without breaking a sweat."

"Not Venom, no. Venom wears off; I don't know if this ever will." Talia hadn't answered his questions, only assuring him the Rage would become easier to master with time. "When it gets triggered, my vision goes green and I enter a berserker rage. I can control the targets, but…"

"So your PTSD response is to turn into an unstoppable killing machine?" Kareem asked, teasing. "I'd trade twitching on the floor for single-handedly taking out six guys."

"It's not—the Green doesn't make me a great fighter, Kareem. I could have taken out twice that many guys without it and gotten fewer injuries. The Green makes me a stupidly aggressive fighter who wouldn't notice if my arm got cut off ."

"Oh shit."

"Yeah," Jason agreed. He'd never laid it out that bluntly before—to himself, even—and it was terrifying. "Listen, I wouldn't have let any of you around me if I thought I might hurt you, even during a rage. That doesn't mean it's a good idea for you kids to be around someone who's one word from flipping out and destroying a punching bag or piece of furniture. Especially Anna."

"You told us all this shit before we moved in," Kareem reminded him. "Not the details about the toxin and the berserker fighting, but that you might destroy stuff if you get triggered. That's not the problem. The problem is you flipped out on Alvin and then shoved Steph when she tried to get you to calm down. They're not 'stuff'."

Jason really wished he could rub his face, or maybe pinch the bridge of his nose. Stupid helmet. "That wasn't the Green. That was just… me being an asshole. I thought…"

"Yeah?" Kareem prompted.

"Listen, I have some enemies, okay? And some… allies with questionable intentions. Most of whom are ninjas."

"Ninjas. Right."

There was no less ridiculous way to say this, so Jason just blurted, "When Alvin took that fighting stance, I thought he was a ninja."

Kareem's mouth was hanging open. After a minute they recovered enough to say, "Alvin? Our Alvin? You actually thought that Alvin Draper was a ninja?"

"It's a distinctive stance. Not really what they teach at the local McDojo."

"He said his foster father teaches him self defense. Maybe he's a ninja?" Kareem pulled a face. "Never mind, that would fucking suck. You can't escape from a ninja. They'd always be popping up out of the shadows."

Jason hesitated, but he had to ask, "Why are you all sure it's his foster dad beating him?"

"Because he's always telling us that his foster dad doesn't beat him."

Jason waited. "Was that supposed to make sense?"

"He says shit like, 'My foster dad never hits me, unless he's training me.' 'My foster dad has only ever hurt me by accident.' 'My foster dad doesn't beat me, he's just trying to make me tougher.'"

"Fuck."

"Yeah. That's not even the worst part. The worst part is that I don't think Alvin comes here to get away from him. I think he just wants his foster dad to look for him."

"Does he? The foster dad, I mean."

"Not so far as I know."

Kareem must have sent the all-clear signal to Jane, because she returned shortly, practically dragged by Anna at her most hyperactive. They managed to get a slice of pizza into her while she climbed Jason's exercise equipment, leaped off the stairs, did cartwheels and somersaults across the floor and back again, all while reciting a mile-a-minute everything that had happened on the ice cream outing, from the gum that had gotten stuck on the bottom of her shoe to the ants that had come to eat the melted ice cream drops on the ground. To no one's surprise, she fell fast asleep still protesting that she wasn't tired at all and she wanted more ice cream and pizza and to go to the zoo and ride the elephants which she'd never seen but she'd seen a picture of someone riding… yawn… riding one… once…

The fact that she crashed to sleep in Jason's lap put to rest a great number of his worries. Still, he swore to do better as he laid her on her pile of mattresses in the corner. It would have to wait for a little while: Alvin was being kept overnight at the Doc's clinic for observation and Steph had gone home. She said her father was out for the night, no doubt either planning or executing another criminal plan that would land him right back in jail.

Patrolling was usually the best part of Jason's day. The kids were great and all, but he didn't know what he was doing with them, or with his plans to take over the drug trade, or when he awkwardly offered to help troubleshoot for Mirabel and her girls (which mostly involved them pointing to trouble and him shooting it). This, though? Leaping from a rooftop and swinging by a grapple, zeroing in on a scream, taking out gang members, muggers and abusers before they could hurt anyone else? It was a piece of his old life again, unsullied.

Except tonight, every time he reached a rooftop, he swore he saw a shadow or silhouette. He'd never seen more than a glimpse of Batman in the last weeks, but tonight the man was in Crime Alley. Worse, Nightwing was out as well, and they weren't just swinging through, they were sectioning it off in a search pattern. What were they searching for?

Frustrated, Jason was forced to retreat to his safehouse across from the warehouse to wreck a few punching bags. Better that than tip his hand too soon, he knew, but he dreamed that night of being hunted.

The next morning found Jason parked outside Leslie's clinic, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Eventually he lost patience: either Steph hadn't relayed that Jason was waiting for him, or Alvin had taken one look at the text and snuck out the back. Jason headed in and felt like a tourist with the way he was gawking. He remembered the Doc's clinic as an old office building with cracked linoleum and bullet holes in the walls, only shower curtains to mark off the patient areas. Every spare cent had gone to medications and supplies, with none left over for equipment or building improvements. Even that had been an improvement over the "clinic" from when Jason had been a baby, which had just been a white paneled van up on blocks.

The outside of Leslie's clinic still looked like an office building. The inside looked like a well-funded hospital, with actual staff other than Dr Thompkins triaging patients and leading them back to patient treatment rooms. There was even a front desk with a receptionist who asked Jason if he could help him. Weirdly cheerfully, given that Jason was wearing a distinctly villain-ish mask (though he hadn't brought any weapons).

"I'm Red Hood. I'm, uh, here to pick someone up. Alvin."

"Do you have a last name?"

Did he have a last name for Alvin? He scraped his memory. "Starts with a D. Draper?"

The receptionist's expression didn't change, but it felt like the temperature dropped ten degrees. Jason hadn't realized someone non-British could do that kind of frosty disapproval without breaking their smile. Maybe the man was secretly British, but adopting an American accent? "Mmm. If we have anyone by that name, we'll notify them that 'Red Hood' is here to see them."

Well, shit. There went any chance of catching Alvin before he did a runner, and Steph would be furious if anything happened to him while he wandered Crime Alley injured. Jason nodded to the man and pretended to head for the bathrooms. Infiltrating an indigent care clinic wasn't what Jason had intended to use his ninja training for, but it got him to Alvin's exam room, where the kid was apparently still speaking with Doc Thompkins. Jason scowled; why had Steph texted him if Alvin wasn't even ready for pickup yet?

"He's worried sick about you," the Doc was saying.

"I'll get back in contact when I can. I left a note."

"A note? You of all people should know that isn't going to help. You have to at least contact him and tell him you're okay." Jason frowned. Doc Thompkins never pushed about contacting parents, guardians or even CPS; that's why he'd trusted her enough to visit her when he'd been living on the street. Hell, she'd gotten her license suspended half-a-dozen times for failing her mandated reporter duties before the city had passed a conscience exemption.

"I can't," Alvin said. "He's a detective, that would be enough for him to find me."

Jason consciously loosened the fists he'd tightened at the word 'detective'. Of course Alvin didn't mean Batman; he was saying that his foster father was police, and that despite what Kareem thought, the man was actively looking for Alvin. Running all the way to a homeless camp in Crime Alley was starting to make more sense.

"If you won't tell him, then I have to tell him I've seen you."

"Leslie, no! You can't. I can't go back yet." Huh, Steph was right. The kid really did call the Doc by her first name.

"I'm sorry, but it's not just about you. He's losing control, and we both know what that leads to."

Jason was not going to let that pass without challenge. He pulled open the door. "Excuse me, Doc, did you just blame this kid for the shitty way his father is acting?"

Doc Thompkins shot to her feet and blocked him from entering the exam room. Since she was five nothing and pushing sixty-five, it was accomplished entirely through attitude. "This is a private conversation between myself and a patient."

"Didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the audio tuners filter out your white noise generators," Jason said, tapping the side of his helmet. "I came to pick up Alvin. I didn't expect to hear you victim-blaming an abused kid and pressuring him to go back home to his abuser."

Doc Thompkins looked shocked and opened her mouth, but Alvin interjected, "She wasn't! And I told you before, my foster dad doesn't beat me ."

Jason lost whatever he was going to reply when he got a good look at Alvin. He'd changed into a faded t-shirt with an anime character on it, exposing his neck. He was holding an ice pack to one side of it, and dark purple bruising in the shape of a man's hand was clear on the other. Jason had suspected—the unseasonable turtleneck, the edges of bruises under his jawline—but seeing the vivid imprint of the hands that had tried to wring the life out of this child made his vision wash green.

He clung to the doorknob and focused on his breathing. In-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four-five-six. Start again. The perpetrator wasn't here, there were no valid targets for his rage, so he kept himself brutally in check. When his vision cleared again, the Doc was just to his right speaking to him in a soothing voice, trying to bring him back to the present. "Red Hood? You're safe. You're in my clinic. No one here is trying to hurt you."

Alvin was on the other side of the exam table, using one crutch under an armpit to prop himself up on his good leg and holding the other in two hands like a weapon. "Leslie, you need to back away from him and alert security. He's extremely dangerous, even unarmed."

"Sorry about that," Jason said, shaky. He tried to rub his face and ended up rubbing the mask instead. "The kid's right though: I am dangerous. You shouldn't stand so close to someone when they're…" what, having a panic attack? PTSD flashback? Magical rage acid trip?

"I know you're dangerous; who do you think had to set the bone for that mugger you and Steph dropped off a couple of weeks ago? I talked with her about it, and she says you've got it under control."

"...you were testing me?"

"Steph says you're looking after the kids who used to hole up in the old liquor store. Of course I was testing you." She smiled, and it wasn't like the ones she used to give R— used to give Jason. It was one adult recognizing another for doing something hard and thankless, and for not fucking it up too badly. "I'm glad Alvin has someone looking after him."

"Leslie!" Alvin hissed, embarrassed. The redhead was still on the far side of the exam table, but he'd lowered the crutch to use for its intended purpose.

"Why? Is he accident-prone? Always injuring himself by walking into doors?" Jason asked, tone needling. He hadn't forgotten the Doc's threat of contacting the kid's foster dad.

Doc Thompson held up her hands to concede the point. "I'm sorry. Alvin, I won't tell anyone I saw you, and especially not your foster father. His behavior isn't your fault or responsibility, and I shouldn't have implied otherwise. He's a grown-ass man who needs to learn to handle his emotional issues without taking them out on everyone else." The last was said with enough annoyance that Jason could feel his eyebrows shoot up behind his mask.

Alvin shrugged, uncomfortable. "Whatever."

The Doc continued to Jason, "Which doesn't change the fact that Alvin, although in no way at fault for his injuries, does not take care of them. He needs ice and rest, and to stay off that knee, for at least a week. At least he doesn't have a concussion." The words "this time" were heavily implied.

"He lost consciousness when he fell, I'm almost certain."

"Yes, that's what happens when you attempt strenuous activity while your airway is restricted. Such as by untreated extensive bruising to the throat. He passed out from lack of oxygen, or possibly pain from the impact due to his broken ribs."

"Leslie!" Alvin protested again. "Don't tell him that."

"Rest. Ice. Five days at least. If you continue to walk on that knee and tear those ligaments, you will need surgery." She turned back to Jason and gave him a nod. "It was good to meet you, Red Hood, though next time I would ask, for the privacy of my patients, that you disable your audio filters and wait in the waiting area ." Then she was off, speed walking to see yet another of her patients.

"Do we need to go to a pharmacy?" Jason asked after they'd maneuvered Alvin, his wrapped wrist, his immobilized knee, and his crutches into the car.

"What? Why?"

"To fill any prescriptions the Doc gave you."

"All set," Alvin said, gesturing to his backpack. "The on-site pharmacy delivered to the exam room."

They had an on-site pharmacy? That was new. "How'd you pay for it?" Insurance or credit cards were right out if he was trying to avoid a police trace, but carrying around that kind of cash in Crime Alley was lethally stupid.

"I didn't. It's a free clinic, the meds are free too."

"Since when?" Sure, the meds given at the clinic were free, but they didn't let you take any home; people would just sell it. When Jason'd had pneumonia, he'd had to go to the Doc's each day for his antibiotic pill.

"About three years ago? You know, when the Wayne Foundation gave the grant that funded all the free clinics in the city. Gave Doc Thompkins a real clinic building, pharmacy, staff and all. My mom thought Wayne had completely lost it."

"Why? Isn't that what charities are supposed to do?"

"According to my parents? Charities are there to help the rich: tax shelter, great PR, and expensive parties. A charitable foundation that actually solves problems is a waste of a good problem! Particularly since, instead of making anyone richer, Wayne spent 90% of his wealth on it."

They'd reached the warehouse where the kids were staying, which was fortunate because Jason really needed to get a good look at Alvin's face to see if the redhead was pulling his leg. "Are you telling me that Bruce Wayne, the richest man in Gotham , donated all his money to the Martha Wayne Memorial Foundation to fund free clinics?"

"Not all his money. Ten percent of four billion is still four hundred million dollars; it's not like he's on food stamps," Alvin pointed out. "Though he's definitely not the richest man in Gotham anymore. Also, it's not—that's not the name of the foundation anymore. Everyone still calls it the Wayne Foundation, but he renamed it after his son died."

Jason was very glad he wasn't driving right now, as surges of green and black spots warred over his vision and his lungs felt frozen. "He replaced you immediately," Talia had said, when she handed over a newspaper with a photo of another boy in his suit. " I'm so sorry, but I don't think he ever loved you. "

Alvin was fidgeting with one of the straps of his backpack. "It's the Jason Todd-Wayne Memorial Foundation."

Chapter Text

There was a palpable tension in the warehouse when Jason entered, helping Alvin up the stairs. Kareem brightly suggested Anna play with their flip phone in the section walled off for offices. Anna was clearly suspicious about being left out of Grown Up Stuff, but on the other hand the phone had Snake. Snake won.

Alvin lowered himself onto a bench and closed his eyes. The kid looked wiped out just from climbing the stairs.

"What did you do to Robin?" Jane demanded, glaring at Jason.

"What?" Jason choked out before he realized she was referring to the Replacement.

"We're your informants, yeah? We listen for rumors, tell you what's going on in the Alley." Jason nodded; that had been the deal when he'd secured this place for them to stay. "Well, word on the street is Robin is missing, and you had something to do with it."

"Dammit, Jane, that's not what we agreed to say!" Kareem complained.

Alvin asked, "What have you heard specifically?"

"The Bat and Nightwing were all over the alley last night, asking about Robin. And Julia says one of Mirabel's girls saw Red Hood fighting Robin on the old Cannery roof. She said Robin was hurt; he tried to escape, but Hood chased him to another roof."

Jason crossed his arms. He should have been expecting these questions; you couldn't keep a secret from street kids, not for long. "Yeah, I roughed up Robin a bit."

"Wow. Um. Why?" Kareem asked.

"He was on my turf and in my way. I told you from the beginning that I'm not afraid to get a little blood on my hands and that meant sooner or later I was going to tangle with Batman, Nightwing and the rest."

"Batman and Nightwing, sure," Kareem said, "but Robin's a kid, man. I thought you protected kids."

"If he wanted to be treated as a kid, he shouldn't have put on the uniform. He's not a distraction, he's a goddamn target for anyone with a problem with the Bat."

"Like you?" Jane asked. Her chin was up, chest thrust forward, and her fingers were white where they were gripping the edge of the table. "You never answered my question. What did you do to Robin? Did you kidnap him? Is he…"

Alvin interjected, "Robin's fine." Everyone turned to look at the redhead. "If Red Hood had kidnapped or killed Robin on Wednesday night, do you really think the Bat would have waited until Thursday night to look for him? Or that he'd just be asking polite questions?"

"So is Robin really missing?" Kareem wondered.

Alvin shrugged. "The Bat probably doesn't know where he is, but that doesn't automatically mean kidnapped or dead. Maybe Robin quit. Maybe he ran away."

Ran away. Away from everyone who loved him, straight into the arms of a woman who would sell him to the Joker.

The Green cleared in time for Jason to hear Alvin say, "I'll really worry that something happened to Robin if there's a city curfew again."

That made no sense. "There's never been a curfew in Gotham. How would that even work?"

The others stared at Jason. Kareem shook their head. "Where have you been the last five years, man? Gotham had a curfew for months after— well. Do you remember the second Robin?"

"The second Robin?" Jason said, which was stupid. Of course people noticed when a nearly-adult Robin suddenly lost two feet in height and all his acrobatic skills. Jason just hadn't heard people talking about specific incarnations of the hero before, and it was jarring. A bit of the Green seeped into his voice as Jason continued with what he knew they were all thinking, "Sure. He was the one who never measured up to the original, right? Not as skilled, undisciplined, too angry; thank God he's gone. The third Robin is an improvement in every way, right?"

There was a stretching moment of silence.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Jane yelled. "How dare you talk about him that way?"

"He was one of us," Kareem put in. "An Alley kid, I mean. You could tell from the accent, and how… Before him, Batman and Robin used to grab us homeless kids off the street and dump us with CPS. Then CPS would put us right back into whatever abusive situation we'd just escaped. We weren't safe from the bad guys or the 'good guys'. The second Robin, though, he'd ask where we wanted to go. He listened when we said certain shelters weren't safe for us because we were gay or trans, or because the night guard was a creep; and he'd make sure they were safe for us."

That was—yes, Jason had done that, but that had been a tiny part of Robin's job. He'd spent the majority of his nights patrolling, punching muggers, and occasionally helping Batman outsmart the Riddler or some other rogue. It hadn't taken much to convince Batman that runaways were usually running from something bad. (Starving orphan Jason hitting Batman with a tire iron while screaming, "I won't go back to foster care" had been pretty persuasive.) After that he'd just been passing on tips from his street informants; Batman had actually followed up and made the shelters safe.

"He believed me," Jane said, barely over a whisper. "He's the first person who, when I told, asked about what the guy did instead of what I did or didn't do."

Jason stiffened. He… didn't remember that conversation. He didn't remember Jane. It was one of the most important conversations of Jane's life; what did it mean that for him, it had been just another Tuesday? Maybe that you were important in a lot of people's lives? suggested a voice that sounded far too much like Bruce's for comfort. Yeah, sure, Robin was important, but not Jason. That's why Bruce had replaced him.

Jane wiped her nose and continued, "That's how they say the J—the fucking clown did it. Got a woman to beg him for help and lead him straight to his death. Don't thank God he's gone, thank the Arkham psycho who beat a kid to death just for trying to help people."

Jason grabbed the table and hung on as a wave of acid Green drowned him in a roiling storm of emotions, and then it… receded. Completely. Left him feeling shaky, but for once the rage wasn't pulsing at his temples. These homeless Alley kids, at least, thought Jason's death mattered. More importantly, they thought his life had mattered; he hadn't been replaceable to them. Why couldn't his Da— why couldn't Bruce feel the same?

"Sorry," Jason offered Jane and Kareem, who were both looking worried. He needed to get the Green under control before he traumatized them completely. "I shouldn't have said those things. I didn't know."

Alvin's body language was as closed as it could be while propped on crutches. He frowned. "You didn't know what, exactly? That the second Robin was dead? Or that—"

"Not now, Alvin," Kareem interrupted, and Jason was grateful.

He needed air and space. He went back to his safehouse to work out, and he only realized afterwards that Bruce had taught him every exercise he'd done.

The Bats had a trace on Red Hood. They had to. He knew the Alley better than the Golden Boy ever had, and yet every time he lost him, Nightwing popped up again ahead of him.

"You're a hard man to talk to," Nightwing complained.

"Maybe you should take the hint." Red Hood drew his guns.

Nightwing was insultingly unconcerned. "Come on, just answer a few questions and I'll be out of your hair."

That was… odd. Nightwing wasn't territorial about Gotham the way Batman was, but Jason had expected him to be furious that Red Hood had beaten his favorite little brother into the ground. 

"Please," Nightwing added, suddenly vulnerable, "I need your help."

What the hell was he playing at? "If I answer your questions, you'll tell me how you're tracking me."

There was a hesitation—he was probably listening to someone on his earpiece—and then the older vigilante nodded. "Sounds fair to me. You tangled with Robin two nights ago."

No point denying it. There had probably been more witnesses than just Mirabel's girl. "Yeah. And?"

"Did he say anything to you?"

Jason had been braced for Nightwing to threaten, to attack, to demand he leave Gotham and never return. "You're not pissed that I beat the crap out of him?"

Nightwing snorted. "Oh please. He's handled tougher than you. He was fine when he got home."

"He was… fine," Jason repeated. He couldn't remember the time he'd lost to the Green, and sure head wounds often bled like hell, but he was pretty certain the Replacement had not been fine by the time Jason had left him.

Nightwing's smile faded. He turned half away and spoke softly. Jason turned up the audio pickups in his helmet to listen in. "Agent A, who saw Robin come home?" After a pause, "Could he have hacked that remotely?... So at least we know he did get back. What about his condition?"

Nightwing looked up sharply and Jason realized he'd taken a step closer to try to hear the response. It bothered him that he couldn't remember how badly he'd hurt the Replacement. Every snap of a breaking bone ought to be a treasured memory; he shouldn't have to guess how many there had been from the growing rage in Nightwing's expression. Red Hood raised his guns in warning.

The Lazarus Pit had given Jason the height and muscle that malnutrition and a premature death had stolen from him. He had training from the League of Assassins. He had a deadlier weapon with a greater range. None of that tipped the scales when Dick Grayson, a man with nearly as many years as a vigilante as Batman, stopped fooling around and came for him.

Red Hood was off-balance and retreating from the beginning; his only saving grace was that the Green wasn't making him too stupid to dodge the batons. Nightwing's suit wasn't armored, but that only mattered if Red Hood could hit him. Red Hood kept firing at center mass, that stupid blue bird icon on Dick's chest, as Nightwing zigged and zagged across the roof. He gave ground, but not enough; front flip into a roundoff kick , Jason recognized just before the gun was kicked out of his right hand. Before he could aim the second, Nightwing wrapped his thighs around Red Hood's neck and brought him bruisingly to the ground, helmet-first.

Nightwing twisted Jason's left arm behind his back until he had to drop the second gun and settled his weight on Red Hood's back. "Now," the older vigilante said, "You are going to answer my questions."

Jason had fucked this up so badly. Why the hell hadn't he let Dick go on believing that Robin had been fine after his encounter with Red Hood? Now Jason was going to be arrested, and he'd never get the chance to kill the clown, or to find out if Bruce really loved him enough to avenge him… Red Hood heard the crackling of Nightwing's earpiece, even if he couldn't make out the words, and then the vigilante shifted his weight, clearly distracted. Red Hood broke the hold and was about to run—next time he fought Nightwing, he was bringing heavy ordinance and explosives—when someone spoke into his ear as well.

"Red Hood, this is Oracle." Crisp, feminine, synthesized. "Batman is en route to Crime Alley, ETA two minutes. If you don't want to spend the rest of your life eating through a straw, you're going to want to listen to me very carefully."

"What? This is a secured communicator, how the hell did you—"

Nightwing snorted, also over the secured communicator. "Meet Oracle. This is what she does. O, I can slow Batman down, buy you a few minutes, but we still need—"

"I've got this," Oracle assured. "Batman is coming from the direction of Chinatown, homing in on the helmet's signal. Scrambling in 3, 2, 1…"

Red Hood winced at the whine of feedback, but it wasn't like he could just take off his helmet in front of Dick. Nightwing scowled at him, then shifted his gaze in the direction of Chinatown. Red Hood followed his gaze, and that was Batman: grappling between buildings, coming straight at them. Nightwing said, "Start running. I can buy you eight minutes."

"Get to street level, now," Oracle snapped.

Jason froze. That was Batman coming for him. He's not coming to save you, idiot. He reached for the Green, but it wasn't there.

Nightwing stepped forward as soon as Batman landed on the roof. "I'm handling this, B. You need to get back to following the money trail."

"Red Hood," Batman growled. "You dared to touch Robin."

"Batman, stand down."

Batman stalked forward as if his eldest son weren't even there.

"You're the one who sent him out alone," Jason said, raising his chin and hoping the distorter hid the way his voice shook. That was Batman. The sanctimonious asshole who hadn't avenged him. Where was Jason's rage? "Determined to repeat your mistakes?"

From the way he lunged forward with a bellow, Batman wasn't having any problems finding his rage. Jason stepped back and braced for impact, but it never came. Nightwing tackled his mentor and they rolled across the rooftop. Bruce had the weight advantage, but Nightwing slipped out of every hold and pin.

Oracle was in his ear—had she been talking all this time?—saying, " Run! " so he grappled down to the ground and ran. Above him, he heard Nightwing's escrima sticks crackle to electrified life.

Four minutes of running later, following the convoluted instructions that Oracle was giving him, he finally asked, "What the hell was that? Why is Nightwing fighting Batman?"

"It's temporary. There is a trap door under the tarp in this building; climb down the stairs. We just need to get Robin back."

"Huh? What does Robin have to do with it?" Red Hood looked around the basement, glad his mask filtered out the dust he was kicking up. It was a safehouse, if you could call a basement with a futon, a pallet of bottled water and a box of protein bars that. The trap door had a serious lock on the inside, at least.

There was a long enough pause that Jason wondered if she'd disconnected. "...Batman is ready to tear this city apart, again, because something has happened to his partner, again, and you wonder what Robin has to do with it? Last time there was a damned curfew to keep citizens clear of it."

The kids had mentioned a curfew too. What had Alvin said? That they'd know something had happened to Robin if there was another one? "So what, Batman was so upset his sidekick got killed that he started attacking civilians?"

"No, of course not." Right. It's not like Batman actually cared— "but when he started taking suicidal risks, you can't expect Gotham's criminals not to capitalize on that." Suicidal? "He was angry, and grieving, and trying to protect the entire city without backup. Civilians weren't safe on the streets and he was… reprehensibly brutal to some criminals."

Reprehensibly brutal. Sure. Red Hood snorted. "It's not like he killed anyone."

"He beat one of Black Mask's men so badly he had to spend months in the ICU. He dropped one of Joker's men two stories, and the severe compound fractures meant the hospital had to amputate both legs. He knocked out a flasher and gave the man permanent brain damage."

Holy shit. "Wait, the flasher—do you mean Old Nicky?" Jason had wondered about the change in him.

"...The man's name was Nicholas. How do you know him?"

"He'd been living on the streets around Crime Alley for a decade. He was pretty much harmless, other than the indecent exposure."

"Well, the child he flashed that night screamed, and Batman hit the man too hard. …Some mistakes can never be undone. I made sure the man was connected with services when he left the hospital, but he keeps refusing treatment and returning to living on the street."

"So rather than arrest Batman, the city created a curfew?"

"The GCPD had already spent years trying and failing to arrest Batman. The rank-and-file would have transferred to Bludhaven rather than try again when Batman was uncontrollably violent. Besides, the curfew wasn't just about Batman directly. Gang activity was up, Rogue activity was up, and there were a lot more civilians getting caught in the crossfire. Black Mask and the Families were feuding over territory. Scarecrow and Mad Hatter teamed up to take a preschool hostage, while on the other side of the city Two-Face robbed a bank and Zsasz was loose in the Bowery. Batman was stretched too thin and they could all smell his blood in the water."

"What about Nightwing?"

"They… had a falling out."

Which was stupid, they had been "having a falling out" the entire time Jason had been Robin. That didn't mean they didn't back each other up, it just meant they yelled at each other afterwards. What kind of falling out would it take for Nightwing to leave Batmen to fend off three simultaneous Rogue attacks by himself?

"Okay, but Batgirl must have helped."

"...Batgirl disappeared."

"The fuck do you mean, she disappeared?"

"Batgirl sightings stopped at the same time Robin disappeared."

Jason felt sick. What had happened to Babs? Why hadn't he ever asked about her? He'd died; why had he assumed no one else could? "What happened to her? Is she okay?"

"...People don't know. Most think she quit, after what happened to Robin." Bullshit. Barbara had been every bit as dedicated as Dick, she wouldn't have walked away just because of that. "A couple of criminals claim to have killed her, but none of their stories are particularly credible."

"You said 'people' don't know. But you do, don't you? That's your whole thing: the all-knowing Oracle."

"It's more of an allusion than an actual claim of omniscience. But yes, I do know what happened to Batgirl, and there's no way I'm telling you. All I know about you is that you're between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, and that you grew up in Crime Alley but you haven't kept up on events in at least the past four years."

Fuck. "Who's been talking to you?"

"You have, 'Red Hood'. You know Old Nicky's been hanging around Crime Alley for ten years, but you don't know what happened while Gotham was under curfew for months? Or that Batgirl isn't active anymore?"

There was a long silence while Red Hood kept his fucking mouth shut. 

"My initial guess was military. A 5-year tour with restricted access to news from home, special forces or a similar elite group to match your skill level. Except according to Nightwing you have zero military bearing and move like a ninja. You're also pretty shit at following orders."

"Not a strong suit of mine," Red Hood agreed.

"Then there's the name. If you're from Gotham, there's no way you picked that without knowing—"

"Don't." Yeah, it was probably revealing too much, but so would flipping out and destroying this shitty little saferoom. "Don't say his name.

"I won't," Oracle said quietly. "That monster has taken something from a lot of us. If you hate him, though, why would you… Wait. No. You want him to come after you."

"So I can kill him." Okay, preferably so Batman could kill him, but the end result was going to be a dead clown either way. "How do you plan to stop me?"

"Why the fuck would I stop you? If you want to murder the clown, be my guest. I was furious when Superman stopped Batman four years ago. I guess I'm glad now, but that's just because it would have been the end of Batman. Maybe all the bats."

"What are you talking about?"

"Batman came close to turning himself in over those incidents of brutality; I know he would if he ever killed someone, even the Joker."

"No, what do you mean Superman stopped him?"

"The whole story involves international stupidity of an unimaginable level, but let's just say the clown managed to get diplomatic immunity and Superman was forced to protect him lest Batman start World War III. Up until the clown went true to form and tried to poison gas the UN."

"But Batman tried to kill J—the clown? You're sure?"

"I know he meant to. Would he have gone through with it? I don't know. I don't think he does either."

"Then why hasn't he finished the damn job? If he cared about Robin, why is his killer still breathing?"

"You seem awfully concerned about avenging the second Robin, for someone who nearly got the third killed."

Red Hood was not pleased with the topic change. "I just roughed him up a bit."

"Do you know how many of his bones you broke before you left him alone on a roof in Crime Alley? He tampered with the security recordings in the cave, but he didn't delete the scans in temporary memory on the x-ray machine."

"If you expect me to apologize, you're going to be waiting a very long time."

"What did you say to him? You're the last person to talk to him before he disappeared, I know you said something."

Red Hood snorted. "I told him to quit if he wanted to live to get his driver's license. I guess he listened."

"First of all, a Robin never listens. It comes with the damn half-cape. Second, if anyone knows the risks of donning that costume, it's the kid whose predecessor died in it. Try again."

That was… okay, Jason hadn't really thought of it that way. How had Bruce convinced a thirteen-year-old to take up a role with 50-50 survival odds? Was Tim Drake that convinced of his invincibility?

…Jason had been, at that age.

"I didn't say anything else to him, just gave him the beating. You said I broke a number of bones. Maybe that spooked him."

"Before you lie to me again please remember that you're hiding in my safe room. What did you say to Robin? "

Red Hood tipped his head back against the wall and tried to think past the frustration. He needed Oracle to think he wasn't a priority threat long enough to take control of the gangs. Revealing that he knew any of the Bats' identities (even just the Drake kid) would do the opposite.

He still hadn't come up with anything when Oracle said, "Nightwing's down, and Batman has locked onto your signal again. He's coming for you."

Nightwing's down was like a kick in the chest, and the knowledge that Batman was coming for him sent Red Hood's pulse racing. He didn't— he wasn't— he wasn't prepared, and Batman was furious, he needed to get away—

"Tell me what you said to Robin, and I'll help you escape," Oracle promised, tone sincere behind the electronic distortion.

Red Hood almost fell for it. Instead, he snorted audibly. "You're going to help me anyway. You're the one trying to keep Batman from catching up with me. He almost turned himself in to the police after the last incidents of brutality, isn't that what you said? How in control do you think he is right now, after flattening his protegé for trying to stop him?"

Silence from Oracle. Jason clenched and relaxed his hands, trying to ignore the sweat building up inside the gloves.

Just when he was starting to think she'd cut all communication, Oracle was back with a final message: "Once I've fried your audio transmitter, head north or east and stay off the streets at night." The earpiece screeched with painful feedback before blowing out.

Red Hood scrambled up out of the trapdoor and headed north at a jog. The electronic overload had taken out the audio pickups, leaving his hearing muffled by the helmet, but he didn't dare take it off where Oracle might have cameras. The whole way back to one of his less-used safehouses, he kept looking over his shoulder and up at the roofline.

In the late morning, Jason dressed in civilian clothing and risked showing his face in order to go to the public library for some long-overdue research. Talia had only shown him a few newspaper clippings, and he'd swallowed her story whole. He'd needed a target for his rage, for the Green, and he'd let her aim him at Batman and the Replacement.

According to the Gotham Gazette, Jason Todd-Wayne had died in a car accident during a semester in France three months after Jason's actual death. Enough time to keep anyone from wondering if there was any connection between the teen's death and Robin's shocking murder. Talia had shown him the handful of lines about the funeral: " Jason Todd-Wayne was interred today in Gotham Public Cemetery after a private closed-casket ceremony attended by his adoptive father Bruce Wayne and the Wayne valet Alfred Pennyworth. " It had been enough to enrage him: a funeral not even Dick attended, and then buried in Gotham Public Cemetery instead of the Wayne family plot.

Talia hadn't shown him the front-page Gazette article about Bruce donating over three billion dollars to the Jason Todd-Wayne Memorial Foundation. She hadn't shown him the gossipy society section articles noting Bruce's absence from society events and recent injuries from a sports car crash, or the even more gossipy business section articles noting that Bruce had turned his voting shares over to Lucius Fox and speculating about whether the man was suicidal. She certainly hadn't shown him the coverage of the grand opening of the Jason Todd-Wayne Memorial Clinic on Park Row just over a year later, which had included Jason's classmates and teachers, and even some Teen Titans in civilian clothing, sharing their memories of Jason. Bruce had been scheduled to speak just before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, but the article noted that he had been " overcome with emotion and unable to finish his speech. "

Genuine, or had Brucie been playing it up for the news programs? It needed investigating.

An hour later, Jason had pulled himself together enough that he could leave the viewing booth. He had an urge to destroy the videotape, to keep anyone else from seeing Bruce in such a vulnerable moment, or perhaps to steal it and keep it for himself: proof that his dad had cared enough about his death to cry in public.

About Batgirl, he found nothing concrete. Amid the dozens of articles memorializing the second Robin and mourning his death, there were only a few mentions of her disappearance. If she had been killed as well, it was a death that had gone almost unremarked by the general public; it was a hell of a thank you for the many years she'd risked her life to protect Gotham.

Jane was sitting on the break room table eating chocolate pudding when Jason returned to the warehouse late that evening wearing a new, functional helmet. From the number of empty pudding cups scattered around her she'd been waiting a while. "Hey, Hood."

"Hey." Jason filled the spaghetti pot with water to start the dinner dishes soaking and give Jane time to decide how to say what she clearly wanted to.

"You, uh, don't hurt kids. You told us that. But who counts as a kid?"

Jason turned to face her, drying his hands on his pants. "You're only fourteen, Jane. "

"So fourteen's a kid. What about fifteen? Sixteen? 'Cause Steph's sixteen, and I thought she was still a kid—"

"Yes, sixteen's a kid—"

"--but then you hurt Robin, and if he isn't a kid then maybe—"

"I fucked up," Jason said, only realizing then how much he meant it. "He interfered in some of my plans, and I took it out on him… but you're right, he's just a kid. I never should have hurt him." Or threatened him, and now the kid was missing. Run away, as if that ever ended well, and he had no idea how to fix it. How could he take back his threat if even Batman couldn't find Tim Drake?

A lot of the tension went out of Jane's shoulders. "So even if you were angry, really really angry, you wouldn't hurt Steph or Alvin?"

"I knocked Alvin over by accident. I will never intentionally attack a twelve-year-old, no matter how irritating they are." Jane stared at him. "What?"

"Alvin isn't twelve ."

"Thirteen. Whatever."

"He's fifteen."

"Oh." Perhaps Jason needn't have been quite so concerned about the kid wandering around on his own. On the other hand, the Alley only cared how tough you looked, and he looked about as tough as a twelve-year-old. "Nevertheless. I'm not going to hurt him. Even if he were to make me really angry."

Jane picked at her cuticles. "You wanted us to tell you if anyone was asking questions about you, right? That's our job as your informants."

"Yeah."

"Well… Alvin's been asking about you. Which is normal, right, no one wants to be sleeping in a warehouse owned by a masked stranger they know nothing about. It's been the usual: how long have you been around, who have you been killing, are you a creep, any weird schticks or grand plots that point to you being a supervillain."

"That seems more than fair, considering the red skull mask," Jason allowed.

"Exactly! That's what everyone wants to know about all the new masks. Even asking about what you have to do with… you-know-who. That's standard. But Alvin's been asking weird stuff."

"Weird how?"

"What you have to do with the Bats. He was asking before we knew you'd had a run-in with Robin, like he'd already heard about it. What things you knew when you showed up, and what you didn't know. Who you get your information from. If there are any other masks or capes you talk with. It's like you're an equation he's trying to solve."

Jason had gotten the impression that Alvin was watching him, trying to figure him out, but he'd chalked that up to disastrous first impressions. The questions, though… Alvin was hoping to learn something specific, and Jason had no idea what that would be. A homeless kid really shouldn't care. An agent of Talia's should be very concerned by the number of her lies Jason was exposing, but would hardly care what Jason did and didn't know when he arrived. A League ninja opposed to Talia should be trying to learn his plans or assassinate him, not learn his information sources. An informant for Oracle might use those questions to try to guess his identity, but wouldn't one of her agents at least try to learn what he had said to make Tim run away?

"Those are weird questions," Jason agreed, ticking through different possibilities. "Did you answer them?"

Jane bit her lip.

"I'm not upset, they seem pretty harmless." Of course, a few bits of harmless information were often all a thief or assassin needed to do their jobs, but he didn't expect the kids to be that security-conscious around their friends.

"I said I didn't know. Kareem shared more, they were trying to convince Alvin that we were safe with you, but even they thought there were too many questions."

"But Steph answered?"

"She and Alvin are pretty close. He helps with her homework, and she helps him with… pretty much everything else, he's kind of hopeless. Plus, she has another place to go."

"Thank you for telling me. I assume Kareem and Steph warned you not to?"

She shrugged. "You're not going to—"

"I'm not going to hurt anyone. I am going to apologize to everyone for making you feel unsafe in your home, and I'm going to talk to Alvin about what he wants to know, but I swear to you that from now on I'm not going to hurt any more kids."

"Not even Robin?"

The Green barely rippled. Without the rage clouding everything, Jason could see that he'd never really been angry at Tim Drake; he'd been angry that he'd been replaceable. If anyone had stolen the Robin costume, Jason had stolen it from Dick. Yes, Tim had taken it up after his death, but from the sounds of it Batman had desperately needed some sort of backup. Tim had decided to fill that gap knowing full well it might kill him, and that was something Jason couldn't help but respect.

"Especially not Robin."

Chapter Text

Jason hadn't intended to sneak, but the habits of a lifetime made him silent on the stairs up to the fourth floor. He found Alvin at an open door to a ledge, contemplating the three-story drop to the pavement. Jason was only halfway across the floor, moving intentionally quiet now, when the kid looked up and spotted him.

"Hey kid," Jason started, aiming for gentle and relaxed. "Alvin. You want to take a step back?"

"Why?"

"Because whatever you're going through, I promise it isn't going to seem so bad in the morning." It was almost always true. "And because street pizza is just the worst kind of pizza."

Alvin barked a surprised laugh and took a hobbling step away from the edge. "Are you… trying to talk me out of jumping?"

"Is it working?"

"No," he said, and Jason prepared to lunge, "because I wasn't going to. Why does everyone just assume I'm suicidal?"

"Hanging out near ledges might be one reason."

Giving Jason a bratty look, Alvin lifted one crutch past the edge and banged on something metal. "There's a fire escape. I'm nowhere near the edge."

"Oh." Jason approached to take a better look. "I didn't see—why doesn't it have any railings?"

"Looks like they rusted away," Alvin said, pointing with his crutch at some metal stubs. "Not surprised. One time I was…"

"You were what?"

"Nevermind. It's a Robin story, and you've made your opinion of him abundantly clear." Alvin took a last look at the night and turned to head back downstairs.

"Wait." The kid watched him from his good eye. "I want to hear the story." Jason could keep his jealousy of Tim Drake under wraps if it would help him win the trust of this prickly kid.

"Even though the second Robin never measured up to the original ? Too angry and undisciplined ?"

Wait, the kid had a story about Jason's Robin? "Yeah, I really do." The kid glanced toward the fire escape, and Jason realized he'd blocked the only other exit. Great job, Jason, corner the abused kid with trust issues.

Jason sat near the door and looked out at the night, giving Alvin a clear shot at either exit if that's what he wanted. Instead, after a long moment, the redhead used the far doorjam to lower himself to the floor. His sigh of relief suggested that he was as bad at taking care of himself as Doc had said. He laid his crutches between them and settled in to watch Jason.

"I didn't mean to upset you," Jason said. Alvin didn't acknowledge that, which was probably fair for such a half-assed apology, but Jason didn't know how to be sincere without revealing too much. I didn't think anyone knew about my murder. I didn't think anyone would care if they did. Thanks for thinking I wasn't just a shitty knock-off of the Golden Boy. Fuck no, he couldn't say any of that. "You really liked the second Robin, huh? Why?" Perfect, now he was fishing for compliments.

"He was amazing. Brave, strong, streetwise, big-hearted, with this cocky grin… He was a hero." Alvin must have taken Jason's silence for disagreement, because he continued, "He was my hero. I used to sneak out of my house at night to take pictures of him and Batman."

"Wait, you did what? How old were you?"

Alvin brushed that away. "That's not important. What matters is that one time I was leaning against one of these fire escape railings to get a better angle and the railing gave way. Six stories straight down to asphalt, and I was too afraid to even scream, but somehow Robin caught me anyway." The kid sounded young, talking about his hero. Talking about Robin, who had been magic to him. "I tried to thank him, but I couldn't catch my breath. He sat with me and rubbed my back until I could breathe okay again, and then he… he bought me ice cream."

He said the last in disbelieving wonder, as if Jason had given him a unicorn instead of a single-scoop cone from Marcy's All-Night Diner. Coffee ice cream, Jason remembered, because it was such a weird flavor for a little kid to like, but at least he had stopped hyperventilating and wasn't crying about his smashed-to-tiny-smithereens camera.

"I remember that. I also remember you having black hair and blue eyes."

The kid twisted to stare at him, eyes wide. "Jason?"

"Timothy Drake," Jason returned, voice flat. He hadn't made the connection between the camera kid and the new Robin before, but he couldn't think of any other reason the camera kid would have dyed his hair and worn colored contacts. Not to mention some very coincidental injuries.

The camera kid—Alvin— Tim —flinched, but he swallowed and looked the guy who'd beaten the living shit out of him in the eye. "Are you really…?"

Jason took off his helmet. Tim's jaw dropped open, then snapped closed as shock was replaced by calculation. Jason did not at all enjoy feeling dissected by that look. "What?"

"Your eyes turned green."

"So?"

"Kareem said you were exposed to a toxin that gave you berserker fits. Is Ra's lying about the Lazarus pit not working on the dead?"

It was like having a conversation with mini-Bruce. "None of your business, and Kareem shouldn't have told you that."

"They were my friend first, and they thought I deserved to know you could be dangerous." Tim snorted, "Like I didn't already know."

"Your friend? Sure, you seem real close. Do all of your friends only know you by a fake name and fake backstory?"

Tim folded in on himself. "I'm as honest as I can be."

"They think you're a kid whose foster father beats you!" Wait a second. Wait one damn second. Alvin had kept saying his foster father had been trying to 'toughen him up' and training him to fight. "Hang on, when you say foster father, you're talking about Batman ?"

"Well, yeah. I tried to explain Robin as an internship at one point, but Jane got pretty upset that I wasn't getting paid even minimum wage. She thought I was being exploited."

"An internship ?" Rich people really did live in a different reality.

"Why not? That's how I'm going to explain it to my parents. A Wayne Enterprises internship—especially shadowing Bruce Wayne himself—is an amazing opportunity. Though naturally they're going to expect me to learn at least some insider information they can leverage."

There was something off about that. "What do you mean, you're going to tell them that. What excuse have you been using?"

Tim shrugged. "It hasn't come up."

Jason turned to stare at the fifteen-year-old. "You've been Robin for three years and they haven't noticed you going out?"

"They travel a lot."

A lot. Sure. "Okay, but what about the person who stays with you when they're gone. Your temporary guardian, nanny, whatever."

Tim looked offended. "I'm nearly old enough to be legally emancipated, I don't need a babysitter every time my parents leave for a few months."

"Obviously you do, because you're sitting here next to a murderer who attacked you three days ago!" Jason had been ready to eviscerate Alvin's foster father for hurting him that badly, when Jason had been the monster all along. "Fuck, kid, I almost killed you."

Tim rolled the eye that wasn't mostly swollen shut. "It's just some bruising, a jammed wrist, a wrenched knee and a few cracked ribs. I've had worse from Two-Face when he's having an off night. No offense, but you're no Killer Croc."

"You nearly asphyxiated due to the swelling in your throat and had to spend the night at the clinic."

"Only because Leslie is a worrywart."

"Why on earth are you here , though? Why run away and panic the Bats?"

Tim frowned. "I needed to find out how you knew my identity, of course. I needed to know whether to cut ties with Bruce."

Jason blinked at him. "Cut ties." That sounded… bad.

"Yeah, to protect Batman's identity. It's not like I'm one of Bruce's sons; we're hardly ever seen together in public. I can cut ties, move to my apartment in Bludhaven, and keep any suspicion off him."

"Your apartment? You're renting an apartment in Bludhaven?"

"No, I own the building. Through a bunch of shell companies, of course, I'm not stupid. I was planning to make it a base for whatever superhero identity I chose after Batman fires me, but it would also have been a good safehouse if I needed to ditch the Tim Drake identity."

Jason stared at Tim in fascinated horror. Ditch the Tim Drake 'identity'. As in his real name and actual living family? "That's… a lot to unpack. But just to start with, you know Bruce has contingency plans for if someone's identity is revealed, right? His contingency plans have contingency plans. There's no need for you to start your own half-assed witness protection service."

"It wouldn't have been half-assed. Oracle has been teaching me how to make shell companies."

"Then why didn't you ask her for help when you found out a villain knew your identity? Why didn't you ask Bruce or Dick?"

"Because they would have overreacted! Getting the Justice League involved makes sense if Batman's identity were ever discovered, or Nightwing's, but mine doesn' t matter. I'm just temporarily Robin, anyway."

"Temporarily. I put a gun to your head, and you still told me you wouldn't give up Robin."

Tim looked away. "I knew you were bluffing."

"Really? Because that's more than I knew. Yet you show up in the Alley the very next day trusting to, what, colored contacts and a dye job to keep me from murdering you?" It was a good dye job, at least; Jason ran his fingers through the kid's hair and didn't get any orange residue on his glove.

Tim blinked up at him. "I knew you weren't going to kill me. Like you said, you had a gun to my head; if you'd wanted to kill me you would have done so then."

This is why intelligence, minus caution and common sense, got you killed. "No, because I was planning to beat you to death at Titans Tower and write a message in your blood after I'd revealed my identity to Batman."

Tim controlled the flinch. He couldn't control the way he went two shades paler. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

Tim swallowed. "Because I took Robin?"

"No. Well, yes. I—" Jason rubbed his face, mildly surprised that he was able to do so without a mask in the way. "Listen, I don't know how I came back. Talia swears the Lazarus Pit doesn't work on the dead. She claims her people found me a year ago, mindless and wandering, and they put me in the pit to heal me." Jason shuddered. It had hurt worse than dying.  "Talia says it worked, but I know I came back wrong. There's this rage inside me, and when something triggers it everything goes Green…"

"Like when I said the clown's name."

It would be simple to leave it there, but Jason admitted, "Not just that. The costume you were wearing. The name Robin. I was so jealous of you and angry that Bruce had replaced me that I told myself that justified murdering a fifteen-year-old." Saying it out loud made it really clear exactly how screwed up his reasoning had gotten.

Tim looked as shocked as if Jason had slapped him. "Jason, you have to know that Bruce didn't replace you."

"Tim, it's okay. I understand that he asked you to be the new Robin because you're a good one, and he needed one. Just like when he asked me. Picking me doesn't mean he didn't love Dick, and choosing you doesn't mean he didn't love me."

"No, I mean he didn't ask me. After your death, he never wanted to have another Robin. I made him take me."

Jason scoffed. "Sure. He was outmaneuvered by a twelve-year-old. How exactly did you force Batman to make you Robin?"

"I stole the suit and went out anyway."

"What?"

"Well, I couldn't convince Nightwing to come back, and Bruce called my bluff about revealing his secret identity, so I got pretty desperate. Then I got Alfred and Dick on my side by rescuing Batman when he was held hostage by Two-Face. In the end Bruce was stretched too thin to put up resistance on multiple fronts and just tried to keep me in the Cave and running comms as long as possible."

"Bruce… really didn't want another Robin?"

"Of course not. He thought it was too dangerous for any child. You died , Jason. He's never going to forgive himself for that."

"I only died because I was reckless," Jason found himself arguing… to a fifteen-year-old Robin who had followed him home after he'd beaten the kid half to death. What was it Oracle had said? "I guess recklessness comes with the half-cape, too."

Tim shrugged. "I might have stayed in the cave longer if Babs hadn't become Oracle and made me redundant by taking over comms for every superhero on the Eastern Seaboard."

"Wait, Babs is Oracle? Barbara Gordon? She's okay? I heard Batgirl disappeared…" Wait, Oracle had told him Batgirl had disappeared. That sneaky…

Something crossed Tim's face before it was hidden behind a smile. "Oh, yeah, she took on a new identity. She's Oracle now."

Oracle, the hacker and databroker who never flew above the streets or executed a beautiful spin kick right into a mobster's face. The kind of role you took when you retired from the vigilante game.  "What happened to Batgirl?"

Tim looked down. "Nothing happened to Batgirl."

"Bullshit. I'm going to—"

"Nothing happened to Batgirl ," Tim repeated, not hiding the pained expression. "Barbara Gordon was shot, in her apartment, and paralyzed below the L3 vertebrae."

Damage to the lumbar vertebrae meant loss of control of the legs, glutes, and lower abdomen. Babs had taken a career-ending injury, picked herself up, and forged a new superhero identity, all in the time since his death. Damn. It was distracting enough he almost missed the odd phrasing. "You weren't going to say 'in her apartment'. You were going to say who shot her and changed your mind." There was no misinterpreting the wary look in Tim's eyes. "The fucking clown?"

Tim made the barest nod, and Jason was on his feet and moving before the wave of Green crashed over him. There was a pile in front of him—furniture, damaged or too cheap to be worth moving to a new warehouse—and when he came back to himself there weren't any two pieces still attached to each other. He must have taken off his gloves at some point, because his hands were aching and scraped up. Tim was still next to the fire escape, expression completely neutral.

"Shit. Sorry to lose it like that."

Tim shrugged. "It's just furniture. At least I didn't have to talk you down to protect a pile of wood scraps."

Jason frowned. "Is that something you do a lot? Talk violent people down?"

"Oh my God, I thought we'd established that my so-called 'foster dad' is not beating me and is, in actuality, Batman."

"Yeah, I got that, but I saw Batman try to tear through Nightwing to get to me because you're missing. So again: how often do you have to talk Batman down or hold him back?"

"Hardly ever anymore. He's doing so much better than he was two years ago. Or he was , before I… shit. Do you know if Nightwing's okay?"

"I'm sure Babs wouldn't have been so calm on comms if he'd been seriously hurt. Listen, kid, I said this in front of Leslie and I'll say it again: your 'foster dad' is an adult. He may be an emotionally stunted one who has never met an emotionally-charged situation he can't make worse, but you are not responsible for any of the actions he chooses to take."

Tim clapped his hands over his mouth too slow to keep in his bark of laughter. "Sorry. Sorry, it's just… God, do you know what their big fight was? Bruce and Dick, I mean?"

"Bruce is controlling and Dick is reckless?" That was a high-level summary of the three years of fights Jason had been an awkward spectator for.

"Not quite. Dick comes home from a 2-month mission to learn his little brother—the one he never really liked or treated like family—was brutally murdered while he was on the other side of the galaxy, and his dad has completely fallen apart. So Dick's wracked with guilt, wondering about the if onlies—if only he'd trained you, if only he hadn't gone on the mission when you needed him, if only he'd taken you with him."

Jason frowned. Dick had always been… well, a dick. Bitching about Jason stealing his name and the Grayson legacy, like running around in green underwear were a privilege only he could bestow. Refusing to train him. Pissing off Bruce every time he showed up, and making Bruce morose every time he refused to come home. "Dick told you that?"

"Eventually, yeah, but it wasn't hard to figure out. The whole first year, he looked constipated with guilt every time he saw me in the costume. He gave me seven contact numbers, and promised to pick up wherever he was and whatever he was doing. 'Even if I'm being held hostage by Deathstroke, or am in some big gang shootout on the news, call me if anything at all is bothering you.' Not to mention the training scenarios even Bruce thought didn't need contingency plans." Tim rolled his eyes. "Anyway, Dick comes home, finds Bruce in the Cave staring at your memorial—"

"I have a memorial?"

"--and when he goes to hug and cry with Bruce, Bruce punches him."

"What."

"Says your death is his fault. Says if Dick hadn't convinced him Robin was a good idea, you would still be alive. Oh, and he tells Dick to leave and never come back."

Jason put his face in his hands. "Jesus. What is wrong with Bruce?"

"Probably the same thing that made him decide dressing in a fursuit and punching people was a reasonable response to childhood trauma, high crime rates and a corrupt criminal justice system. Your dad has… a unique way of looking at the world."

"I think you mean our dad. He is seriously worried about you."

"Bruce Wayne is not really my foster dad, and he's not worried about me, he's worried about Robin."

"You are Robin."

"He'd be freaking out this much about any missing Robin."

"Because they're all his kids." Maybe Tim's parents were alive, but if they hadn't noticed him sneaking out in the last 3 years they clearly weren't around enough to blunt Bruce's adoption instincts.

"No, it's a trauma reaction, because of what happened to you." Tim looked down. "I should go back, now that I know you're not going to reveal my identity. I mean, I assume…?"

"I am not having anything to do with any plan that involves a fifteen-year-old leaving behind everyone he knows and running away to live alone in Bludhaven . That shithole makes Gotham look classy."

"I'll tell Dick you said so," Tim said with a grin, which immediately dropped. "I mean, I'll tell him Red Hood said so. Or not, if you don't want me to. I won't— If you're not ready."

Jason considered that. He was enjoying the feel of the night breeze over his uncovered face, and even the industrial chemicals and garbage stink of the Alley was familiar and comforting. He thought he'd learned as much as he could, hiding behind a mask. "You know, I think I am ready. What do you say to setting up a family reunion?"

Inviting Tim into his real safehouse was weird in how not-weird it felt. Tim was a Bat and therefore some part of Jason seemed to think he belonged. The hair dye that made Alvin a redhead turned out to be some sort of chemically-set chalk. It must have been harder to wash out than to apply, because even after dousing his head with solvent and showering, Tim still had spots of vibrant orange hair. Jason ended up conscripted into giving him a sink shampoo like the world's shittiest salon, and he discovered that Tim's prickly exterior melted completely under a scalp massage.

Tim was sitting on the couch adorably mussed and drowning in one of Jason's hoodies, and Jason was thanking whoever looked after idiot Robins past and current that he hadn't gone through with killing the kid. He certainly wasn't what Jason had expected from a Bristol child genius. "How'd you meet Kareem and the others, anyway?"

Tim bit back a yawn. "Intelligence gathering when Bruce benched me."

Jason tried to translate this. "So when you were too injured to go out as Robin, you dyed your hair orange and wandered through the most dangerous neighborhood in the most dangerous city in America?"

"No, I usually just wear a wig unless I expect to stay a couple of nights."

"How are you still alive , kid?"

Tim looked irritated. "You lived on the street in 'the most dangerous neighborhood in the most dangerous city in America' when you were eight years old. Anna's even younger. I'm fifteen with Robin training. Why is the fact that I visit the street all of you live on without getting myself stabbed such an accomplishment?"

Jason considered that. "Survivorship bias? The kids still alive in the Alley must have figured out how to survive, because the ones that didn't are dead."

"Well, I figured out how to survive, too, at least for short visits. How to steer clear of disputed gang territory, hide my injuries, and carry useless junk in my backpack until the muggers gave up on me."

Jason thought back to the liquor store the kids had been holed up in when he'd arrived in the Alley. "Junk like a carbon monoxide detector and foam insulation canisters?"

"Yeah. Bag it with a bunch of half-disassembled smoke detectors, some empty whipped cream containers, it just looks like you're collecting recycling. Same with the space heaters. Eventually everyone was so used to me carrying garbage that they didn't try to steal my backpack or even check what was inside it; then I was able to bring in the winter sleeping bags and the quality jackets."

"Why go to all the trouble? Surely Robin could have dropped off supplies without getting mugged."

"They'll take meal vouchers from the Bats, but not anything that suggests they might be homeless." Tim sighed. "You're the only Robin they've ever really trusted. They gave you the information Batman needed to clean up the shelters and shut down the worst foster homes, but without you… things have been backsliding."

"So you came up with an identity that would be trusted by the best intelligence sources in the Alley."

"A network of homeless informants worked for Sherlock Holmes," Tim pointed out with a smirk.

"An identity that also lets you help some homeless kids in a way they would accept."

Tim bit his lip. "I know I'm not from the Alley. If Bristol votes to incorporate, I won't even live in Gotham anymore. I've never been homeless or gone hungry the way all of you have. I'll never really understand. That doesn't mean I don't care."

"Hmm." Jason considered that, along with a certain rumor. "You knew about the safe zone around Doc Leslie's clinic. Did you set that up?"

"No!"

Jason crossed his arms and waited.

"That was all Oracle. I just helped a bit with the legwork."

"What legwork, precisely?"

Tim shrugged. "Just some opposition research. Some B&E to plant bugs or collect blackmail material. Convincing my parents to delay a deal with Janus Cosmetics to put pressure on Sionis. Foiling an assassination attempt at one of the talks. Little stuff."

"Little stuff," Jason repeated in a tone of disagreement, and put an arm around the kid to pull him in. "I can't believe Bruce let you do that."

Tim pinched his lips together and ducked his head against Jason's shoulder.

"Bruce didn't even know?"

"Batman always has a lot of open cases. There was no need to bother him for something Babs and I could handle on our own." Jason made a mental note to keep an eye on any future Babs and Tim team-ups, just to keep them from taking over the world while no one was paying attention. 

"Speaking of Oracle… you said you had a way for me to get in touch with her?" Jason was tempted to put off making the call, but he suspected if he did that he'd put it off forever. He slipped his helmet on.

"Yeah." Tim rattled off a number, then cautioned, "That's a direct line only the Bats are supposed to have. She's going to be suspicious as soon as she picks up."

Suspicious was an understatement. "You have thirty seconds to explain how you have this number, Red Hood, before I send your location to every vigilante in five hundred miles."

"I thought you'd be glad to hear from me. After all, I found your missing bird."

Oracle didn't answer. Jason was pretty sure she'd stopped breathing, as well. He handed the phone to Tim.

"Hey, O. I'm fine, you don't need to worry. … Yeah, I'm with Hood right now. He insisted I call in. … We've come to an understanding. Mhmm." They spoke for a few more minutes before he hung up.

Jason sucked his teeth in thought. "Okay, I got that most of those code words were 'stand down, I'm not being threatened right now', but what does 'hide the Cinnamon Toast Crunch' mean?"

"It means Dick finishes off all the good cereal when he visits."

"I guess some things don't change." Jason checked the window, then forced himself to relax.

"Depending on where they are in the city and what they're involved in, it could be hours before B and N show up," Tim said.

"Kid, one or both of them has been patrolling the Alley nonstop since the night you ran away. Given that there's been no public alert of an Arkham breakout, I'll bet you my bazooka they're going to be here within fifteen minutes."

It was only four minutes before the microphones Jason had planted on the window and door both picked up the subtle scratching noises that meant someone was disarming the traps. Probably Nightwing on the window and Batman on the door; they tended to fall into old patterns when they teamed up. Tim must have picked up on his sudden tension, because he gave Jason a reassuring smile.

Batman kicked the door open at the same time Nightwing flipped through the window feet-first. No flash-bangs or smoke, so they were still trying to assess the situation.

"T—" Nightwing's mouth clamped closed on the rest of what he was going to say when he saw the masked Red Hood. 

Tim stood, hands out as if that would help calm anyone down. "Guys, it's okay. Yes, he knows Tim Drake is Robin, but he isn't going to tell anyone."

"Where have you been?" Batman growled. Jason found himself pressing back against the couch cushions, and that tone wasn't even directed at him. "We've been searching for days."

"I left a note." Jason turned his head to stare at Tim. Was he trying to get himself in more trouble? "I told you I was fine."

Nightwing let out a disbelieving bark of laughter. "Fine? You have two broken ribs, you're limping, and your eye is nearly swollen shut."

Behind his mask, Jason closed his eyes for a moment at the reminder. He'd broken the kid's ribs; how close had he come to puncturing a lung or perforating an organ? How close had he come to strangling him to death? How close had he come to murdering a fifteen-year-old kid who still thought, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Jason was some kind of hero?

When he opened his eyes, Nightwing's glare promised violence. Which was justified. "Tim, I promise we can handle the Red Hood and protect your identity. You don't need to give in to his threats."

"He didn't threaten me!"

That was about enough of that. "Yes, I did. I beat the crap out of you, I put a gun to your head and threatened to shoot if you didn't give up being Robin, and you fucking ignored me."

Batman said "Tim," pained as if it had been punched out of him. Nightwing's fingers tightened on his escrima sticks.

"I knew he was bluffing, and I wasn't going to give up Robin. Not after—not after everything."

"So I threatened to reveal his identity to every Arkham inmate instead." Nightwing flinched. Batman didn't move, but the shadows around him seemed to grow darker. "When Robin stopped showing up, I figured it worked."

"Why didn't you tell us, Tim?" Nightwing demanded. "You know B has a thousand contingency plans. We could have handled it."

Tim's chin came up. "I could handle it on my own."

Jason was, abruptly, pissed off. "He didn't want to bother you with a threat to his life. Apparently the old man has a history of going off the rails, so the kid thinks he has to shield him from truths he can't handle."

Batman never flinched when a hit landed; he was too well-trained to let an enemy see his weakness. There was a moment's stillness, though, where he controlled the flinch and assessed the damage. Jason clocked that not-flinch when his words hit.

Nightwing saw it too and stepped in, as always, to cover for Bruce's emotional incapacity. "It's not a bother, Tim. You're never a bother. You're family." He looked at Batman, a cue to add something supportive, because apparently hope springs eternal. When the old man remained silent, Nightwing wrapped his arms around Tim's shoulders, careful of his ribs. Quiet enough that Red Hood wouldn't have heard it without the audio pickups, Nightwing murmured, "You brought my family back together."

After a minute, Tim looked back at Jason, eyes now red-rimmed with unshed tears. "On that subject. I've talked with Red Hood, straightened out a few misunderstandings, and he isn't threatening me anymore. He isn't threatening to reveal any of our identities."

Jason felt Batman and Nightwing's full attention snap back to him and took a deep breath. On the exhale, he pulled off his mask.

Jason expected a lot of possible reactions to the reveal of his identity. Shock. Suspicion. Tears of joy (okay, that one was unlikely). He had not anticipated Nightwing electrifying his escrima sticks and charging straight for him. Jason had to flip over the back of the couch he was sitting on to dodge out of range, even though Tim was hanging onto one of Nightwing's arms.

"Tim, I can't believe you would fall for this," Nightwing snapped, trying to shake off his youngest brother without jarring any of said brother's broken ribs.

"It isn't Clayface this time!" Wait, this time ? "I checked." He held up a couple of hairs, presumably the ones belonging to Jason that Tim had "accidentally" gotten caught in the zipper of his hoodie and yanked out by the roots. They continued to stay hairs and did not melt into sentient clay. "More importantly, he has Jason's memories ."

Nightwing met Jason's eyes this time. "Jason?"

"Dickhead."

He looked up quickly the way he did when he was trying not to cry. Who would have imagined he'd get so sentimental over an insult? "How…?"

Jason shrugged. "Not entirely sure. Talia tells me the Lazarus Pit was involved."

Nightwing gasped. Batman…

There was a time, when Jason had only been Robin for a few months, when Black Mask hired Deathstroke to keep the Bats away from his operations for a couple of nights. Slade had lured them to a construction site and impaled Batman on a piece of rebar. Jason had known he'd remember the sound Bruce made when Alfred had removed it until the day he died. Even years after his death, Jason remembered the sound Bruce made when something was dragged through his insides.

He made that sound now and crumpled to his hands and knees.

Nightwing angled his body to defend Batman while Tim crouched and took his arm, speaking in the calm tones used for victims who were panicking or dissociating. The old man didn't respond other than raising a shaking hand to fumble at his cowl. Tim helped him peel it back, and then those piercing blue eyes locked on Jason. There was longing in his gaze, like a man dying of thirst looking at an oasis. No, the mirage of an oasis.

" I'm so sorry, but I don't think he ever loved you, " Talia had said, and Jason had been such a fool to believe her.

"B?" Jason said, wanting to shake a reaction out of the old man. Batman's careful non-flinch spoke volumes. As did the new lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth and the gray at his temples. " Dad ."

Something sparked in those distant blue eyes. "Jaylad?"

"Yeah."

"Is it—is it really…?" Bruce turned to Tim for confirmation.

"I think it really is," Tim confirmed. "I haven't been able to do a DNA test, and there's always the possibility of hallucination or telepathic suggestion…"

"In which case you would be part of the hallucination and thus an unreliable source of intel," Batman agreed absently. "...Jay? Can I…?"

Jason nodded and was immediately wrapped in Bruce's arms. It felt wrong; Jason was too big now, almost the same size as Batman, and the hug was no longer being enveloped in safety. Maybe being held by Bruce—by Batman—would never again feel as safe as it had before he'd learned that the man might always come for him, but that he didn't always come in time. Jason could wrap his own arms all the way around Batman, making the hero seem… not fragile, hundreds of pounds of muscle spoke of undiminished physical strength… but limited. Constrained by flesh and bone in a way Jason had never felt before.

Bruce's breath caught in a sob and his arms tightened, and maybe the hug was strange and would never be the same, but it was good. Dick, never one to miss a chance for demonstrating physical affection, piled on. It was nearly perfect.

"Tim. What the hell."

Tim froze, hand on the knob of the open door, and tried to look innocent. "I was just letting you three have some privacy. It seemed like a family moment."

Dick sighed. Jason said, "It is a family moment, so get your ass over here and join the hug already."

"But—"

"Don't make me hunt you down and drag you back here."

Tim glared, but started back. "I think I liked you better when you were trying to beat me up."

"Yeah, a lot of us feel that way about our big brothers sometimes," Jason said with a meaningful glance at Dick, who pretended to be offended. Tim had frozen mid-step, apparently hung up on the word "brothers". Jason pulled him (gently, careful of his ribs) into the group hug. Remembering the way he'd reacted earlier, Jason tried ruffling the kid's hair and was gratified when his eyes closed on a sigh.

Bruce rested a hand on his shoulder, and Tim's cheeks turned pink.

Several minutes later, Dick said, "Tim?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"How exactly did you come to be talking to the Red Hood, without any backup, after he'd already beaten and threatened you?"

"Um…"

Jason laughed.