Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Part Three: Falling (Like Ashes to the Ground)

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 

~*~

It was an indescribable feeling. The rage. The bloodthirst. What was even more indescribable was the way that it settled into the very marrow of his bones, becoming more a part of him than even the blood pumping in his veins. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt rage. It had been mother’s milk for him since he’d been young - just as nourishing and just as powerful in keeping him moving along.

And then somehow along the way, he’d forgotten. He’d been blinded.

But when the world itself was aflame around him, he remembered with startling clarity the power and fear that lay within rage, within wrath.

And with it, he curled his fingers around that brief spark of light so erroneously termed as life and pulled until the flames roared once more.

And he did not burn.

~*~

“Demons run when a good man goes to war.” Lips curled back into a faint smirk before he took another long drag out of a cigarette. A plume of smoke slipped through parted lips before he extinguished the cigarette against the rooftop beside him and angled the sniper rifle downwards with a single teal eye peeking through the scope. The man on the other end moved around inside of his office, shouting some kind of bullshit if the way he was jabbing his business associate in the chest with a snarl on his face was anything to go by. Whatever the asshole was throwing a fit over, it clearly wasn’t sitting well with the associate, who was starting to turn as red in the face as his target was. All he was doing was making more and more enemies.

Fucking amateur. The pendejo knew he had more than a few hits on him - the busy little bee that the fucker was - and yet here he was, standing around near windows with his guard fucking nonexistent.

They just didn’t make bad guys like they used to.

“Night will fall and drown the sun,” he murmured under his breath, the muzzle of the gun following the man slowly, methodically. “When a good man goes to war.” There were easier ways to do this, but this was the more conservative path out of his options, and since he was trying to keep a low profile for a little while longer…

No need to draw unnecessary attention from los que mandan, the powers that be. He had enough shit breathing down his neck at the moment.

“Just what are you doing?” he muttered under his breath, watching as his target rummaged around in his desk drawers. His finger twitched on the trigger before he forced it to relax. His jaw clenched though, getting impatient. He just needed him to turn around so he’d have that positive fucking I.D. that he had the right guy, and then he could be done with this and crack open a few beers.

Almost in direct response, he felt that familiar, deep rooted anger surge within his chest, focusing instantly on the sudden insatiable urge to kill, to bleed, to shred - the fucker looked like a screamer, and he wondered just how loud he could get as his knife twisted in his - He growled under his breath and shook his head sharply. He needed to focus right now, and that promoted too many distractions, no matter the temptation.

“Friendship dies and true love lies,” the dark haired man continued lowly to keep his focus, sharp eyes never missing a beat of the man’s movement. “Night will fall and the dark will rise.”  He felt the presence a moment before he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He swiveled around with a handgun drawn from his jacket and raised. Concealed eyes narrowed from underneath the dark hood at the black and blue clad hero standing across the rooftop from him, panting and clearly out of breath.

“Jason,” Dick breathed, looking as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, who he was seeing.

“Dickface,” Jason returned neutrally, the gun never wavering as his finger tightened on the trigger.

When a good man goes to war.

Two Weeks Before

“There’s a new player in Gotham.”

Dick side eyed where Bruce was sitting at the computer as he went down with another push up. “There’s always a new player in Gotham.” It was Gotham. She wasn’t exactly exclusive.

“That doesn’t make him any less dangerous,” Bruce informed him, a hard edge to his tone that Dick brushed off.

“True.” Dick pushed himself back so that he could sit cross legged on the mat. “But once again, there’s always a new player in Gotham, and even when they become old players, they’re still exactly that. And yet how many are still out there?” Too many because the moment he got them behind bars, they were out again, it felt like. He ran a hand back through his hair. “Look, just give me a file on him, and I’ll check him out. What’s he done so far?”

Bruce’s lips thinned at the jaded response. “It would be more appropriate to ask what he hasn’t done so far because the list would be far shorter. The long and short of it is that there are a number of murders over the past week that can be laid at his feet.”

Dick’s eyes sharpened behind his sunglasses. He stood and made his way over towards the desk to peer over Bruce’s shoulder at the braille text. “A lot of mobsters and cartel leaders.” Not a big loss. The guy still needed to be stopped because that wasn’t the way things could or should go - after all, according to the big man in the sky, no one was devoid of the ability to be redeemed -  but Dick wasn’t about to shed a tear for assholes who had probably hurt more than their fair share of people.

At Bruce’s disapproving glance in his general direction, likely from Dick’s neutral tone, Dick rolled his eyes. “You know my stance on this. Killing is wrong. I get it better than you do. But don’t expect me to get upset that these assholes can’t hurt another person again. Not after Jason.”

Dick typed into the computer database to bring up the actual visual case files. The first thing that came up were blurry images of the man. None of them gave a good look at his face, though he caught the glint of something covering his face. A half mask, maybe? Not a complete one, at least, since he was pretty sure he could make out a frown from the profile shot, but it was hard to tell with how the hood of the man’s jacket shielded it some.

He sifted through the crime scene photos, probably courtesy of Nighteye or Oracle, and frowned. Some of the kills were - well, he didn’t want to say simple because he didn’t think the process of killing anything or anyone should ever be called that, but still.

The guy was skilled.

But that wasn’t what caught his attention. While some looked like pretty standard kills - shots to the head, slit throats, other things that turned Dick’s stomach a little but was far from uncommon - others looked… less so. And by less so, he meant throats that looked torn open, though by teeth or claws, he couldn’t tell. Others were torn into literal pieces. Pieces. Body parts this way and that, chest carved open and devoid of a heart.

The corners of Dick’s eyes tightened. “A demon, maybe.” Humans could be as sick as all that too, one only needed to look at the Joker, but this… “It fits the motif of an ira demon. Demons of wrath. Little self control, fetish for blood. Ergo, messy crime scenes.” Meaning it very well could be just a matter of time before the creature turned its eyes onto innocents.

Time was of the essence here.

“I’ll get in contact with Tim and Babs, see if they can scrounge up anything more.” The demon had to be inside of a human host for him to not sense it though, which had him wary. Clearly, it was a higher level demon; otherwise, there wouldn’t be clean and controlled kills. They would all be like the latter ones.

Just what he needed right now.

Bruce nodded and stood. “Let me know of any developments,” he ordered before walking towards the stairs once more. Dick’s eyes slipped over towards the left behind cane briefly. Bruce used it here and there, but nowhere near like he used to have to.

Not since Jason, and not since Batman stopped gracing the skies of the Gotham skyline.

Dick sighed at the files Tim handed to him the following afternoon. “There’s a lot more here than I was expecting.”

Tim raised an eyebrow at him as he sat back down. “Isn’t that a good thing?” He picked up his mug, black with an emblazoned red S-shield logo, and took a small sip out of the steaming coffee. “I mean, I would’ve thought it was a good thing. Means we can track this guy’s patterns and corner him in.”

“Except backing a demon into a corner is never a smart move,” Dick replied absently, already having one of the files flipped open to look through. Apparently, he’d been pretty active in Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Russia over the past couple years, only to disappear six months ago from the public eye.

“And it means a lot more paperwork for you,” Tim remarked, reading straight to the situation, and Dick chuckled softly, a brief grin crossing his lips.

“You caught me, Timmy.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Looks like I’ve got some not so light reading to do.” Another fun, sleepless night.

Tim’s lips curved upward into a smile that was soft on the edges before he sighed and sat his mug back down. “Be careful, okay? I know you’ve handled demons before, but this one seems, well, more. I haven’t seen one with this level of cognizance and awareness yet.”

And the only ones Dick had seen anywhere near this level were from dreams, old memories, and those particular ones… They were more than just the incarnations of their particular sin. They were the sin.

Nevertheless, he slugged Tim lightly in the shoulder. “I’m a seraph. Whoever this is doesn’t have anything on me.”

Tim didn’t look impressed. “From what you’ve told me and my studies of different theologies, being an angel doesn’t seem to make you anything more than a meta here on earth, meaning yeah, the right opponent could destroy you.”

“Lalala, I can’t hear you,” Dick responded lightly, squeezing the shoulder before letting go. “I’ll be careful, Tim,” he promised a moment later, sounding a little more serious. “Let me know if you find anything else out about our little friend, okay?”

“Will do.” Tim’s eyes followed Dick as he left, the corners of his eyes tightening. There was a strange, twisted feeling of unease clawing at his stomach, almost as if a warning of things to come, but he couldn’t pinpoint it to any exact thing.

It just felt… off.

“At least they learned a lesson and kept you off the streets,” a voice murmured against his ear. Before Tim even had the time to do more than stiffen, everything around him turned to darkness.

Dick could count on one hand the number of times he’d felt his heart stop in his chest, and each had been followed by what he’d label as defining moments of his life. The death of his parents was one - the start of his new life with Bruce and the Gotham nightlife. The moment his powers came in was another - it marked the end of the life he knew, the one he’d clung to with both hands; the start of a new Batman and the end of the life that Bruce had built up for himself. And then came one of the worst; Jason’s death, which was still so fucking fresh and painful. It marked the end of Batman, the end of so many things...

Then came when Joker had kidnapped Tim from the Clocktower. Another defining moment, a reminder of what was at stake and why he had to be better than the criminals he faced out on the streets.

And now…

“You’re positive that it was the Red Hood?” Bruce’s voice crackled over the comm.

Dick eyed the claw that was left behind on the desk, one that the demon would have had to literally pull off of his own hand to leave behind as a calling card. There was a reason behind it, but he couldn’t fathom what the hell it was. “Yeah,” he replied at last as he put the claw in an evidence bag and tucked it into his belt. “He made it pretty obvious.”

“It’s a trap then,” Bruce surmised grimly.

“Of course it is.” It was the nature of the game between Heaven and Hell. A game that Tim shouldn’t have been caught up within. “He’ll be somewhere nearby if the point of this is for me to find him. Until I do… stay indoors, okay, Agent Malone? If his beef is just because I’m an angel, he’ll come after you too.”

Bruce’s lips thinned. “I can take care of myself, Nightwing,” he responded coolly.

“That’s not the point,” Dick snapped, frustration and fear building up into the outburst. “I’m not losing another person in my family. I’m not even going to risk it. Just stay put, and I’ll keep you updated.”

“Watch yourself,” Bruce snapped back. “And if you don’t keep me updated, expect to see me out there in the cape and cowl.”

Dick scrubbed a hand over his face, not even wanting to try to get into why that was such a bad idea because Bruce knew. Bruce knew, and he was just being the overprotective pain in the ass parent he always was, but it wasn’t helping when Dick’s nerves were already shot to hell. “I’ll keep you updated,” he repeated before disconnecting from the call and pulling up a map of the city through Tim’s database. If Red Hood wanted him to find him so badly, then he’d have left Tim’s phone on so that he could triangulate its general area by using the cell towers and… there it was.

Jason pulled the ringing phone out of the kid’s pocket and brought it to his ear while ignoring the dark glare he was getting from the little brat. “I’m guessing you got my message, oh rat with wings.”

“What do you want?” Dick demanded immediately - probably already on his way over here, Jason was sure.

“I want you and Daddy Dearest to stay the hell away from the operations I’m running here. I’d hate for anyone to get hurt.” Jason watched the boy - Tim - struggle with the bonds. If left alone, he was positive the kid would be able to bust out of the rope on his own. Resourceful kid. Almost got him with some holy water as he’d been getting him situated.

It was too bad they let him get mixed up in this mess.

“Daddy Dearest? I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Dick responded after a beat.

Jason tsked and stepped away from the struggling kid. “You sure about that? I think it’d break his little ol’ heartless heart to hear that. One kid dies. The other denies him. Tragic stuff there that Hallmark ain’t got nothing on.” 

Silence and then a low and curt, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Dick sounded a lot more tense, a lot more wary, and that meant Jason’s job was done. “Whatever is going on here, Ti--Nighteye has nothing to do with it. You’ve only gone after criminals so far, not innocents. Don’t break that streak now, Hood.”

Jason rolled his eyes beneath the dark red half mask. It covered from just above his eyebrows to part of the way down his nose, leaving the downward twist of his mouth completely visible. “Sure you don’t. I’ll be leaving the kid behind here - you’re tracking his phone, right? - as a sign of good faith. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay away from you and yours. Capiche?” He didn’t want anything to do with them. Death broke all bonds, didn’t it?

And he definitely didn’t trust himself around the kid for much longer anyway. Not with the way his head was pounding. His tongue flicked out to brush over his teeth absently. It had been too long since he ate last and being this close to the teen wasn’t helping. It was like being beside a gourmet steak after weeks of stale, left-in-the-fridge-too-long takeout considering his usual diet of Gotham’s worst. Each beat of the kid’s heart just drove that further home, sharp cramps twisting his stomach up.

“You know I can’t do that,” Dick retorted, and Jason’s eyes flickered around his surroundings, trying to estimate how much time he had. It depended on whether the repressed winged rat was using his wings or not. Probably not given Bruce’s feelings over them, but he wasn’t taking anything for chance.

“So what you’re saying is there’s no reason why I shouldn’t gut the kid like a fish here and now?” Yes. Bloody him up. Make him scream. The louder the better, and then right when he can’t anymore, tear your teeth straight through his - Jason shook his head sharply, staggering a little in his next step, which didn’t go unnoticed by the teen’s sharp blue eyes.

Shit. He swept a hand back through his hair, his fingers curling into the dark strands as he swallowed. He could hear Dick talking, but it sounded like white noise compared to the roar of pure need that was drowning everything else out. He clenched his eyes shut tighter.

“Just get here before I change my mind and then stay the fuck out of my way,” Jason snapped before hanging up. He threw the phone against the supports holding up the water tower so hard that it snapped in half. Not that it mattered. Dick knew the general direction anyway by now, so he’d find the kid sooner rather than later. That was the extent of Jason’s responsibility over the matter. What happened from there was on Dick and Bruce’s shoulders.

“What did the phone ever do to you?” the kid muttered under his breath.

Jason pointed a finger at him. “You. Don’t test me right now,” he ground out. “The winged asshole will be here soon enough to grab you. I’m out. Let’s try not to meet like this again, got it?”

The kid stared at him, and there was something piercing about his gaze that was just so fucking Bruce that Jason didn’t like any part of - and that was saying something since the king asshole couldn’t even see. “Considering you’re the one that kidnapped me, I’m not so sure why you’re pinning this on me.”

He growled under his breath and turned away. “Just remind the others to stay the hell away, and I won’t have to kidnap you again.” He didn’t go after innocents. He couldn’t. He went to take off, already pulling a grappling hook out of his jacket, but the kid just had to keep on talking.

“What’s your game plan?”

Jason would have snorted, but something about the kid’s tone gave him a moment of pause. He was silent before tipping his head back to look up at the dark, Gotham sky whose stars were interrupted by the bright lights of the city and the brief haze of pollution, though the latter added an extra sheen that almost made the stars seem… brighter. Good from bad, bad from good. The ever revolving cycle.

“It moves. They are all alive,” he quoted quietly, though the air was still and quiet enough around them that Tim heard the hoarse voice almost clear as day. “Even the moon bulges in its orange irons… to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars…” He trailed off and shook his head. “There’s a balance for a reason, kid. I’m taking care of the shit that Batman or Nightwing or whatever he’s going by now never did.”

He was protecting the people of Gotham his own way. The only way he could. Before the kid could get out another word, Jason was gone, leaving Tim behind with a furrowed brow to ponder the quote. The ropes binding his wrists were frayed from where he’d been rubbing them against the sharp scaffold behind him, though he’d waited it out to see what the demon had to say.

Except he hadn’t seemed like the demons they normally ran into, and this one…

Tim was rubbing his wrists when Nightwing dropped by the water tower barely a minute later, the black and blue clad man practically stumbling against the sudden feeling of ground beneath his feet as he raced to his side. “Tim!” In seconds, hands were moving all over the teen as if searching out imaginary wounds.

Tim sighed. “I’m fine, Wing. He didn’t hurt me.” Well, except for the blow that had knocked him out in the first place.

“This time,” Dick muttered, finally pulling back, satisfied that his little brother seemed to be in one piece. He ran a hand back through wind swept hair, panting and clearly out of breath, though he tried to hide it. He swallowed and took a deep breath before asking, “Did you see what way he went?”

Tim’s lips thinned and his eyes flickered away. Red Hood was unstable. There was no getting around that. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that they needed to capture him. But this was something they couldn’t rush into without getting more information because what he’d said towards the end… that hadn’t sounded like the ramblings of a bloodthirsty demon. “No,” he said at last. It wasn’t a complete lie. He could surmise which way he went from the angle he’d taken off at, but he didn’t know for sure.

He wanted to investigate this before sending Dick crashing into this one. There had been something familiar about the accent. The way it lilted around softer vowels at the start of a word while placing a seemingly absent minded emphasis on any that fell in between. The way his voice lowered in pitch around hard consonants… It caused a rough edge to his words; a Gothamite edge, if Tim’s suspicions were right. It might be a clue about who the demon was possessing - even if he hadn’t acted like someone who was possessed.

Dick paused, bright blue eyes flickering across Tim’s face from where they were hidden behind his mask. “Timmy?”

“I think we need to regroup for now,” the teen said carefully. “Think over everything and re-profile him.”

Dick… could follow that logic, yeah, even if he didn’t want to. His eyes narrowed on Tim quizzically. “I guess,” he said slowly, “but while we spend time on that, there could be another victim out there.”

“Except as things are right now, we really don’t have a pattern except for the fact that they’re always scumbags.” Tim grimaced. “And now that we know he’s made the connection to Malone and Batman and to you…”

“Right.” The demon had clearly been watching them. For how long, Dick wasn’t sure, but long enough, which meant there was a chance he knew who they were under the masks too... Hell, it wouldn’t be too hard to connect Timothy Drake to them anyway since Bruce had taken over his guardianship.

This was a Code Red situation.

“Let’s get back to the Cave and work through this,” Dick said at last, even though it looked like every part of him wanted to chase after the demon. Tim nodded, though his eyes flickered in the direction the Red Hood had disappeared towards.

There was something more here.

Back at the Cave, Tim sat cross legged on a chair Alfred had pulled up and sipped on the comforting mug of coffee. The momentary silence it bought gave him time to reflect over the events while Bruce scoured their databases and Dick swung around on the steady rings hanging from the gymnastics station in the back - each working with their preferred method of thought progression.

“He talked about keeping a balance,” he said at last, “about doing what Batman and Nightwing never did. Or do. Why would a demon care about stopping crime?”

“It wouldn’t,” Dick replied, expression tense as he did another flip. He caught himself on the rings. “Demons all thrive on violent sins because they twist the original emotion into something darker. Lust begets rape. Envy begets murders of passion. Wrath begets vengeful retribution. Everything shifts because that emotion is all the demon has capacity for.”

Tim frowned and thought about how wistful Hood had sounded when looking at the stars and talking about a balance. “You’re positive of that?” Because something about that generalization didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t match up with what he’d seen, and if something didn’t match up, then there were outliers waiting just around the bend to turn the data on its side.

“Positive.” There was no hesitation in Dick’s response. “Everything that I - that Remiel - have ever seen only show demons as self-serving, destructive forces.” For as long as Tim had known Dick, there was a careful distinction whenever Dick spoke of Remiel, as if asserting them as two separate beings even though that wasn’t how Bruce described it.

“All of that would be subjective then. Remiel’s bias could color those old memories, right?” Tim asked.

Dick shook his head. “No, not like this, Tim. His attitude on the matter might be there, but it doesn’t influence the actual images.”

“Then what about the host still being in control?” Tim tried.

The reincarnated angel dropped from the rings into a crouch before standing up straight and stretching an arm behind his head. “The first thing the demon usually does is kill the host,” Dick explained with a faint grimace. “It’s easier to control a meat suit if that’s all it is. No backseat driver fighting to steer.”

Tim lips pressed together to form a thin line, his eyes flickering away. That didn’t explain why the demon let him live unscathed. Was it some kind of cat and mouse game? Let them know that he was out there and could pick them off whenever he wanted to just to leave them panicking?

Bruce was frowning, his eyes narrowed at nothing as unseeing eyes flickered from one side to the other in thought. “Did he say something to you aside from his bastardized version of balance, Tim?”

The fifteen year old sighed and sat his mug down. “Just quoted some poem or song or something. I don’t even know what it was. But… I don’t know, he didn’t seem like he wanted to fight anyone here. He emphasized to Dick that he wouldn’t touch us if we didn’t touch him, and like the reports have shown, we know he hasn’t gone after anyone innocent.”

“Yet,” Bruce corrected. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Is it, though?” Tim asked. “Because I think there’s more to this than just that. He acted human. I wouldn’t have even known he wasn’t if Dick hadn’t told me before.” And he’d been struggling with something. Probably the demon, if Tim had to make a bet on anything. Because there had been a moment there where Hood had almost looked unhinged and was muttering unintelligibly to himself.  “All I’m saying is maybe there’s still a person in there, fighting against the demon, waiting for someone - us, the good guys - to save him. Don’t we owe it to the person he once was to look into it at the very least instead of just writing him off because it’s an unprecedented happening?”

“Normally, I would agree with you, but this demon has already killed so many. Without solid proof that the person he was is still alive in there, our hands are tied. We have to let it go, Tim,” Bruce told him, though Dick remained silent. There was a small furrow to the man’s brow before he crossed his arms over his chest. He settled back against the desk, his hidden eyes situated on Tim fully.

“You’re right,” he said at last. Tim’s eyes widened as he looked back at him, though for once, he couldn’t get any kind of read off of what Dick was thinking. Dick glanced at Bruce. “I mean, I’m hardly an expert on the matter or anything. There are how many angels in Heaven? Just because Remiel never saw anything like this doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Worst case, we tried, and we at least make sure some frat boy demon isn’t disturbing his eternal rest. But like Timmy said, we owe it to whoever the Hood used to be to try.” He clapped Tim on the shoulder and squeezed. “If there’s someone still in there, we’ll save him.”

“It’s a waste of time,” Bruce retorted firmly. It wasn’t always easy to read Bruce, but the tight clench of his jaw made it clear Dick’s declaration left him with a feeling of unease, and the white of his knuckles on the arm of the chair... “And dangerous. If you see an opening to force him back into Hell, you do it.”

Frustration flickered within light blue eyes. “And if I’d be killing an innocent person in the process?” Dick snapped. “You’d be okay with that?”

“Of course I wouldn’t be,” Bruce retorted, “but you know as well as I do that that would not be the case. What Tim is implying is unprecedented for a reason. It speaks to its impossibility rather than its rarity.”

“Really? And do you have any proof of this or is this just you worrying more about the dangers than what should be done, what’s right?” Dick retorted. Tim inwardly grimaced, but it was hardly an unusual exchange between the two. Jason’s death had made things… rocky, to say the least. Dick pulled something out of the pouch at his belt and placed it on the desk. “Can you just run tests on this?” Tim peered forward to see what it was.

Bruce’s lips curled downwards as his fingers brushed over the desk until they came into contact with the item in question. A frown crossed his lips as he rubbed his thumb over it. “A claw?” he surmised.

“Yeah. He left it behind back at the tower to let me know who had taken Tim.” Dick’s lips thinned. “I don’t know what, if anything, we can get off of it, but I figured it’s worth a try.”

“I’ll see what I can find. However, because of the differences in genetics, it could take a couple days to break its particular genetic code,” he warned.

“I’ll help with it,” Tim piped up. “I mean, it’s not like either of you are going to let me leave anytime soon or anything, so if I’m staying here I might as well help. Two heads are better than one and all that.”

Bruce rubbed a hand over his face before nodding. “I’d welcome the help,” he agreed at last. He sounded more reluctant than anything. However, someone to be his eyes would make the process run more swiftly.

Dick’s eyes flickered between them. “While the two of you work on that, I’m going back out on patrol. While he’s high priority, Hood can’t be our only priority. Let me know if you guys beat the odds and find something while I’m out.”

“Will do,” Tim replied absently, already having snagged the claw from Bruce to examine it under the smaller lamp at the end of the desk. It was black, or at least that’s what it appeared to be until the light hit it, and then faint streaks of a darker red could be seen throughout. “Do you need all of it to run the scans?” He asked Bruce, itching to examine it himself.

Pale eyes stared impassively at the space below the computer screen, though an eyebrow did raise some. “As much as possible would be helpful.”

“Soooo I could take a quarter of it then?” Tim questioned with a hint of hope to his tone.

“Fine. The very tip of it only because the most DNA would be saved for the root if it shares any of the same physiology as a fingernail torn from the base.”

“And on that note…” Dick shook his head before heading back out.

The two men worked quietly over the next couple hours - Bruce working to match the genetic markers found within the claw which boasted a combination of human and animal characteristics and Tim alternating between testing the durability of his portion of the claw and something else that involved significant amounts of writing and muttering.

“What are you muttering over there?” Bruce asked at last, a hint of frustration creeping into his tone. While it normally wouldn’t have bothered him past dry exasperation, it was hard for him to focus on decoding the genetic markers when his hearing kept hyperfocusing on the sound.

Tim’s eyes flew over to him and blinked. “Sorry, Bruce.” He tapped his pencil against the paper. “The Red Hood threw some quotes out before he left, and I cross referenced what I could remember of the lines and found a poem by Anne Sexton. I’m trying to figure out if there’s some kind of code to it.”

Bruce figured he wouldn’t get a moment of silence until Tim figured it out, so he leaned back in his chair. “Which poem?”

“The Starry Night. I’m trying to figure out if Hood is supposed to be the dragon, the beast in the poem swallowing everything up in his path, or something else or just nothing and I’m overthinking it,” Tim muttered the last part and shook his head with a groan.

“The Starry Night,” Bruce repeated, closing his eyes briefly against the pang in his chest. It had been a while since he’d heard it last.

Tim frowned and watched him warily. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” The pale orbs opened once more. “And you’re right, you’re overthinking the matter. It’s just a poem spoken by a demon to throw you off.” Bruce clenched his jaw. “That’s all it is. To give it any further thought is a waste of time that we don’t have.”

“But you taught me that any piece of information can end up being important.”

“Not this,” Bruce retorted. “It’s just a poem. And even if he is the beast in the poem, all it further cements is that he plans on evoking chaos through the city. That’s what the beast represents; the End. Death.”

“I don’t think so,” Tim said slowly. “It feels more like it’s calling attention to a kind of balance between light and dark.” And Hood had seemed so emphatic about there needing to be a balance.

Come on, B. You know shit’s never that obvious.

Oh really now? Then what is your interpretation of the poem?

It’s… about beauty. Life. The… The beauty of a turbulent, imperfect world as life moves in its own course. And yeah, it goes through death and all that, but that’s just part of the life cycle, you know?

His fingers curled around the arm of his chair. “We’ll agree to disagree,” Bruce responded after a moment, his voice quieter than before. “That doesn’t change the fact that focusing on this poem is wasting time. Get back to work.” He ignored the eyes he could feel on him and felt for his braille keyboard once more. They had a job to do, and not doing said job would just put more people at risk.

 
Unfortunately, there was radio silence for the next week. No reports, no cases, nothing that could be tied to the Red Hood. Not that that meant anything. He’d proven to be smart enough that he could have easily switched up his normal methods to remain under the radar, but that wasn’t what Dick’s gut was telling him, though he tried not to depend on it too much since it had been wrong before.

And without any breaks yet in cracking the genetic code contained in the morbid looking claw... they were at a standstill for the time being.

He yawned as he joined Tim down in the Cave and hung over the back of the chair. “What’re you looking at? Alfred said you never went to bed - well,” Dick corrected, wrapping his arms around his brother from behind to squeeze him, “Alfred said that he forced you to go to bed, only for you to sneak back down here sometime after he went to bed.” With Hood having already gone after him once, and neither Dick nor Bruce willing to tempt fate on whether he’d do it again, Tim had taken up a guest room here at the Manor, which had opened the teen up to all of Alfred’s mother henning that he and Bruce usually had to put up with alone.

“Because I figured out the missing piece in the code.” Tim scrubbed his hands over his eyes and groaned. “And I cracked it, like, thirty minutes ago, and it’s…” He swallowed. “It’s not…”

“It’s not what?” Dick asked slowly. Tim seemed anxious, almost jittery, and Dick had a feeling it had nothing to do with the empty mug of coffee sitting to the side. He leaned over Tim to tap into the system. “What did it come back with?”

“Ira demon, like we thought, mixed with human thanks to its host, like we thought.” A pause. “The DNA… I ran it through the database, you know? To see if we got any matches.”

“And we did, I’m assuming, which is why you’re acting so weird.” Dick sounded wary, already steeling himself. His eyes narrowed, unable to find anything recent on the scan.

Tim pushed Dick’s hands away from the keyboard and brought up the report from the hidden folder he’d concealed it in, though he didn’t say a word.

He didn’t need to.

Dick stared at the screen in disbelief, eyes flickering over the words again and again as if trying to make some kind of sense out of them when it felt like the floor was giving out underneath him. He clutched onto the back of the chair. “How many times did you run the scan?”

Tim looked up at him with a pained expression. “Five times so far. Same result. The good news is that it gives credence to our belief that the Red Hood isn’t full on demon mode. The host - Jason - is still in there; otherwise, it wouldn’t have known about you and Bruce and everything.”

Dick tuned him out after hearing the number, eyes glued to the small profile image of Jason residing on the corner of the screen. He was fifteen, just a few months before things went to hell in a handbasket. Just a few months before Dick had failed him completely. Only now, it turned out he’d failed him even more than he’d originally thought.

A demon. He closed his eyes and tried to remember how to breathe. When he was able to finally pull his thoughts together, he asked quietly, “Have you put the results into the database yet?” At the shake of Tim’s head, he nodded. “Good. Don’t. There’s no reason for Bruce to know just yet.”

Tim hesitated. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Dick barked a laugh. “Probably not. But it’s Jason. It’s - fuck, it’s Jason.” His voice cracked some on the name. And Bruce was adamant about the Hood needing exorcised, and he couldn’t rule out Bruce seeing it as even more of a need once he knew who the demon had taken over. The primary difficulty was that all exorcisms were built as worst case scenarios. They would only work if there was an actual demon possession in progress - meaning if they miscategorized someone as a demon and they were really just a sorry excuse for a human being, they remained unaffected.

If there was a demon in there, however, the exorcism seared into their very being to burn them out of this plane. If a human soul did somehow miraculously remain alongside the demon, it would be too twisted up within the demon to keep from following after. By condemning the demon to Hell, you condemned the human.

But it was Jason. Jason’s body. Jason’s voice on the phone - and fuck, no wonder he’d sounded so familiar. No wonder he hadn’t hurt Tim.

Jason was in there. He had to be.

He took a deep breath. “Timmy, can you start researching… well, something like…. soul splicing, I’m guessing? I don’t know.” He rubbed a hand back through his hair. “At the very least, start at souls and work our way from there. If Jay is still in there, we need to be able to separate the two.” He didn’t know how, but there had to be something after all these millenia. There wasn’t any other option. He swept a hand back through his tousled hair. “I’ll work through my head, see if Remiel might be holding out on something.”

“None of this will help if we can’t find him,” Tim pointed out quietly, sounding as if he hated to burst Dick’s bubble.

“We will.” Dick clenched his jaw. “He’s making a move somewhere; he’s just keeping it quiet. Careful. It makes sense. He knows the different camera angles, knows how to stay under the radar except when he wants to be found…”

“But you and Bruce knew him better than anyone. If it’s Jason, what would he be planning?”

Dick’s eyes moved back to the screen, the orbs lingering on the baby faced fifteen year old and the mischievous glint captured within the teen’s eyes. “Something dangerous.”

Now 

A small, warm breeze coming from the east coast off of nearby Gotham Harbor flickered through the air, its quiet rustling the only noise heard above the Gotham nightlife below. Jason’s grip tightened on the gun as the seconds dragged by, that familiar, poisonous stirring within his chest having him clench his jaw, though he didn’t react beyond that.

Dick didn’t seem to move or breathe, utterly still where he stood in front of him. His eyes flickered over the tight suit the man had taken to wearing these days after finding it impossible to look at Dick’s too open expression of turmoil for long. He’d always been one for attention, even as Batman. Those fucking flips of his had always been too showy, and now his outfit matched.

Fucking cabrón just asking to get himself killed.

“You kidnapped Tim.” The matter of fact, almost accusing remark seemed to tear through the illusion of silence that had built up over the rooftop.

Jason stared at him, his lips twisting downward in disbelief. “Five years, and that’s the first thing you say to me?” That poisonous feeling grew, its tendrils beginning to spread out further. “I returned your precious little Nighteye to you safe and fucking sound. I told you to stay out of my business if you wanted him to stay that way too, didn’t I? But you couldn’t fucking help yourself.” He ground the backs of his molars.

Dick looked stricken for a brief moment before he shook his head. “Of course I couldn’t help myself,” he shot back, taking a step forward before stilling when Jason’s finger tightened around the trigger. He didn’t stop talking, even if his eyes were watching the gun warily. “How could I, knowing you’re here? I never wanted this for you.”

It was hard to look at Jason and see the man he was supposed to have become. And there was no way to deny that it was Jason because he’d recognize that messy mop of hair anywhere, even if there was a strand of white there that hadn’t been there before. He’d grown up though. A five o’clock shadow dusted along sharp jawbones that had been a little leaner at fifteen but still plagued by lingering baby fat the last time he’d seen him.

Looking at him right now, all Dick could think about was all that had been taken by the Joker.

“Never wanted what?” Jason snapped back. “For me to fix all of the shit you and Bruce fucked up over the years? Never wanted me to die because you thought letting Joker walk around was a great idea? Or what about after?” Because no one had ever told him that death would hurt. He faintly remembered masses, sitting next to his mom with his head on her shoulder, and talks about death being a release into a wonderful eternity.

Except that had been such a load of fucking bullshit because all he could remember from the time the flames went up to the moment he’d woken up in his grave was pain. And then that had quickly become replaced by rage and was the only way he’d summoned the strength to claw his way out of that fucking shithole.

Dick flinched and Jason laughed, the sound low and bitter, practically mocking. “What, don’t want to hear about how my soul took a detour straight into Hell?” He smirked, his eyes glittering darkly beneath the mask. “Guess I wasn’t good enough for those pearly gates after all.”

“That’s not what should’ve happened,” Dick retorted sharply, pain heavy in his tone. He couldn’t begin to imagine what Jason must have gone through. He was just a kid when he died. “None of it should have, but that last part… especially that last part. I don’t know why it happened, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to work.” If a kid like Jason could be condemned to Hell, then what hope did the rest of them have? There had to have been more going on. Something else. But Remiel was being fucking silent for once, the one fucking time he could actually be helpful, but all he got was radio silence.

“It doesn’t matter. It happened. But I don’t care about any of that shit.” It was in the past, and he had bigger fish to fry than Dick or Bruce. They had fucked up, but they too were innocent.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t bloody Dick up a bit if the little angel pushed matters though. The thought sent a thrill through his body, his tongue instinctively flicking across sharp canines, which caught in the glint of the moonlight. He knew this because he saw the way Dick seemed to freeze up all over again. He laughed, a grin stretching across his lips.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” A dark amusement tinged the words. He slid the gun away back into its holster before pulling off the glove with his teeth. He spit it aside and flexed his fingers before letting the familiar warmth travel down to his fingertips a moment before they shifted, turning sharper, more angled. “Neat parlor trick, huh? A bitch to trim, sure, but they cut through things so easily.” Dick didn’t move or say anything, so he continued. “I know you guys have to have a case file on me by now. Like my handiwork?”

“Stop it.” Dick’s voice was quiet. “That’s the demon talking. Not you, Jay. None of that… none of that was you.”

Jason raised an eyebrow, it just barely visible over his mask. “You really think so, Dickface? Or is it just too hard for you to imagine poor, little Jason Todd as a killer because at the end of the day, we all know whose fault that would be, right?” It was entertaining to watch Dick squirm. It called to something primal deep within him, his eyes hovering on the outskirts of the hero’s form where he could catch the briefest glimpses of light and the small, little shadows that flickered with each barb shot at him.

The crossing of those little shadows and small rays of light was intoxicating.

“Stop it.

“What? Did I touch a nerve?” Jason’s grin grew. “Trust me, I’ve bathed in so much blood, you might as well call me a Bathory.”

“Stop.” Dick looked like he was shaking. Good. He wondered just how hard he’d have to push to make him snap.

“Oh come on. It’s not like you’re any stranger to blood. Wasn’t Remiel one of the first ones sent out on the battlefield? The angel of mercy, except the kind of mercy you were offering put them to rest for good, if you know what I mean.”

Dick visibly flinched, likely as a swarm of memories slammed into him. Jason soaked in the flickering shadows, the sight sating some of the rage clawing through his chest like poison. His face was starting to hurt from how wide he was grinning. That’s what he was talking about.

“The only difference between what you did as Remiel and what I’m doing? I’m on the side of right whereas you struck wherever your God told you to,” Jason remarked, leaning back on the heels of his boots, satisfied. “Men, women, children… But me? I only go after the scumbags. The low of the low who feed on the fear and the pain of the ones your precious God would turn his back on.”

“That’s not the point. There isn’t any excuse for killing,” Dick retorted. He had to believe that, otherwise everything over the past few years, his struggle to try and be that same person Jason had looked up to, resisting the urge to make Joker stop laughing permanently, everything - it’d be for nothing. “You think I don’t know how much easier killing would be? But that’s the problem. It’s easy, and I refuse to be like Remiel. Like Joker. Like any of those assholes who keep killing and killing and killing because if you can justify it once,” an image of Joker with a bruised and bloodied face, still and unbreathing, “what’s to stop you from doing it again?”

Jason’s eyes hardened. “That’s just a pansy ass mamahuevo excuse. If you’re so weak that you’d start going apeshit on everything, not just the scum of the scum, then you weren’t that far from the edge into being just like them from the start, were you?”

Dick clenched his jaw. “It’s called understanding the value of a human life. And yeah, do I think some of the assholes out there deserve to die? I do. One hundred percent. But who am I to make that kind of choice? Because who’s to say that someone wouldn’t think the same of Dick Grayson? Or Nightwing?”

“But by standing back, those assholes keep killing more and more, so at the end of the day, isn’t there still blood on your hands?”

“That’s enough,” Dick snapped.

“What? Mad because you know it’s true?” Jason taunted. “That’s the difference between the two of us. You see, I prioritize the innocent over fucking pendejos like Joker or Two Face or Bane. I put them down so that they can’t come back up. And with my new abilities, it’s even easier. So yeah, there’s blood on my hands, but better their blood than a kid’s.”

“That’s the demon, Little Wing. I don’t know why you can’t see that. That need for blood? The obsession, the hyperfocus, on it? That’s the ira demon. That’s not you,” Dick retorted. He took a step towards him. “Come back to the Cave with me. Nighteye and I are already looking for ways to exorcise the demon, and then… then you have a second chance. People don’t usually get that.” But if anyone deserved it, Dick knew Jason did.

“The ira demon, huh?” Jason murmured, staring at the rooftop. His lips twitched faintly. “You really think I’d share my body, my mind, with a parasite?” His laughter boomed in the small space, his head falling backwards as a grin stretched across his lips. “Oh Dickface, how fucking blind do you have to be to not see that there’s only one person home in here, or are you just that afraid of admitting the truth to yourself?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dick denied, taking another careful step forward. “I know you’re in there, Jason.” He had to be. That’s what everything pointed towards. He curled his fingers around an escrima. He had to be in there because Dick knew what he would have to do if he wasn’t, and he couldn’t.

Not when he could look at Jason’s face and still see that fifteen year old kid geeking out over literature of all things. Not when he could still see the small, bruised face when he’d pick him up from school after getting into some fight. Never to protect himself, though - not since the first few months. No, it was always to protect someone else.

Dick couldn’t let himself believe that Jason, that that goodness, was gone for good. Not when he was right in front of him. It couldn’t be the demon. Jason was fucking in there and Dick knew it.

“Of course I’m in here.” Jason’s voice broke through Dick’s thoughts, sounding oddly amused as dark eyes focused on Dick’s careful approach. “I’m the only one in here. Demons are remarkably weak willed, don’t you think? Movies give them way too much credit. The asshole tried to consume me, sure, but all it took was a little force to turn the tables right back on him, and then it was adios to that fucker.” His eyes flickered with the memory before he pushed it back and clenched his jaw. When he continued, his tone was like steel.“So now that you see there’s no one here in need of saving, why don’t you hit the road and let me get back to our previously scheduled program?”

Dick had never heard of anyone able to force the demon out themselves, but as his eyes flickered towards the claws Jason still had out on display, he was pretty sure why that was. The demon might be gone, but it wasn’t at the same time because its effects were permanent. Rather than Jason becoming human again, by destroying the demon’s consciousness, he had become the demon. His stomach turned at the realization.

“You need help,” Dick said at last. Bright blue eyes were pained behind his mask. “Please, Jason. Don’t turn this into the fight. If you come back to the Cave with me, we can figure out how to fix things.” He sounded desperate as he took another step forward, only for Jason to take one back. “Or if you don’t want to go to the Cave, we can go to one of my safe houses, and we can figure out things there. Just… please, let me fix this.”

“Fix things, huh?” Jason echoed, his eyes narrowing on him. “I didn’t realize I was something that needed fixed.”

Dick winced at his tone. A demon of wrath, and Jason had always held too much anger within him to begin with. “You know what I mean, Jason.”

“Of course I do, Dickie, but here’s the thing. I don’t need fixing.” Jason was in front of him barely a second later, a clawed hand around his throat as he slammed the angel into the ground. He hovered over him, teeth bared when Dick startled to struggle. “You see, I’ve had five long years to get used to my new body, and I’m not ready to give it up.” He’d lost his faith in a higher power a long time ago. All that mattered now was his own and what he could do with it.

This close, he could feel the thrum of Dick’s blood echoed by each pump of his heart. He dipped his head down, nose brushing over the still neck to breathe in the sweet scent of his blood. “So you angels really do smell better than humans.” It made his jaw ache with the need to bite down, adrenaline pumping and rage pounding away within his ears.

“Jason, what--”

“Stay away,” Jason murmured into his ear lowly. “You, Bruce, my semi-replacement. Just stay back and let me clean up the pendejos you skirt past because if you get in my way, I can’t promise you won’t get hurt.”

Dick forced back a small shiver. “You wouldn’t hurt us.” He sounded confident, as if it was some kind of absolute truth. It pissed Jason off.

“Is that a challenge?” Jason asked, mouth still near his ear. “Because I’d have thought Remiel would’ve taught you better than challenging an ira demon.” Especially when Dick’s blood smelled like an actual slice of Heaven.

Dick bit the inside of his cheek hard, though when he spoke, his voice was steady and even. “It’s not a challenge. It’s the truth. If you wanted to hurt us, you wouldn’t have left Tim in one piece.”

Annoyance flickered within his hidden eyes. “Maybe I just thought he wasn’t worth it.”

“Except I don’t think that’s it.” There was a fire in Dick’s tone again, and it had Jason wary because it lit up his little angelic aura, silencing the shadows he’d been carefully cultivating to make sure the dumbass would leave him alone. “You’re still you, even if you’re trying to throw me off by acting like the big, bad wolf.”

“If I’m the big, bad wolf, then you’d be Little Red Riding Hood, and you remember how that story ended, don’t you?” He let his canines graze Dick’s ear as he spoke, allowing them to drag purposefully.

He didn’t expect the sharp shove he received a moment later, hard enough it sent him stumbling back. His eyes followed the bright wings that were now cutting through the dark night as sharply as a knife.

And it didn’t go unnoticed. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw as his target quickly pulled the blinds on his window, taking him completely out of sight. Jason hissed lowly and turned on Dick. “Great. Now he’s going to be on his fucking guard.” Not that he couldn’t get to him still, but the less attention he drew to himself, the better. That was why the Red Hood worked so well.

“Good. I’m not letting you kill him,” Dick said firmly, a hard edge to his tone.

“You really care that much about some murdering, drug dealing gilipollas?” Jason sneered.

Dick let out a frustrated breath. “No, but I care that much about you,” he snapped. “I failed you already and like hell am I doing that again.”

Jason raised an eyebrow over his mask at him. “Oh really? You realize your precious Heaven would consider me an abomination, don’t you? I’m a demon, not the kid who died.”

“I. Don’t. Care.” The angel darted at him, and Jason twisted away with a small hiss at the brightness of the wings that burned at his eyes. That was new. “I’ll fight Heaven if I have to,” Dick continued, chasing after him. Jason ducked underneath his sweep and rolled across the rooftop before standing up with a snarl, claws out and features slightly distorted as all of his teeth grew in length. “I’ll fight Gotham. I’ll even fight you if that’s what it comes to.”

Dick couldn’t fail. Not again.

“Getting a little martyr-y there, don’t cha think?” Jason growled. Why the hell couldn’t the dumbass back off and leave him alone? He was poking the fucking bear without a care in the fucking world for his own safety, and Jason was struggling to remember that he couldn’t bloody Dick up like everything within him was screaming for him to do. That familiar poison was wrapped around his throat, and all he could see was red. He growled again and lowered, looking like a wolf ready to pounce as his claws tore into the rooftop. He used it to stabilize himself, however. Keep him from clawing into Dick to see if he tasted as good as he smelled.

Dick’s eyes tightened behind the mask as the pain of the situation slammed into him with the force of a freight train. Jason was struggling. Jason was scared, even if the man was trying to hide it from him and act as if he had everything under control. If he wasn’t careful, Jason could lose himself so completely to the point where he really did become the demon, like he thought he was already. As long as his heart was still there, that wouldn’t happen.

But how could he protect that heart, keep it there, if Jason kept him at arm’s length? Because all of this killing would eventually kill the goodness he knew was still in Jason, no matter how vindicated Jason felt over it. He closed his eyes and an image sprang to the forefront unbidden of another rooftop - a different time, a different city, and entirely different circumstances with an entirely different person from the one standing in front of him now.

All over again, it felt like there was a hand squeezing around his lungs, constricting his airflow and turning his blood to ice. But he was used to working around the feeling - or over it, as he buried it so deep down inside that he didn’t have to deal with it because he was fine. He was fine.

Except he couldn’t do it this time. Not completely. Jason wasn’t going to listen to him. He was just going to keep killing, and Dick had to stop him, but if he stopped him, if he locked him away, there would never be a chance to help him through this. That would be it, and he’d never get another chance because he knew how Jason was. You burn him once and you didn’t have to worry about a second time because you’d never get to it.

Jason needed saved from himself, and maybe, just maybe, Dick could do something about that.

When he spoke, his voice was softer, “I won’t stop you from killing. Not right now, anyway.” Eventually, he would, but not right now. Bruce wouldn’t stand for it, but seeing the ferality Jason was expressing…

Dick had to take what he could get. He would force himself to bear with the blood that would stain his hands from inaction as much as they would stain Jason’s from the actual deeds if it meant he could get close enough to save him. And when he couldn’t bear it anymore and the nightmares seemed to strangle him, when the thought of even putting on the suit was enough to pull him under, well, he’d learn to deal with it just like he learned to deal with everything else because this was what Jason needed and if he could give that to him…

He walked towards the struggling demon - man - slowly and crouched in front of him when all Jason did was bare his teeth at him, claws tearing through the tile of the roof. For all of his huffing and puffing, Jason didn’t want to hurt him; if he did, Dick’s neck was close and unprotected, and Dick had no doubt Jason would be able to move fast enough to tear it open before he’d even have a chance to react.

But sometimes a little faith was in order.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jason growled, jerking back some. Fucking dumbass.

“I have a safehouse near here that Bruce and Timmy and everyone else knows nothing about,” Dick said quietly, the glow up his wings casting a light onto his face that made Jason think of some kind of Catholic backdrop of the Virgin Mary or some shit. “Just come with me. Let me make sure you’re okay. And just… stay in contact.”

Jason stared at him for a long moment with a furrowed brow and a small tilt to his head, a frown tugging onto his lips. Then, his eyes narrowed in disbelief and rage, that ever constant emotion right at the forefront, and his lips twisted into a snarl. “That easy, huh? I come back with you, and you don’t try to lock me up until you find a way to deal with what I am? Fuck that,” he spat. Before Dick could react, Jason headbutted him hard, the sound the impact seeming to echo through the night air.

As Dick staggered back, Jason forced himself to stand upright, though his hands remained pressed close against his sides to conceal the way his claws bit sharply into the skin of his palms. The teal orbs seemed to glow dangerously, meeting the equally dangerous glow of blue that was just as hidden from sight, but masks could hardly conceal completely the threat of power each gaze held.

“Don’t try to come after me,” he warned, taking a step back towards the edge of the roof. A smirk twisted his lips upward and teal eyes flashed as his head cocked to the side. “Because if you do… I’m not planning on going quietly into the night.”

And then Jason was gone, and Dick...

He let him go.