Chapter Text
Family meeting, says the text message on Dick’s phone, followed by a time and location. It’s been sent by an unknown number, so it could be any number of villains or hook-ups, really. Except most of his hook-ups would have asked him to come to a hotel, most villains would have asked him to come to an abandoned warehouse, and none of them would have called it a family meeting, because that’s just weird.
Red Hood, then. It must be.
Dick checks the tower’s cameras again. Still nothing. He’d just been getting ready to go over there, find out what’s wrong, when the text message had come. He knows Tim can take care of himself, but Red Hood is no one to be messed with. So even if this is just a teenage tantrum, Dick still feels better if he checks on him, just to be sure.
But there’s that text now. It’s asking him to meet at 6 am. That’s in less than an hour. The address is in Gotham. Normally Dick would be in Bludhaven, but he’s spent more time in Gotham recently, investigating the Red Hood and trying to keep Tim away from him.
Trying to keep Bruce away from him, too, sometimes.
Not always!
But sometimes.
It's just that Dick remembers living with Bruce when it was just the two of them, and he remembers wishing for a buffer sometimes. He hadn’t had one, and by the time Jason got adopted, Bruce had become so different that it hadn’t mattered. But Jason has been dead for two years, and Bruce is worse now than he ever was. So he’s trying to be in the Cave more often, act as a distraction for Bruce. It’s his job as a big brother.
Google Maps says it’ll take him 30 minutes to get to the address, 20 if he’s okay with getting a speeding ticket. That leaves him just a little less than half an hour to prepare.
Family meeting, he thinks again as he suits up. Jason being cruel? Or is he actually responsible for Tim going missing tonight?
“Where are you going?” Bruce asks, just as Dick is getting ready to leave, emerging from the shadows of the Cave. Dick hasn’t seen him since earlier that night, right before they’d sent Tim to the tower for safety.
“I don’t need protection,” Tim snaps. He’s angry that they haven’t involved him in this investigation, angry that they don’t trust him.
“You do,” Bruce snaps back, just as angry. “You haven’t taken on an enemy like this. You-“
“I can handle myself,” Tim argues. “I’m not-“ He stops, but Dick knows what he was going to say. I’m not Jason.
Bruce knows too.
The hit doesn’t come as a surprise, not really, but Tim still accepts it without trying to dodge. He just stands there and takes it, and when Bruce lowers his hand, Tim says, more quiet now: “Don’t make me go. Please.”
But they did make him go, and now he’s not answering his phone and his tracker is down, and Dick has to meet Red Hood in a weird apartment building in Crime Alley, and he just really cannot deal with Bruce’s bullshit right now.
“Out,” he says, and doesn’t volunteer any more information.
Bruce hesitates, considering this, then says, “Be safe.”
For the first time tonight, Dick smiles. “Always am,” he says and drives off. He’s still smiling by the time he pulls up outside the apartment block.
His phone vibrates with another text message. No. 227. Alright then. The elevator is broken, so Dick takes the stairs, conscious of the surveillance cameras. If Red Hood wants to watch, he can. If Bruce wants to watch, he can, too.
But when he walks through the hallway with the flickering lights, searching for the right door, he notices that here, all cameras are turned the other way. Apparently Red Hood has decided that Bruce doesn’t get to witness whatever’s about to go down.
Dick has to think of him as Red Hood, because if he thinks of him as Jason, he’s going to start crying and he may never stop, and that isn’t a good look for a vigilante about to walk into what might be a shootout. He has an image to keep up.
There it is. No. 227. The one with the bloodstains on the floor in front of it, and the scratch marks on the door. Of course.
Before Dick gets the chance to knock and/or kick open the door, it swings open, revealing all at once an unconscious Tim in the corner and an angry crime boss right in front of him, smiling with all his teeth. Dick’s breath hitches at the sight of him, and suddenly, he can’t think about Red Hood anymore, because this person in front of him, without a helmet and without a mask, is Jason. It’s his little brother. He knew this, of course, but he didn’t know. Not until now.
Dick goes to hug him automatically, and Jason steps aside, just as automatic. The door falls shut behind Dick, trapping him inside, but he can’t bring himself to care, all his instinct gone out the window now. He tries to hug Jason again.
“Stop it,” Jason snaps, “stop, what is this? Let me go!”
“Sh,” Dick says, finally succeeding in tackling him to the ground. “Shush, don’t fight this. Just let this happen.”
“This is getting really creepy,” Jason says and shoves him off. For a second Dick just sits there, blinking, because Jason never used to be able to do that. But Jason has grown, he’s taller than Dick now, maybe even taller than Bruce, and he’s stronger, too.
Dick’s eyes water before he can help it.
“What is happening,” Jason says, sounding panicked. “Dick?”
Dick tries to reassure him, say that he’s okay, but he can’t, his voice too choked to speak right now. Jason, apparently deciding to try and fix this, says, “Look, hey, there’s Tim over there, see? He’s taking a little nap right now, but he’s fine, you don’t have to worry about him.”
And that brings Dick’s attention back to the problem at hand, which is that if Tim is here, in a shady apartment in Gotham, and not in the Titans Tower, that means he really was kidnapped. Dick’s one little brother got kidnapped by his other little brother, and Dick didn’t do anything to stop it.
Well, there’s one thing he can do.
He wipes the tears away, takes a deep breath, rises to his feet and punches Jason in the face.
“Jesus Christ,” Jason yells, “are you serious right now? First the kid shoots me and now this? What is wrong with you people?”
“You kidnapped him,” Dick yells back.
In the corner, Tim stirs and mutters, “I’m okay, guys, seriously.” Dick and Jason briefly look over before both deciding, simultaneously, to ignore him.
“It wasn’t a kidnapping, it was a rescue mission,” Jason shouts. His eyes, once a brilliant blue only a shade darker than Dick’s own, are now glowing green. “If he had stayed there much longer, he would have died!”
“Because you attacked him!”
“No, because Bruce did,” Jason roars. “And what’s your problem, anyway? You’re really okay with letting B beat on a little kid?”
“I’m not a kid,” Tim says, and goes unnoticed again.
Breathing is hard suddenly. Dick tries to calm down, but finds that he can’t, not with Jason being back, not with Jason being genuinely angry at him. “I’m not okay with it, I’m-“
“Then why are you letting this happen? What, do you agree with Bruce? Think any child acting out should be taught a lesson?”
“No, I-“
“I expected better of you. But then again, maybe I shouldn’t have. Figures you’d just do what the old man says.”
“Shut up,” Dick yells at him, suddenly unable to listen to this even a second longer. “Just shut up. You don’t know a thing about what it’s been like. He’s never lost his temper with you.”
Jason scoffs. “I think he’s lost his temper plenty with me. He-“
“He what, Jason? Shouted at you for a bit? You know, before you came along, Bruce losing his temper meant a slap in the face, and he’s only gotten worse since you died. So don’t you dare criticise me, because you know nothing about it. Nothing.”
Jason stares at him, wide-eyed, and if it weren’t for the fact that he towers over Dick and has green eyes now, he’d look fifteen again in his shock. “What?” he says. “I thought- Tim-“
“He’s been hard on Tim,” Dick admits, quiet now. All the fight has been drained out of him. “Harder than he ever was on me, I won’t deny that. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t judge without knowing all the facts.”
“And what are the facts?” Jason counters, though the easy way he says it is betrayed by his pale face.
Dick shrugs, but even he can feel that it doesn't look as casual as he means it to. “Bruce tries, he really does. It’s just not enough sometimes.”
Jason curses, and for a second, Dick thinks that this is it, this is when Jason will attack. But instead of going in for a punch or pulling out a gun, Jason steps forward and hugs him again. Dick, instinctively, hugs back, and for a while they just stand there, clutching at each other, their harsh breathing the only sound.
“I’ll kill him,” Jason threatens. “I’m going to break every bone in his body, and then I’m going to kill him.”
“Please don’t,” Tim says, which, hey, Tim is there! Dick shoves Jason away, but only a little bit, so that he can drag Tim into the hug, too. Tim struggles, and Jason struggles too, but Dick is determined, and so within seconds, he has both his little brothers trapped in a firm embrace.
“I’ll kill him,” Jason says again, but weirdly enough, this time it doesn’t sound like a threat. It sounds like a promise.
*
In the past twenty-hours, Jason’s entire (second) life has taken a 180° turn. Yesterday, all he wanted was to teach Tim Drake a lesson, kill the Joker and/or force Bruce to kill the Joker, and show his entire ex-family that he’s someone to be messed with.
Today, he’s got one old and one new family member bundled up on his couch, watching Criminal Minds and eating Jason’s food, and he finds that he still wants to kill the Joker but more importantly, he wants to kill Bruce.
“Jason, stop brooding,” Dick commands, “come watch this- who do you think did it?”
“It’s the mom, Dick, I told you,” Tim says testily. It turns out Tim is really competitive about figuring out TV-show crimes. Yet another thing that Jason didn’t find out in all his stalking. He adds it to his list of Tim facts, which currently also involves “likes Jason’s curry” and “gets abused by Bruce”.
“It’s not abuse,” Tim argues later, when they’ve all finished eating and the latest Criminal Minds episode is over and Jason has decided that if they go one more minute without bringing up the obvious, he’s going to scream. “I told you, it’s training.”
Jason looks at Dick, trying to silently communicate Are you hearing this?!, but Dick evades his gaze. Now that all the crying and shouting and more crying is over, he’s been withdrawn. He’s joked around with Tim and tried to wheedle more food out of Jason, but Jason knows him, and he also knows when Dick is putting on an act.
Deciding to give his big brother a break for now, Jason focuses on Tim. “Training involves actually teaching you stuff. As far as I can tell, he’s just beating you for the fun of it.”
“It’s not for the fun of it. He’s just-“
“Think over whatever bullshit excuse you’re about to give me, and then think about what you’d do if some bruised kid gave that excuse to Robin.”
Tim shuts his mouth, clearly having run out of arguments. Good. Jason is going to beat familial love into him with force if necessary. Loving force. Loving, non-abusive force. Whatever, he’s going to figure something out. The standards are so low that there is literally no way possible for him to not do a better job than Bruce.
But-
There’s something that’s been bugging him ever since he first confronted Tim at the Tower yesterday.
“What I don’t understand,” he says, and both his brothers’ eyes snap to him, “is why I never noticed any of this. I’m not saying B was winning any Father of the Year awards or anything, but he was always there when it mattered. He came to parent-teacher nights, he took me to basketball games, and he’s never raised a hand against me. And I used to think that my death didn’t matter to him, and then yesterday I thought, okay, maybe my death made him go, like, insane. But then you-“ He breaks off, and now he’s the one that’s avoiding Dick’s gaze.
To his surprise, Dick shoves at his shoulder, just a little, just enough to ground him in reality. “I think,” Dick says, the first thing he’s said since Jason brought up the subject, “that you were the exception, not the rule. And I’m glad that you are the exception. I’m glad that you could have a good childhood, all things considered. You deserve it.”
“And you didn’t?” Jason asks and, when Dick doesn’t reply, decides to go for the big guns: “And Tim didn’t?”
Dick’s expression crumples. “Tim,” he says, but he doesn’t get much further than that, because he’s tearing up again. Jason is literally so uncomfortable right now, he wants to light something on fire. But he can’t, and Tim is not only shooting him an alarmed look, but looking pretty close to crying himself – Jason supposes that he would be, after the conversation they’ve just had. Hell, if this goes on any longer, Jason might cry, too, and who knows who he would have to kill then to make up for that bit of emotional honesty?
To stop the waterworks as soon as possible, he awkwardly pats Dick’s shoulder. Dick pulls him into a hug instead, another goddamn hug, and his words are muffled by Jason’s neck as he mumbles: “I didn’t mean to, I swear I didn’t. I should’ve protected him. I should have-“
And Jason wants to reassure him, he does, but in the end, this isn’t his call. He raises his eyebrows at Tim. Tim, who must have been waiting for permission, shoves Jason away to take his place in Dick’s arms, hesitatingly wrapping his arms around him as he says, “You did. I know you did as much as you could. I know, okay?”
Dick doesn’t say anything, but it looks like he’s holding Tim even tighter, so that’s a start.
“Alright,” Jason says loudly, clapping his hands when after a minute or so they still haven’t moved, “that’s about as much emotion as I can take for the day, so I’m going out. I’ll be back in about an hour, and if you’re not here when I come back, I’m going to hunt you down and bring you back. This conversation isn’t over yet.”
“Where are you going?” Tim asks.
Jason smiles. “Out,” he says.
Dick’s solemn eyes rest on him for several seconds. Jason doesn’t know what he sees, but there’s something about his gaze that makes the back of his neck itch. But then, in the end, all Dick says is, “Be safe.”
“Always am,” Jason says, and wonders why just for a second there, Dick looked like he was going to start crying again.
*
Bruce has not seen his son in so long that he thinks he’s hallucinating when he finally does. He’s not a stranger to tricks of the mind like this. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s seen a black-haired kid of Jason’s height in the street. To this day his breath catches every time, and it’s like he can’t breathe, not until the kid turns around and he can see his face, can see that it’s a stranger. A stranger’s kid.
Seeing Jason now makes him realise how foolish he’s been. Jason has grown, of course he does. He’s matching Bruce in height and muscle now. Bruce sees very little of the kid he’s known, and a lot more that’s foreign to him.
It doesn’t matter. It’s still his son. It always will be.
“Jason,” he says, because Jason came to see him in the Cave just before he’d planned to go on patrol, because they’re both in costume but both without masks, and Bruce can’t help but feel how right this is. They’re wrapped in armour like the soldiers they are, but they don’t hide their faces from each other. “You’re back.”
“Not for long,” Jason says. He sounds older, too, his voice deeper and more sure of himself. The longer he’s standing there, casually leaning against the Batmobile, the more changes Bruce can see. It's in the way he holds himself, the easy confidence echoed in every movement. Jason was still a kid when he died. In the time he’s been away, he’s become a man. “Just wanted to drop by to tell you something. Well, I say tell. I guess you’d consider it more of a lesson.”
“What do you mean?” Bruce asks carefully. He doesn’t want to provoke Jason, not when he’s finally here.
Jason gives him a sharp grin, but it doesn’t look very pleasant. “Two little birdies fessed up to what you’ve been doing behind locked doors. Really, Bruce? For all that high-and-mighty attitude about only beating up criminals, you’ve surely laid hand on your kids enough.”
Bruce flinches back, harder than if Jason had struck him. “Training is tough. You know that.”
“Do I? Because I don’t remember you beating the shit out of me when I did something wrong. Why not? Thought I couldn’t handle it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bruce says, growing annoyed despite himself. “No one is ‘beating the shit’ out of anyone. If I’m hard on Robin, it’s because he needs a firm hand to guide him. God knows his parents haven’t bothered.”
“Oh my god,” Jason says, staring at him. “You actually believe that. I wasn’t sure before, even after everything – I thought, maybe they were mind controlled, got their memories messed with, anything. But you really, truly believe all that crap. You really, truly think this is okay.”
“Jason-“
“No, I’m done talking now.” Jason shrugs obnoxiously. “Actually, wait, no. Got one more thing to say. If you ever come near Tim or Dick ever again, I’m going to slit your throat and watch you die. Got it? Okay, great. Guess I won’t see you around.” He waves. Bruce opens his mouth, but finds that he can’t speak, can’t move, can do nothing but watch the shadows that are starting to form at the edge of his vision.
Jason waves again. He’s got his helmet on now. When did he put that on?
“Just some fear gas,” he says. “Had it prepared for you earlier, courtesy of a friend. Just a little taste of what’s coming to you if you don’t heed my words.” He waits, like he’s expecting Bruce to reply, when all Bruce can do right now is try and not flinch back in fear from what he’s seeing in front of him.
“Nothing?” Jason asks. “Okay then. Bye.”
As quick as he’d arrived, he’s gone. Bruce doesn’t even notice. He’s too busy screaming.
*
“Behind you,” Tim says right into Jason’s earpiece. Jason turns around and punches his attacker right in the neck, and the guy goes out like a light. “Could’ve been more efficient about that,” Tim says helpfully. Jason snorts. Together with Dick, they’re asserted their collective authority as older brothers to ban Tim to the comms for now, just for a couple of weeks while they make sure that Batman won’t do anything to harm them.
The irony of the situation isn’t lost on Jason.
Tim has been doing an exemplary job at his new task, but he also has yet to stop being salty about it.
“Alright, that was the last one,” Dick announces over the comm link. “I’m done for today. Hood?”
“Done.”
“Excellent. T, don’t go anywhere, I’m giving you a lift.”
“A lift where?” Tim asks, exasperated. “I’m already home.”
Jason has a safe house nearby, so he goes there to get a change of clothes, but he leaves the comm on for now, listening to Dick explain that a gentle kidnapping is about to unfold. It’s not as malicious as Tim, in all his teenage annoyance, is making it sound. They’re going to get milkshakes, not do drugs together under a shady bridge.
“I’d rather do drugs under a shady bridge,” Tim says half an hour later when all three of them, dressed in civvies, are sitting in one of the booths waiting for their drinks to arrive. “I bet drug people wouldn’t force me to stay at home.”
“Tim, just the fact that you’re calling them drug people tells me you’re not ready to do drugs,” Jason tells him blithely and throws a napkin in his face.
Dick catches the napkin and throws it back at Jason, and Tim, who doesn’t like being protected under the best of circumstances, repays him by throwing a spoon at him. Dick catches that, too, looking disapproving. Before he can start scolding, their milkshakes arrive, which means it’s time for their weekly competition of seeing who can drink theirs the fastest. Dick won the last two times, but he also puked afterwards, so Jason doesn’t think it’s as big a win as his brother thinks it is.
Who is he kidding? It’s a super big win. Jason is going to take the crown from him today no matter the cost, even if it does end in him vomiting in the parking lot. It’s Gotham; this parking lot has probably seen way worse bodily fluids than that.
Later, on their slow way home – they’re walking because Tim, who won the competition, paid the price for it by being declared by both of them to be unfit to hold on to either of them on their bikes –, Dick looks around to make sure nobody is listening before lowering his voice and asking: “Have you thought of a name yet?”
Tim doesn’t answer, his face a sickly shade of green. Jason throws an arm around his shoulder and says, “He’s still thinking about it, aren’t you, Timmy? Got to be a good one. Something to really stick it to the Bat.”
“Stop influencing him,” Dick scolds, “it’s his decision. No pressure.”
It is Tim’s decision. Just like it was his decision to quit Robin. As soon as they’re sure it’s safe, or as safe as it ever gets in Gotham, Tim will be out on the streets patrolling again, but he’ll do it in a different costume this time. Under a different name, too.
“Seriously, though,” Jason says, “you’re really taking your time. Got any ideas, at least?”
Tim must have finally suppressed his urge to puke long enough to smile. “I’ve got some.” He doesn’t say more, so Jason doesn’t press. There’ll be time for brotherly bullying later. Lots of time, he thinks. A lifetime.