Chapter Text
The funeral was small. His father, Timothy, Richard, and Pennyworth were there. Kyle Rayner had shown up, bringing along Rose Wilson and Eddie Bloomberg. Jason’s godmother, Diana Prince, appeared to say a few words.
Damian wasn’t able to say a thing. He couldn’t speak or process what was going on around him. Richard had pressed himself tightly to his side, Timothy had even leaned his head into the crook of Damian’s shoulder at one point.
Jason was 16 when he died. 16 when his mother betrayed him and sold him out to the Joker. 16 when Damian had to bury his little brother. He was 16 when they had to bury an empty casket because all the Joker had left of his brother was a puddle of blood too big for Jason to have survived.
They had never been about to see Hamlet together like Jason had asked, or worked on a mission with Jon. There was so much Jason hadn’t been able to do. He was going to go to college, get a degree in English. Now he was six feet under.
Damian wondered if he could’ve done anything to save him, a question he was sure plagued his father and brother’s minds.
But that didn’t matter, because, at the end of the day, there was nothing they could do now that he was already dead. Jason was dead. His brother was gone. And there was nothing he could do.
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Two years after Jason’s death, Dick had joined the Teen Titans. He was 14 now and was co-leading the team with Starfire.
Dick loved the Titans, they were his second family. He knew he could rely on them and they could rely on him. Together, they were unbeatable. At least he thought they were.
He called himself Red X. He was a thief and had evaded the Titans every time they crashed. Dick felt inadequate.
Jason has fought and died as Robin. He was Dick’s brother and hero. Jason was the strongest person he knows... knew. Dick felt like he was failing him, unable to catch a selfish thief. The name Robin meant something to Jason, it means something to Dick, and now he was tarnishing it.
He didn’t voice his doubts to the other Titans, nor to his family.
Tim moved to New York with his girlfriend, Stephanie, the first Batgirl who now goes by Spoiler. He had thrown himself into cases after case and Dick couldn’t bear to see him work himself to death. Steph already had a hard enough time dragging Tim back from the edge after Jason, he didn’t need to bring up old memories.
A month after the funeral, Damian killed the Joker with the same crowbar Joker used to kill Jason. Bruce was angry he had broken the number one rule, and in anger and grief, he got into an argument with him. Damian punched him in the face before leaving for Europe. He’s worked there since, but Dick noticed his tracker would travel to Ethiopia periodically.
Damian never accepted Jason’s death, not until they found a body. He cut off communication with everyone, even Dick, to which he tried to convince him not to, but he was focused on his mission. Pushing away everything else, Damian threw himself into the search, but two years of looking and Damian’s found nothing. All he’s managed to do was lose his family.
Bruce was the worst. After Jason’s death, he became cold and distant. He was once a warm father, the man Dick idolized and looked up to for comfort and guidance, now he locks himself in the cave and works all day. It became suffocating, one minute Bruce would throw himself into his work and not speak to them days on end, the next he would refuse to let them out of his sight. So Dick left, Tim left, Damian left. He wondered if his family could ever be fixed.
But he had to focus on fixing his current problem before he tried to fix the problem with his family.
Red X was like a ghost, popping up to steal something, then disappearing for weeks. And they could never predict what he would try and take. It seemed random, the only similarity was that it was always expensive. The only thing he had taken more than once were supplies of Xenothium. Without a reliable way to determine where he would strike next, they could never act, only react.
The alarm had sounded at the San Francisco branch of S.T.A.R. Labs. Witness reports described a masked thief dressed in red and black. Red X.
Bringing the Redbird to a stop, Dick jumped off the motorcycle. He shot a grapple to the roof where witnesses said he entered the building. Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven floated down to join him, Beast Boy staying in his Eagle form to keep watch.
Entering the already open vent, Dick slides down the metal passage before ending at another grate. Kicking it open, he landed on the floor below. Red X stood in front of him, holding a USB drive.
Robin dived for the drive. He didn’t know what was on there, but if it came from S.T.A.R. Labs, it was probably nothing good.
Red X flipped back, his foot hitting Robin’s chin as it arched over X’s head. Stumbling back a few steps, Robin saw Starfire fire three bolts at the thief, tow of which he dodged. The last bolt hit him in the chest, causing him to lose his balance. Raven was behind him, ready to take advantage of his unsteadiness, but Red hit the teleporter on his belt.
He appeared again behind Cyborg, looping his legs around Victor’s neck before turning his body and flipping Cyborg to the ground. Red hit the floor in a roll.
“Where’s Mike Wazowski? Wouldn’t be a true reunion without him,” Red X quipped. It took Dick a split second to realize he was looking for something. The drive. It wasn’t in X’s hand anymore, he must’ve dropped it when Starfire hit him.
Robin spotted the drive laying next to Rachel.
“Raven!” He shouted. She snatched up the drive as Red X jumped in the same direction. The thief growled.
“I need that,” His voice was low and dangerous.
“What do you want so badly that’s on that drive?” Robin asked as he threw a few birdarangs at Red X. He leaned to the side to avoid them, running right into Cyborg's punch. Red hit the ground with a smack, groaning as he rolled to the side. He let out a deep cough.
“You don’t understand. Now give me the drive,” Red snarled. However, he wasn’t exactly in a position to negotiate. On the ground, Cyborgs blasters trained on him, Raven and Starfire ready to jump in at any moment, Robin’s boot in his chest holding him down, and Beast Boy outside in case he tried to teleport away. But he knew Red X, he had gotten away from them every time, and he will try to do that here.
The minute he gets his hand on that drive, he’ll teleport away. Robin slides the drive in his utility belt before lifting his boot to step on the teleporter attached to his belt. The crack of the device breaking signaled to Red X that there wasn’t a way out of this one.
Red X didn’t seem to get the memo. He hit Cyborg’s arm away with hi right land, grabbing Dick’s leg with his left. He yanked Dick’s legs out from under him, causing him to fall before Red X high kicked Cyborg in the face. Starfire grabbed Red X from behind, but he used one of his X’s to stab her side. It didn’t pierce her tough skin, but it hurt enough to make her let him go.
He evaded Raven’s magic, throwing a sticky X and pinning her to the large computer monitor. Cyborg grabbed his cape, swinging Red X into Starfire.
Dick turned away from the fight for a second to pull out the USB. Red X was skilled, fast, he had highly advanced tech (which was his fault), and at some moments it seemed like he knew everything about them. Red X didn’t win fights, but the Titans always lost, because, in the end, his goal wasn’t to beat them, just getaway. He would continue fighting up until he accomplished his goal, which was retrieving whatever was on the drive.
Plugging it into the mini-computer in his gauntlets, Dick opened the file on the drive. It was a blood test, Red X’s blood test. He got cut by a birdarang last time they encountered each other. Dick had sent the blood to S.T.A.R. Labs to be tested, as the Titans Tower doesn’t have a machine to do that. It looked like the test were complete, they had a matching identity.
As Dick was about to tap on the result, X came flying at him. His foot hitting him across the face. The file automatically closed. At least now they knew what he wanted.
“Is this what you came for? Why do you care so much if we know who you are?” Dick asked, catching X’s punch and kneeing him in the ribs. X doubled over, which gave Dick a moment to see his teammates either unconscious or trapped beneath more sticky X’s.
Red recovered a second later, bending down to swing his leg at Dick’s own. He fell but moved into a roll. Taking the taser out of his belt, he shot it at X. Red X barely dodged it.
“Because you- you can’t,” Red X sputtered. Normally quips would be traded back a forth when they clashed, Red always had something to say. Now he seemed nervous, even scared. Most villains have public identities anyway, what does he need to protect?
X managed to get close enough to remove the drive from his glove, but the files had already downloaded, and it seemed like X just realized that. Pocketing the drive, he took off for the window. Dick gave chase, grabbing his cape before he could fully get out the window.
They grappled for a minute until Red was able to shove himself away from Robin. He set off a smoke bomb and dived out the window before Dick could even get his bearings. He heard Beast Boy cry from outside before a falcon fell from the sky. Launching himself forward, Dick caught the green bird before launching a line to the closest building.
Setting Garfield down carefully, Dick tried to find the pulse point on the bird. Thankfully Garfield shifted back to his human form in his sleep. Dick was able to locate a pulse and figured Gar was just knocked out.
Dick groaned, leaning against the wall. This was not how the night was supposed to go. The only good thing they got out of tonight was the files.
Dick opened the files up again, only to wish he hadn’t, because the face looking back at him, was the face of his older brother. Jason Todd was the Red X.