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Jason sinks back against his couch, humming pleasantly, and he’s just about to kick his feet atop the ottoman and open the new book he’s been eager to dig into for a month now when a quick, patterned knock on his apartment door interrupts his eased thoughts, startling him briefly before he sighs loudly.
He’s just decided to ignore it when the knocking continues, accompanied, this time, by a small voice he, unfortunately, recognizes almost immediately.
“Jason?”
He makes sure the groan that builds from the back of his throat is dramatically loud and equally as long as he drops his book on the abandonded couch behind him and starts to the door, undoing the locks and pulling the door open with a familair frown reserved specifically for the damned “family” of his.
“Replacement,” Jason bites out, fingers curled lazily around the edge of the door.
Tim’s drenched before him, shuddering slightly with his arms wrapped tightly around his too-slender frame, and his normal, calculated composure looks to be nudging the brink of breaking. He squeezes under Jason’s arm, letting himself into the apartment, and Jason drags a deep sigh out.
“I need your help.”
“Did you already forget where the door is?” Jason asks, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Because it’s right there, and I’m happy to escort you out.”
Unfazed, Tim slows his pacing down, stopping in the center of Jason’s entryway. “Dick’s been kidnapped.”
Jason rolls his eyes, a bad habit he hasn’t cared in the slightest to remedy. He drags narrow eyes up and down Tim’s uniform. “And I care because?” he draws out, arching both brows.
Tim sighs at this, and if Jason weren’t borderline dangerously annoyed, he’d be a little impressed that he’s managed to just barely get under Tim’s skin.
“Look, seeking out your help made the most sense logistically.”
“Logistically,” Jason parrots back flatly.
“You’re the closest to our location.”
“And, you came here instead of helping,” Jason points out, motioning toward Tim’s suit. “Why waste the time? You’re capable of helping him yourself.” He’s hoping, smally, that the fraction of a compliment will boost Tim’s ego up just enough to send him out the door, and yet, Tim visibly deflates before him, tugging his mask off and coughing into the crook of his arm.
“I shouldn’t be out.”
“Because you look as if you took a deep dive in the Gotham River in the dead-ass middle of winter?”
“And because I have the flu.”
Jason frowns sharply, eyes flicking from one too-flushed cheek to the other. Without thinking fully, he crosses the room and slaps a palm to Tim’s forehead, finding him alarmingly hot to the touch despite the icy water dripping off him.
“You do remember that you’re kind of missing your spleen, right?” Jason questions lowly, stepping back to further assess Tim’s condition through gaze alone.
Shuddering, Tim hugs himself tightly, eyes casting to the ground. “Dick asked me to come out and help. I told him it may not be a good idea because,” he pauses, turning to hack harshly into his fist, “well, that. But he insisted.”
“He insisted,” Jason repeats darkly, eyes flashing a brief red.
Tim meekly nods, swaying on his feet, and Jason growls in the back of his throat, guiding Tim to the bathroom. “Christ. Hot shower and change into something dry,” Jason spits out, already whipping toward his bedroom for his suit. He’s quick slipping it on, easy muscle memory, and he’s just slipped a few guns into the holsters at his sides when Tim clears his throat.
“You’re going to help?”
“Apparently,” Jason grumbles, hands adjusting the clip of rubber bullets. “The last thing I want is you keeling over in my apartment and the big, bad, Bat blaming me for it. Plus, I now have a reason to rip Dick a new one for being a fucking idiot.”
“Thanks,” Tim sighs, visibly relieved. “There’s a dock with a wooden boat house at Gotham River, east side.”
“Got it,” Jason starts, pasuing, mask only pulled over his forehead. “Hang on,” he stops his quick movement toward the door, whipping around toward Tim. “Did you actually deep-dive in the Gotham River when it’s close to the negatives outside?”
“Got dizzy,” Tim mutters, coughing. “I kind of fell.”
“Fucking hell,” Jason curses, snagging the keys to his bike before stalking out of his apartment, slamming the door behind him.
***
“Do you have a plan?”
Jason works through a colorful string of hushed curses at the sudden sound of Tim’s rough voice in his ear, forgetting that he’s never actually disconnected his comm.
“Yeah,” he whispers, eyeing the boat house from his corner cover behind a brick wall. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping or some shit?”
“I wanted to help you. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m borrowing your laptop so I can have eyes on multiple locations.”
Jason’s working through a grunt that he doesn’t mind, but his brain wraps back around unspoken details. “I have my laptop password protected.”
“’I am the Red Hood’ isn’t exactly a hard password to crack.”
Jason shakes his head, a huff slipping past his covered lips. “I’m moving far away from all of you after this,” he mutters, standing from his cover and approaching the boat house.
“Hood, what’s the plan? You’re wide open right now.”
“About that,” Jason draws out, stopping before the wooden door. He can hear multiple voices behind the rickety walls, Dick’s voice standing out loudly among the others. “I think I’ll just walk in, say a little hello.”
Tim groans in his ear, muttering how he should have ignored logistics to find someone more competent, and Jason laughs lowly before kicking the door wide open, a sly smile curling against his covered lips as multiple men with guns whip toward the door, numerous barrels aimed right at him.
Dick’s in the center of the room tied to a chair. His face is beginning to fade to blues and blacks, yet the look of pure, innocent surprise on his face completely contradicts the entire situation.
“Hood?”
“I’d say long time no see,” Jason starts, one hand slowly moving to ghost above a gun at his waist, “but you’re a little hard to make out with all the swelling and bruising.”
Dick rolls his eye that’s not swollen to hell, and Jason starts forward ignoring the rings of clicks that echo from every gun that’s pointed toward him.
“Hey, aren’t you the Red Hood?”
Jason cocks his head to the side, turning toward the voice. “Well, I do have a hood, and last I checked, it’s definitely red.”
“Watch it, smartass. What business do you have with this one?” The man speaking, some gruff, bulky blond with distasteful tattoos littering his fingers, motions toward Dick with the barrel of his gun, and Jason tenses slightly, his hand now laying fully atop the gun at his waist.
“Bird infestation,” Jason grumbles. “Gotta get this one to get rid of the other.”
“Red Robin?” Dick calls out, jerking against the ropes that have his hands tied tightly behind the chair. “Is he okay?”
“Jury’s still out on that one,” Jason mutters, and Tim crackles in his ears.
“Hood, I don’t like these odds. I’m going to call for back up.”
“No need, Replacement.” Jason drags a slow gaze back toward Dick, and though they disagree on 90% of things, they still, somehow, share this odd ability to communicate via look alone, and Dick gives a single nod to his silent question. “I have help.”
“Jason-”
Jason slips both guns out from his holsters and stretches his arms out wide and open. “Let’s go, boys.”
The next few seconds are loud, gun shots ringing out from every direction, and Jason feeds off the familair sound, adding into the mix with his rubber bullets that don’t miss. Dick, as he predicted, has broken the wooden chair he’s been tied to and has managed to wiggle his wrists free from the ropes. Jason covers him with one gun while targeting those running toward him with his other.
The fight lasts a minute and forty-three seconds, with Jason and Dick ending on top, multiple unconsious men at their feet.
“I’ve already notified Gotham PD,” Dick starts, rubbing at his wrists as he steps over a few bodies. “Where’s Tim? He was fighting outside, and one of these assholes broke my comm.” Dick’s tense, fear laced heavily in his voice, and Jason steadies his eyes into a sharp glare.
“He’s back at my apartment, sick-” is all he manages out before Dick’s racing out of the boat house. “-as fuck, no thanks to you,” Jason finishes flatly to himself. He slips his bike keys from his pocket and starts out the door when he can hear sirens in the distance.
***
Jason makes it back to his apartment a few seconds after Dick, and he’s making a very serious mental note to move far away when he slips through the open door to see Dick hovering over Tim, pressing a palm to his forehead, counting Tim’s pulse with his free hand.
“Dick, I’m fine,” Tim whines, swatting at Dick’s hands, and Jason pulls his mask off and cocks his head to the side.
“Spleenless, the flu is not ‘fine,’“ Jason gripes out, and Dick whips around to him, eyes wide, before dragging a quick gaze back to Tim.
“The flu? Tim, what the hell?”
Frowning, Jason approaches the two, eyeing Tim dangerously. “You said he knew.”
“I calculated a few scenarios,” Tim starts, coughing weakly. “I figured you’d be more likely to help Dick if you were pissed at him.”
“What kind of fucking backwards logic-”
“-Dick!”
Jason’s unable to finish his thoughts when Dick drops to a knee in front of him, one hand curled tightly around his abdomen, his face pinched in pain.
“Dick,” Tim presses again, shoving the laptop from his lap and leaning over the side of the couch to get a better look. “What’s wrong?”
Jason’s seen some shit when it comes to this twisted family he can’t quite get out of, but he can truly say that he’s never seen Dick’s stoic composure crumble under the weight of injury, and his eyes grow wide all on their own, a lump building in his throat.
“Nothing,” Dick grunts out around clenched teeth, his jaw a hard, sharp line, and Jason blinks around the muted grip of fear, groaning instead and pulling Dick to his feet despite Dick’s hiss of pain at his side.
“Alright, Dickie Bird. Since my home is now apparently the house of the hurt and helpless, let’s look you over. One bird down in my apartment would be bad, but two? No fucking way.”
He calls out for Tim to take some damn medicine as he drags Dick into the bathroom, pulling at Dick’s suit until the top half’s pulled down, revealing dark purple bruising littering Dick’s sides.
“Your ribs?” Jason guesses, and Dick nods, swallowing back a moan of pain when Jason presses lightly on Dick’s sides.
“Doesn’t seem broken, but we’ll wrap it just in case. I’m sure Alfred will personally kill me if I don’t.” Jason moves for his first aid kit, very much aware but choosing not to adress the hard eyes watching his every movement.
“Jay-”
“I don’t want to hear it, D,” Jason says, snagging some large bandages he can wrap around Dick’s torso.
“Thank you.”
Jason groans loudly, crouching down to start wrapping Dick’s ribs. “I said I didn’t want to hear it. What’s up with you birds and your piss poor hearing?”
“I really didn’t know that Tim was sick. He seemed off, but he was insistent that we go and investigate the boat house. He said he had reason to believe they were smuggling drugs underneath the floorboards.” Dick hisses sharply when Jason tightens the bandages, promptly shutting him up.
“I should have known that your mother hen instincts would have never let typhoid Timmy go out while sick.”
Dick rolls his eyes around a wince, hand ghosting across the bandages when Jason stands up and backs away to critique his work.
“Things just got a little out of hand.”
“Clearly,” Jason says dryly, and Dick frowns deeply when he stands, the pain pulling at his sides hot and overwhelming.
“I’ll call a cab-”
“-don’t,” Jason sighs loudly. “It’s late. You both can stay, but your asses are gone in the morning.”
The smile that spreads across Dick’s lips is blindingly familiar, and Jason finds he’s at ease with Dick’s boyish charm overcoming him once more.
They slip out of the bathroom, and Jason starts to his room to get a change of clothes for Dick, pausing in the doorway to see Tim passed out on his bed, his breaths loud, congested.
“I can move him to the couch,” Dick offers from behind him, and Jason only shakes his head silently, padding quietly into the room. “You both can sleep in here. He’s already infected my bed, anyway.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” Jason sighs, only faintly aware of how many times he truly sighs whenever one of the damn birds is around. He shoves clean clothes into Dick’s arms before stalking around him to change his own clothes, maybe take a hot shower to chase away the lingering chill, and finally, hopefully, start his book.
“Jay?”
Jason stops, one foot already in the bathroom. “If you look at me with those stupid, puppy eyes and say ‘thank you’ one more fucking time, I’ll make sure your ribs actually break.”
Dick smiles wide and holds a hand up in mock defense before he slips into the bedroom and nudges the door closed, and Jason shakes his head, his own breath of a smile flicking at the corners of his lips as he closes the door behind him.