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Usually, the color that your flight feathers come in after you lose the very last of your chick fluff is the color that they will stay for the rest of your life. But there have been reported (and some unreported) instances, where that hadn’t been the case, some particularly traumatic experiences could cause your feather color to change.
Before Ethiopia, Jason’s feathers were just coming in a light brown color and he had still a few tufts of chick fluff left. But the Red Hood had emerald green wings with blood-red secondaries. With this distinct difference in wing feathers, there was absolutely no way that the Red Hood could be Jason.
Tim’s alone in Titans Tower which in itself isn’t unusual, it happens every so often when the rest of the Teen Titans are away with their family or just off somewhere. What isn’t, is the hairs that are prickling on the back of his neck as he sat at his laptop in his room working on a way to improve the Tower’s already ridiculously tight security system.
As he worked, Tim felt the faint tingle of incoming electricity trace down the shoulders of both of his wings.
A storm was coming. Despite only working on the security system for an hour and a half, he’s already running out of things to improve any further than they currently are so he logged out of the system and shut his laptop with a resounding click that might have had a bit too much force behind it.
A quick check of his (dying) phone reveals that it was 11:48 PM which really wasn't too late, yet. But he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch which was…over twelve hours ago. He definitely should do something about that.
With that goal in mind, Tim left his room in search of something to eat in the kitchen. The inky black night sky outside the windows made the sole light that Tim turned on as he entered the room cast little light that it usually would and in return cast shadows over the rest of the room. It left a lot of room for someone to hide in.
He spent the next few minutes searching through the kitchen cupboard for the few items of food that were left (there really wasn’t much left) in the space. There was a small can of pasta and a handful of slightly shrivelled snow peas for some reason. That would have to do.
As Tim retrieved the can of pasta and a fork, his ears caught the sound of something behind him, a sound that vaguely resembled someone’s footsteps and the distinct sound of wing deaths moving against each other.
Tim spun to see a looming figure with huge wings that even in the low light he was able to see the blood-red coating the intruder’s secondaries. All around the Tower, the lightning flashed again, backlighting the intruder in a terrifying manner.
Ice slithered its way down his spine as the can of pasta fell out of his hand and rolled across the floor in the direction of the intruder. He was completely and utterly unarmed, his bo staff was on his desk in his room but the intruder (whoever they were) was blocking the way.
With his wings instinctually held ready for a quick flight (despite being indoors) Tim was forced to take a step back as the other took a step forward, the intruder’s wings held at a high angle to make themself (himself?) look more intimidating.
Getting (breaking) into Titans Tower was almost laughably easy despite the attempts at improving the security measures and the storm that was still raging on, and discovering that his replacement is alone is entertaining.
The boy’s ‘friends’ were off, most likely miles away - too far to be of any real help to the replacement.
Finding out that his access codes still worked even though he was supposed to be a dead boy in a pine box in Gotham was even more entertaining. Once he was in the system, he disabled the zeta and initiated the silent lockdown protocol for all exterior doors and windows.
The imposter chick wouldn’t be getting out nor would anyone be getting in to help the replacement. It was just him and his replacement.
“Replacement,” he growled, his voice modulator working as it should (it was much too soon to reveal who he really was, he wanted to terrify the chick first).
If anyone was keeping score, that growl could have rivalled Batman’s (probably trademarked) growl.
It was so damn satisfying to see his replacement flinch with each step he took towards him and even more so seeing the utter fear that graced not only the chick’s body but made his wings puff up.
Absently, around the Pit-fuel rage, he took notice of the fact that his replacement - a teenaged chick - still had little wisps of chick fluff (something that he should have lost the last of years ago). But that thought was shoved to the back of his mind as the Pit fury swelled and completely took over his thoughts once again.
He needed to get out of the kitchen, now. If he didn’t want to end up as a bloodstain on the tiles. Before his brain is properly working again, Tim is moving, darting around the intruder (the Red Hood, he noticed when the other had stepped into the light) with his own wings pulled painfully close to his body despite his avian instincts telling him to take flight.
Somehow, Tim isn’t exactly sure how he did it, but he managed to get around Red Hood and once he was, he took off sprinting as best he could towards his room (and a decent weapon).
It’s only when he discovered that the door to his room is locked (the lockdown protocol that he hated himself for creating must have been in effect) that Tim wished he had just turned around and grabbed a knife out of the knife block that had been literally right next to him.
Tim had effectively cornered himself by running to his room which was at the end of the hallway. Now he stood with his back to the door and his wings painfully squashed between himself and the aforementioned door.
What was the Red Hood doing here in San Francisco, away from his territory in Gotham? Not to mention that the crime lord was inside Titans Tower chasing him, for an unknown reason.
“Did you think you could run, little Robin?” He heard the Red Hood’s heavily modulated voice before the crime lord turns down the hallway, guns in hand. “There is nowhere for you to run to,” he added, in his (terrifying) growl that sent yet another shard of ice down Tim’s spine.
The Red Hood raised one of his guns and fired one round, the bullet just nicked the shoulder of his left wing. That shot had, despite actually missing his left wing in its entirety, managed to clip off a few feathers and brought forth a thin line of scarlet.
That bullet had missed permanently harming him but Tim knew full well that the next one might not. The Red Hood was approaching agonisingly slowly like he was purposefully dragging it out to make it as agonising as possible.
When the crime lord next spoke, his voice was dripping with sarcasm. “It’s so lovely to see that the old Bat was so quick to replace me with another kid, Robin 3.0. The old man threw another bird up into the sky, and do you know what happens to things that go up?” It was phrased like a question but Tim knew damn well that it was not one.
The Red Hood fired another shot, this time from the gun in his left hand, it hit true a feather of his primary coverts, the white feather now a ruined mess of what it used to be only moments before. “They must fall down,” he sneered as he fired off yet another shot, this time hitting the same spot on his right wing.
It was in that exact moment, as the bullet tore through not only feather but also cartilage but (luckily) not bone, that Tim finally felt the pain from the other shot. It reared its ugly head in a fiery blaze of pain. He couldn't fly with these injures.
Through the pain, Tim saw the intruder switch out his guns for a knife, a very sharp one, he observed as the light from the lightning caught the aforementioned blade surface. There was a wide range of things that the Red Hood could do with a knife like that.
The Pit roared with pleasure as he tracked the newest Robin through the tower. He could smell the chick’s fear from here. As he moved down the hallway, he caught sight of a few stray white and/or mottled brown feathers.
Was he really succeeding at scaring the chick so much that he was dropping feathers?
Once he had ensured that the replacement’s wings were out of the picture so that the brat couldn’t fly away if he somehow managed to find a way out here, the real fun could get started. He would make the little bird scream.
The knife wasn’t the main event, it was really just a convenient extra but he took it out nonetheless. It was so satisfying once again to see the fear on his replacement’s face.
“They must fall down,”
Before the replacement was able to think, the edge of the knife was pressed into his thyroid cartilage, just short of slicing through the skin to expose the scarlet inside. He felt the chick swallow.
Time for the fun to properly start.
Quickly and efficiently, in a movement he had performed a large handful of times in the past, he switched out the knife for his own hands, cutting off most of his replacement’s access to air.
The seconds ticked by while the Pit fury still clouded his thoughts, and his replacement - Robin 3.0 - gasped for breath that he wouldn’t be getting.
He wouldn’t kill the little bird, no, he would only squeeze tight enough to knock the chick unconscious so that he could dump him on the Bat’s doorstep bloodied and broken. That old man needed to learn - to understand - what will happen when he chucks another little birdie into the sky to be part of his batshit (ha!) crazy ‘crusade’ against Gotham.
Before the young vigilante managed to pass out, he somehow managed to splutter out a rather pathetic “Why are you doing this, Jason?”
Despite the patheticness of his replacement’s voice, the use of his name caught him very much off-guard. He got the distinct feeling like someone had just dumped a litre of ice-cold water on top of him.
How did he know his identity? He had been so meticulously careful. None of the bats were supposed to know, not yet. But here was his replacement (who was only a chick , a teenage one but a chick nonetheless) speaking his name.
“How do you know that?” he demanded instead of answering the previous question. “Who told you?” he tacked on. The green was starting to fade from his vision, the world was losing its green tint.
He loosened the death grip of his replacement’s throat - a chick - to allow him to speak to answer his questions.
“N-no one! No one told me! I worked it out,” Robin told him.
He knew that the chick was smart but had he really made it that easy? His extended time in Gotham was making him sloppy.
“Who else knows?” was his next demand question. "Does the Bat know?"
“Y-yes Batman knows, as do N and Oracle,”
They all knew. How?
“We’ve known for months. Bruce has been trying to find you but you haven’t been in Gotham,” The chick was just spewing lies now.
“Lies. All of it.” he spat out. “B hasn’t been looking for me, why would he? I’m a murderer, a crime lord. The old Bat doesn’t want me in his flock,” he told him.
“He has,” a new voice, one that he definitely knew chimed in. A turn of his head revealed none other than the one and only Dick Grayson, in full Nightwing uniform, standing partways down the hallway.
How the hell did Dick get in here? The Tower is supposed to be on total lockdown, which meant no one got in nor out.
“What are you doing here, Dick?” He spat the man’s name out in a manner that could have been interpreted two ways, an insult or his name.
“I would ask you the same thing,” the Blud vigilante returned. He didn’t miss the fact that Dick had an escrima stick in one of his hands.
The green began to seep back into his vision, giving the world a distinctly green hue once again. A quick ten-word sentence “Just came to give the old Bat a warning,” left his mouth as pulled one of his guns out of its holster and fired as soon as it was level with Dick’s face.
It missed, but not by much. It just barely missed the man’s right, (currently painted) cloud gray alula. The next one would hit true. He hadn’t forgotten just how boneless his former older brother could be.
From that moment begun a fight between the two former brothers (which really didn’t last all that long).
Dick once again showed off his talent for appearing just as you need him. But the older vigilante’s arrival was perfect, it allowed him to not only move from his corner but inspect his injuries and judge their severity.
The Red Hood - Jason - had dealt a decent amount of damage to both his wings. From what he could tell without any medical equipment, he wouldn't be flying for at least a few weeks. Great.
After he had finished inspecting his wings Tim watched Jason and Dick fight, they were a whirlwind of limbs, feathered or otherwise, and metal.
“Bruce really has been looking for you! He still is!” he told Red Hood Jason. “Why won’t you believe that?” he questioned as he protected his head from yet another spew of bullets.
“Because it’s too late,” Jason spat. “Why is the old man still searching for me now? Why isn’t he as quick to give up as he was all those years ago after the Joker offed me?” The younger ex-vigilante demanded.
“After I killed all those people? None of you want me around,” He clearly expected that sentence to be the final nail in the coffin. It wasn’t.
He purposefully let silence form between them as they still fought. Once a handful of minutes had ticked by, he spoke. “Have you ever heard of something called a second chance?”
“Have you ever heard of something called a second chance?”
Did he really just hear that sentence come out of Dick’s mouth?
He huffed a laugh, a quick one. “People like me don’t deserve second chances,”
“You’re right, they don’t. But B and I, maybe even Tim, are willing to offer you one anyway,” he told him.
He really hoped that Jason took his olive branch. If he didn’t, they wouldn’t have a second chance at this, ever .
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Tim slowly (and silently) approach them from behind Jason. The bend of both of the chick’s wings were bleeding, not as much as they should be from the injuries he had sustained but bleeding nonetheless. He was surprised that Tim was still standing.
“Sorry to break it to you but you’re getting that second chance whether you like it or not,” Tim told him.
Jason did indeed took up their offer of a second chance, and does return to Gotham with Dick and Tim. The latter really needed to get his wings properly checked out.
Dick had all but whisked Tim off to the Cave as soon as they arrived in Gotham with a (rather stupid, in his opinion) invitation for Jason to go with them. It might have been a stupid invitation but he took it up nevertheless.
When Jason entered the Cave, he expected Bruce to have a weapon drawn at him and reveal that this whole thing was some twisted kind of trick. That is not what he found. Instead, Jason found the man standing, facing him, in his Batman uniform but with his cowl pulled back so that he could see his face clearly.
There was no sign of any anger or resentment anywhere on his face nor in his wings. Although the man had a few more gray hairs than he had the last time Jason had seen him without the cowl.
“Jason,” Bruce said his name in a way that made it sound like he didn’t believe that his (ex) second-oldest brother was actually standing in front of him again.
Before he spoke, Jason unlatched and took off his helmet, to hold it down by his side. “Hey, old man,”
Eight months later, Jason left the Manor rather abruptly one afternoon. Only to return covered in someone, or quite a few someones, else’s blood with a kid (who had a sword) trailing close behind him. As soon as the door was shut behind him, Jason announced that the kid, Damian, was Bruce’s blood son.