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Jason had a plan. A carefully plotted timeline with just enough leeway to account for unforeseen variables, and a contingency for every tiny detail. He would exploit every piece of insider knowledge his time as Robin allowed him, dropping just enough hints to drive Bruce up the wall without tipping his hand. So long as the Bats didn’t figure it out, Jason still had security clearance. Could still access the comms and run his surveillance without any of them suspecting a thing. He’d make the most of being a ghost while it lasted.
Then the real fun could begin.
He had a plan. A good plan, and he’d had years to practice being patient. A few more weeks of reconnaissance and establishing himself in the criminal underworld, and he could start making bigger waves. Following around the new Robin without intervening wasn’t easy, not when every flash of a cape made his blood boil, but he savoured that rage. Let it simmer. It would be all the sweeter when he beat the brat to a bloody pulp.
He had a plan.
The breakout at Arkham was not a part of that plan, though in hindsight it really should have been.
“How does it feel?” the Scarecrow all but crooned, and even without the microphone, his voice carried over the still waters of the Gotham harbour. Jason seriously considered cutting his losses and calling it a night. He knew what Crane sounded like mid-monologue, and if he didn’t know for a fact that the big bad bat was on a business trip out of town, he probably wouldn’t have risked getting involved.
Still, Scarecrow encroaching on the Alley didn’t reflect well on his blooming reputation. He’d already heard the first murmurs about new chemical shipments coming in from outside of Gotham, which meant it would only be a matter of time before the villain started stirring up the kind of trouble Jason really couldn’t afford right now.
“I brewed this batch specially. I’ll think you’ll find it a little more…potent than you’re used to,” he continued, the voice modulator giving the note of glee in his voice a dangerous edge. One thing was for sure, he didn’t envy the poor bastard who’d gotten on Scarecrow’s bad side.
A whimper rang out through the stacks of metal shipping containers, and Jason’s index finger came to rest on his rifle’s trigger. He just needed to make a point, that was all. Send the rats scurrying back into the sewers until either the cops or the vigilantes came to collect them. He lined up the scope, taking his time surveying the scene. Twelve guards, all armed and masked, and the Scarecrow himself at the epicentre of it all.
The gloating monologues and confident demeanour weren’t enough to keep his guards from sending nervous glances upward, searching for a silhouette against the grey sky. Something had them spooked.
“I know you’re listening, Batman. It really wasn’t wise to let an injured bird wander so far down the mineshaft.”
Jason paused, letting the words sink in and trailing the scope back to rest on Scarecrow’s back. Between the storage containers and the villain himself, he couldn’t make out the subject of the villain’s speech. No doubt the poor bastard would be bored to tears if he weren’t likely under the influence of fear toxin.
The microphone picked out a sound that might have been a whine, and Jason’s face broke into a smile beneath his helmet. Surely his luck couldn’t be that good? After serving as the universe’s personal punching bag for so long, he supposed he was due a stroke of good fortune. But this?
He adjusted the scope, trying to get a visual on the figure on the ground, but he couldn’t make out much more than the slant of a shoe. Robin normally steered clear of the worst parts of Gotham when Bruce was out of town. It was standard protocol when they were operating without immediate backup, but when had protocol ever stopped a Robin from charging headlong into danger?
Jason had only planned to ruffle the bird’s feathers a bit. Break a few bones, maybe knock out a few teeth, but fear toxin…that opened up a whole new realm of possibilities he hadn’t considered. It might bring his timetable forward, but to see the brat’s face twisted with that level of sheer terror? Yeah, he could afford to deviate from the plan a little.
He was already debating how best to smuggle Robin out of this mess when Scarecrow turned on his heel, flanked by guards on either side.
“I wonder, even if you were close enough to swoop in and save the day, would you be able to form an antidote in time?” he said with a sweeping gesture, the syringe needles embedded in his suit clacking together in a way that set Jason’s teeth on edge. “I’m not sure the little bird’s heart will hold out much longer. Unless, of course, I’m offered sufficient encouragement to administer the antidote myself. There’s only one thing that men who hide in shadows truly fear, and that’s the scrutiny of the light. Unmask yourself, or your precious protégé dies. The choice is yours.”
Except Jason was too busy trying to process the body lying on the ground, contorted, and twitching as if electrified. Not the glaring bundle of red and green he’d expected to see, but something sleek and black that blended with the shadows. The dark shape might have gone completely unnoticed if not for the streak of blue splashed across his chest.
An injured bird.
The world exploded beneath a wash of boiling green.
Controlling the rage brought on by the Lazarus Pit took time, dedication, and more willpower than Jason was always willing to commit, but he liked to think he managed the side effects reasonably well. He meditated and channelled that homicidal rage into a force for good, even on the days when he wanted nothing more than to raze this city to the ground.
His carefully maintained grip snapped like a brittle twig beneath the tidal wave of seething anger, every bit as fiery and all-consuming as it had been when he first emerged from the Pit. Eight gunshots sounded, and Jason made note of them as if watching someone else pull the trigger. Eight gunshots, eight bodies dropped and painted the concrete with blood more green than red. He didn’t remember pulling the trigger. Didn’t remember lining up the shots, but they all found their way through the forehead of an armed guard.
He threw himself over the rooftop, not giving a second thought to the drop, and came up in a roll. He’d killed two more before the others could even raise their weapons. A bullet punched through the shoulder of his leather jacket but was stopped by the Kevlar underneath, so he sent a shot back in kind. It was sloppy and careless to go charging in like this, but every bullet found its target. Before the fight could truly begin, Scarecrow’s men were down.
Not enough, the Pit sang in his head, and he turned on the last man left standing. He couldn’t see Scarecrow’s face beneath that ridiculous sack of a mask, but even a fool could read the stunned surprise radiating through him.
He wanted to peel back the mask and see the look in Crane’s eyes when he realised his mistake. Wanted to pull him limb from limb and make him scream apologies for ever daring to lay his hands on—
The flames stuttered. It wasn’t much, just a sparking clash of emotions as his mind caught up with his actions, but it was enough to make him remember why he’d come there in the first place. He wasn’t Robin anymore, wasn’t Dick’s brother anymore. He was the Red Hood, a crime lord, and how the hell would it look if he went around saving bats from supervillains?
More importantly, how quickly would Bruce crack down on him if he killed one of his precious Rogues?
He didn’t remember moving, but he knew there was still a gun in his hand. Knew those wicked syringes sewn into his gloves were smashed, along with several of Crane’s fingers. Knew Crane was gasping through broken ribs, and there was something so very satisfying about being tall enough to loom over him.
“Give me the antidote,” he said, his voice rendered flat and toneless by the modulator in his helmet.
“And why would I—” Scarecrow began with an audible sneer, but Jason cut him off by putting a bullet through his kneecap.
If he’d been smarter about this, taken his time, maybe he could have negotiated. As a hero, it would have been pointless, but villains in Gotham were always locked in debates over territory and whose turn it was to kill the bat. Perhaps…
The shrill cry of pain was like a balm to his searing rage, tempering the almost unbearable heat building beneath his skin. He thought about all the times he himself had been hit by fear gas while patrolling the streets of Gotham. All the street kids he’d found wracked with sobs as their worst nightmares played out before their eyes. He’d lose no sleep over the satisfaction he found in seeing Scarecrow at his mercy for a change.
“Antidote,” he said, adopting a tone of boredom.
“Why do you even want it?” Scarecrow hissed through gritted teeth. “You’re making quite a name for yourself, Hood. Even in Arkham. You’ve no love for the bats.”
Instead of putting a bullet in his head, he kicked the man onto his back and pressed a boot down on the injured knee until he screamed.
“Batman’s out of town. There’s no one around to appreciate your little stunt.” The words worked better than the pain. He supposed he should have expected that from one of the more theatrical types. “What exactly do you think he’ll do to you if he comes back to find another dead bird on his doorstep? A vengeful bat is bad for business.”
He could see the gears turning in Scarecrow’s head. The threat of Nightwing’s death might be enough to scare even Batman, but there would be no place for terror if he returned to find another one of his Robins dead at the hand of a supervillain.
For a single twisted moment, Jason pondered whether the Wonder Boy’s death would finally be enough to tip him over the edge.
“Antidote,” he said again. “And you stay the hell out of the Alley.”
This time Scarecrow produced a vial from his belt.
“Don’t think we’re finished here,” he spat.
“Oh I know we’re not.”
He tore off the ragged mask for good measure, ignoring Scarecrow’s squawks of pain as he brought his heel down on one of the tanks attached to his torso. The metal buckled hard enough that it cracked the seal, and the hiss of gas was almost covered by the doctor’s shouts of alarm.
“Sweet dreams,” he called out over his shoulder, forcing himself to walk instead of sprinting back towards Nightwing’s still prone body sprawled out on the ground.
The sight was wrong in so many ways. Knowing Dick had been lying there for the whole conversation without slipping free of the cuffs restraining his hands, hearing Scarecrow’s whole monologue without him dropping a single quip.
Jason crouched beside him to check his pulse. It raced beneath his fingers, a frantic and thready staccato that couldn’t possibly be sustainable. He didn’t hesitate to plunge the syringe into his arm, trusting in Crane’s consistency. If it didn’t work? Well, Jason could think up a few things worse than fear toxin to try out on the doctor.
With the Pit’s sudden burst of bloodlust sated, colour began to seep back into his green-imbued vision of the world. Streaks of red splattered his clothes, and his shoulder ached where the Kevlar absorbed the impact of that bullet, but he didn’t think any of the blood belonged to him.
“Don’t think I’m making a habit of this,” he muttered. Dick didn’t even seem to realise he was there, head tilted up towards the sky as he gasped and choked on every breath. The spasms already seemed to be easing, though. Surely that must be a sign the antidote was working?
He set his jaw and shook his head. His good deed of the week complete, he turned his back on the hero and stalked back towards the roof to collect his abandoned rifle. Scarecrow’s screams still bounced shrilly off the metal, reverberating through the harbour in a way that was equal parts horrifying and satisfying. At least it hadn’t been a completely wasted night.
As he packed up, he shot glances back over his shoulder towards the site of his massacre. At Nightwing’s still prone and twisted form twitching on the concrete, a messy sprawl of limbs without any of the grace and finesse everyone knew to associate with the hero.
Any minute now, he’d shake off the lingering effects of the toxin and get back to his feet. Jason would need to run like hell when he did. Really, he should be using this time to his advantage, but for some reason he couldn’t help but linger.
Any second now. Any second…
He cursed under his breath as the wail of a police siren cut through the air. For the second time that night, he clambered off the rooftop to save the spandex-clad idiot he used to think of as a brother.
“This changes nothing,” Jason said as he carried the still half-unconscious Nightwing past yet another set of security sensors. He better not lose his access privileges over this. “I need Bruce to have his head in the game. You being a reckless idiot and getting yourself unmasked by the cops would just complicate things.”
Dick groaned something unintelligible into his shoulder.
“You’re heavier than you look, you know that?”
They’d spent enough time together that Jason could almost hear the response that remark should have earned him. The sound of mock offense in the back of Dick’s throat. The pitch of his voice when he got defensive. The comment should have gotten a rise out of him, but instead he barely stirred.
Jason wasn’t worried. He wasn’t.
He stalked into the cave and sent up a prayer that the replacement would stick to his normal schedule. Not that praying had ever gotten him very far before. He supposed if push came to shove he could still shoot the brat one handed. If he was feeling particularly generous, he might even restrict himself to non-lethal injuries.
The cave looked…remarkably close to how he remembered it. The batcomputer had clearly been updated in his absence, and there was a shiny new DNA sequencer in place of the old in the lab, but the layout was unchanged. Same trophies (save a few recent additions), same training mats, same suit—
Jason’s footsteps faltered as his gaze landed on the display housing a very familiar Robin costume.
“There’s no way…” he muttered under his breath, forgetting the injured vigilante draped over his shoulder as the pieces slotted into place and the green seeped back into his vision. He’d spent years living under the same roof as the world’s greatest detective. The signs of repair work didn’t go unnoticed.
A Good Soldier. He could have burned the whole place down to the ground right then and there. Probably would have if a sob hadn’t sliced clean through the haze of green. It was a stifled, miserable sound that should have under no circumstances left his older brother’s throat. Nightwing had always been second only to Batman in his eyes. He was Robin, and that should have made him invincible, but Jason learned that lesson the hard way, didn’t he?
He forced his fists to unclench, growling as he stormed past the display. The anger boiling in his blood screamed for an outlet, but he soothed the Pit rage by promising himself he’d smash the damn thing on his way out.
The unsteady rhythm of Dick’s breathing gave him something to focus on. It still didn’t sound right, but he no longer sounded like he was choking on every other breath. His initial plan had just been to dump him on one of the cots and hope Nightwing wouldn’t remember any of this by morning, but now he was here…Well, he’d already taken on the risk of breaking into the cave. Might as well reap the benefits while he was at it.
He dropped Dick unceremoniously onto one of the cots in the med bay. There wasn’t much point in going to all this effort to save the idiot only for him to die from a tainted antidote, and since he was already going to stay a while, Jason ran a sample of his blood while he dug through Bruce’s files on the Red Hood case.
A few running theories, but nothing concrete. Certainly nothing accurate. It should have been satisfying to see proof that his plans were all falling into place, but his mind stumbled back over the memory of Dick lying cuffed on the ground and fighting for every breath.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Dick wasn’t his brother, really. They’d both been kidnapped by the same narcissistic billionaire in a bat suit, but that didn’t make them family. They’d never even lived in the manor at the same time.
And yet, every whimper that escaped his lips made the voices singing for Bruce’s blood a little quieter. When he closed his eyes, the face beaten bloody behind his eyelids wasn’t Batman’s, or the replacement’s, or even the Joker’s. It was Crane’s, eyes blown wide with terror and face twisted in pain.
Not enough, the Pit whispered. Needs to suffer.
For what? Getting the jump on Nightwing while Bruce was up in space with his band of buddies? Why the hell should he care about that?
The machine across the room beeped, and an alert that the analysis was complete flashed across the monitor. Sighing, Jason opened up the results.
His blood ran cold.
It was fear toxin, alright. A modified batch, but still based on the classic formula. It seemed Scarecrow had been telling the truth about the antidote based on the traces in his bloodstream, but even without the threat of death it would take a few hours for the effects to wear off. Nothing on first glance explained Dick’s stranger symptoms until he saw the chemical formula that reignited the blaze of green fury.
Another choked whimper drifted out from the med bay, and Jason’s hands tightened once again into fists.
Paralytic agent. He was going to skin that bastard alive.
Getting hit with fear toxin was never a pleasant experience, and Crane always liked to mix up his chemical cocktails. Antidotes could take time to synthesise, and Jason remembered the effects of it well. How it made his heart race with such intensity his chest ached as it pounded against his ribs. How it turned the air to soup in his lungs, feeling like he’d never be able to draw a full breath again through the muscle-seizing terror. He remembered falling for the same ghoulish nightmares over and over again and—
And a heavy cape wrapped around his shoulders, solid and grounding and warm while an endless stream of reassurances rolled off Bruce’s tongue. “It’s alright, chum. I know it feels real, but you’re safe. You’re in the cave. The antidote’s on its way. It’ll all be over soon.”
He could imagine all too easily what it must feel like to be trapped in that semi-lucid nightmare but unable to move. Unable to even scream.
Another whimper, and he thought of the weight of the earth bearing down on him as he clawed his way through the soil, armed only with the belt buckle from the suit he’d been buried in and a desperate yearning to see the sky again.
“Screw this,” he muttered, pushing himself away from the chair.
Brother or not, Dick didn’t deserve to suffer through this alone.
He started with the domino mask. Bruce’s organisational system hadn’t changed that much over the years, and the solvent was easy to track down. Beneath the white mesh, Dick’s eyes were glassy. They darted back and forth in their sockets, the pupils so blown he almost couldn’t see the blue of his irises as he tracked unseen horrors across the ceiling.
“It’s not real,” Jason said, grateful for the modulator to keep his voice steady. Dick, of course, didn’t seem to notice.
He checked him over methodically for any signs of injuries, but aside from a few light scratches he seemed to have made it out pretty light. Still, disinfecting the wounds gave Jason something to do.
Dick didn’t even flinch when he poured on the antiseptic. Didn’t move at all beyond the occasional muscle spasm as he fought through whatever nightmare the fear toxin had him trapped in, and there was something so terribly wrong about seeing someone who’d always been a whirlwind of movement so still.
Every sharp gasp and strangled sob forced Jason to stop in his tracks and recollect himself. It made him almost irrationally angry to realise the breathing exercises he defaulted to weren’t taught to him by any League trainer but by Bruce. A lifetime ago, he’d sat cross legged on the training mats only a few dozen feet away and dedicated the whole of his attention to the vigilante who had become his world.
“Control is absolutely essential if you want to survive on the streets of Gotham,” he’d said, voice firm but not unkind. “Surrender it, and you surrender with it any hope of succeeding.”
Jason had snorted at that. “I’ve been survivin’ alright so far. ‘Sides, if you really had complete control of Gotham, wouldn’t your job be kinda over with by now?”
“Controlling the city isn’t the goal.”
“But if you’re not controlling the city, what are you controlling?”
“What do you think?”
Jason wavered. “In a fight? I dunno. Your enemies, I guess?”
“Yourself, Jason. We can plan for every contingency imaginable, but in the end, the only thing you ever have complete control of is yourself. Rule with your head. If you allow yourself to be controlled by your anger or fear then you’ve already lost.”
Jason grabbed a cloth and dabbed at the streaks of drying blood smeared across his forehead. Dick didn’t relax, but he let out a soft breath when the cool water trickled down his temples and into his sweat-soaked hair. He couldn’t give him any medication to keep the fever down, not on top of everything else, but he could do this.
“Just this once,” he murmured. “Don’t think this means I’ll go easy on you next time.”
Dick said nothing, but he leaned into the cold with another soft sigh when Jason grabbed an ice pack for his ribs.
“Ah, shit,” Jason swore, snatching up a bucket from beside the door and hauling Dick upright. He coughed and spluttered as his stomach promptly decided to empty itself of its contents. His head dipped, as if just holding his chin up took more strength than he could stand.
Jason twisted awkwardly to adjust the bed without letting him lay back down. Trust Dick to find a way to choke on his own vomit or something equally idiotic after all the trouble he’d gone to keep his secret identity under wraps.
“Y’know, holding back your hair while you throw up really isn’t what I had planned for tonight.”
Dick groaned, and at last he found the clasp to tilt the bed. Jason eased him back, the elevated mattress forcing him upright. He didn’t seem to have a whole lot left in his stomach, but he doubled over twice more to retch feebly over the bin.
He shouldn’t care. He’d already gone above and beyond the call of duty, besides the fact that he owed him nothing, but scattered fragments of memory flickered through his head like a faded camera reel. Dick ruffling his hair with a laugh, arms weighed down with baked goods he’d smuggled up to his room when he found out Jason had been sentenced to bedrest until his ankle healed. Dick charming a waiter into adding extra marshmallows to his hot chocolate after a skiing trip that may as well have happened in another lifetime.
They hadn’t been brothers. Not really. But when he forced the pieces of memory back into something cohesive, there had been something. Dick had cared about him once, even if the sight of him in the Robin costume sometimes made him flinch.
Well, he could understand that now, couldn’t he?
“Drink,” he said, raising a glass to his lips. Dick didn’t seem to hear him, but he registered it when the water washed over his tongue.
“Slowly,” he chided, and cursed himself for sounding so much like Bruce.
This really wasn’t what he had in mind when he started planning the family reunion.
There was too much for him to untangle. Every time he thought he’d made it through the worst of it, a fresh tidal wave of emotion crashed down on his head and threatened to drown him all over again. He wanted them all dead at his feet, feathers plucked and Bruce mad with the knowledge that he could have prevented it all if he’d just do what needed to be done. More than that, he needed Dick alive and safe from this poisonous city. He needed to know those guttural sounds of pain and choking fear would never leave his throat again.
Stitching the wounds helped. The motions were methodical and familiar after years of practice, but there were only so many wounds for him to bandage. He paced, knowing his tutors at the League would call him a failure for this weakness. For a brief moment, he even considered making use of some of the gym equipment in the training areas, but if he allowed himself to hit something right now he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop. He was teetering on a knife edge already.
He knew he should leave. Erase as much evidence of his presence there as he could and try to salvage his plan before Dick regained consciousness. What he wanted was to carve a message into the walls of the Batcave that Bruce would never forget and toss that god damn display case into the abyss.
He clenched his hands into fists until his leather gloves creaked. He could leave. He could burn it all to the ground. There was no mentor steering his actions anymore. His choices were all his own. He’d been grateful for that freedom, but now the pressure stripped back the carefully constructed layers he’d built up under the League’s tutelage until his emotions were laid bare. Like a raw nerve, he felt exposed, and this could only end with the spilling of blood and green, green, green, and—
Dick began to scream.
Jason didn’t remember moving, but in an instant he was by the cot with a gun in his hand. It was just the toxin working its way through his system, but he needed to be sure. Only when he cleared the room and completed a quick circuit of the cave did his pulse begin to slow.
There were no intruders, only a semi-conscious vigilante watching him with feverish panic.
“Jesus, you’ve got a set of lungs on. Did B include vocal exercises in his training program when you were Robin?”
Dick’s breathing hitched. For the first time, his gaze never wavered. Shit.
“Br’ce?” he slurred, and Jason gave into the urge to laugh.
“A little off the mark there, Wonder Boy.”
Muscles trembling with the effort, Dick dragged one hand across the bed to the empty holster on his thigh where he normally kept his escrima sticks.
“Really, Dickie-bird? And here I thought we were having a moment.”
This time his eyes widened with full-blown panic. “Wh…Wh’r’?”
“Relax. You got hit with Scarecrow’s new special, but you’ve been riding it out in the cave. Should be right as rain in a few hours.”
If anything, this made it worse. He made to say something else, but the words jammed in his throat and refused to be worked loose. He gaped at Jason, clearly fighting the urge to hyperventilate as the heartrate monitor beside his bed spiked dangerously. Heaving out a sigh, Jason reached around the back of his helmet for the latch.
“Alright, seeing as how you’ve already managed to screw things up for me. You can calm the fuck down now. I’m not here to mail pictures of your unmasked mug to the press if that’s what’s got you spiralling. It’s me.”
He felt oddly exposed being in the cave without the helmet. He hadn’t bothered with the domino mask tonight since facing Scarecrow without the air filters in his helmet would have been a death sentence. There was nothing between him and the cool, clean air. Nothing to disguise the smell of antiseptic and the familiar smell of damp and stone dust that permeated the cave system.
Nothing to separate him from the crushing reality of being in a room with Dick Grayson again after all these years.
“J’son?” he whispered almost reverently; eyes fixed on his face as if afraid the sight of his long dead brother might vanish if he dared to so much as blink.
Jason forced himself to let out the breath he’d been holding. “It’s been a while.”
Of all the ways he imagined Dick reacting to this meeting, somehow he’d never pictured him crying.
“J’son,” he choked out again, tears welling in his eyes. “Jay.”
Jason swore when Dick tried to sit up, clearly frustrated when his uncooperative limbs refused to hold him upright.
“Hey, take it easy—” he started to say, reaching out to force him back down when the gloved hand closed around his wrist. Even drugged and barely conscious, he had a grip like iron and seemed determined to hang on for dear life.
Before he knew it, Dick had thrown himself bodily out of bed in the kind of move that normally came to the acrobat as easily as breathing. Except nothing about this situation was normal, and his trembling muscles failed him.
Just instinct, Jason told himself when he leapt forward to catch him mid-fall. Dick buried his face in his leather jacket and began to openly sob. Standing in the batcave unmasked with a drugged, emotional vigilante hanging off his neck, and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care about all the effort and planning that had just been flushed down the drain. Plans could be changed, goals could be salvaged, but this? It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to indulge the idea of a reunion that didn’t end in bloodshed.
“Easy,” he murmured, easing Dick back onto the bed. The grip around his collar tightened.
“Not leavin’ again,” he said stubbornly, and Jason’s breath lodged in his throat. He managed to hook his ankle around the leg of his chair and pull it closer to the bed without breaking Dick’s stranglehold on his jacket. Short of breaking his fingers, he doubted he could have forced him to let go if he tried.
“M’ssed you,” he slurred, eyelids growing heavy even as he fought to stay focused. Jason swallowed back the lump in his throat and forced himself to relax. It was fine. This was fine. He could still—
Dick’s eyes snapped open, breath catching as his gaze locked onto something over Jason’s shoulder. When he turned, there was only an empty doorway.
“Dick?”
“No,” he whimpered, already on the brink of hyperventilating. “No.”
“It’s alright. There’s nothing there. It’s just me. It’s Jason.”
“J’son?”
“We’ve been over this, bird brain. Didn’t forget me already, did you?”
Dick’s eyes were still oddly glazed, but something furious flashed across his expression.
“Never,” he swore hoarsely, hand still bunched in his jacket. “Never.”
The clarity wouldn’t last long. It never did with fear toxin. Jason used to hate the waking moments the most. The cruelty of surfacing from a nightmare, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to tell when he plunged back into a new one. That cold dread of knowing the fleeting sense of comfort and safety would be snatched away again terrified him more than any gruesome hallucination could.
Once the tremors started again, Dick failed to make any sound more articulate than a choked sob. Their brief respite was over, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about any of it. He still tried, carding his gloved fingers through his hair. The gesture felt awkward to him, too clunky and unfamiliar, but he knew that’s what Bruce would have done in his stead.
“I missed you too,” he breathed, too quiet to even be called a whisper. He doubted Dick would have heard it if he’d screamed it from the rooftops.
He sat with Dick until the next wave of terror and adrenaline burned through his system and he passed out again, fingers growing lax as his head slumped back against Jason’s shoulder. Once again, he asked himself how he’d managed to get into this situation in the first place.
Dick didn’t even stir when he took another blood sample. While the machine ran, Jason got to work on cleaning up the security feeds and tried to pretend his hands weren’t shaking. Someone had beefed up the cave’s security in his years of absence, but it still didn’t take Jason long to hack the internal systems. He almost wished he could stick around to see B’s face when someone inevitably picked up on the several hour gap in their surveillance.
There was something deeply disconcerting about being back in the chair, overriding alarms like he used to when he was just a grounded kid sneaking out to go on patrol. The memories were at once too distant and too sharp for him to bear. It would be too easy to fall for old sentimentalities but reminiscing on the good old days wouldn’t change the fact that he’d been replaced and that damn clown was still laughing about it.
His final sweep for evidence ground to an abrupt halt when the elevator hummed to life and seized him with an almost inexplicable terror. Frantically signing out of the bat computer, he did the only rational thing he could do in that situation and immediately dove for cover.
I’m on my way to becoming the top crime lord in Gotham and hiding behind a display case so I don’t get caught using the old man’s computer.
At least he’d snagged his helmet on the way down.
Alfred’s measured footsteps echoed on the cave floor, allowing Jason to track his movements all the way to the main console. The light clink of dishware on a silver tray filled him with nostalgia, and really, he should have anticipated this. Robin wouldn’t finish patrol for a while yet, but Al always made sure there were snacks waiting for them at the end of a long night. He listened intently as the footsteps receded, but he’d barely made it halfway across the room before a soft groan of pain escaped the med bay. Shit.
“Master Tim?” he asked, and though the familiar voice made Jason’s heart ache, the words made his blood boil. “Is that you back from patrol already?”
Dick groaned in response, and Alfred crossed the room in a matter of seconds.
“Oh, my boy,” he said softly when he entered the room and saw Dick huddled and shivering on the bed. His words were fond to begin with, but Jason knew he must already be putting the pieces together. The carefully stitched and wrapped wounds, the heartrate monitor, the blood draw kit. Sure enough, only a moment later those perfectly polished dress shoes tapped back across the room to the main computer.
“Master Robin,” he said quietly. “Have you been back to the cave since you began your patrol?”
“No?” a voice said over the comms, too young and high and slightly out of breath. “Nightwing went dark a few hours ago. Oracle’s been trying to retrace his steps remotely, but she lost track of him somewhere in the Upper East Side.”
“He’s in the cave,” Alfred assured him, but even he couldn’t quite keep the note of concern out of his voice. “Currently unresponsive…and someone has tended to his wounds.”
“What?” His confusion was audible. “Did B come back early?”
“I spoke to him only an hour ago. He failed to mention any updates in his schedule.”
“…I’ll be there as soon as I can. Robin out.”
And that’s my cue.
Jason waited until Alfred’s footsteps retreated back into the medbay before taking his leave, slipping out of the cave with ease and winding his way back down the tunnels. Unfortunately, no amount of League training could silence his motorcycle, but at least he’d left it by the entrance. By time the sound of the engine revving reached Alfred’s ears, he was already gone.
He could still salvage this. Hell, maybe Dick wouldn’t even remember the encounter in the morning. The fact that an outsider had made it past the security measures would rattle Bruce, but hadn’t rattling him been one of the goals from the start?
It would take some serious work to pull this off, but he was nothing if not adaptable. The foundations he’d laid were all still in place. It would just take a little creativity.
Jason could still work with this.
“This is bad.”
“You don’t say,” Dick deadpanned.
Tim rewound the footage, slowing down the shot of the man on the motorcycle streaking past the cameras on the door until they could make out the blurred impression of a helmet.
“Is that the clearest image we’ve got?”
“He wiped everything else,” Barbara reported over the comms. “Did a pretty thorough job, too. He probably would have set up the outside to loop before making his exit if he hadn’t been interrupted. He definitely knows what he’s doing.”
“Any idea who he is?”
Tim swallowed audibly. “There’s been word on the street about a new player in town who wears a red helmet. Still pretty low on the totem pole, but he’s good at making enemies. Good at killing them too.”
Dick nodded, lacing his hands together in front of them.
“Bruce is going to kill us when he gets back,” he said matter-of-factly.
No one in the cave even tried to refute it.