Chapter Text
"We need to ask him"
"No."
"Bruce, we need to ask him."
"No." He doesn't look away from the screen of the computer, can't stand to. At least this way he can pretend the conversation is really over and he's actually focused on the file in front of him.
"Bruce, you need to be logical abo—"
"I am being logical about this. We know his answer already and we can't predict his reaction."
"We've worked with him for a year and a half already."
"Not in Crime Alley. Leave it alone, Barbara." He refuses to glare at the screen and refuses to stand and leave. His only options at this point are to ignore this conversation, continue to engage in it, or actually try and focus on the case file.
Ignoring Barbara Gordon never ends well.
"Bruce! You know as well as I do that we need to take this into the Alley and we can't go into it without telling him. He can't handle this by himself. We need to tell him and ask to go in, we need his intel on this."
Bruce glances over to where the Robin case used to be before he took it down and wonders how everything went so sideways. He wonders when he started having to toe every line with his son who won't let him call him family anymore.
Bruce remembers boundaries in doorways that stated 'my room' that explicitly meant 'not to be entered' and sees the same around Crime Alley.
"Drop the case, Barbara."
"Bruce! We can't just —"
"Drop the case. Let Jason know, then drop it." Bruce eyes the screen and decides to just ignore Barbara as she yells behind his back. She'll get revenge for it, he's sure, but he'll deal with it.
She yells one last time before wheeling away and Bruce drops his head in his hands as soon as he's alone.
The gun runners they've been smoking out and apprehending for a month now finally decided to be smart and head to Crime Alley. The one place no one patrols but Red Hood who had made strict rules on which Bats get to come in: none. No Bats come in for the price of rubber bullets in guns on joint missions and live ammo aimed at nonlethal areas on solo patrols.
Bruce remembers tense missions where Bruce left Tim on the sidelines. More willing to be down a man than lose another Robin. He remembers the first few missions where Tim came along, the way Jason stalked straight for the opposite side and kept his hands away from his guns. The way he never spoke a word to Tim.
It's been a year and a half of working together with no incidents. That doesn't mean he stops worrying though he wouldn’t really be able to tell you, now, which kid he worries about most at any given moment.
Bruce is clearly not going to work on this file anymore so he closes it and stands to head to bed, hoping to get a few hours of sleep. Sometimes thinking of Jason reminds him of laughter and other times bloody bodies in arms. He's hoping he gets the first when he closes his eyes tonight.
Bruce stops where the Robin case used to be and remembers the slick feeling of a body in his hands and wants to cry. He has his son back but it still feels like he should be grieving.
Making his way upstairs into his bedroom he feels his back twinge. Just another thing to worry about with the changing weather and he can't help but wince a bit as he changes and gets into bed.
Closing his eyes he feels the phantom weight of a body in his arms and wants to scream himself hoarse again. He's not getting laughter tonight.
It's only when he’s in the cave the next day, finally going over that file he should have finished the night before, resting from a night of Batman when an alert comes in that Bruce realizes something is wrong. Red Hood. Bruce lunges for the comm controls.
"This is the cave."
"We had a fucking deal." Jason doesn't bother with the standard comm link greeting. It doesn't mean Bruce understands.
"Red Hood? What's wrong?"
"What's wrong is that we had a fucking deal and I'm hearing about your goddamn hoard running around in my turf." Bruce can hear a growl in the voice that hasn't been there for at least a year. He brings up the tracking data in everyone's suits, signals Oracle, and desperately tries to calm himself as he imagines Jason slamming a steel wall on those boundary lines right in his face.
"I don't kn—" he cuts himself off as he spies Nightwing and Robin's tracking signal blinking at him from the heart of Crime Alley and changes course, "I don't know why they're there."
"Don't fucking lie to me, old man." Jason sounds more pissed and Bruce drops his head in his hands because every time he speaks to Jason he can never say what he means.
"I'm not — we dropped the case. It was gun runners, Oracle should have transferred the information to you yesterday." He signals her again, unwilling to force a connection in case she's busy with an emergency that isn't Bruce’s rapidly rising blood pressure.
"Yeah. And you should have stayed out of Crime Alley. This is my area and we had a deal." There's a faint thud in the background of the comms, muffled through the helmet and Bruce tries not to wonder what exactly it is, "You stay out of Crime Alley and I don't ruin anyone's delicate sensibilities with my bullets or killing."
"We do have a deal." Bruce is not above begging his son to come home if only he knew how to say the words in a way Jason would take to heart. How does he make Jason understand? Why is this so hard?
"Then you just broke it."
"Hood!" Bruce reaches for the microphone as if he can grasp Jason through it and slumps when he doesn't hear the comm disconnect. "I'll find them. I'll bring them back."
There's silence only broken by the harsh rhythmic breathing of Jason. Finally, there's a grunt and a thud, like he rolled across a roof, before he responds, "You have two hours before I find them myself."
The beep of the comm disconnecting comes just a moment before the clatter of the chair toppling onto the ground as Bruce surges to his feet. He sprints to his suit, rushes through his stretches, and tugs the suit on. Slipping a comm into his ear as he slides into the Batmobile he finally forces a link with Oracle.
"Oracle."
"Batman to Oracle."
"What's your status, Batman? I thought you were resting?"
Bruce can feel his hands tightening on the wheel as the world rushes by. "What are Nightwing and Robin doing in Crime Alley?"
"... We worked on that case for a month, B. I sent the intel to Red Hood and he didn't let us in but —" Bruce feels his anger surge.
He remembers a thirteen year old boy who always came to breakfast with dark bags under his eyes. A thirteen year old boy who always seemed half asleep until someone stepped into the same room as him. A thirteen year old boy who slept nearly the full day and only came down for dinner the first time they finally installed a lock on his door. A lock that locked from the inside.
He remembers a door to a room that belonged to a young Jason that was his room where it explicitly meant stay out.
He feels his anger surge.
Bruce punches the steering wheel and cuts off Oracle's explanation, "Goddammit, Oracle!" She cuts off abruptly and the inside of the Batmobile rings loudly with his anger. "I told you to drop the case!"
"We ran it for a month. We know this case inside out, the only thing we don't know is Crime Alley and if Hood would just work with us we could do this! I don't kn—"
Bruce is about to cross into Crime Alley so he cuts Oracle off again, "Enough."
Her frustration is palpable, even through the comms.
Bruce patches Hood into the comm line and relaxes a fraction when Red Hood even accepts the link.
"What, old man? You calling to tell me you got your little birds out?"
"Ho—"
"I'm about to enter Crime Alley." Bruce cuts off whatever Oracle was about to say. Just another thing Barbara will hold against him — ignoring her and cutting her off however many times.
"... fine. Get your birds. I'm watching the clock."
"Hood, if y—" the comm disconnects as Oracle is talking and she screams in frustration. "Batman, you can't seriously be thinking of letting Hood take this alone."
"Batman out." Bruce disconnects and focuses on tracking Nightwing and Robin because he doesn't want to think of that. He doesn't want to think of his son running around without backup on a case he knows should require it. But this connection is so brittle he's afraid of it collapsing under every word he trades, every mission they step around, and Crime Alley still feels taboo.
The Batmobile drifts around a corner and into Crime Alley, heading straight for the dots on the map that show Nightwing and Robin's location. The world is a blur outside.
He tugs at the system of belts across his chest when he parks a few blocks away and jumps out of the car, heads straight for the roofs. The whine of the grapple is almost lost to the pounding of his heartbeat under the cowl in his ears. Dashing through shadows he spies a flash of color and feels that anger surge again.
Jumping across the last rooftop and landing behind Robin who startles and whips around with his staff out, Bruce ducks and catches the staff before looming over Robin.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Batman?" There's a nervous edge to Robin's voice and shoulders that goes away quickly. "We're working on the gunrunner case. The recon has been going well, no movement so far, bu—"
"Enough." Bruce’s voice is dark and angry and he has to step back and breathe to get himself under control when he sees Robin snap his mouth shut with a harsh clack of teeth. "Enough."
"Batm—"
"I said, enough." Bruce reaches to get Nightwing on the comms and has to fight the instinctive urge to reprimand him as soon as it clicks.
"Nightwing."
"Batman to Nightwing."
"Status, Batman?"
"This mission is over. Get to the Batmobile, location is being sent your way."
"Hold on, we're not done with the recon an—"
"This mission is over, Nightwing. Get to the Batmobile. Now." Bruce signals to Robin to follow him and heads back to the Batmobile but stops when he doesn't hear anything.
"Batman," Nightwing starts, "we're not dropping this case just because it's in Crime Alley. We have to come in here eventually."
He hears someone connect to the comm lines, "Oracle. He’s right, Batman. It doesn't make sense."
Bruce sees a border and a twenty year old man with a gun saying, 'stay out of my turf', and sees the shadow of a thirteen year old at the edges of his room with balled up fists saying, 'this is my room.'
"Drop the case, get to the Batmobile. We’re leaving. Now." He turns to leave again but has to freeze when he hears Robin behind him saying, "No."
"What?"
"No, Batman. We deserve to work this case. It's more efficient for us to work it, we know it best. Hood just got the info last night and we've had it for a month. All we need is to know the Alley or have Hood work with us but if we don't have either then we just need to be here."
"He’s right and you know it." Oracle pipes in from the comms.
"I don't care." Silence. "We're leaving."
Nightwing finally touches down on the roof and stalks up to the pair, looking at Batman with a frown. "B, what’s going on? Since when do you not care about something like this?"
Since he made a promise to a thirteen year old boy to never step foot in his room without permission. Since he lost his boy and suddenly was unable to so much as open his door because he couldn't get permission.
Since his son came back angry and vengeful and still unwilling to give any sort of permission. Since his son came back and Bruce still can't find the words to bring him home to a new room that’s just waiting for the owner. Since his son came back.
But Bruce doesn't have the words for all that and all that comes out is, "Stand down. Drop the case. We're leaving." His voice is choked but it comes out sounding angry.
He always sounds angry these days. Tired and angry. He wonders why he can't just sound sad.
There's a barrage of noise as everyone starts to complain and Bruce wants to rip his cowl off to childishly cover his ears in the face of it.
"You're being irrational about this, Batman!" Nightwing shouts and Bruce has to wonder about where their stealth has gone, "You're banning us from an entire area of Gotham just because what? You're scared of how Red Hood will react?"
"That’s not wh—" Bruce tries to correct but then there's a thud behind him and that mechanized voice cutting through them all, "Maybe he's right to."
Spinning around Bruce wants to scream. Why does this always happen? Why can Bruce never say what he wants to say and why do misunderstandings always pile up?
"Red Hood. It hasn't been two hours."
"I thought I'd see your progress along. I've been getting noise complaints."
"Noise complaints?" Nightwing chirps from behind him, and glancing back shows him standing more in front of Robin than before.
"A couple of people talking about some Bats having a disagreement." Red Hood stalks closer and Bruce tenses until he stops an arm's length away, his voice a bit softer now that he’s closer, "If you're going to have a little family fight, do it out of Crime Alley. Get out."
Red Hood spins around, hand on a gun and head on a swivel, when Bruce calls out in desperation because he can practically see that steel wall on the border.
"The case was dropped. I didn't send them in."
The rooftop and comm lines are silent.
Red Hood turns around with his hand still on his gun, "So you've said. Yet here they are."
"I didn't—" why did words have to be so hard? Why couldn't he just have his son back? Why couldn't his family just understand? "The case was dropped. I didn't — I didn't realize they didn't drop it."
The scoff echoed through the modulator is eerie and sends goosebumps down his arm. "Right. You didn't know?"
"I didn—"
"He didn't know." Nightwing cuts Bruce off and when Hood and he snap around to look Nightwing’s staring straight at Bruce with those blank dominoes like Bruce grew two extra heads. "Oracle told us what Br—Batman said but we decided to go ahead anyway."
Hood is silent as he swivels between the three vigilantes.
Bruce wants to reach out. Wants to hold him close and replace the feeling of a blood-soaked broken body in his arms, even if the weight and height of it would be different. Even if that change in itself is a tragedy in itself. The way the difference would be staggering and the strangeness could carve out another piece of something to grieve but… but it would be real. Warm and whole and real.
He wants to hold Jason close and whisper apologies and promises and reassurances. Wants to pile food on his plate and add warm clothes to his closet. He wants his son home. He wants his son. He wants his son. He wants his son and he doesn't know how to say it in a way Jason will accept.
"Fine." Hood finally says. "Get them out."
"Oka–" Bruce starts to say because he once promised to respect the boundary of a bedroom and this is larger than a bedroom but it is the same. Only for Nightwing to cut him off.
"No. You need backup."
"I don't need backup, I need you fuckers out of Crime Alley. Like we agreed." Red Hood’s grip on his gun is tight and Bruce is fighting to not just grab Nightwing and Robin and drag them away.
"This is too big for you to do alone. You nee—" the sharp bang of a gun interrupts them and a smoking hole smack between Bruce and Hood hikes Bruce's blood pressure up. Of course. Hood was doing solo patrols today… live ammo.
Bruce glances back and spots Nightwing pushing Robin further behind him.
"I don't need anything except you fuckers out of Crime Alley." Hood holsters his gun and turns around to walk away. He stops at the edge of the roof and, Bruce assumes, waits for them to leave. So Bruce turns and tries to herd Robin and Nightwing towards the other edge of the roof that'll lead to the Batmobile.
"We're leaving. Now." Glancing back, Bruce sees Hood with his hand on his gun again and turned around to look in their direction. Turning around he tries to herd the kids faster, not that he's ever had much luck in getting his kids to listen to him.
"B! Stop pushi— are you seriously just going to let him —"
"Batman, what is going on with you?" Robin asks simply, getting pushed along. Bruce ignores them both along with Oracle in his ear yelling.
Suddenly Nightwing is pushing back while trying to cover Robin at the same time and there's a weight on Bruce's back forcing him to the ground and knocking all three of them to the floor. A gunshot goes off and Bruce glances over, sees Red Hood roll off, and return fire onto a rooftop a few blocks away.
"Get up and get out!" Hood yells out even as he heads to the edge of the roof.
"Hood!" Bruce scrambles up while yanking Robin to his feet with him, "Let us help! Please!"
Hood staggers to a stop and jerks his head around to stare at him before glancing back at the rooftop and running off, "Keep up."
Bruce could collapse with relief but he doesn't have time for that. He sprints after Hood and sees Nightwing and Robin go a few blocks out on either side.
"Oracle, link up Hood." Bruce breathes into the comm between rooftops, keeping an eye on that leather jacket.
"Fine." Her voice is curt and Bruce knows she doesn't like that he fired a shot at them but all Bruce sees right now is an open door.
There's a beep of a line being added, "Open line"
"Open line," a break as Hood rolls across a rooftop and shoots at a shadow that rings across the line, "this is Hood."
"Status, Hood?"
"You know my status, O. Trying to finish your damn case."
"You wouldn't have to finish it for us if you would just work with us." Oracle hisses.
"Maybe if you weren't all incompetent it wouldn't have taken a month and traveled into Crime Alley."
"Enough." Bruce skids along the rooftop right behind Hood and watches as he does a beautiful vault over an ac unit straight into a roll to keep running. Theatrics. He always had a lot of it and it only got worse when Dick mustered up the brotherhood to show him the acrobatic flairs.
"Whatever, old man." They both watch as a shadow flits across the street below them into a building and stops at the roof's edge.
"Suspect entered a building at the corner of Jameson and 56th." Bruce reports into the comms.
Bruce sees a flicker of movement on a rooftop two blocks on either side of the building and hears Hood huff beside him.
"We'll be out after this."
"They didn't seem to be listening to you earlier, old man."
"I'll… they— they don't… I'll get them out." Hood looks over, the entire helmet facing him, and stares for a good ten seconds before facing the building again silently.
"Whatever."
"Batman, we have a problem."
"Oracle, report."
"The schematics for the building are old. It's from the 2000's. I can't guarantee that's accurate."
"It's not." Hood pipes up. "They made illegal renovations at least twice in the last ten years and one legal one that never made it into the system because it crashed and they never got around to retrying in the last five."
"How do you know this?" That’s a very accurate count.
"This is my area, I know things. Besides, that's common knowledge here." He points at the building lazily with a gun, "Everyone and their mother knows about the time Dwight nearly got busted for the renovation. He paraded the story everywhere."
Bruce stares at Jason. All those years under the same roof and all this time chasing after him and he still doesn't know enough.
"I see. Do you have a map?"
"Do you have a map, he says. Do you have a map? Who do you think I am?" Bruce’s holocomputer on his wrist beeps and he brings it up to see a layout of the building in front of them.
'My son.' Bruce has on the tip of his tongue. 'I think you're my son.' But he holds it in to study the schematics because even if he could cough it up properly this isn't the right time to do this.
"Batman?" Robin asks him but Bruce looks over at a puffed up Hood.
"Hood? What's the play?" The silence over the comms is a stark contrast to the way everyone was yelling practically the whole night. Hood is frozen as he looks at Bruce. "Hood? What are we doing? You know the area best."
"Batman, ar—" Nightwing starts but Bruce cuts him off with a curt, "Hood."
Bruce wishes that the helmet was off. Jason was always expressive and he suspects that's at least half the reason for the full face helmet. You can't exactly keep up a scary drug lord persona when you're quick to blush and quick to roll your eyes.
Bruce is willing to bet every stock he owns that the other half of the reason was the Big Jason Todd Reveal.
Theatrics.
How could he not love his son who came back so different but still stayed exactly the same?
"Hood? We need to move. What's the plan?" Bruce asks Hood again who still seems frozen. Red Hood visibly shakes himself before stiffly twisting to stare at the building.
"Right… right. The plan. I've got a plan."
"Care to share with the class?" Oracle quips across the comms and Bruce bites back a sigh.
"I don't know, I didn't see you raise your hand to ask a question." Red Hood shoots back and Bruce holds his breath to physically hold back his sigh.
"Having a bit of trouble with all those context clues? The sentence in a question format didn't hint at anything, Hood? Should we do a little Blue's Clues moment here for you?" Nightwing snarks and Bruce can feel a headache pulsing in his temple.
"Sure. You can be Steve Burns and when your hair starts receding we find a new Nightwing." Bruce wonders why he ever thought kids were a good idea.
"I have very healthy hair!"
"Yeah, we all remember your mullet phase."
"At least I'm not in an e-boy phase."
There's a snort that's echoed down the line and Bruce severely hates how he has to stay up to date on social media for Wayne Enterprises which results in him knowing what this means. Jason would never forgive him if he saw his lips twitch.
"Okay, Discowing." Bruce hears Oracle choke down the comms and thinks he hears Robin snicker.
"Oh my god, I forgot about Discowing." Robin mutters and Nightwing curses low and long.
"It wasn't even that bad!"
"Wasn’t even — in what universe?" Bruce sees Red Hood drop his helmet in between his knees, shoulders shaking even when no laughter rings across the comms.
"It was the height of fashion back then!"
"Nightwing… it was really bad." Robin states and Bruce thinks he sees Nightwing stand up to take two steps in Robin's direction before sitting back down.
"It wasn't. Everyone shut up. We need a plan."
Bruce watches Jason snap his head up before settling down again, "Yeah. Got one."
"Ready to share?" Oracle teases, more lighthearted than she's been all night.
"Coming your way." Bruce’s holocomputer lights up again with points of colors. "Nightwing and Robin can clear the top two floors. Batman, clear the second floor and work your way down to the first. I know a way into the basement, I'll work my way into there and up to the first floor."
"And what about the guns?"
"There probably aren't going to be any. If there are it's not any large stashes for sale. The places you'd have more luck finding —" Hood cuts himself off.
"Finding?" Oracle asks.
"Shut up for a minute." Red Hood says briskly. "I'm busy." Then his comms disconnect and Bruce is left watching the building with the fleeing suspect and eyeing Hood from the corner of his eye who was awfully still.
When the comms finally connect again it’s to Red Hood’s angry, "You said this was gun runners."
"It is." Bruce replies.
"Then why are my people telling me they're taking people off the streets?"
Bruce can't help the way he stiffens and jerks around to look at Red Hood. It's no use, Red Hood is gripping a gun in one hand, the edge of the roof in the other, and keeping a sharp watch on the building.
"What?"
"They've been in Crime Alley for 35 hours and they've kidnapped four adults and two kids. What else aren't you telling me?" All these misunderstandings.
Bruce wants to scream. His back is hurting, his heart is breaking, and he just wants his son back. He can't even finish this one night properly. Every sentence is a battleground and a minefield.
"We didn't know."
The harsh rise and fall of Red Hood’s chest followed by a few deeper ones is the only thing Bruce can concentrate on in the ringing silence of the comms.
"We get this guy and then you all leave Crime Alley. Any victims either stay in place or don't get stopped as they leave on their own. Don't bother calling the cops for them. I'm finishing this case on my own whether you like it or not." With that Hood jumps and makes his way into an alley across the street.
Bruce hesitates before standing up to ready his grapple with steady hands. He wishes they were shaking. He wishes he were screaming. Bruce wishes he had said it earlier, 'my son, I think you're my son,' because he wonders if that would have helped. If that may have been his last chance. If maybe this was the last misunderstanding he's allowed before everything they built back up with fragile hands is knocked back down.
"Red Hood ready in thirty."
Bruce stands from his perch, watches the shadows that make up Nightwing and Robin get closer, and lets Oracle count down for them all before crashing through a window on the second floor.
After that, it's a haze of frantic people who expected Red Hood but got Bats regrouping to fight back. It's a haze of all his children throwing quips across the comms throughout the fight because their colors and names might have changed but being a Robin went from birthright to something that was carved into their soul.
It's a haze of imagining every mistake he made on the faces of every person he fights.
He thought he was over this. This form of self-flagellation and false justice. It's always five steps back for every one step forward.
Alfred once told him in the quiet of the cave as the sun was rising over stitches that he never wants to bury him in this suit. Bruce was afraid to tell Alfred that he feels like he's dead already, he was just waiting for his body to catch up.
A fist catches him in the face and Bruce snaps into a drawer, the edge of it slamming into his aching back and sending up a flare of pain. Shaking it off takes longer than he would like and he has to duck and roll under another swing, coming up behind the man to take him out.
"Top floor clear, moving down to assist Robin." Nightwing states, "No guns or civilians."
Bruce finishes clearing his floor and walks around tying them up with zip ties. Doing a quick survey of the room and looking for hidden rooms he moves for the stairs, "Batman moving to the first floor, no guns or civilians."
He's halfway done clearing the first floor with Robin and Nightwing making their way to him when he realizes Hood has been quiet for far too long.
"Hood, report."
The silence lasts through Bruce finishing the rest of the floor and Robin and Nightwing bursting through the doorway.
"Hood. Report!" Bruce's heart rate is already high from the adrenaline but he imagines the anxiety isn't helping.
There’s a phantom body in his arms slick with blood and a harsh burn in his throat from the memory of screaming himself near mute in the still smoking ruins of a warehouse.
"Oracle, where's his comms?" Bruce starts making his way to the basement but stops when Oracle signals him to freeze with a sharp beep.
"I have his comms. You need to hear this." There's a sound of Hood reconnecting and Bruce is barely stopping himself from running down those stairs, Robin and Nightwing watching his back.
“ —un down that tunnel, my people are waiting down there to show you the way out.” A pause, “No… no I’m not coming with you, I’m going after the bad guys, okay?”
Something about this threatens to take out Bruce’s legs from under him. It’s reminding him too much of a little Jason in Robin colors talking down panicked people with promises of magic.
“Oracle, we’re going down.” Just as Bruce takes a step there’s another harsh beep telling him to freeze. “Oracle?”
“Trust me. He doesn’t… I was listening in and we can’t…. You can’t go down there.”
There’s Jason's steady voice in his ear calming down the victims and Bruce is standing there in the shadows of the stairs waiting because he does trust his people.
“Yeah… yeah, there are Bats up there so you gotta go out down the tunnels unless you wanna see 'em.” There’s a grunt before there’s suddenly a tiny tinny voice through the comms that sounds too young to be anything but a kid asking, “What about you Hood? You gotta come with us! The Bats are here!”
Nightwing shares a glance with Robin who frowns and asks, “Why doesn’t he want them to see us? Why don’t they want to see us?”
But Jason is reassuring the kid in a voice that could have been Robin if he only took that modulator away, “I’ll be fine. I promise. They’re going to have to do a lot more than spend one night in Crime Alley to try and beat me in my own home. Time to get you guys out of here. It’s my job to protect you, not the other way around.”
Bruce gives Red Hood a few minutes before making his way down with a warning and a head full of questions. The sight of bodies with bloody holes in arms and legs greets him, though all of them are alive if not unconscious and tied up.
One person is perfectly fine save for the fact they are knocked out and tied up to a chair in the middle of the room. Red Hood flits around the room grabbing containers of things that Bruce tries not to look at but can’t help but cataloging.
Bleach, what looks like an empty container, something that seems like just a bottle of water, a bag of salt, and some type of aerosol can.
All that is painting an ugly picture and Bruce steps closer to the man in the chair because he wants answers but he’s not about to watch his son torture a man for them. Red Hood pauses by the table where he is mixing a generous amount of salt with water into the empty container and stares at Bruce, goes back to doing what he’s doing.
“Stop.” Bruce can’t let Jason do this. His son is a changed man, he knows this. The heads in the duffel bag and the killings painted a bloody picture of this, and the guns are a harsh reminder of it in every meeting. That doesn’t mean he wants to see this part of him too. Doesn’t want to encourage it.
“Get out of my way.” Red Hood steps closer with a knife out and Nightwing stands between Bruce and Hood.
“Hood, stop. We’re not doing this. We don’t do this.”
“You don’t do this. Get out of my way before I make you.” Red Hood stalks closer with a steady grip on his knife and Nightwing stands firm while drawing his escrima. Suddenly there’s a scraping noise from the corner of the room and Red Hood is standing between the noise and the rest of the room.
The cabinet attached to the wall in the corner swings open from the inside and suddenly a kid clambers out sees the situation and hurtles straight for Nightwing.
Red Hood rushes to intercept awkwardly, trying to avoid stabbing the kid, but ends up missing. Nightwing opens up his arms with the intention of grabbing the kid and taking him to safety, only to have the kid tackle him to his ass and punch him in the gut.
“Leave Red Hood alone!” The kids’ scream is shrill, scared, and desperate. All the edge of someone trying to protect a person from a fight they know they can’t win but with all the force of knowing it’s the right thing to do. “Leave him alone!”
Bruce is frozen, watching a kid punch Nightwing in the stomach as Red Hood sheathes his knife to desperately run to the kid and try to pull him off and Robin goes to Nightwing’s side. He wonders if all Crime Alley kids are like this or if Jason just attracts kids that are like that. He wonders if he just teaches kids to be like this. His stomach aches with the memory of a tire iron slamming into it.
“Calm down! Kid, kid, it’s okay. I’m good! Calm down!” Red Hood hauls the kid to a corner, settles him there, and stands in front of him, back to the room. The boy shuffles to the side to glare at all of the Bats and Jason huffs so loud it echoes through the modulator. “I told you to leave, what are you doing back here? You should have left with everybody else. Why didn’t my people take you?”
The kid shuffles in place, glancing from the floor to the walls to the Bats again.
“Kid?”
The boy bites his lip and glances at the cabinet that he had crawled out of. Red Hood tilts his helmet to glance over then drops his head to sigh and stalks over to it. Crawling halfway in he shines a light down and then groans again before crawling out followed by all of the victims and one extra person.
“I told you all to leave and you were supposed to take them with you, Mike.” Hood growls out low and threateningly. Bruce sees Robin tense along with Nightwing and he can’t help the way he shuffles in front of the tied up suspect either.
“Sorry, boss. They got away from me.” The apology is clearly fake and the excuse is clearly a lie. “Oh no. Bats. Good thing I’m here huh?” The smile he sends their way is sharp and dangerous and suddenly Bruce understands that this is someone that works under the Red Hood.
“Stand down, get the civilians out. Now.” Bruce shares a glance with his kids and he’s not sure if Jason is just not noticing or just refusing to acknowledge it but everyone is clearly making a human barrier between them and him.
“Sure, boss. Let’s go.” The goon called Mike swings his arm up towards the cabinet, clearly unafraid of Red Hood’s anger.
“Hood —” Bruce tries only to get cut off by a woman standing in front of him who pushes him back with too little force to really matter. He rocks himself back anyway to keep her from hurting herself. He tries again, “Hoo—”
“Leave him alone!” The kid from before screams again, still behind Red Hood, desperately gripping onto that leather jacket. The other kid grouped around Hood’s legs in a way where the only comfortable direction he would be able to run would be the direction of the cabinet.
“Shush,” Hood says with a gentle hand on the boy’s head, “it’s fine.”
“Hood,” Bruce speaks again and this time no one stops him, “if you want to take your people to safety we can do cleanup here.”
Hood stares before scoffing, “Gunrunners? And you want me to trust you to clean this up properly and leave? No.”
This shouldn’t sting as much as it does.
“We gave you the —” Robin starts before he gets cut off by Hood.
“I made you give me the intel. Don’t delude yourself into thinking it was any other way.” Hood’s voice is threatening and it’s a harsh contrast to the way his hand remains gentle in the boy’s hair. The way he lets the kids grip his leather jacket and pants and glue themselves to him while guiding their hands away from the guns and knives.
“Don’t —” Oracle sends a harsh beep through the line and cuts Robin off. He frowns and steps back, physically distancing himself from the conversation.
“Hostiles coming in hot to your location. I’m counting at least a dozen. ETA nine minutes. Let Hood know.” Nightwing and Robin share a glance because Hood is still on their comms, he should be hearing all this. But Bruce trusts his kids, even the ones that aren’t really his. If Barbara is saying this there must be a reason.
“Hood, a dozen hostiles coming in nine minutes. I suggest we head out.”
There’s a lull before Hood nods and guides the kids back to the cabinet, “Get inside. We’re leaving.” The kids climb in and Hood turns around to signal the adults to make their way in too and they do with some minor pushing. The goon named Mike follows the civilians with one last sharp smile towards the Bats and a passing, “Keep the final theatrics to a minimum, boss? We gotta book it.” Hood shoves him through and they all hear a loud thud and cursing.
Red Hood makes his way to the tied-up suspect and Bruce tenses up again, getting in the way. Hood doesn’t even bother to argue, just takes a glance toward where the kids went, takes a gun out, and shoots the guy in the kneecap.
He wakes up screaming.
“Be glad he’s not dead. Get out of Crime Alley.” Hood stalks his way to the cabinet and gets inside, more graceful than he has any right to be with his body size, reaches out to close the cabinet door, and that’s the last he sees of Hood while he’s left in a room with Nightwing, Robin, a bunch of bleeding bodies, and one screaming suspect.
Perhaps he should be more sympathetic towards the latter.
He strides towards the man, knocks him out, rips the shirt off the guy to make a tourniquet for the wound, and grabs a burner to call an ambulance to the location.
Once that’s done he makes his way upstairs with Nightwing and Robin just in time for a dozen men to flood in and freeze at the sight of the bats.
Bruce doesn’t bother trying to stop himself from throwing the first man through the window after punching him in the face.
He doesn’t know how many men he brings down or how many hits he takes, but when it’s over he quietly makes his way to the roof and to the batmobile. When he lands beside it Nightwing and Robin land next to him silently and suddenly he’s realizing he didn’t come here with his kids.
“Get your rides. Meet at the cave immediately. I don’t want to see that you went anywhere else or did anything else. Am I understood?” Nightwing is scowling but nods and runs off into the shadows and Robin hesitates before disappearing too.
Bruce feels old.