Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dick hangs up the phone, “You need to get your own friends,” he says to Jason. Says, he doesn’t snap, because he is a grown man who can share and isn’t mad.

“Aww,” Jason coos, barely looking up from drafting his final essay for his college lit class, “Someone’s jealous that Lian loves Uncle Jay more,”

Jason is being so fucking smug. He looks normal, but Dick can tell. He knows. He can see Jason’s jaw is tight with the effort of restraining a smile, he’s laughing at Dick.

“She doesn’t love you more!” Dick shouts standing from the kitchen island, “She only likes you cause you carry candy everywhere and you can’t say no to her!”

“Aww,” Jason says again finally looking up and letting that smarmy little grin spread across his face, “Someones mad they didn’t think of it first,”

Dick’s not mad he didn’t think of it first. Giving Lian candy all the time would be irresponsible. The fact that Jason also carries moist towelettes everywhere and cleans off her little hands and face when she gets dirty does not negate that. He’s not hurt or jealous that when Roy put her on the phone she asked him when she could see Uncle Jay next. He’s also not jealous that Roy asked him the same question. He’s not nineteen anymore. He’s not going to be jealous of Jason for the people Dick likes also liking Jason. The superhero community isn’t that large, sometimes his friends will also be friends with his siblings. He knows that. He’s twenty five years old. It’s fine.

“Also,” Jason says, seemingly off hand, but Dick knows him better than that now, “Donna called me yesterday. She sends her love,”

Dick slams his hands down on top of Jason’s books, “I know what you’re doing,” he hisses at Jason’s mock innocent face, “it won’t work,”

“Won’t it?” Jason says like butter wouldn’t melt.

Dick leaves. He leaves, he doesn’t storm out of the room despite what Jason’s cackling behind him might indicate.

-

So Dick is throwing a hissy fit. Jason’s not going to complain because he did purposely goad him into it. But also he knows for a fact that Dick almost went into cardiac arrest the last time he saw Jason carting Lian around on his shoulders because Dick is in a permanent state of thinking that Jason is still an adorable child so the addition of Lian, an actually adorable child, had almost done him in. So yeah, Dick is overreacting, but Jason isn’t going to complain, or at least he wasn’t. Now Dick’s gone too far.

He’s involved Bruce.

Jason is aware that having his social circle consist almost entirely of his family and Dick’s friends is not sustainable. Primarily because all of Dick’s friends knew him when he was fifteen which makes them all various levels of insufferable now. That does not mean that Dick needed to express his ‘concerns’ about Jason’s ‘social life’ to Bruce.

Jason is going to think of a way to repay Dick for this indignity. Bruce put a note on Jason’s crime bulletin board in the cave where anyone could have seen it. Of course it was in the code that Jason and Bruce had developed together when Jason had first become Robin, but he was twelve then. Anyone who has access to the cave could crack it in a half hour or less. It doesn’t matter if reading the note kind of gave him the warm fuzzies, because he would never get used to people worrying over him. It was humiliating.

It was also unnecessary. Jason has his own friends. So what if none of the people he’s friendly with as Revenant know his real name, he has his own friends who do. A whole two of them. So what if Numbers doesn’t know about his double (triple?) life? So what if he doesn’t know that the Revenant who saved him from Codename: Assassin (terrible name) was the same as his childhood friend Jason who hooked him up with an accounting job at the Wayne Foundation and met him for lunch every month? So what if he still hasn’t seen Eddie in person and only writes him letters?

Fuck.

Jason needs to get his own friends and soon, before Bruce gets it into his head to set up playdates for him.

All of that is going to have to wait, because Jason has a playdate scheduled with Black Mask this evening. Jason’s been fucking with Black Mask for months now as Red Hood. He’d intimidated more than half the East end into kicking in with him rather than Black Mask and is still navigating the treacherous slope that is keeping territory under his thumb without causing undue harm. So far he’s tread the line as well as he can. Instituting regulations on dealing and sex work and keeping the drugs clean and funneling nearly all his profits into community building and rehab. He’s going to destroy Black Mask’s business one recovered addict at a time if it kills him.

All this to say Black Mask wants to peel his face off and eat it, and that’s without even touching on the hundred pounds of kryptonite and the Amazo bot he’d lifted from the man his first week on the streets as Red Hood. Despite all this for some fucking reason Black Mask has asked Red Hood to meet with him this evening to discuss ‘business’. Jason has deigned to pay him the audience since he’s actually a little impressed with the ballsiness of the request. Their previous meetings have not gone the best for Black Mask to say the least.

Jason starts getting ready for the evening. He’s dressing to the nines for Black Mask tonight. Which is to say that there won’t be an inch of skin visible nor will there be a crevice or fold in his attire that does not hide a weapon or tool. He’s also opted to wear his taller pair of boots and his spiked black jacket for the evening. All of his Red Hood boots have risers and thick soles and all his jackets padding in the shoulders to differentiate his silhouette from Revenant’s, but these are his favorite of each.

“-we all know you can throw a punch Red-” Steph chimes over the comms as Jason slides them in his ear,

“We do not all know that, Batgirl” Damian interrupts, but Steph charges bravely on,

“-but can you sew? Can you use a hammer?”

“I don’t know why I would need to sew in-” Tim starts,

“Come on Red we all know that in a genuine zombie apocalypse it’s going to be a barter economy,” Steph interrupts,

“Obviously,” Tim replies.

“Right. So money is useless. That’s half of you and B-man’s charm out the window right there and let me tell you the two of you do not have the charm to spare,”

“Uncalled for,”

“Face it Red you just don’t make top pick for my zombie apocalypse survival team. Come talk to me again when you can make a better offer than Robin’s,”

“We have no idea if he actually knows how to shear a sheep for wool or not!” Tim cries.

“I would be more than happy to prove my prowess,” Damian says.

“We will not be getting a sheep,” Bruce finally chimes in gruffly.

“Of course not sheep are social animals we would need at least-”

“We will not be getting any sheep, Robin,”

“Somebody’s mad he didn’t score well on the zombie preparedness metric,” Steph sing songs.

“Speaking of B being mad,” Jason interjects for the first time, “I’m going to meet with Black Mask tonight. We’re gonna have a chat all friendly like. So if you hear anything down by the docks just leave off, thanks,”

“Red Hood,” Batman growls over the comms, surely biting back the use of Jason’s full name, “How long have you known about this? Have you even considered-”

“Oh no,” Jason says, “Oh God you’re cutting out. I can’t hear you over the sound of your own hypocrisy,” he makes some exaggerated static sounds over Steph’s laughter and switches his comm channel.

“Diplomatic as always Hood,” Oracle's voice crackles in his ear.

“That’s me,” He says, “Red “Diplomacy” Hood,”

Oracle gives an amused hum in reply, “Sitrep?”

“Leaving now. Expected arrival in 30 minutes, meeting in warehouse 32B in Tricorner yard,”

“Alright. Verbal signal as agreed if your heart rate goes over 100 bpm, or I’m sending in the cavalry,”

“Roger,” Jason says, clipping his last gun into place.

Oracle cuts the call and Jason picks up his helmet and approaches the window. He drops a quick kiss to Yorick’s head as he passes.

“Back soon, girl,” he says as the helmet slides over his face and then he’s out the window into the night.

-

“Roman!” Red Hood calls down from the catwalk of warehouse 32B. Everyone jumps. One of Black Mask’s men whirls towards him and Jason whips out a hand and smashes the man’s gun into his face before he can squeeze off a shot. Then without breaking stride; “I love what you’ve done with the place,”

Warehouse 32B is nice as far as warehouses go. Almost stupidly nice. The floor is finished concrete and Black Mask has had an enormous oak table dragged into the center of the floor with a velvet chair at its head to entertain his criminal court in style. The warehouse is studded with Black Mask’s goons, posted at all corners of the room, and pacing the catwalks, all dressed in their little new money mobster suits. The warehouse also, moronically, has a sky light.

Black Mask turns and stands, “I see you’ve made it,” Black Mask has a face that is uniquely impossible to read, but Jason prides himself in the already mounting irritation in his voice, “Have a seat,”

Black Mask is flanked by Li to his right and across from him there is only one chair. Red Hood was offered the opportunity to bring a second with him in his invitation. He declined.

Red Hood sometimes commissions work done, and he has a long, tangled string of informants and moles under his thumb, but he does not have men. Red Hood is competent and ruthless and flippant and completely and utterly unknowable.

Jason drops catlike from the walkway and falls into a languid lounge in his seat.

“I must say you’ve piqued my curiosity, Roman,” Jason says, “I wouldn’t have thought a man like you would be stooping to asking for help from little old me,” He lays a hand on his chest and tips his head. This part of the act at least is true. Jason quite literally thought that Black Mask would rather choke on his own teeth than ask Red Hood for anything.

“Congratulations, Red. You’ve graduated from a little pissant to a legitimate thorn in my side. A thorn in my side that I don’t need fucking up this particular operation. I want you in on this one,”

Interesting. Greed is the lever that moves all mobsters, even a jumped up sadist like Black Mask. It must be quite a score for Black Mask to eat crow for it.

“You know my going rate,” Jason says. He means the rules he’s put on all the other gangsters under his thumb. The 40% cut and the no selling to kids, and restrictions on sex work. Black Mask will never go for it and they both know it.

“Deal,” Black Mask says, and Jason can’t stop himself from sitting forward this time.

“Really?” he asks, forearm on the table.

“I’ll play ball,” Black Mask says, “But I want the same that you offered the others. No fucking Bats and no fuckery from your demented ass. And when the deal is done, who knows? We might even part ways as friends,”

The thing is Red Hood is for information gathering. The thing is that agreeing no bats to Roman and then breaking that means burning the Red Hood identity. It means no more criminal reputation, no more trust, no more control. It means an all out fucking gang war as everything he’s built crumbles around him and everyone comes running for his fucking head on a pike.

The thing is that any deal big enough to get Black Mask to ask him for help is a deal that cannot go unchecked. It wasn’t so long ago that Black Mask had this whole rotten city pinned beneath his thumb and the cost of that had run way too fucking high.

The thing is that Black Mask wants to kill him and wear his skin as a suit more than almost anything in the world and agreeing to work with him is more than flirting with death. He’s pinned by the neck between a rock and a hard place. Disaster courts him from every corner.

Red Hood was built for hard choices and Jason has never been afraid of the work.

“Deal,” he says and shakes hands with the devil.

Chapter Text

After Jason and Black Mask shake on their new partnership they arrange a meeting for the following evening. Red Hood has been formally invited to Roman’s personal office in Janus Towers. Jason would be flattered, if he thought that the location was actually about trust instead of about being led by the nose into the lion’s den.

He starts the not inconsiderable free run back to his apartment. The best way to burn his unspent adrenaline in Jason’s experience. On the way he considers whether he wants to bring the bats in on this little escapade.

Red Hood’s main contact is Oracle. Jason and Bruce may have filled a few reams of paper working out their issues about killing and Red Hood. That doesn’t mean that it does their relationship any good to make Bruce confront it constantly. Oracle loops the Bats in on his missions and relevant information as she sees fit, and he does trust her judgment.

That being said this mission makes the top ten most dangerous things he’s ever done by a wide margin and he can’t deny the little nagging longing in him for someone to watch his back in the field. Like he has as Revenant most nights, like he always had as Robin.

Then he thinks about the face Bruce will make if he tells him he’s teaming up with Black Mask. He thinks of the tightening of his jaw, biting back his disappointment out of love rather than understanding or pride. He thinks of the look on his face that means he loves Jason despite the things he does to keep this city safe not because of them. He decides he ought to just leave it to Barbara’s discretion after all.

Jason finally swings onto his own fire escape and crawls through his window. Yorick is ecstatic to see him as always, her tail lashing and mouth open in a doggy grin.

“Good girl,” he praises her, scrubbing his gloved hands through her scruff, “Good girl, Yorick,”

He trips his way to his bedroom, Yorick winding around his feet, and sheds his Red Hood armor in favor of soft sweats. He digs through his fridge and comes up with leftover taco fixings and no shells left. He pops it all in a bowl and bangs the bowl in the microwave. While it’s heating he checks Yorick’s food and water.

Him and Yorick spend half an hour cuddled on the couch watching weapon restoration videos to wind down. Then he goes to bed.

He has a big day tomorrow after all. He’ll be taking his last final of the semester.

-

Jason has his last exam of the semester today. Bruce memorized Jason’s schedule the second Jason got it and he’s been asking after his finals all week. Dick would have blown up at him for that kind of hounding, but Jason loves school and though he will never admit it, maybe doesn’t even realize it himself, he blooms under the attention. Jason rebels stridently in many areas, but education has always been sacred to him, and he has always been pleased when Bruce asks him about his studies.

As much as he loves it, school also makes Jason incredibly anxious. Jason loves to learn but his unstable upbringing had changed school from an institution to a pipedream. A golden ticket out of his difficult, inescapable life if only he could grasp it. Bruce still remembers Jason taking the placement tests to restart school after moving in with him. The tantrum Jason had thrown scratching miserably through the packet, the tears and heaving and self flagellation over blanks and scribbled answers that he knew were wrong. Bruce had felt so helpless then, bundling Jason into his chest as he struggled and sobbed and tore at his hair.

All this to say that Bruce is overjoyed to hear Jason’s voice when he arrives at the manor half an hour after his chemistry final was due to finish.

“Alfred, I’m home,” he calls, boots stamping on the mat. Bruce exits his office as casually as he can.

“Welcome home, Jaylad,” Bruce says, warm all the way through to see his son.

“Who asked you?” Jason sneers, his eyes narrowed and knees bent, ready for attack. His clever, adorable son.

“Hn,” Bruce replies and lunges. Jason ducks his first grapple, twists masterfully away from the second. Pride hums in Bruce’s heart at Jason’s progress, overcome moments later by the rush of love that takes him when Jason pauses and allows the third attempt to snag him and reel him into Bruce’s arms. Bruce musses Jason’s hair to mumbled protest, and presses a firm kiss to his head, “Take your shoes off,” he says into the crown of Jason’s head.

“Let go of me first, you neanderthal,” Jason grumbles, and Bruce can hear the suppressed happiness in his voice, feel the bow of his shoulders as they lose their tension. Bruce squeezes the back of his neck and releases him. Jason gives him a face and hobbles out of his shoes and scampers to the kitchen.

“Alfred,” Bruce hears as Jason turns the corner, the vowels drawn out long and complaining, “B is fighting in the house again-”

Alfred, Bruce knows, has also memorized Jason’s schedule and delayed his baking until now in the hopes that Jason would come over. Alfred’s treatment for Jason’s moods had always been a few hours worth of kneading and rolling dough.

Bruce returns to his office and awaits the smell of baking bread.

-

Jay: @Tim get_fucked.png

Tim: stop sending me pics of your test scores in the group chat
Tim: im not a nerd idc if youre grades are better

Dick: Congrats Jay!!

Steph: didnt you take that today? how do you have your score back already??
Steph: also 99.8? lol nerd

Jay: @Tim *your

Tim: FUCK OFF

-

With criminals like Black Mask, those classic mobster types, it’s all about presentation. A delicate balance of arrogance, masculinity, and cloaked brutality. Jason’s glad for his win on the chemistry test, for baking with Alfred. Glad for his good mood and squared shoulders. It’s always possible to put on a performance - and Jason is a hell of an actor - but Black Mask and his ilk are like sharks. They can smell blood in one part per million and they’re always eager to feed.

The name of the game tonight is confidence. So Jason doesn’t crawl his way in through roof access. He strides in through the front door, cherry red helmet gleaming, and props his elbows on the welcome desk in the lobby and says,

“Hi, I’m Red Hood. I have a meeting with your boss?”

Jason is escorted to Black Mask’s office in short order. It is exactly as Jason expected it to be. Which is to say disgustingly opulent. Jason disdains it two fold. First as the street kid he was. The rich things in this room alone could have kept him in food and shelter for the rest of his life, the waste is nauseating. Second as the coached and tested Wayne heir, he looks at the blood red carpet and massive mahogany desk and floor to ceiling windows, and wants to curl his lip; new money.

Black Mask is standing behind his desk in a parody of manners, waiting to welcome him. Jason throws himself into the leather chair across from him carelessly.

“Roman,” he drawls, “always a pleasure, love the view,”

“Red Hood,” Roman says, taking his seat. He flicks his wrist and one of his many goons fetches two tumblers of whiskey, “you’re punctual,”

“What can I say,” Jason says kicking his feet up onto the arm of the chair, “Manners maketh man,”

Black Mask’s eyelid twitches and Jason savors it.

“Have a drink,” Black Mask says, waving his man forward with the crystal tumbler. Jason accepts it just to swirl the liquid around.

“I appreciate your gumption,” Jason says, “But I’m not that kind of girl. No face reveals on the first job,”

“Suit yourself,” Black Mask says and sips from the whiskey. God the intricate rituals of mobsters will never cease to amaze.

“I will. Speaking of being coy, what is the job? You were very tight lipped about it last time,” a pause, then, “no offense,” Jason says waving a hand at Roman's general face situation.

Roman sets his glass down with a loud thump, liquor splashes over the rim onto his fist, “Funny,” Roman says and turns to the man on his right, “Li, bring him in,”

Li brings a cell phone up to his mouth and whispers a few quick words into it. Jason hears movement outside the office doors.

“The only reason I’m not popping a shell in your cocky, fucked-up-biker ass is because you’re useful to me,” Black Mask hisses, “So let me give you a preview; of the job, and of what happens to uppity little fucks who think they can joke with me,”

The office doors swing open. Jason carefully doesn’t flinch. He tips his head back against the chair back to get a glimpse of who’s coming in. Two men dragging a third between them, limp like a ragdoll, blood oozing sluggishly down his face. Arrogance, arrogance, just keep looking arrogant, even as every hair on the back of his neck stands on end.

“Put him on his feet,” Black Mask orders.

The men do, releasing their prisoners arms as he takes to his feet unsteadily.

“Leave,” the men do, “All of you,” Black Mask repeats, louder. The rest of his goons file from the room. Leaving only Jason, Li, Black Mask, and the prisoner. “Give it to him,” Black Mask orders, jerking his head at Li.

Li steps forward until he is face to face with the frozen prisoner, then casual as anything, he jams a syringe into the trembling man's neck and empties it.

One milliliter of something purple. That’s all Jason can say for the contents of the needle before it’s tucked away again. His skin is fucking crawling. Li walks back to flank Black Mask like it was nothing.

Jason doesn’t like this at all.

“See, Johnson here thought he was funny too, isn’t that right Johnson?” Black Mask says standing from his desk.

He holds out a hand and Li deposits a second syringe into it. Black Mask jabs it quickly into his own neck and empties it with a grunt. He discards the spent syringe on the floor. Jason can see the muscles in Black Mask’s neck strain, his jugular throbbing along. Delivering whatever was in that needle to the rest of his body.

“I said isn’t that right Johnson,” Black Mask repeats, louder, sharper. Johnson flinches in place.

“I’m sorry, sir,” He slurs. “Sorry,”

“Johnson thought he could play a little joke on me, he thought he could snitch,” Black Mask splays his palms on the desktop. Jason sits up in his seat, “Even though this goddamn brain donor knows I own the cops in this town,”

“I’m sorry,” Johnson sobs. He can barely keep his feet. He's already been so well worked over.

“He thought he could take me down, me!” Black Mask is screaming now, “Thought he was some kind of goddamn hero! Isn’t that right Johnson?” Black Mask sneers, “you thought you were gonna save the day? Even though you know what I do to snitches,”

Johnson is barely holding his ground. Jason watches the drop of blood on his chin tremble along with him.

Johnson is just next to him. The door fifteen feet behind them, the windows ten feet in front. Black Mask and Li are the only ones in the room. Jason holds. He holds and he holds and he holds–

“You were there when I peeled Ricky’s face off, weren’t you? You knew. You fucking knew. It makes a man think you’re asking for it,”

“No, sir,” Johnson says, “No, ple-ease, I’m s-so s-sorry, I-”

“But we’re past that now,” Black Mask says suddenly calm, “catch,”

He tosses a handgun to Johnson and Johnson’s hands snap up to grab it.

Jason holds. He holds. He–

“Thank you sir, thank you so much I-”

“We’re entering a new age,” Black Mask continues smoothly over Johnson’s blubbering. Jason tenses in his seat. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know-

“Kill yourself,” Black Mask says.

Purple geometry crawls up Black Mask’s neck.

Purple lights up Johnson’s irises.

Jason gets one foot on the ground.

Johnson doesn’t make a single sound. He jerks the gun to his temple. He pulls the trigger.

Jason is splattered with red.

“Let’s get to work,” Black Mask says.

Chapter Text

Arrogance.

Arrogance, arrogance, arrogance. It’s running on a loop through his head, as blood, plip-plop, drips down the side of his helmet, and crawls down his jacket. He swears he can feel it. Seeping through his clothes, marking him.

Arrogance.

He’s hanging onto it by the skin of his teeth.

“Neat trick,” Jason says and the voice modulator in his helmet smooths it flat for him. He’s looking at Johnson. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand–

Thank God the helmet blocks his face. Thank God. Johnson’s blood is pooling on the floor, spreading towards him.

He wants to move away; he doesn't want it on him.

Which is nonsensical because it’s already on him. It’s already all over him. It’s–

It’s an inch away from his boot, but he can’t move. He can’t move. He’s the Goddamn Red Hood.

“I thought so,” Black Mask says and he sounds undeniably pleased with himself. Jason feels sick. He feels sick. His hands are so close to shaking.

He wants Yorick so fucking bad.

“Now onto the job,” Black Mask says.

“Wait-” Jason says. Wait wait wait. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand–

“I think not,” Black Mask cuts him off, “Only good boys get to know my plans and you have a lot of making it up to me to do before you’re anywhere close.” Black Mask says and then again; “The job,”

Black Mask approaches him. He slaps a hand across Jason’s back and he feels sweat prick him like a thousand tiny needles. Black Mask talks and Jason listens, because there isn’t anything else.

An hour later finds Jason crouched at the edge of Gotham just before the bridge. He is waiting with the trigger to an EMP in his gloved hand.

The cargo Black Mask wants him to steal is coming from Metropolis on the L-1023, a maglev train connecting Metropolis and Gotham, bankrolled by Lexcorp in one of Luthor’s many bids for public opinion. It’s the fastest train in the US, though not nearly the fastest maglev train on the market, clocking in at 200 mph for most of its journey. This precise location, where the train decelerates to make the final turn onto the bridge to Gotham, is the only spot on the track where the train is going slow enough not to derail itself, were it to come to a sudden stop.

The only location, Jason knows, where he can stop the train without killing any of the workers on board. With any luck Black Mask will assume the location was chosen for its seclusion.

When the train rounds the corner Jason will trigger the EMP which will cause a power surge and disrupt the conductors that power the train’s magnetic levitation and propulsion. Then Red Hood and the eight lackies Black Mask sent with him will liberate the cargo into the transport van and hopefully be gone before anyone sees or hears.

Until then Jason lies in wait; ears trained to his personal escort – his personal firing squad if he makes any wrong move – and his eyes on the tracks.

Just those two things.

Not the wet slosh of Johnson’s skull spilling its contents across the carpet.

Not the damp, itch at his jaw where blood has soaked into the lining of his helmet.

Not the graceless flop of Johnson’s body as Black Mask kicked it aside.

Not the trail of red Jason left behind him as he walked away.

Just the tracks. Just the mobsters.

For now Jason is Red Hood. For now he is a blade, a hammer, a blowtorch, whatever he needs to be to get the job done. For now he is a tool and the L-1023 is rounding the corner.

-

The train jolts and scrapes to a stop what Artemis estimates to be five minutes shy of her destination, and it is the very last straw.

The Bow of Ra was the most beautiful thing Artemis had ever seen – will ever see. It called to her like a magnet to filings, like the Earth to its moon, it caught her in its orbit and it has kept her there ever since.

If Artemis has to spend one more second looking for the wretched thing than necessary due to the whims of some Gotham lowlife she will tear the insect's spine out through its mouth.

She hears the patter of feet on the roof of her train car. In an instant Mistress is an easy and familiar weight in her right hand. “Pests,” she whispers and with her left hand reaches up.

The ceiling of the train car crumples in her grip like so much paper and she wrenches it downwards in a cacophony of tearing metal. She is left with a ragged hole in the ceiling and a red helmeted man crumpled at her feet.

“Hi,” he says twin pistols aimed at her center mass, “Sorry to drop in,”

Artemis slams her ax down between his splayed legs before he can even twitch. It carves into the metal like butter.

“Lower your weapons now, or next time I will not miss,”

“Tempting,” the man says, and fires.

The train car is alive with sound. The pop of the pistols retorts. This hiss of a blade through air. The deafening sounds of impact.

Then the gentle plink, plink, plink of flattened bullets clattering impotently to the floor. One and all deflected by the blade of her ax.

“Well,” the man says, having rolled to his feet during the assault, and bolts.

“Men and their guns,” Artemis sighs and plants Mistress blade first in the metal floor of the train car. He isn’t worth it.

There is only one thing of value on this train and Artemis would bend the knee to Diana before she let the Bow of Ra fall into the hands of some Gotham rat. She gives chase.

She glimpses the edge of his boots disappearing over the roof of the next train car. She leaps and in two strides she is on him.

He is not unprepared for her assault. A butterfly knife flutters open in his hand as she meets him.

He is quick, she will give him that.

Her first strike only clips him and he spins with the force to try and get behind her. She sweeps her leg back and he sidesteps. His knife snaps out and buries itself deep into the leather of her armor.

Artemis does not wear the ridiculous garb that Diana prides herself in. That does not mean that she is shy of bare skin. Her throat and arms are bare. Whether he could have landed any blow on her skin is more than debatable, but the facts are he didn’t even try.

He is well trained and he is not trying to hurt her.

She is well trained too.

She cracks him across the face. He stumbles back.

“Maybe, we can work something out, princess?” His knife flickers back and forth between his hands, back and forth, glittering in the light. He is stalling. Buying time to overcome his disorientation from the head blow.

She will not grant him the privilege.

“Let us be crystal clear moving forward,” she flexes her hand, cracking the knuckles.

“Do not,” a body blow that sends him rolling,

“Call me,” a kick as he begins to stand,

“Princess,” She wraps her hand in his collar and slams him hard to the roof of the train.

“Got it,” he wheezes, “What should I call you then?”

“Artemis will do just fine,”

“Red Hood,” he replies.

“I did not ask,”

“Ouch,” he huffs.

There is a smattering of suited figures swarming around the door of a train car a few up from them. It takes only a moment for Artemis to gather they are trying to get inside.

“Call off your minions,” she says, “abandon your mission. They clearly have no care for your safety,”

“Tell me about it,” The man sighs.

“Do not make me repeat myself, little one,” He is small even for a man. She presses him harder to the roof, expressing her threat with only a fraction of her strength.

“Let’s hope that nickname doesn’t stick,” he mutters, seemingly to himself, then louder, “No deal,”

“I will offer you one last chance,” Artemis says, “The weapon you seek is beyond your understanding. It is not fit for the likes of you or any petty boss you may serve,” she tightens her grip, “I know that you have not put your heart into this fight, reconsider before I am forced to end your life over this,”

There is a long pause, where the man–the Red Hood– is utterly still beneath her. She allows him the moment to consider.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and then the prongs of a taser are digging into the bare skin of her neck which he avoided before. Then hot, crackling pain. Then – for a moment – nothing at all.

-

Even the max power on his taser–enough to stop a regular human’s heart–won’t keep an Amazon down for long.

Jason wriggles out from under Artemis’ twitching, limp weight and rips a pack of steel zip ties from his belt.

“Fucking move it!” he yells to Black Mask’s goons as he cinches the first around Artemis’ wrists. The foremost of them has just finished laying the charges on the door.

The only information that Black Mask would cough up about the robbery was the dimensions of the thing they were stealing, so Jason could have an appropriate vehicle on hand, and the fact that they’re stealing from Lex fucking Luthor. Trying to hack or bypass any of Luthor’s security isn’t worth the effort. Better to blow the whole thing away.

Jason rings Black Mask on his burner phone to the tune of three charges of C4 going off. Black Mask picks up on the second ring. It’s so nice to be appreciated.

“What?”

“We have trouble,” Jason says, “The kind that my cut of your profits isn’t going to cover. I have an Amazon here looking for a weapon of unimaginable power, and trying to use my head like a bocce ball. Care to share with the class?” he tightens the twelfth zip tie around her wrists, “Cause I’m this close,” Jason doesn’t bother taking a hand away from his task to gesture to his absent audience, “to taking a peek at your secret present,”

“Fuck,” Black Mask says, “Li!” he shouts away from the speaker, “Check the transport for that damn bow,” Whatever Li’s response is, it's too quiet for the phone to catch, “Come to the agreed drop off,” Black Mask says, “I’ll make some preparations,”

Black Mask hangs up.

“Rude,” Jason mutters, as he applies the last of his thirty pack of jumbo zip ties. He gives Artemis a few layers of duct tape on top of that as Artemis’ twitching begins to subside. He figures he’s maybe bought himself fifteen seconds with all of that, assuming Artemis also happens to have a catastrophic brain hemorrhage in the next minute.

Thank God it was an Amazon that interfered with this little operation. Anyone else Jason would have to bend over backwards to scrape up a convincing reason not to kill them. An Amazon however would bring down way more trouble than Black Mask could pay him for and they both knew it. You can’t put a price on getting on Wonder Woman’s shitlist.

He hops off the train car and sprints to the van just as Black Mask’s goons finish tipping their cargo into the back.

“Drive!” he yells, “Fucking drive!”

He leaps for the cargo hold just as the tires catch on hard packed dirt. He slams the doors closed behind him.

The cargo. A large cylinder, eight by four maybe, tarps bungee corded over its surface keeping it hidden.

An enraged scream sounds out behind them.

“Faster!” Jason screams pounding his fist on the wall of the van, “Fucking faster!”

The driver picks up speed.

Thank fuck the drop off is only a few minutes drive from here.

There’s a window out of the trunk of the van. Jason peeks through it.

Artemis is eating up ground with long powerful strides.

She’s a bull and Jason is wearing red.

She’s gaining on them.

“Faster!” he screams again.

Between one stride and the next Artemis’ enormous ax appears in her hand. Jason watches in horror as she plants her front foot and winds her opposite arm back.

She’s going to throw that fucking thing.

Jason lunges and snakes his arm through the gap between the driver's seat and the door and yanks the wheel.

The tires squeal. Jason reels dizzily as his head slams into the wall. The ax, spinning end over glorious end, shears a peel of metal from the side of the van. It blinks back into her hand before the metal hits the ground.

Fuck, she’s cool.

She’s also still fucking gaining.

Jason stumbles to the back of the van as the goon driving cusses up a storm and fights back control of the fishtailing van.

Just as the van is firmly back on four wheels Artemis catches them.

Her ax disappears and she crumples both hands into the metal of the van’s back doors. She digs her feet in and they lose speed.

“Faster,” Jason screams to the driver, pointlessly.

“The pedal’s on the fucking floor,” the man screeches back. Every thug in Gotham has at least enough gumption to face up to a bat, even if it never does them any good. An Amazon is a whole ‘nother ballpark.

Artemis’ heels scrape against rain slick asphalt. The engine of the van whines and the tires spin uselessly.

There are eight men and women huddled in this van with Jason. They’re not sweet or good or kind, but they're not evil. If this van stops they’re going to die.

There is a body of a man who tried to do something good. It is being cut up, or burned, or tipped over the side of a boat into the harbor. If this van stops Black Mask is going to get away with that.

There are secrets and secrets and secrets buried in Black Masks organization. Secrets and plans and snake-tongue poison that once almost rotted Gotham from the ground up, that once drilled ragged little circles through Steph’s legs and arms and hands. Secrets that made Johnson blow his own brains all over the floor in beautiful Janus Towers. If this van stops people are going to get hurt.

Jason tugs the handles and the back doors of the van fly open.

The tires catch.

For one crystalline moment Jason is face to face with Artemis’s expression of stunned fury. The powerful bunch of her shoulders, the set of her jaw, every bit of godly power that is compressed into the diamond that is her body. Jason is struck with the same horrific awe as he was when he first saw a volcano erupt.

Jason whips out a laser cutter and sheers the doors off at their hinges.

The van rockets forward and Jason slaps a hand to the roof to keep from spilling out the back. Artemis, stumbling, shrinks behind them.

Less than a minute now. Just two more turns.

While Artemis is still righting her stride Jason empties his pockets of smoke bombs. The street between them disappears in a haze.

“Left,” he says to the driver and the man obeys.

Maybe she’ll spend a moment wondering which turn they took. Maybe that will buy them a second or ten. Seconds and seconds and seconds. That’s all Jason can manage.

There’s a sharp whistle as they tip around the corner. One of the back doors of the van whirls through the smoke and passes so close Jason can feel the wind of it.

Jason’s heart is pounding out of his chest but he can’t suppress the breathless smile.

God, she is so fucking cool.

They make the next turn mercifully unharried and barrel through the open door of another of Sionis’s warehouses.

The goons disembark immediately, unloading the cargo. Say what you will but a Gotham goon knows how to get the job done despite all extenuating circumstances.

Jason hops from the van onto weak knees.

“Sionis, what have you got?” he calls, “I sure hope it’s fucking good cause she’s gotta be ten seconds out, if that,”

“Keep your pants on, Red,” Black Mask says, “have a little trust in your new boss,”

There’s a smart reply on the tip of Jason’s tongue but suddenly he is in the air. Suddenly he’s on the ground.

It takes a moment. It takes a moment for the pain to hit him. For the taste of blood, for the scrape of concrete under his gloves and the screaming of torn muscle and bruised bone to register.

He is on the ground.

He is on the ground because Artemis has arrived. Because she punched him in the back of the head and sent him spinning end over end, knocking into the hench people unloading their cargo like so many bowling pins.

It’s the kind of thing he would have joked about if he were Robin, if his mouth weren’t full of blood, if his head wasn’t spinning and tipping and pushing him over.

It takes a moment.

It takes a moment to realize that his landing has torn the tarp from their cargo.

It takes a moment to look up at it and realize; to make sense of the blue and red and yellow there.

That’s Superman.

That’s fucking Superman.

He just delivered Superman in a tube to fucking Black Mask.

He can barely string a thought together. He doesn’t understand how that could be Superman, what else it even could be, what’s happening–

Black Mask cannot have this. He cannot have this.

He forces an elbow and a knee under himself.

If he works together with Artemis he can– they can– He’ll have to burn Red Hood.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. He’ll burn Red Hood, he’ll burn anything. Black Mask can’t have this he–

“You ruined the surprise,” Black Mask says, muffled.

There’s a hissing sound all around them. It gets harder to see. There’s something–there’s a gas filling the room.

Artemis stumbles a few feet from him. She puts a hand to her mouth and nose but Jason can see it already taking hold.

That’s–that’s fine. Just Jason. Just Jason can do it if he can just get his feet under him. His helmet will protect him. If he can just–

“I do love money well spent,” Black Mask says as Artemis falls to one knee. He’s wearing a gasmask over his face. He hasn’t bothered to warn his goons. They’re dropping like flies.

Easy. It’ll be easy. Just Black Mask. Just Black Mask. Jason can do that. He can win that fight. He stands. He flexes his fingers. He tenses to lunge.

“Stop,” Black Mask says.

Jason stops.

Jason is back in the cave.

There is so much happening. His head hurts. His head hurts. He is in the cave again. He doesn’t understand. Didn’t he–? It slips from his fingers. Slips and slips and slips.

“Did you know,” someone says, some skull says, “That if the needle is thin enough, if you stab it in just the right spot, you can’t even feel it puncture you?”

Jason is scared. Jason is in the cave. He is in the cave. His body is so far away so, so far away. Purple. Something is purple. It’s him. It’s the skull. It’s the blood that’s on both their boots.

Scared. Scared. Scared. He wasn’t supposed to be here again–

“Take off your helmet,” the skull says.

He shouldn’t. He doesn’t know why but he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to. There’s something bad. Something bad outside. He gasps a breath and holds it. He doesn’t want to.

He does.

“Breathe,” the skull says and Jason doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to at all. He wants to stop himself, but he is very very deep in the cave.

He breathes.

Chapter Text

Artemis wakes to the knowledge that she is not somewhere she put herself. Artemis wakes up swinging.

Her fist slams headlong into a thick clear wall. She feels it flex but hold under the force. She is in a cell, she is unrestrained and she can feel Mistress waiting for her call. There is not a cell made by the hands of men that could hold her, but this is a particularly sloppy attempt.

The clear walls on four sides of her might not yield easily to her fist, but breaking the concrete floor beneath her is well within her means. There is a drain at the center of it, for ease of torture she presumes, but it indicates the possibility of another floor or an entrance to the sewers below her. She could of course dig her way out of required but she would prefer the alternative. Regardless it is an escape there and ready for the time of her choosing.

Then she sees the cell across from her. She sees the farcical Superman which she glimpsed in the warehouse enshrined there, still in his glass tube.

She weighs the damage the Bow of Ra could do in the wrong hands against the damage this thing could do. She thinks of Akila, glorious and hideous and wreathed in fire. She thinks of Superman in the hands of some vile Gotham rat. She thinks of the Red Hood and his erratic behavior. His lack of fight on the roof of the train, his apology before he gifted her a few thousand volts to the neck, the way he froze completely when he saw what cargo he had just delivered.

The Red Hood is clearly not aligned with his boss. He is clearly trying to undermine him in some way. He is clearly fucking ineffective at it.

Artemis sighs long and slow and settles in.

When next she sees that stupid helmet she’s going to pop it off his shoulders like a fat tick.

-

Jason wakes up spasming.

“Someone turn him on his side,” a voice says.

He’s tipped dizzily over. His mouth is full of saliva, his stomach twisting, head throbbing, muscles twitching unsteadily.

It’s easier to breathe like this. He twitches his hand; gloved. He presses his head into the cool stone floor; bare. His breathing speeds. His helmet is gone. His helmet– he twitches his brow his mask is there. He flexes his toes, takes stock of the weight on his body; boots, jacket, armor, guns.

Why would they leave him with his guns? Why–

“Rise and shine,” the voice says. Jason blinks his eyes open.

No.

No.

He remembers now.

No.

Black Mask and Superman and purple. He needs to stop this. He needs to do something. He needs to call Batman. He needs his dad. He needs–

“Get up,”

Purple.

He gets up.

“The fucking Red Hood,” the voice says and laughs, “I like you much better like this,”

Two fingers grab his chin and shake his head back and forth like a dog.

Stone floors. Red carpets. Mahogany. Dripping crystal chandeliers. New money. The skull.

He hates the fucking skull. The purple, and the man on the floor, and the blood on his boots. All the little puckered scars on Stephanie. He fucking hates him.

He can feel his lip curling up. His blood is so hot. He hates him. Fight. Fight. Fightfightfight. It fills up his blood. Fills him to the brim like a shook up soda. Fight. His muscles wind tight and tight and tight. Fight. Fightfightfightfight–

“Wipe that fucking look off your face,” the skull says.

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t–

He wipes that fucking look off his face.

His skin is hot and too small. His head is boiling. His body shivering. Small. Small. Useless. Useless.

“I was going to kill you after that mission you know,” the skull says, “that little nanobot brew was just a precaution, but the fucking Amazon!” he laughs, “I was gonna enjoy putting you out of your misery. All the fucking plans I had, but you’re just too damn useful aren’t you?”

The skull comes closer. Circling. A shark.

“Still,” he says, “It’s tempting,” Tap, tap, tap, on Jason’s shoulder, his skin shivers.

A second. His heartbeat throbbing against his temple.

“Take out your gun,” the skull says.

The grip fits so easy, so familiar in his hand. The weight hangs limply from his fingers. Powerful, deadly. Impotent, useless.

“Put it to your head,”

His arm raises. The muzzle is cold on his temple, touching him, touching his soft hair, touching his bare head. His bare head and his face with only his eyes covered up and the skull can see him. He can see him.

His is cold and hot and he is scared and scared and scared. There is blood on his boots. There is blood. In his throat and his fingers and his eyes. Bang he thinks. Bang and the wet slosh of a skull and–

“Put your finger on the trigger,”

He does. Three pounds of pressure. That’s all it would take. So easy.

So fucking easy.

Jason is here, he is pinned here by the cold and the metal, but he is also gone. He is also deep in the cave. He is also with his dad. He is also in a warehouse. He is also in the dirt.

His heart is beating so hard. His lungs, working so hard. He didn’t like the dirt. He didn’t like it. He didn’t–

He wants to move his hand. He wants the cold-hard-metal gone–

He wants his helmet. He wants to be hidden away–

He wants to be safe–

He wants to kill the skull. He wants to shoot him and shoot him and fucking shoot him. Make him the red on Jason’s boots–

Dad, he wants to say, Dad, please–

“Stop,” the skull says, “Put your gun away,”

Jason stops. Jason puts his gun away.

It’s over. It’s over and Jason didn’t stop it. He didn’t stop any of it. It was all the skull. Not up to Jason.

He feels– he feels–

“God that was good,” the skull says, satisfaction curling the words, “Strip him,”

Men come forward and they peel Jason's jacket off, they take his weapons from him, pat him down, but he can’t move. They unhitch his armor and take it away. He can’t move a single inch even as more of him is laid bare and vulnerable in front of this monster. They leave him in his shirt and pants and boots and mask.

They take Red Hood from him.

“Follow me,” the skull says.

Jason can feel the tide going away. Slipping and slipping through his fingers and he is so scared, he is so scared, and tired and it’s so hard and–

Jason follows.

-

It turns out the next Artemis sees Red Hood is when he’s being escorted docilely into the underground prison with her. He’s been stripped bare of weapons and armor. Even more ineffective than Artemis had thought.

“This is going to be a lot less fun without you at full capacity, Red,” Says a man at the front of the escort, whose face has been charred down to a blackened skull. Just the kind of garish disfigurement she would expect from this circus of a city.

“Oh well,” the man sighs, “You can’t–oh what’s the phrase,” he snaps his fingers and points to a smartly dressed asian man to his left.

“Have your cake and eat it too, Sir.” The man replies

“That’s the one,” he says, “Can’t have you brain dead and savor the look on your face when I snatch Gotham out from under you.”

Red Hood says nothing to this, which seems out of character, despite the fact that she’s known him for less than ten minutes all together. In fact he doesn’t even look like he’s paying attention. His brow is furrowed under the mask, his head turned to the side looking at nothing.

Brain dead indeed.

The skull faced man flicks his wrist, “Open it up,” he orders.

His minions immediately rush to open the cell with the imposter superman inside, and then move to crack open its cylindrical prison. The seal at the top of the cylinder is broken with a hiss of air, and as soon as it is, the creature inside wakens and begins to struggle.

It flails without grace or tact, only the desperation of a creature come to consciousness drowning. Even still the monstrous strength of the thing shatters its containment easily, spilling it and gallons of thick fluid over the cell floor. The henchmen in the room stumble back shouting. The air seems to poison the thing. Whatever it was about the fluid that kept it perfect, that kept it Superman, decays on contact with the air. Its skin sickens, turning the pale blue of a corpse, its hair falls partially away, its all american handsome face shifts and cracks. It claws at its own throat ineffectually, the only thing that can withstand its massive power seemingly its own body.

“What the hell–” the skull snaps. The cement floor cracks under the creature’s thrashing.

It is a poor creature. Born of the hubris of man and fit to die the same fashion. Artemis watches in pity.

The Red Hood rushes past his boss into the room.

“Shhh,” he hushes the thing. “Shh shhh,” he falls to his knees beside it, presses a comforting hand to its back, curves his body downwards so his head is level with its on the floor.

The things fingers dig deeply into the floor. It whimpers.

“Close the goddamn door,” the skull barks. His men rush from the room to not be trapped inside with the beast. The door hisses shut.

It’s harder to hear now but Red Hood is still shushing the creature. He puts a hand to the back of the hand the creature has wrapped around its own throat, coaxing despite the fact that his pathetic strength could never move this thing. Despite the fact that this thing could utterly destroy him with even the smallest movement.

“Get the kryptonite,” The skull orders, and men race off to do his bidding.

Red Hood takes the hand that is digging into the cement and puts it to his own chest. The creature allows itself to be moved. Its hand is massive, spanning Red Hood’s chest from one side to the other. The creature could crush his ribs, his lungs, his everything if it only closed its hand.

Red Hood breathes in deeply, then out, holding its hand to his chest to let it feel the movement. He isn’t speaking, only offering soft hums and deep breaths. For a full minute it is only that. Only Red Hood breathing for this thing and rubbing his hand up and down it’s back in time. Only him coaxing it upright pressing his own hand to its chest so they are mirrored until it catches onto his breathing. Only the creature curled towards Red Hood like a child seeking comfort, as Red Hood offers it approving hums.

The skull’s men return with a lead box carried between two of them. They open the box to a pile of glowing crystals in a few different colors. Kryptonite, as requested.

That is an unfortunate thing for a Gotham mobster to have.

The creature inside the room crumples back to the floor with a wail.

“Open the door and get Red Hood off that fucking thing,” The skull snaps and again his men fall into line.

The men rip Red Hood away and it is like a switch is flipped. Red Hood begins to fight like a wild thing. Not the showy, though effective fighting he had shown Artemis, not the sweetness he has shown the creature. He fights like an animal. Like a predator, quick and brutal; elegant only in the fashion that efficiency is elegant.

The first man goes down with a stolen knife in his thigh, the second to a precision strike to the temple. Every attack made without inflection; only purpose.

He fells three more before they bear him to the ground; numbers almost always win in the games of men. Still the men struggle to keep him as he strikes out like a snake. As he tries to return to the creature's side. The creature whimpers for him. Reaches out a weak hand like a mewling child.

“That’s so sweet,” the skull drawls, “I knew you were a little bitch, Hood,” he strolls into the cell, his assistant trailing him. “I knew you never did have the stomach for this work. You try to hide it. Play the boogie man, kill a few people, put their heads in a bag, but you’re just a pussy in the end. Just another goddamn bleeding heart, huh?” The skull is leaned over Hood, mocking. Hood’s eyes don’t waver, don’t get angry. He doesn’t have it in him. He’s too much an animal now. Too much a dead eyed predator.

The skull stands up straight, “And you thought you could fuck with me,” he laughs, derisive, “You played a good game Hood,” he says, “But you never had the balls to fucking finish it, never had what it takes to beat me,”

Red Hood isn’t even looking at the skull anymore, he’s looking at the creature. The skull scoffs.

“Well,” he says, and holds out a hand to his assistant. The man places a syringe in his open palm, “At least I know my pets get along,” Red Hood makes a wordless, wounded sound as the skull stabs the syringe into the creature's neck.

Chapter Text

The skull is–

The skull is–

Jason is blind, scared, angry. He is trying to escape the grabbing hands, the hands that hold him down, hold him away. He screams and kicks and doesn’t have any words. His head is hot. His heart is racing.

The skull is hurting them. Hurting–hurting–it’s not شبل الأسد, it’s not– It’s someone. He’s hurting someone.

Someone who was suffocating. Suffocating like the black, black dirt and the wet and– Suffocating. Someone who is reaching for Jason. Someone who needs help, who is asking for help and Jason is–he’s–he’s Robin–

The skull is making someone else purple like him. Purple like Jason. Purple like the man on the floor.

Jason thrashes, and he thrashes, and he is too late. The needle goes in. The needle comes out. It’s done.

It’s done.

“Let him go,” The skull says, and all the hands leave. All the hands leave, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s already done. Jason goes to the someone, he puts his hand over their neck, over the puncture site and protects them, but it doesn’t matter. The someone leans into him like a child. The someone is huge and strong outside, but Jason understands, Jason knows. They are actually very small. They actually need Jason to curl around them and cover them so the Skull can’t see them like the Skull can see him.

The men leave. They close the glowing box. The Skull scoffs. They leave.

The someone curls around him and squeezes. Squeezes until his ribs flex and it hurts and he can barely breath. Squeezes until his hands twitch over their back, until the lizard part of his brain begins to wake up. But Jason knows. Jason knows. Too small. No fighting. Too small. He flattens his hand on their back and holds.

Jason is so tired and his head fucking hurts. He is being asked for help. He starts to climb out of the cave. Counts his breaths and places his hands in familiar holds and strains for the light.

The someone is crushing their hands against their ears now, still tucked close and safe under the curl of Jason’s body.

“Loud,” they whimper, like Jason can fix it.

“What?” Jason says, strives for more, for a full sentence, but that’s all he can manage.

“Heart,” they say, “Heart, loud. Loud,” they repeat voice teetering on a sob.

Jason pets down their back. Focuses on words. Focuses on getting his words back to fix this. Three things you can hear, Bruce prompts in his memory.

“What else?” he cobbles together. The someone shakes their head against his chest, “What else, buddy?” Jason presses his cheek to their hair.

“Screaming,” they say, “Sirens,” Jason hums.

“What else?”

“Cars. Trains. Crying.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Fighting. Talking.”

“Yeah.”

“Singing.”

“That’s Gotham,” Jason says, warmly.

“Gotham,” they repeat.

“Home sweet home.”

–

Bruce hasn’t heard from Jason in what is approaching 12 hours.

Bruce doesn’t always hear from Jason that frequently. Jason is an adult now and he doesn’t live at home. Bruce doesn’t get to wake up and have breakfast with him every day. He doesn’t get to drive him to school. He had less time with Jason than he should have and he’s learning to accept that. He rarely lays awake staring at the ceiling just thinking about it anymore.

The hard thing about Jason though is that Bruce spent all the years between Jason's death and his return imagining a reunion. At the beginning the reunion came mostly with him and a running car and a closed garage door. Later it took less desperate shapes but it never left him. When he was asleep, when he was awake, when Scarecrow had him. The deepest and ugliest parts of him were always thinking of Jason.

Bruce can’t trust his memories when it comes to Jason. He needs to see him.

A month after Jason moved out that meant hiding bugs and cameras in his apartment and his clothes, so that Bruce could know every second of every day that he was alright. Approximately 12 hours after that it meant Bruce and Jason having a viscous screaming match, that ended once again in an empty manor. An hour after that it meant Bruce calling Jason and calling Jason and calling Jason while he had a panic attack just to make sure he was alive to answer. Fifteen minutes after that it meant an agreement between them that Jason would contact Bruce at least once a day with confirmation of life, or that Barbara would do the same when Jason was involved in a multi day mission.

It’s only been 12 hours.

Bruce pulls up blueprints for every holding of Roman Sionis that he knows of and starts looking for discrepancies.

Almost everyone in his life has made jokes at the expense of his paranoia at some point. Likewise almost every one of them has, at one point, been saved by that same caution. Bruce has no intention of changing anything about himself that is useful any time soon. Nor does he have any plans to fail his son a second time.

-

Climbing out of the cave is not easier the second time. It is not easier in a locked cell with a clone of Superman leaning on him for support. It’s not easier with newsreels of Superman in action being projected constantly onto the wall of their cell like Black Mask has some idiotic aspirations of Clockwork Oranging the clone in the hours left before nightfall. Like Clockwork Oranging him is even necessary after what he’s done.

It’s not easier, but it is faster.

Jason does not quite make it out of the cave. It is more like he’s balanced on the lip of the entrance, like his fingers are dug into holds and he needs to keep straining to maintain it.

He is out of the cave enough to know a few things; in a few hours it’s gonna be night and Batman is gonna come out, and there is not a single reason in the world that Black Mask wouldn’t send the Superman clone to kill him as soon as he pops his head out of his little hole. Bruce can do something against a kryptonian if he’s forewarned, if he’s got time to prepare kryptonite. If he doesn’t know that one is coming he’s gonna get his head splattered across the concrete same as any average Joe would.

“You are not what I expected, Little one,” Artemis calls to him from her cell where she has calmly watched him piece himself back together. Jason looks up to meet her eyes and she continues; “I knew you were stupid, but I did not expect you to be kind,” She pauses to give him a considering look, “It does not bode well for your survival.”

Jason can feel his nails creaking against the impenetrable skin of the clone’s back.

Jason needs to get out of here. He needs to get the clone the fuck out of here. He switches tactics.

“Then let me not die then ingloriously and without a struggle,” he begins in ancient Greek and watches Artemis sit up and pay attention, “but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”

“You are well read. What do you intend?” she replies in the same language, watching him closely. It would be one thing to quote the Iliad to an Amazon. It would be another thing entirely to be able to understand an organic phrase in the language and respond.

Jason has always been full of surprises. He untangles himself from the clone and leans close to the glass, presses the side of his closed fist to it and leans forward, “Keep him occupied,” Jason tips his head to the clone, “and I will find you your bow.”

Chapter Text

Jason’s running at about half capacity. Luckily Roman has always been kind of dim.

He didn’t take Jason’s shoes.

“What do you know about my bow?” Artemis hisses as Jason jams a fingernail into the seam between the rubber sole and the leather boot.

Jason doesn’t look at what he’s doing, angles his shoulders to try and block the camera's view, tries to make it just look like fiddling as he pries the seam wider. My, that's interesting, “More than you,” he answers, curling his fingers into the gap he’s made, feeling dried glue tacky on his fingertips from where he first cut apart and resealed the seam, “Will you be my ally in this?” Then a quote tickles the back of his brain and he cuts a grin at her, “Swear an oath to use all your eloquence and strength to look after me and protect me?” He bats his eyelashes.

“If you fail me I will snap your neck like a twig,” Artemis replies. Jason peels the heel back far enough that his fingertips brush the dense gray putty that he’s packed into the hollow of both soles.

“Close enough,” he smiles.

–

The Red Hood is making pointless conversation with the clone.

“What do you want us to call you?” She has no idea what signal he’s waiting for to enact whatever plan he’s cobbled together, but clearly it hasn’t come yet.

“Superman,” the clone says, pointing at the still playing projections on the wall.

“Yeah that’s Superman,” Red Hood agrees, “Is that what you want us to call you?”

“Me Superman,” the clone stresses, and Red Hood tips his head.

“No,” he says, “That’s not you.”

“Me!” the clone roars, the clear walls between them rattle and Red Hood slaps his hands over his ears.

“Ow!” He snaps like he is scolding a too rough puppy, and to Artemis’s surprise the clone looks cowed.

“Me?” the clone repeats softer, putting one massive hand to the S insignia on his chest.

“Thank you,” Red Hood says immediately, and then gently, “But that’s really not you. You’re a whole new person.”

Artemis nearly scoffs. The platitude while somewhat sweet is not strictly true.

“New,” the clone repeats, and there is some wonder there when he looks again at his hands.

“Yeah,” Red Hood says, soft, “One of a kind,”

Here Artemis cannot stop herself from snorting. Red Hood cuts her a side eye, but all she can offer in return is a raised brow. He has strayed directly into outright untruths. It seems only to spur him on.

“Unique,” he tacks on, “singular,” and then seemingly casting about for more words, “bizarre.”

“Me am Bizarre?”

“Hell yeah, buddy,” Red Hood smiles, “Conformity is for chumps. Just another tool of the ruling socio-economic class to maintain control.”

The clone seems to sit up straighter at Red Hood’s approval despite the fact that Artemis is sure he did not understand that string of words.

“Me Biz,” he says definitively, hand to puffed out chest.

“Good choice, Biz” Red Hood says slapping a hand across his back and hiding a wince at the action, “Now gender–”

They all snap to attention as the doors to their prison scrape open. Three men trudge through the opening, two carrying trays of food and all carrying weapons. The lumps of shoulder holsters visible from miles away as it always is with their ilk.

Artemis stands and opens her hand for the always ready weight of Mistress as they approach her cell. The odds that she will get a chance to use her are staggeringly low, but she hasn’t had a chance to stretch her legs in hours and her opinions on the intelligence of men can always get lower.

“The Red Hood huh?” One of the men holding a tray drawls walking right up to the wall of Red Hood's cell like he’s at an aquarium.

The other two men engage in the apparently extremely complex process required to open the slot in her door. After two key cards and a pin number it opens and they slide the tray through. Artemis watches it drop to the floor dead eyed. It clatters against the cement and the limp sandwich on it scatters into its component parts. The man who unlocked the slot shuts it with an eye roll and turns to Red Hood's cell.

“Ungrateful bitch,” the other man sneers and Artemis makes note of his face for later.

“You’re shorter than I thought you’d be,” the gawker says, while his compatriots begins the same arduous process on Hood’s cell.

Hood spreads his open palms as if to say what can you do? But Artemis is suddenly reminded of a particularly annoying mission she had once worked with a spell caster, that same gesture, that same bitten back smile of an expression; nothing up my sleeves.

The slot opens and Red Hood lunges.

He jams his arm through the slot, skinning half his forearm. He slams a handful of gray putty over the lock.

A soft pop as he whips his hand back.

The lock explodes into shrapnel.

The sound and shockwave rock the room. The guards fall back screaming, pitted with debris. Red Hood slams through the cell door and the fumbling men. Two quick steps and another handful of gray putty. Hood ducks back to his own cell as a second explosion rocks the room.

Artemis swings the door open. Red Hood looks up at her with manic eyes.

“Time to go.”

–

Nothing like a little C4 to get the blood pumping.

Jason crouches to paw at the whining men on the floor. There’s an alarm wailing and Jason is being lightly drenched by the sprinkler system. Guns, no. Knives, no. Taser, perfect. Cell phone, perfect. He jams the taser into his waistband and dials a quick number on the phone before jamming it between cheek and shoulder.

Oracle picks up on the first ring.

“Hey,” Jason chirps, peeling back the tongues on the goons shoes, checking the sizes, “I need a favor.”

“Hood,” Barbie replies, voice warm even through the thick encryption of it, “You had me worried.”

“I still had time on the clock,” Jason says, yanking off the shoes closest in size, and kicking his own ruined boots off.

“Twenty-three minutes,” She allows.

“Practically an eternity,” he grunts, pulling his new shoes on and tying the laces, “Could you log into my computer and run the ‘Black Mask Greatest Hits’ program? Also would you ask Casper to make an appearance? I need to get all my ducks in a row.”

Speakers crackle in the ceiling.

“Red Hood,” Black Masks orders through them.

“Got to go,” Jason says to Barbie and smashes the phone on the ground. Interesting that Black Mask thinks the mind control will work from here. Voice activated? But Jason’s out of time to experiment. He can feel the purple starting to itch under his skin. He grabs the taser.

“Get back in the ce–”

He puts the prongs to his neck and then; black.

–

Red Hood electrocuted himself.

He’s lying in a heap on top of the men he dispatched, wearing too big shoes and twitching from the lingering shock. He released both of them from their cells and then purposefully tased himself in the neck.

The man really is a godsforsaken fool.

Artemis shoves aside the remains of her cell door and steps out. The skull faced mobster is shrieking obscenities over the loudspeaker, ordering Red Hood to move, to return to his cell, to fucking do something. She kicks Red Hood – lightly – in the side and he stirs and groans, curling around her boot, completely unreactive to the orders.

“Damn!” the Skull finally screams, “Damnit! Clone-”

Artemis turns and watches the clone’s (Biz’s she reluctantly corrects) eyes glow purple. She widens her stance and opens a hand for Mistress. Red Hood curses himself up to trembling hands and knees.

“Tag, you’re it,” he wheezes hand on her ankle and then he is bolting away up the hall.

“Kill them.” the skull finishes.

A deal is a deal.

When the Superman clone charges she steps into his path and plants her feet.

–

Oracle logs into a spare computer with Red Hood’s credentials, and pulls up the requested protocol. What she finds is a list of every one of Black Mask’s holdings, a current infrared scan of each of the buildings and a very simple code;

if(HeatSignatures == 0){
Detonator = true;
}

Oracle clicks onto the Bat’s main comm channel, most of them will just be tuning in as preparation for the evening begins.

“I’m about to set off a little light show for Hood,” she says, clicking start on the protocol, then tabbing over to shoot a few messages to the GFD, “I’ll be scrambling the fire department to take care of clean up, but if anyone was itching to start a fight with Black Mask now's the time; Hood’s looking for a distraction,”

“Drama Queen,” Steph says, as the faint sounds of an explosion chime in behind her. The comment is half derision, half admiration.

“Status,” Batman says, and he can only be asking after Hood’s status. Batman has a few distinct tones when asking for status updates and that is definitely his ‘I am holding on by a single thread for the love of justice tell me where my kid is’ tone.

“Just spoke on the phone,” Oracle says, “No injuries reported, or backup requested other than the lightshow and an appearance from Casper.”

“On it,” Dick chimes in, “Any place in particular?”

“Last known location was Janus Towers,” she reports.

“Roger that, O.”

–

Something Jason never gave much thought to before he became a vigilante; elevators are really damn slow. He set off some explosives, gave himself a sweet little wake up jolt of 50,000 volts and now he’s rocking heel to toe in an elevator as it slowly trundles up the floors.

What a buzzkill.

Also standing still makes him realize how much like utter shit he feels. Between Artemis punting him across a warehouse, Biz nearly squeezing his guts out, and tasing himself he’s feeling like he’s been through about three separate meat grinders and he’s craving his couch and his dog.

He’s so busy marinating in his own misery that the elevator jolting to a stop between floors is almost a relief. Or at least it’s something to do.

He pries open the elevator doors and wriggles up onto the floor available to him. Fortuitously it’s the guard room for the murder dungeon he’s just vacated. It provides a wonderful view, through the one remaining camera not destroyed in the action, of Artemis and Biz’s tussle. It also contains a few of his stolen accessories; his favorite butterfly knife, his grapple and most importantly; his jacket. It also happens to be completely free of guards cleared out by the commotion happening downstairs or the explosions going off outside.

Jason spares a moment, as he dons his jacket and slides his toys away, to watch Artemis punch the inside of Biz’s elbow out to break his grip while he tries to strangle her. Jason would love to get in another fight with Artemis, if only he knew that she wouldn’t break every bone in his terrible little body.

With his jacket and weapons he feels like he’s not naked and trapped in a bramble patch for the first time in twelve hours. Time to go hunting, he presses the button for the intercom and leans forward until his lips touch the mic.

“Black Mask, oh Black Mask,” he sing songs, “Ready or not, here I come!”

Jason may be beat to shit, and running on empty, but never let it be said that he does not love the work.

Chapter Text

Black Masks holdings go up like fireworks across the city. Stephanie watches from the tallest available rooftop and knows that it’s not even a quarter of the pies he has his fingers in, but it’s a hell of a way to stir the pot.

Jason is a good friend and even if he wasn’t Steph is always happy to rock Black Mask’s shit. She steps off the building into open air, off to kick in the teeth of every False Facer she can get her hands on.

–

Lucky for Jason, Dick is in Gotham as per his and Bruce's non-official custody arrangement of Damian. That means he can tromp down the stairs to the Batcave without delay to don the Revenant costume.

Dick, or less often Cass, and in desperate times Tim occasionally go out as Revenant so they can be spotted at the same time and place as Red Hood for additional obfuscation. Cass is honestly too good to believably fill in as Revenant and she has no concept of toning it down. Jason hates having Tim fill in for him with the passion of a thousand suns. He claims that every time Tim goes out in his costume he fucks up his street cred. And Dick loves Tim to death, but he can't deny it's kind of true. Dick is a happy, acceptable medium.

He pulls on the costume next to Bruce, just like old times. Unlike old times however when he slips in his comm, he’s met with a multitude of voices.

“Warehouse 32B went up and the fire jumped to 33B before the fire department arrived,” Oracle reports, followed by clacking of keys “Warehouse is Penguin’s though so even odds on whether that was on purpose or not,”

“I just tied up some False Facers, in the Bowery, but–Fuck! I think one of these guys is Hood’s. Nobody tell him,” Red Robin pleads.

“Collateral damage on the drug lab downtown is remarkably contained, just fell straight in like a house of cards,” Steph makes an exaggerated kissing noise, “my compliments to the chef.”

“Give me a ride?” Dick asks Bruce, the Revenant helmet in hand, because there’s no way that in a situation like this Bruce is going anywhere but towards Jason.

Bruce pulls the cowl on and nods. The rev of the Batmobile is a familiar music to Dick’s ears.

–

Know thy enemy. That was one of Damian’s favorite sayings when he was a kid. Lots of kids latched onto phrases and repeated them ad nauseam even in situations where they really didn’t apply, Damian was no different even if almost everything else about him was.

When pointing across the compound at his newest–detested–combat teacher and listing the man’s favorite and least favorite parry patterns; know thy enemy. When divvying up the sugar cubes and apples to the horses in the stables, ensuring each animal got their favorites; know thy enemy. When clicking away on a laptop trying to find an appropriate gift for Talia’s birthday; know thy enemy.

Well Jason knows Black Mask about as well as it’s possible to know the man without contracting whatever cocktail of STDs the man is surely packing. So Jason knows that a rat bastard like Sionis is going to be in his little penthouse office, because when a rat is on a sinking ship it goes up. And when a rat is running a criminal empire that suddenly starts going up in flames that rat might want to go to his office where he keeps all his fire extinguishers. The metaphor is getting away from him. The point is Black Mask will be in his office. His extremely secure office, with the bullet proof glass and the steel doors and the dripping chandeliers.

There’s nothing that a bat loves like a secure penthouse office, and whatever face he may show the public the Red Hood is a bat.

It takes two minutes for Hood to gather what he needs; guns (acquired from a few of Roman’s dime a dozen goons running around like chickens with their heads cut off) and an open window. He pops his head and shoulders out the window, takes aim and fires his grapple up the side of the building. He gives a hard tug to make sure it’s anchored and then climbs the rest of the way out to reel himself up.

Something a lot of people don’t think about, including apparently Black Mask; bullet proof glass protects people on both sides of the glass. This Jason knows because when he stops to hang, feet planted on the glass outside Black Mask’s office window, the first thing Black Mask does is pull out a gun and try to shoot him.

It pings harmlessly off the glass, while Black Mask blows his top inside. Due to Black Mask’s unique condition it’s impossible to read his lips, and the noise is muffled through the glass, but Jason will go ahead and assume it’s not complimentary. At the very least it’s not something that Li finds worth responding to.

Jason smiles and he would wave too, but he doesn’t have a free hand between holding the grapple and pressing the muzzle of his first gun to the glass and firing.

Bullet proof glass, contrary to popular belief, is penetrable by bullets if you shoot enough of them at the same spot. This, it seems, Black Mask does know. Jason watches him waffle desperately between trying to shoot through the glass before Jason or book it. The indecision lasts through Jason’s first five, rapid-fire shots until the first crack spiderwebs out from the point of impact.

Then he turns and bolts.

Jason empties two clips (which translates to two now useless, nicked handguns tucked into his waistband) before the window gives way, and he goes swinging forward through a mass of shattered glass into Mask’s office.

He hits the ground running.

Jason needs time. Time to hack Black Masks servers and gather evidence that he was originally planning on gathering over weeks of espionage, before Black Mask decided to flex his paranoid evil fuckhead muscles. Time that Jason knows just how to get.

Jason sprints the length of the office to the stairs where Li and Black Mask have fled.

The game is afoot and Red Hood has an accountant to catch.

–

The Batmobile spins to a stop outside Janus towers like something out of an action movie. Dick is leaping out before the car has finished its first spin, rolling to kill his momentum and popping to his feet running. Jason asked for a distraction and Dick Grayson has been perfecting the art of distraction since his one liners still came out of a mouth half full of baby teeth.

Dick breaches the doors, leaps and kicks off the doorframe into the first goon's jaw. Batman comes in behind like a tank and they burn through the lobby like nobody's business. Dick pauses to bound on top of the reception desk.

“Hey,” He says to the woman huddled underneath hands around her head, “Time to evacuate. It was a pleasure having you, but you didn’t make the guest list for this shindig so I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

She nods, crawls out from under the desk, though remains crouched out of sight lines, proper Gotham caution right there, then takes a breath and shakes out her hands.

“Party favor?” Dick asks proffering a sucker from Jason’s utility belt, because he thinks it’s the best thing in the world that Jason keeps those on him as Revenant and he can never resist when he’s wearing the costume.

She snatches the sucker and bolts for the door.

Noise echoes from the stairwell. Revenant and Batman take their places to face the next round of goons.

–

Black Mask is a fucking idiot who likes to be handed things. He thinks it makes him more of a man to be handed things rather than carrying them himself or something. The complexities of performed masculinity are labyrinthine and unknowable and very useful to Jason.

Black Mask likes to be handed things and Li is the man who hands him those things. Both times Jason saw the purple mind control brew used it was Li who handed the syringes to Black Mask.

Li, who is a surprisingly fast runner. But fast running isn’t really anything against a Bat. Li takes the stairs two and three at a time and Jason takes them twelve at a time. He heaves himself over the rail at the top and into the long shaft of the stairwell. Bruce taught Jason how to punch and kick and pick a lock, but there’s one skill that’s saved his life more than any other and it’s something Dick taught him; the art of the controlled fall.

He plunges into the stairwell at an angle. Hits the first rail under him with loose joints to take the impact, springs off and out, hits the rail below and across and keeps going, ping ponging down the shaft. The angle and the impact and the wind on his nearly bare face. He kicks across and slams down on Li like a ton of bricks, takes them both hard into the drywall.

Jason comes to his feet laughing. Every goddamn part of him is aching and he is standing above the man who handed that syringe to Black Mask, the syringe that killed Johnson, the syringe that stuck Jason, the one that pierced Biz minutes after he had been fucking born. He is standing above the man who keeps Black Masks empire running like clockwork, the man who comes into work and watches people die and then clocks out and goes home.

Li is groaning on the ground between his feet, pawing for a gun. Jason kicks his hand out and away, drops low and rips his suit jacket open.

“Hey,” he says, “just lay down yeah? Just fucking lay down and don’t get up huh?” He empties Li’s pockets methodically onto the landing beside them. Wallet he discards over the railing, phone and sleek silver syringe case he pockets. Li’s eyes roll up hazily to meet his.

“How?” he coughs, still winded from the impact, “You’re, you’re supposed to–”

Jason meets Li’s eye’s and he can taste the blood on his teeth.

“I’m the fucking Red Hood,” he smiles, and sends Li off to sleep.

–

Jason catches up to Black Mask in the underground garage. He pounces on him like a wild fucking animal, turns his torso just right to present a small target. Catches Roman’s skull in his palm and slams it into the window of a gorgeous Lexus, catches it again on the rebound and smashes it back to a shower of glittering glass.

There is a warm pressure at his side, Black Mask’s fingers against his lower ribs. He’s been stabbed. Just a little, just a small stab.

Jason can’t feel the pain of it. Couldn’t feel the pain of anything if he wanted to, because sunk into the side of Sionis’s neck, in Jason’s other hand, is the second to two syringes, now empty.

The rush of power that overcomes him is like nothing else. It’s like the pins and needles from a numb limb being shaken off. It’s like the moment of complete focus that sometimes takes him when he’s out in his mask, that everyone else is moving so slow and he’s so fast. It is this; the Red Hood and Black Mask in the dark of a parking garage with Black Mask completely and in every way at his mercy.

Here is the man who once held Gotham squirming under his thumb. Here is the gangbanger piece of shit that has killed more people indirectly than Jason has likely shaken hands with. Here is the man who took a power drill to Steph’s abdomen, who made it last. Who forced a man to kill himself in front of Jason. Who made Jason put a gun to his head and hold it there just for the thrill of it.

Here he is, under Jason’s control, with the lump of a shoulder holster under his blazer.

He could kill this man right here. He could kill him and everything would just stop. Jason could dismantle his organization one last time and then never again, because Black Mask would be dead. He could do it in just a few seconds, with just a few words.

“Take out your gun,” Jason says.

Chapter Text

Pain. Pain. Purple.

Red hurts Biz and he hurts back. He hurts back. He hurts. Back.

He grabs and crushes Red. Throws her. Makes the cold with his eyes that makes her gasp and hiss.

The other Red. He has to find the other Red. The small one. The quick, loud, home-sweet-home Red. He likes that Red. He likes him very much. He has to find him. Find and hurt. Find and kill. Kill. He doesn’t know what that is, except the pictures in his brain that he didn’t put there. Kill. The purple tells him so and it is very very loud in his head.

He grabs the big, strong Red and slams her down. Presses. Presses. She kicks and thrashes, does sharp things with her fingers and elbows, but they do not move him. He is very strong. He didn’t know before, but now he does. He is very strong and no one can stop him. Not Big Strong Red. Not Little Quick Red. He will Kill them.

Kill. Hurt a person until they are all gone. All empty inside.

Big Strong Red is wheezing. She is slowing. She is getting smaller. Smaller. More empty. His chest hurts. His chest hurts. His eyes hurt. They are stinging wet and he can’t see. Can only see and hear and feel the purple even though he doesn’t like it at all.

He wants to stop. Except his hands that are crushing are purple. His body that pins Red is purple. Only the inside of his chest isn’t purple. Only the tightness and the hurt and the little thud, thud, thud that is him.

He wants to stop.

He wants to stop.

Big Strong Red is looking at him with her hand on his elbow, and she is small and weak. She is big and strong. She is many, many things that Biz doesn’t understand. She is going to be empty and he wants to stop.

He wants to put her hand on his chest and breathe like Little Quick Red showed him. He wants to show her how to breathe right because she forgot. Wants Little Quick Red to show her because she isn’t doing it. She isn’t doing it and–

And Biz stops.

The purple stops.

Big Strong Red gasps and coughs, keeps looking up at him all big and strong and sharp.

“I guess he isn’t completely useless.” She says.

–

“Throw it,” Red Hood says and Roman throws the gun.

“You think I’m being soft right?” Red Hood asks, real gentle like, “You think I’m pussying out.” he grips Roman’s jaw and nods his head for him, “Yeah, yeah” Red Hood says, “But the truth is Roman? The real truth that you don’t wanna tell yourself? It's that you’re fucking nothing. I’m not going to kill you and it’s not because I can’t. Not because I couldn’t bring myself to. It’s because I don’t need to.”

Red Hood steps back, drops the used syringe, peels Black Mask’s knife from his unresisting fingers and from the flesh of his side and discards that too.

“You’re not special or clever. The only thing that gives men like you power is their money, and I’m gonna take that all from you. I’m gonna take your money and your men and your kingdom. Cause you’re going to hand it to me. You’re going to hand it to me right here, right now and then you’ll be what you’ve always been; fucking nothing.”

Red Hood spreads his hands wide and smiles like only Gotham can teach you how.

“And I won’t even need to kill you after that will I, Roman? Maybe I’ll tell you to walk yourself to the station with a signed confession. Maybe I’ll get you put away at Black Gate and all your friends there will put you out of your misery. But it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter at all, cause you’re not even in my fucking weight class. The reason I don’t need to kill you, Roman? It’s because you aren’t a threat.”

–

Barbara is just finishing cleaning up the dregs of Jason’s mess when she gets a text. She flips her phone screen up to find two messages from an unsaved number. A quick search in her database shows the number belongs to Li, Black Mask’s PA, but the messages are all Jason.

Got you an early birthday gift The first message reads. The second is a picture of five computer servers sitting in a neat row with Jason’s hand reaching into frame, flipping devil horns.

She smiles and clicks over to the main comm channel.

“Word from Rev,” she says, “Mission success.” She laughs at the responding chorus of whooping and stoic affirmation.

–

Hacking is not like they generally show it in the movies. In real life hacking mostly involves plugging prewritten programs into computers, not rapidly keyboard smashing on a black screen in green text. At least when you want to get it done fast; writing code to decrypt and circumvent any custom security Roman has is going to be a weeks long task. Getting past the run of the mill, industry standard firewall (like for example those that protect bank accounts) and beginning the process of siphoning away every dollar from every rainy day swiss bank account Roman has and putting them in his own account (to be later dogeared for whatever charities Jason thinks with make Black Mask maddest) is the kind of Tuesday afternoon task he has a flashdrive prepared for.

Jason has Black Mask restrained in the next room over while he works despite the fact that he’s mind control ordered him to stay there, because as he himself has proven that shit is not reliable.

He pops off another text to Barbie while he’s waiting for the program to work; Sending Black Mask off to the station with a packet of evidence stappled to his chest in the next fifteen, please make sure there is no one fucking moronic enough at the West Pinkney office to fuck that up xoxo He pauses for a second to marvel at the fact that he’s been fucking around for just about ten minutes unmolested and shoots off a second text; Tell Dickie thanks for the distract

The program dings as soon as he’s finished sending the text because there are benefits to being allied with a billionaire and the most genius tech wizard who ever lived.

Now just to quick print out a dossier of Black Masks greatest hits, and do a quick scan for any pigs at West Pinkney that Black Mask might have on payroll.

–

It takes a few long irritating minutes for Artemis and Biz to clear the debris without doing something annoying like collapsing the building on top of themselves.

They eventually dig themselves to the lobby to find Batman and some other Gotham hero systematically working their way through a crowd of goons. The other hero isn’t one Artemis knows, not that she follows B list heroes. They're short, dressed in black with a stylized white skull on their full face helmet. They aren’t bad, a bit showy.

“Hi!” that one chirps as Artemis and Biz enter the lobby, they take a moment between one punch and the next to glance over at them. Batman doesn’t acknowledge them, just continues grunting stoically as he works.

“Hi!” Biz chirps back waving.

“Are you with Black Mask? Are we gonna fight?” the hero returns, in the same peppy voice.

“You’re the one wearing a skull on your head,” she returns, catching the first goon that runs at her by the face with one hand and tossing him aside.

The hero dances back dodging a strike and takes a moment to hold his hands up and shrug at her like; you’ve got me there.

“Are you with Hood then?” they ask.

“Yes!” Biz answers and at the same time Artemis says;

“I don’t like you.”

Before the hero can answer, Red Hood comes thundering down the stairs carrying a PC. Artemis immediately loses the hero’s attention.

They disengage the woman they’re fighting to bound on top of the lobby’s front desk. Artemis briefly and despairingly wonders at the fact that she might actually have to come to the Red Hood’s rescue.

“It’s over!” the hero shouts theatrically, pointing at Red Hood, “I have the high ground!”

“You underestimate my power!” Red Hood shouts back also, stupidly, pointing as he darts through the crowd, bouncing off of Batman and then immediately slamming a handful of, presumably filched, smoke bombs on the ground.

The cloud spreads quickly and panicked shouts arise from within. Red Hood is next to her and Biz a moment later.

“Go, go, go,” he hisses, gesturing to the door. Biz follows directions immediately. She follows more reluctantly a moment later.

“My bow?” she demands.

“I almost know where it is,” he responds, hefting the computer in his arms.

“Almost?” she growls keeping pace but wrapping her hand in the back of his collar.

“Have a little faith Artemis,” He replies, smiling beatifically up at her. She grits her teeth and glares, but at this point she has little other choice than to trust him.

–

Jason takes Artemis and Biz back to his closest safehouse. Debriefing with his family is all well and good, but he’s about to collapse and he needs a cold pack and a suture kit pronto, maybe two or three or five of the former, before he deals with any of that.

It’s a nice if modest apartment that they enter through the fire escape into the living room. There’s a couch and a floor mattress and the kitchen has food. What more could a man want after spending the better part of twelve hours under the thumb of one of Gotham’s premiere psychopaths?

“Who wants ice cream?” He cheers, dropping the computer on the counter and swinging the freezer open to pull out his gallon of neapolitan, “I know I do!”

“Me!” Biz answers immediately, then; “What is ice cream?”

“Ice cream is the best, buddy” Jason answers tossing Biz a spoon, “How ‘bout you Artemis? ice cream?” he waggles a spoon temptingly at her.

“Bow.” she grits, “Now.”

Jason heaves the ice cream across the room to the couch and tucks his spoon in his mouth to raise his hands and go digging for a monitor in the bedroom.

–

Jay: [selfie of a worse for wear Jason leaning against Biz on a beaten up couch holding an ice pack to his ribs and a tub of ice cream in his lap. He’s half awake and flashing a V for victory with his free hand. Artemis stands partially obscured in the background]
Jay: Congratulations to Dick just wanted to let you know you are being demoted
Jay: Biz is my new favorite Big Brother
Dickie: WHAT
Dickie: THE
Dickie: FUCK!!!!???!?!?!
Dickie: HE’S LITERALLY NOT EVEN A DAY OLD!!!!??!?!?!?!
Jay: Irrelevant.
Jay: He is much bigger than you
Jay: Also @Dami can you watch Yorick a little longer? I need to go to Quarac about a bow