Chapter Text
It was the last thing Dick would have expected, and the first time it happened… Well, Dick had been expecting something to happen. He knew Jason had been hanging around New York. There had been some very obvious signs, even before Dick had set up in his new loft. No ‘Jason Todd was here’ painted on the walls, but there might as well have been.
Someone had been running around as Nightwing, someone too skilled to be just some messed up copycat. It had been going on since before Dick had even showed up in the city and set up in his new loft. Dick had been prepared to deal with it, to find what had once been his brother, who Bruce had been adamant in his affirmation was beyond gone, beyond saving. A ghost wearing the face of a boy who’d never gotten to grow that big, who Bruce hadn’t been able to save, and wouldn’t be able to save now, who’d hurt him so badly, he’d run away, left his city unprotected for a year.
Dick wasn’t holding his breath that he, whose greatest feat had been the offer of a number - that was called only rarely, for petty life advice and never when it would have really helped - would be able to do what Bruce, who the ghost had once loved, had been unable to.
But Bruce couldn’t deal with it, so Dick had prepared himself to shelve any emotional reaction he might have had, any fondness, any grief, any joy… and Dick would deal with it.
Then, abruptly, the whispers had stopped. There was no more second Nightwing, no more killings, some kind of proof Dick couldn’t bring himself to look at delivered to some news anchor that none of it had been connected to Dick’s Nightwing.
Even more absurd, items had begun arriving in the loft he hadn’t even had the chance to tell his closest friends about yet. A vintage circus poster was the first, and what had knocked him the most off kilter, the only one he hadn’t been able to bring himself to risk damaging with a thorough investigation. Then it had been a box of a brand of cereal that was no longer manufactured by any brand in the country, one Dick had always kept stocked up in the Titans Tower… before. A box set of some crime show that wasn’t available anywhere online, Dick barely remembered it, but he knew it was one he’d watched weekly at least five years ago. Odd little knick knacks and even a rotisserie chicken had followed, one after the other. On none of them could Dick find any trackers, any poisons or cameras or clues about grisly crime scenes. Nothing.
Alfred had been sent first edition copies of books and strands of hair. Dick couldn’t bring himself to ask if anything new had arrived at the manor, to risk tearing open wounds that hadn’t even begun to scab over, that he was worried never would. Beyond voicing his early suspicions about a certain someone being in the city at all, he didn’t bring it up.
It continued for little over a week, every night he got back in from patrol, he’d find something else displayed prominently on the one threadbare sofa the loft boasted - with how often Dick wound up crashing on the thing after a busy night, he’d been meaning to replace it, but there hadn’t been time for furniture shopping. There were the Pierce brothers to deal with, kingpins who thought they could do anything they wanted with a city that had once hosted the Titans, that they owned the place now. Hard to focus on when he spent hours running every test he could think of on what had turned out to be perfectly normal, store bought chicken meat. He’d even tracked down the store where the buying had taken place and found absolutely nothing of interest.
When one of the Pierce brothers had been kidnapped at a fashion show by the Red Hood, on live TV, Dick was almost relieved. Finally something he was prepared for, finally he could get some answers to questions that had been clawing at his sanity like angry cats being shoved into cold bathwater. It was easy to track the culprit down, Dick would have worried about it being too easy if it hadn’t been abundantly clear that he was meant to track them down. Ready for a fight, all of his conflicted, messy rage, grief, hope, fear, shoved down to be dealt with later never.
Dick was prepared. Pierce - either the younger or the older, Dick couldn’t be bothered to care - was wrapped up in a metal casing, only his head visible, explosives strapped to his neck, Red Hood, waving around the detonator. Dick had expected something like this, he was prepared.
“Figured I buttered you up enough already.” Hood said, his voice altered well enough by a modulator that Dick’s chest didn’t even clench at what the real one would sound like if it had ever gotten past that squeaky, cracking mess that its owner had complained at such length about. “Now, onto business.”
“Yes, all of your gifts were very thoughtful,” though what the thought was behind some of the more bizarre ones, Dick couldn’t even begin to guess at.” Dick smiled like it was easy, escrima sticks in hand as he stared down his opponent, looking for any opening to take his opponent out, standing like there was nothing weighing him down, this was just another mission. Just another criminal he had to take down, just another hostage he had to save. “I’m not really looking for a pet kingpin though, so you won’t mind if I release this one back into the wild, right?”
“Oh this?” Hood gestured at his hostage with the detonator, his fingers dangerously close to the trigger switch. “You can do whatever you want with this when we’re done, I just needed to get your attention, considering you changed your number and all.”
Dick forced down a flinch, but couldn’t hold onto the smile. He didn’t need, didn’t want a reminder of the boy he’d given his number to so long ago, not from the man standing in front of him now. “Yeah, well it’s been a while, a lot’s changed since then.” He braced himself. “What do you want?”
“Uh huh, yeah, they sure have.” Hood made a flippant gesture with the trigger, like it wasn’t connected to enough C-4 to turn this entire rundown building to rubble. “Anyway.” He moved closer to plant himself squarely besides his hostage. “I have… this friend. Been hanging around the city for a while, doing this and that, you know, and well, a little while ago he caught sight of another friend of his, hasn’t seen him in a while, sure looks like somethings changed a hell of a lot with the friends friend if you catch my drift. And I… my friend was wondering if you, the people person that you are, had any tips for how he would go about getting in touch with his friend without all of the usual superhero, kidnapping, friendly fist-fighting, dramatic reveal thing. Nothing too over the top.” He kept waving around the detonator as he spoke, and Dick was so focused on it, so focused on body language, and exit strategies, and collateral damage that it took his mind a second to catch up to the words.
“What?” Dick asked, his mask hiding the rapid blinking of his eyes, but not the rest of his slack jawed expression, he was sure.
Pierce rolled his head back and forth, a sob making its way out from his gag and his body going slack as he tried to get out a string of disbelieving, pleading gibberish. Yeah, Dick could relate to that.
“Oh, you shut up already.” Hood smacked Pierce upside the head, leaving his back exposed for a second, Dick cursed himself for not taking the opening fast enough for it to matter before Hood turned back to him. “My friend did ask someone else for advice first, so don’t feel too special, but hers was a little too kidnappy, series of tests to prove his friend worthy-ish for his liking. And his friend was kind of uh… in kind of an… injurious state when he saw him, so the friendly fist fight thing is way off the table, probably. He’s also going to be pretty mad that my friend took such a long time to get in touch with him, so dramatics wouldn’t exactly make for a stellar apology on that front.”
“You…” Dick’s mind was stuttering. Ja… Hood had… “You’ve been leaving things on my sofa, you kidnapped some guy to ask me for advice about your social life?”
“My friend’s social life, yeah.” Hood tossed the detonator in the air and caught it a few times, like it was just some nervous habit and not a threat. “What’s not clicking here?”
Dick kept his mouth shut for a minute, knowing that whatever came out of it if he tried to speak would be as legible as Pierce’s stream of whiny mumbling. Pierce had no reason to act like that, there was no way this was near the shock to him as it was to Dick.
“Put down the detonator, Hood.” Dick demanded at last, brandishing his escrima stick. He’d come here for a fight, he could handle a fight, or mind games, or whatever else Hood must have had planned. He hadn’t… he hadn’t expected this. This was just absurdity upon absurdity on top of the absurdity that was Dick’s life already.
“No.” Hood folded his arms, bringing the detonator to his chest. “Give me some credit here NIghtwing, I’m not that stupid. You can have it when we’re done.” He held it up, waving it around again. “Unless you don’t have any words of wisdom. Then I’ll just…”
“No!” Dick screamed, the word almost inaudible over Pierce’s sudden uptick of screaming, real pair of lungs on that one. Dick started forward, Hood backed up, his finger hovering warningly over the trigger. “Just…” Dick stopped in his tracks, hands held out placatingly. “Wait.” He couldn't even bank on the idea that Hood wouldn’t set the C-4 off with himself in the building, because he’d set a precedent for that once before. “This isn’t how you do this.” He said, his tone most certainly not placating in any sense of the word, this was fucking insane. “You don’t ask for someone’s help by holding a man hostage, no matter what that man’s done, or how much he deserves it, and would you please shut him up.” The screaming was grating on Dick’s already frazzled nerves.
“Shut up.” Hood obliged, again slapping Pierce upside the head. It was surprisingly effective, and Pierce went back to his quiet sobbing, so, probably the younger then, Dick surmised.
Dick sighed, raking a hand through his hair, thankful for the relative quiet despite it all. “You call, or…”
“I don’t have your number, and digging it up would be creepy,” Hood interjected, like leaving behind an assortment of random things on Dick’s sofa like a weird cat dragging dead birds into his house wasn’t plenty creepy already.
“You meet up somewhere.” Dick continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, well aware that Jason showing up out of nowhere would have freaked him out too, not as much, but still. “You can send a letter for god sakes, not this.” He jabbed his escrima stick at Hood’s prisoner. “Nothing is as creepy as kidnapping. What made you think that this was a good idea?”
“I asked… uh, that person my friend asked for advice from before for uh… advice.” Hood said, head inclined towards Pierce. His body language almost read as confused. Dick could almost imagine the expression on Hood's face, he didn’t want to imagine anything about the face behind that helmet. Hood righted himself quickly though, before Dick had the chance to do any imagining, his posture going back to something between indifference and arrogance. “See, you’re getting closer than she was already. Got anything else?”
This was it, Dick was going to have an aneurysm over this. He pressed his fingers against eyes behind which he knew a headache would be brewing shortly. Was saving Pierce even worth this? It was, unfortunately. Fine, Hood wanted advice from Dick, who’s life, social or otherwise, was already a mess? Dick, who had friends he hadn’t spoken to in years? Fine.
“What are you planning on doing to his friend if this goes well?” Whoever it was, Dick didn’t want them at the whims of Hoods… compromised ideas about appropriate ways of interacting with people.
“Iiiiif it goes well, my friend is planning on…” Hood hummed, tapping the detonator against his cheek, the soft sound of metal on metal ringing through the room. “I dunno, hanging out, catching up, that kinda thing. If it goes well.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Dick asked and the tapping stopped instantly.
“Aw, you don’t trust me, I’m hurt.” Even the modulator couldn’t hide how fake that sounded, the add on of Hood clenching at his chest didn’t help. After a pause he added. “Fair enough, I’ll leave him alone, scout's honor. Cross my heart and hope to asphyxiate and all that.” He did cross his heart. “He is gonna be mad, so it could go either way.”
“Have you tried just apologizing?” Dick didn’t flinch at the dig, didn’t think about the cause of death written so impersonally on those reports. That was something he’d prepared himself for. He got the feeling there was absolutely nothing he could say that would be worse than whoever this other person Hood had gone to for advice would say. Whoever had the displeasure of being counted among Hood’s friends would be better off no matter what Dick did right now. “Send him a…”
“You mean my friend should try apolo…”
“Shut up.” Dick demanded, Pierce was making another strangled sound, and Dick didn’t want it to turn into more screaming. He was too frustrated to care that it actually worked and Hood went quiet, leaned in attentively. “Send him a gift basket or something, I don’t know…” Dick paused, thinking of the ‘gifts’ Hood had left him. “Through the mail, or a courier, don’t break into his house and leave it on his sofa. Ask him to meet up somewhere and talk, somewhere public, no… no kidnapping or fist fights, or fuck, proving himself.” Dick thought of Bruce, in a room with the Joker and a gun and a test…
“That’s it?” Hood asked, the modulator working to hide any emotion that might have been carried by his tone. “You really think that will work?” But it was softer than it had been since Dick had tracked him down.
“If you don’t like it, ask someone else.” Dick splayed his arms out at his sides. “That’s the best I can do, now put the detonator down, and next time you want someone's help, ask for it like a normal person.” It was doubtful this sort of thing was going to curry favor even in the circles Hood probably ran with.
“Just ask if I want help again?” Hood asked, like Dick was the one who’d just said something crazy.
“It’ll work better than all of this other…” Dick swished a hand around, unable to find a word in any of the languages he knew that could adequately describe the situation he found himself in. “Everything you did here today.”
Hood was still for a short while, his head angled towards the ceiling as he considered, turning the detonator over in his hand. “Fine.” He said at last, and Dick Didn’t even have a second to feel relieved, because the next thing he said was. “Catch.”
The detonator was flying towards Dick, it was going to land trigger side down, Pierce was screaming again, the room was filling with smoke. By the time Dick had the device in hand, there was a shattering of glass, and Hood was gone. Dick elected not to chase after him, this whole thing had been too precisely set up for Hood to have not had an exit strategy, and Dick wasn’t up for a fruitless chase.
He sighed, relieved, and made his way over to Pierce, thought he could make out the word ‘insane’ being uttered over and over again through the gag.
“Please be quiet.” Dick groaned as he worked to safely disconnect the C-4. “There’s no way you’re having a harder time here than I am.”
Once the explosives were safely disposed of, the building checked for any more nasty surprises, and the authorities - authorities the kingpins owned handily called - Dick left. He didn’t bother untying Pierce, no one was going to die tonight, and that was about as much as he could bring himself to care about.
Dick went on patrol, nice and quiet for once, and he tried to put the whole thing out of his mind for the time being.
It wasn’t until Dick was home, back in bed in his empty, quiet apartment that he thought about the wording of what he’d said ‘... next time you want someone’s help, ask for it like a normal person.’ Hood wasn’t going to take that as Dick’s invitation to ask him for help like this again, right? The thought ran its way through his tired mind for a while before Dick easily shunted it aside. Dick’s advice had been garbage, there was no way it was going to lead to anything. Jason would have to be insane to come to him for more.
Honestly, Dick was better off preparing himself for some kind of retribution when it failed. That he wasn’t too worried about, he’d prepared himself amply for that. Dick drifted off to sleep to happy thoughts of the Pierce brothers in prison, where he’d never have to hear that annoying screaming again.
It took almost a full three weeks for him to be proven wrong.
***
Dick’s phone was ringing. The clock on his nightstand proclaimed in dim numbers that it was ten in the morning, he’d only had two hours of sleep after a very long, very cardio heavy patrol, and his phone was ringing. He groaned as he let his heavy arm knock around his bed feeling for the offending device - his civilian line - so probably not that important, he debated internally on whether or not it was worth it to decline and call whoever it was back in a few hours. Only the very slight chance that it wasn’t just a telemarketer and someone might actually need him and just couldn’t get in touch through the more official channels.
“Is this an emergency?” Dick yawned, burying himself more snugly under his covers, if it was a telemarketer, he was going to scream.
“Yeah, kinda.” The voice that came through the end was familiar in a way that felt distinctly off, like Dick should know it, but it was just a little too different from what it was supposed to be. “So, my friend followed your advice, gift basket, public place, and all that, and it’s been going pretty well since…”
“Hood?” Oh god, it wasn’t a telemarketer. Dick felt like he was going to scream anyway. “How did you get this number?”
“That’s not important, and you’re the one who said it was less creepy. Anyway...” Hoods voice was un modulated. It was… Dick could hear the tone, he could chart how long it must have taken to deepen from that of a boy who hadn’t even come up to his shoulder, how it might have sounded in the in between stages, it was…
It took his brain even longer this time to play catch up now than it had when there was a hostage thrown into the equation. Dick blinked the sleep away from his eyes and looked down at the unknown number displayed on his phone’s screen, half expecting this to be a weird dream brought on by sleep deprivation.
“... and he must have thought my friend was flirting, cause his friend started flirting, and then he kind of kissed me… my friend, so now he has a boyfriend instead of a friend, and they’ve got date tonight, but he’s never been on one of those before. So what is he supposed to do different to when they’re not on a date?”
“What?” Dick sat up, scanned his dark room as if it would give him some kind of explanation he couldn’t come up with on his own.
“You managed to woo Kori, you must have done something right.” Was the explanation Hood offered, and it did sting, thinking about how things had ended with her, but Dick couldn’t pick up any spite in Hood’s tone. It sounded earnest if anything, just like…
It wasn’t the same, this wasn’t the same as the phone calls he’d gotten at similarly inconvenient hours years ago. The voice wasn’t… Dick was too tired for this, for puzzling out motives, or fighting off the dangerous feeling of nostalgia creeping up on him. He sighed. “He already likes you, so just do what you do normally… maybe.” He was also too tired to think about how Hood acted normally, Dick sure hadn't heard of much normality going on around the guy. “It’s not that different.”
“Sooo,” a short pause, “a boyfriend isn’t that different from a regular friend?”
“Yes. If the relationship goes well, it’s just a friend you do some other stuff with too.” Not that Dick wanted to imagine the other stuff in any great detail, but again, he was too tired to anyway. “Give him a flower or something if you’re that worried about it.”
“Yeah, I can do that.” The line went quiet for a while, just long enough that Dick thought the talk was over, and he could finally hang up and get back to sleep. Then, “One more thing, you got any good second date ideas for when I have to pick?”
“Jason.” Dick said, pulling up his covers and settling back down.
“Yeah?”
“I’m on two hours of sleep, and I’m going to get back to that now, goodbye.”
“Fine, I’ll figure it out myself, seeya.” There was a click, and then Dick was listening to the dial tone.
With another long yawn, he chucked his phone to some other corner of his bed and closed his eyes. He’d figure out how to tackle whatever this was once he had enough sleep to feel like a person again.