Chapter Text
Getting shocked with a cattle prod never got old. It wasn’t creative by any stretch, but it was predictable and versatile in a way that Jason could respect. Or he would have respected it if it had been his assailants that it had been directed at. Nameless, faceless goons had gotten the drop on him like the Red Hood was some sort of amateur hour vigilante.
It was supposed to be a normal night, Goddammit.
Sure, he hadn’t slept in a few days, courtesy of his still-healing ribs, but it was still extremely embarrassing to have been surprised this way. Jason had been trained and tortured by the best in the business; he was the motherfucking Red Hood. Barring a particularly annoying bird-themed vigilante— and now apparently these goons— his very name put people on edge.
Now, however, he found himself in the back of a nondescript van, arms and legs tied at strange angles meant to keep him off balance and in pain. Jason could feel an irritation headache coming on— even above the pain of a throbbing head injury. He was looking forward to ripping these men to shreds when they got him to the secondary location.
Truth be told, Jason hadn’t been having a good night before this either. One of the alley kids, Aiden, had flagged Red Hood down a week ago asking if he could search for one of his friends who had gone missing. If it had only been the disappearance of one child, Jason could have chalked it up to a runaway— or a tragic murder. He would figure out what happened and deal with the situation accordingly… But it hadn’t been just one child. The deeper Jason had delved into the case, the more kids had seemed to be missing without a trace, and none of the kids in question had been reported missing by their parents.
He had just been about to interrogate question one of the families involved when they had gotten the drop on him. The metal pipe to the ribs had been brutal, not to mention being pistol-whipped in the immediate aftermath. Jason vowed to pay his Replacement back ten-fold at their next little “re-match.”
He hadn’t seen the little shit since that night, but then again, Jason had better things to do with his time than pick fights with the Bats anyway. Some of his own goons had decided to start a coup while he was “laid-up,” and he had squashed their attempt ruthlessly. His revenge against Batman and Co. needed to wait until his own empire was stable enough to support the kind of vengeance he was looking for; plans were known to change mid-battle if necessary. In the meantime, Jason had studied up a bit more on Timothy Jackson Drake in preparation for their next encounter. He was slippery, to be sure, but he was going to find a way to destroy his Replacement.
“Put the bag over his head.” The voice came from the direction of the driver’s seat, not that he could see it. He cursed himself again for how stupid it had been to leave his Hood at home. Jason had figured the families would be more receptive to answering his questions if they could see his expressions. Clearly, they were so scared that they didn’t want to go to the police; Jason hadn’t wanted to add to their fear. He could admit that it had been a stupid idea in hindsight, even if that particular thought wasn’t helpful at the moment.
Darkness enveloped him moments later, and he focused on the pain of his ribs to distract him from the sudden darkness. Despite his hot breath trying to strangle him and the endless shadows, Jason knew that he wasn’t in his grave. Logically, he knew that there was no wooden box or six feet of dirt. Jason kept breathing.
Soon enough, his attention was pulled away as the henchmen man-handled him from the back of the van. They hadn’t even untied his legs; three sets of hands just hoisted him into the air like a sack of potatoes. Damn. Whoever these people worked with, they definitely weren’t inexperienced. Jason didn’t need his arms to be dangerous— and whoever these people were, they had seemed to know that. There wasn’t going to be an easy way out of this.
Well, there hadn’t been an easy way out of his own grave either, and yet.
The men stayed frustratingly silent as they moved him somewhere in doors. They were on the edge of Gotham Harbor; salty air and rotting fish met his nose even through the burlap sack they had stuck over his head. A steel door shut behind them, a resounding clank echoed through the air as the door closed behind them. Jason was starting to get really tired of crime being committed in abandoned warehouses. Yes, he could admit that they were convenient and easy to use, but at this point he would take an abandoned apartment building— or even some form of boat. Really, he wasn’t picky.
Jason told the goons as much, and the men became much less careful about the placement of his head around the door jams. His skull throbbed painfully on the last one— right before he was tossed onto the concrete floor.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll kill each other.” One of the guards chuckled. “You know the drill, kiddo. Knock three times when you feel like singing. Maybe we’ll even let you live after this.”
“What an incredibly generous offer.” A familiar voice responded flatly.
What the fuck was his Replacement doing here? Jason dragged his temple against the ground, dislodging the burlap sack so he could see. As the door slammed shut, the single light in the corner only illuminated half of the boy’s face, but it was enough to show the calculating look the kid was giving him.
“Do you ever actually wear your helmet, or is it just an overly-expensive prop?”
Jason shot him a glare. “I’m going to shoot you in the face when I get out of here.”
Tim grinned wickedly, blood dripping from his teeth and down his chin. It was hard to reconcile poor little Timmy Drake with the little psycho bound before him. There were children with emotional problems, and then there was whatever the fuck the newest Robin had going on. At least Jason could blame the Lazarus Pit for his instability; what was this kid’s excuse?
Talia had left a few things out of her report when Jason had originally been told about the Replacement Robin. He would be having a few words with her about this the next time they spoke. Though, something told him that he was one of the only people who knew who Tim truly was underneath it all.
“What’s the ETA on Bats getting here anyway?”
”He’s not coming.”
Green polluted Jason’s vision like venom. “What?”
Tim shrugged, unconcerned. “Everyone’s out of town. It’s easier to do what needs to be done when there’s no one watching.”
Wait. Back up a few sentences. Yeah, that’s what Jason had thought he said. “You got captured on purpose? Without backup? You’re a dumbass.”
Tim leaned forward, and Jason could practically feel the boy’s hardened stare lick down his spine like hellfire. “If a Robin blows up in a warehouse, and no one is around to see it, would anyone care that it happened?”
The non-sequitur was pointed, a calculated manipulation to throw him off balance. Unfortunately, it was working. The chains around Jason creaked as he pulled against them, an echoing growl ripping from his vocal cords. “I’m going to enjoy watching the light leave your eyes when I choke you to death.”
The kid leaned back unconcerned, like he didn’t pose even a passing threat to him— or like he didn’t care even if Jason did. The taste of blood danced across his lips as Jason bit through the inside of his cheek to keep from losing any further control of his reactions. The metallic tang seemed to calm down the green enough for him to think He took a deep breath, and then another, and then a few more. Jason needed to think.
“What do you know about these people that I don’t?” Jason took a deep breath.
Despite his earlier proclamation, Tim Drake was far from stupid. Jason would rather pluck out his own finger nails with pliers than admit it, but the kid was… formidable, especially with preparation time.
“I’ll tell you what I know, and we call a truce for the time it takes to escape. The enemy of my enemy and all that.”
“Or—” Jason’s left eyelid twitched, voice strained with false calm— “— I break out of these chains before you, yank out your teeth until you tell me what I want to know, and then dump your body in the harbor.”
Tim’s shoulders were loose and even.
“Your plan has a few flaws in it,” The boy shifted, leaning forward as he fiddled with the bonds behind his back. A moment later, Tim tossed the chains between them, looking bored as he rested his chin on his fist. Jason’s mouth dropped open, but for the first time in his life he couldn’t think of any way to respond. It must be the concussion.
“There are two ways today will end. The first option is going to suck for you, but I’ll lay it out.” Tim nodded towards the stainless steel. “I take that and throttle you with it. I won’t kill you because I respect the Bats rules, but I’ll leave you brain damaged and alone in this warehouse… It would actually solve a few of my more illusive problems”
The boy genuinely looked like he was considering the first option a bit more fully, as though he hadn’t really been thinking about it before that moment but was starting to warm to the option. Jason’s teeth groaned under the pressure of his jaw muscles. If that kid got in striking distance, he was going to tear the flesh off of his fucking bones.
Jason struggled to move closer to the boy, but his legs were bound together, one crossed over the other, with chains that snaked all the way up his thighs and woven into the ones that tied his hands down. The kid… the kid could actually pull it off he decided to.
Something closer to respect seemed to settle in his stomach against his will. The Replacement would fit right in with the League, if he was ever looking for a career change. Now, how the fuck did he get out of these restraints?—
“First option doesn’t sound good to you?” Tim’s voice dripped with sickly sweet venom. “Damn, I was kind of looking forward to that one.”
“What,” Jason grit out when the shackles didn’t budge, “Is the second option?”
Tim’s demeanor changed, something more earnest coming into his countenance. The signs were subtle, but it soothed some of the roaring anger that had been consuming him since he had been tossed into this cell. Tim wouldn’t be here if people weren’t getting hurt. Despite… everything he hated about the newest Robin, he was still just that: Robin. The way the Bats fought their war was a losing game, but they still managed to save some people. The thought tasted like grave dirt in his mouth, true though it was.
“These guys run a child trafficking ring. They’re small, but they’ve been responsible for fifteen children being abducted in the last three weeks. We team up and we can get them taken care of quickly— so no other children get hurt.”
“If they’re messing with kids, then you know what I’ll do to them,” Jason warned.
“What you do to them after I leave is none of my concern.”
Jason could respect that, from the standpoint of plausible deniability of course. “So, I’m assuming you had a plan before I crashed the party?”
”Oh, I told them where to find you, Hood. The plan was always that you were going to crash the party.”
That little fucking shit—
“But for now, I’m thinking we make them come to us, don’t you?” The chains clanked against the ground as Tim made a show of binding his hands again. “They wanted me to sing, after all, and who am I to deny them a performance?”