Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So…” Hal grinned at Bruce, “You have, like a pack of children right? Was Nightwing the ‘good’ child? I mean he seems responsible.”

Bruce actually snorted, “Nightwing became Robin because I needed to redirect his aim to kill the man who killed his parents to justice. I knew I needed to teach him so he wouldn’t become like me. By Gotham, the number of chandeliers he broke as a child. Do you know how hard it is to make a chandelier capable of supporting a child's weight? Hell, he broke another one last week. He would refuse to eat Agent A’s perfectly healthy breakfast only to sneak some overprocessed cereal at school. And getting that boy to do his homework was like wrestling a wildcat, a wet one.”

Bruce rubbed his face, “And now? His apartment’s kitchen is either spotless or a biohazard. I swear some of the things that have grown in that kitchen are sentient, and he’s definitely not the one cleaning. The only reason his laundry gets done regularly is because he brings it to the manor to be done and he never changes his sheets unless he’s physically watched or someone else just does it for him.”

“Um, what about the third one? Red Robin, he’s very professional.”

“He black mailed me into becoming Robin. If left on his own too long he tries to live on coffee and spite. He needs regular checks to see when he last slept. If he doesn’t go through the prepared meals in his fridge at a certain rate he either gets a roommate for a week or he has to stay back home for four days.”

Bruce sighed, “His room is a tangle of wires, coffee cups, and case files. He didn’t even graduate high school and has no interest in college. He has a very high paying job so he technically doesn’t need to do either but if he would just get a GED. I would be so grateful.”

Hal gaped, “You can’t mean the current Robin.”

“I had to tell Robin he couldn’t adopt a tiger and keep it in his room yesterday.”

“Then who?”

“Red Hood.”

“You’re kidding.”

“He insisted on finishing his homework before going on patrol, if he had a test the next day he’d bench himself. He ate anything you put in front of him, he still says please and thank you without prompting.”

“Red Hood… says thank you?”

“Mostly to Agent A, but he’s somehow both my politest and rudest child. Then as a child if I needed to find him, he was most likely curled up in the library with a glass of tea reading. Hell if he’s in the manor nowadays there’s a better than not chance that I can still find him sitting quietly somewhere reading, and not destroying the house or causing chaos. Unless one of his siblings has drawn him into some scheme or prank, which then he puts the rest to shame in the amount of chaos he creates.”

“Red Hood was the good child.”

“He’s also the one that deals with the health hazard in Nightwing’s kitchen and ensures both Nightwing and Red Robin do basic apartment upkeep, or just does it himself. He prepares meals for the both of them to just microwave to eat whenever Agent A is too busy and somehow he always knows how long it’s been since Red Robin last slept.”

“Red Hood? Crime lord Red Hood?”

“Former crime lord. He also looks after the girls, mostly Spoiler, but he looks over the others as needed. He keeps spare clothes in everyone’s apartments so he has something to wear whenever they end up sick and he stays with them to keep care of them. Any time someone’s sick he’s there taking care of them.”

Bruce smiled, “He basically aggressively cares for everyone. The last time Agent A got sick he looked over my knife wound and swore at me for being an idiot getting stabbed the entire time he dealt with the injury before actually tying me to the bed when I tried to get up and overstress myself and filled in as Batman until he deemed me sufficiently recovered to be Batman. His standards are stricter than Agent A as well.”

“So… he’s basically a vigilante caregiver? Aggressively?”

“Essentially.”

“Huh, that’s not what I was expecting.”

“Red Hood never is.”

Chapter Text

Clark blinked as Batman rounded the corner in the watchtower, talking with Diana about the next meeting with the aliens from the Lorn system that had approached the League on behalf of the Earth. He was discussing details from the previous meetings and strategies for the next meeting, “Batman?”

The other man turned to him, “Yes Superman?”

His voice was gruff and his manner identical to Bruce’s, the only reason Clark suspected anything was off about the man was his heartbeat, “You're not Batman.”

Everyone turned to stare at the pair.

“Batman is needed at this meeting, so I am here.”

“But-”

Hal cut Clark off, “Is Spooks okay?” At the confused looks Hal continued, “I was on monitor duty with Batman a couple weeks ago, after we found out about his kids and I asked him which of his kids was the ‘Good Child,’” Hal used air quotes, “Like Batman obviously doesn’t have a favorite kid, no parent does, but kids can be feral so I was wondering which was the, you know, well behaved as a kid. You know, small talk sort of thing. Seems the only way to get small talk with Spooks is to talk about his kids.”

Oliver blinked, “Well, which one was it? Nightwing?”

“No, Red Hood.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nightwing was hell on chandeliers, Red Robin blackmailed Batman, and Robin wants to adopt a tiger. While this guy,” He motioned at Batman, “Was finishing his homework.”

Oliver blinked, “He willingly did his homework?”

Diana frowned, “What do you mean by this one?”

“That must be Red Hood. Batman said when he gets injured or sick Red Hood would tie him to the bed to prevent him from overexerting himself and take over as Batman until he healed up.”

Diana turned to Batman, “Really?”

Sighing Batman’s entire body language and voice changed, “Normally Dickwing takes over but with these aliens already having met B, I was a better pick as I’m best at impersonating him when he has to actually interact with someone beyond grunting at people. Nightwing is a good stand-in until he opens his mouth, and I have more experience with alien civilizations than him due to my work with the Outlaws.”

“Okay,” Barry, as well as the others, stared at Batman, “That’s just freaky.”

“What is?”

“You were like, identical to Batman and now you’ve dropped it and the change is… really obvious.”

“Well there’s no reason to keep it up all of you now that Supes exposed me.”

Diana frowned, “Why did you attempt to fool us? Surely you could have explained when you first came.”

“Red Robin bet me a favor that I couldn’t keep all of you fooled until I revealed myself before the meeting. I hate owing Red Robin favors.” Batman turned to Superman. “What gave me away?”

“Your heartbeat, it’s not the same as Batman’s.”

“My heartbeat? No wonder Baby Bird was convinced he’d beat me. Well whatever, lets go over everything before meeting the Lornians. I actually think I have some information you don’t, that’s why I was originally meeting up with B before figuring out he caught the flu.”

Chapter Text

Clark grit his teeth in pain as another wave of pain ran down his back, “Wave. Eight.” He reported out the episode of pain. He could practically feel his friends worry.

“Wehavetohurry. It’sgettingworseandnothingsworking.” With the pain in his back Clark barely understood Barry. Brain translating it to ‘We have to hurry. It’s getting worse and nothing is working.’

“Try to remain calm,” Diana’s voice sounded calm to anyone who didn’t know her, “The other’s will be back soon with a cure.”

“Howcanyoubesure, Batman’ssickaswell.” ‘How can you be sure. Batman’s sick as well.’

“The others will come through. I am just grateful that the pain medication worked on Batman, even rendered him unconscious.”

“Should we tell someone?” Clark was relieved when Barry slowed down, “We know he has family now, that are in the know.”

“Not yet. No reason to worry them while we are waiting on news as the situation is currently stable.”

Clark grit out, “Stab. Seven.”

Barry and Diana shared an unhappy look. Hopefully the others would be back with a cure soon.

-

Bruce looked at the others, “The agent that infected Superman and myself is treated by administering heat and pressure to the infected tissues?”

Hal nodded, “It infects the muscles of the back and has to be drawn out by heat and pressure. Which has to be directed into the muscles in question. We did a lesser treatment of heat and pressure to your back but none of us really understand the manipulating the muscles bit.”

Oliver snorted, “I said it sounds like they need to get back massages.”

Barry nodded, “I agree, but who would Batman trust to give the massage? I mean it sounds like you need someone who really knows what they're doing and I don’t know of any heroes that are also massagers? Masseuses?”

“Finding someone Batman trusts at his back will be difficult as well,” Diana frowned, “We do have the additional issue of finding someone capable of effecting Superman as well.”

Arthur was pressing a large hot pack down onto Clark’s back pushing down on the board on top of the hot pack that they were using trying to get enough pressure.

Bruce sighed, moving to activate his Batcomm, “I know someone.”

Oliver blinked, “You know someone capable of massaging Superman?”

-

“B zero two, Red Hood.” Rung into the zeta tube room much to Hal’s surprise.

Red Hood rolled his shoulders as he stepped out of the tube. He was still wearing a domino but otherwise was dressed much more casually then he ever expected to see a crime lord. Red Hood was wearing what appeared to be yoga pants and a… Wonder Woman tank top?

Red Hood turned a scowl on Hal, “This better be important. I was just about to start exercising and B said it was an emergency.”

“They’re in the med bay.”

“Right, this way then,” Without waiting for Hal’s directions Jason headed off, leaving Hal to follow confused. Especially as he was a bit distracted by what the Red Hood armor normally hid. Red Hood was obviously a large man, but without the armor he could see just how huge the man’s muscles were. He’d seen smaller arms on Wa’bar’s! Batman’s suit had not done them justice.

-

“Alright,” Jason looked down at the now shirtless Superman’s back, “I gave B the basic run down I normally give him so he’ll be good until we get home. I have special bruise creams and the like that Baby Bird made for B back in the cave. I just got normal lotion for you.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to finish with your father first? I can wait.” Clark’s voice was slightly muffled by the impromptu head rest they had made on the impromptu massage bed.

“Eh, it’s best to give his back a bit of a break before I go after it again. I sent him with orders to get an IV’s worth of fluids in so the massage will stick better when I get back to him.”

“If you're sure. I don’t-”

“Yah, yah, yah. Making sure everybody is better first, big strong hero. Supes you’re the priority now. Everybody else is up and walking but you. Aquaman had to actually carry you in here and help you lay on the table. You are the priority, capice?”

“Yes,” Clark found, nodding didn’t really work with the weird face rest his face was in.

“Good, now this is aiming to be a deep tissue massage to get everything out at once but we’ll see how my enhancements face off against your superness. If this does end up deep tissue I got to warn you. You might make noises only your wife or past significant others have heard, don’t tense up. It will just make my work harder.”

“Noises?”

“Yeah, after I release a knot you might be embarrassed by the sounds you make. I mean B wouldn’t look me in the eyes and practically ran away from me after the first time I got after his back. His knots had knots.”

“You’ll also quite possibly want to scream in pain before a muscle reacts if your knots are as bad as I think they are. So basically you're probably going to make embarrassing noises at some point. I’m just saying that there’s no reason to be embarrassed. If I’m not going to be embarrassed by those noises out of my father figure, there’s no way yours will. Now let's get started.”

-

Bruce snorted, realizing Clark was blushing and not looking at him at the debrief after the back infection, “Jason’s massage worked then?”

Blush darkening Clark nodded.

“Just be glad he isn’t your son,” Bruce chuckled, to many Leaguers surprise, “Now that is embarrassing. I still don’t know if it’s better or worse that Talia was the one to teach him how to do massages.”

“Talia?”

“An Ex, and the biological mother of my youngest. She used my DNA, and her own to create him, and she’s also Jason’s sort of adoptive mother?”

“Sort of?”

“It’s complicated. Now who took over the negotiations after Superman and myself were incapacitated?”

-Back in the manor-

Tim blinked as he stepped into one of the sitting rooms finding Jason sitting on the couch, massive arms literally wrapped in ice packs and hand in the special gloves that had been designed so bruised fingers could be placed into something like ice baths without possibly damaging the skin.

Jason had ice packs going from his fingertips to past his elbows, “What happened to you?”

“I gave Superman a deep tissue massage.”

“You gave-why?”

“Some sort of alien illness that could only be cured with massages for some reason. I’ll be fine by tomorrow night but for now will you start another episode? Netflix stalled on me.”

Snorting Tim grabbed the remote and clicked the don’t stop option on the screen before wandering off to get his camera. This was so going in the blackmail folder.

Chapter Text

Constantine looked at the Justice League Light, as he liked to call them, “So that’s the sum of it. We got a demon coming in that’s immune to anything anyone in the Justice League Dark can pull out without making some really bad decisions.”

Clark nodded, “Who do you think could help? Who could defeat the demon.”

“No idea mate, hoping one of you have an idea because this is my last shot before I try selling my soul again.”

Barry pointed at Batman, “He’s pulling out his phone! Quick votes, I’m saying Red Hood!”

Constantine stared as the various leaguers either said Red Hood or Not Red Hood. Clark being the last and voting for Not Red Hood. Clark sighed, “Batman knows a lot of people and works with a lot of different individuals he’s not going to call Red Hood every time something weirdly specific is needed.”

Barry shrugged, “We’ll see.”

Constantine looked around, “What are you all bloody talking about?”

Barry shushed him as Batman’s call went through a very familiar voice coming over the line, “Aren’t you at like a budget meeting?” Red Hood’s voice was clear on the line, obviously annoyed, “Red said there wouldn’t be anything important that would have anything to do with the rest of us and I told you I was taking the afternoon off.”

“Yeah!” Another voice came over the phone, a younger female voice, “Red Hood is hanging out with me and Black Bat today!”

Batman sighed, “Spoiler. Red Hood’s unique skills are needed.”

“Well, I need them too! He’s the only one who can get the nail polish RR made for me on right!”

Batman’s forehead furrowed, “Nail polish? That’s dangerous to your identity.”

“Oh, my Gotham! I told you RR was the one to make it and I need Hood to put it on. It’s not normal polish. He’s teaching Black Bat how to put it on cause it has to be mixed and painted in this weirdly specific way so it will not chip or fracture. It’s special cause if I wash my hands with this special thing in it and my nails will be eggplant purple and then with a different soap my nails will turn blue with sparkles.”

Jason’s voice was distinctly annoyed. “And I still have half an hour to go so… you needed one of my special skills,” There was an eye roll somehow in that voice.

Batman sighed, “We need the All-Blades.”

Constantine blinked, “All-Blades are myths!”

Red Hood sighed, “I’ll be there in an hour. I need to finish Spoilers nails and get my normal gear all on before hitting the zeta tube. Don’t die before that.” With that the line cut off.

Batman sighed, pocketing his phone, “He’ll be here in about forty-five minutes then.”

Barry smiled at Clark, “Told you it would be Red Hood. Red Hood is the one with all the really weird random skills. I mean masseuse, hero wrangler, Batman imposter, alien expert, nerd, and apparently manicurist, and some sort of demon killer.”

-

Near the end of the meeting, after Red Hood had come and gone off with Constantine, Red Hood stormed back into the room. He was covered in a sort of slimy black goo and his helmet was cracked in a way that you could see one of his eyes, “FUCK YOU!”

Batman rushed to stand and get to Red Hood, “Hood are you okay?”

“What yes,” Red Hood tried to dodge as Batman started doing an injury survey on him but wasn’t very successful, “The thing didn’t even hit me! It showed up and I hit it with the All Blades and it died. Compete let down. Of course, it exploded and this goo shit got everything.”

“Then what happened to your helmet?”

“Your fucking friend dropped a CROWBAR on me! A fucking CROWBAR! I don’t even know where he found it and somehow, he hit it in a dent or something on my hood and it cracked! A CROWBAR hit my head and my helmet cracked! A CROWBAR.”

Batman grimaced as most of the room wondered what was so bad in particular about a crowbar as Red Hood screamed that last word. “Hood.”

Red Hood held up a hand to stop Batman as he obviously took several, calming breaths before continuing, “Also somehow, he must have magic’d it so that it shorted out my entire helmet in a way that I can’t use any of the manual removal mechanisms and had to tear the crack open so I could see! And it’s all your Gotham Damned Friend.”

Batman grimaced, “Constantine is not my friend, but I apologize for calling you on your day off. I know you had plans.”

Crossing his arms the mask under his hood didn’t quite hide an eye roll, “Yeah, yeah shit happens. I’m going back to Gotham where the bad guys take more than a scratch to kill,” Noticing Batman’s lips opening, Red Hood groaned, “Not kill, just you know beat the shit out of and stop, cause killing is wrong.” It was obvious he didn’t believe that, “But if a demon turned up in Gotham it wouldn’t dare to be as weak as that thing was.”

Batman nodded as he finally stepped back, finishing his injury check, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m out. I probably will need to call Red Robin to come help get me out of this so I better go before the nerd goes to bed.”

“You think he’s going to bed?”

“He will be after I get this helmet off. He’s been awake for two days and I’m not dealing with him trying to push sleep off enough to hallucinate me attacking him again.”

“Alright, I’ll be back soon. I can help with Red Robin if you haven’t corralled him into a bed yet.”

“You better old man. I’m out.” With that Red Hood stormed out of the room towards the zeta tubes, he needed a shower but he couldn’t do that until he got the faulty helmet off. Luckily Tim had been in the cave when he used the zeta tube to go to the tower so he would still be there unless for once he had gone to bed himself. If Tim had, he’d wait for either Alfred or Bruce, but he doubted he would need to.