Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason stared down at the plans in front of him, the table in front of him was literally covered in papers. He was going to get revenge on Batman, he was going to show Bruce it was a mistake to replace him. To have another Robin after he died, after Batman had failed so badly with his last Robin. The name should have died with him in that warehouse, choked to death on the smoke along with him.

Not a single shred of his original plans for his successor remained from before returning to Gotham. Several other plans had also been utterly destroyed when he truly saw his replacement, his successor. A tiny slip of a boy in his old costume, a costume that should not have been that small. No hero's suit should ever be even remotely near that small.

Sure he had already set himself up as a crime lord. Eight severed heads had seen to that, but the ninth head last night? The body he had quietly destroyed? He had sworn he wouldn’t be the one to do it. That Bruce was going to prove that he actually loved Jason and kill the clown who killed him, for him, or he wasn’t going to live to see another day.

No matter what his moth-Talia had begged him not to do.

But now Bruce would never get that chance. The chance to really prove himself to Jason, to show Jason how he actually cared about Jason, that he loved Jason as he had always claimed he did.

But Jason found, to his surprise, he wasn’t really upset that he had been the one to kill his nightmare. Maybe it was because he had done it for someone else, for someone who he was already falling in love with, who he was willing to show his love for in the blood of a monster, his own little brother.

Now the Joker could never touch his little brother, and well… that his older brother was safe from him was just a bonus, nothing more. Protecting Alfred was obviously important, and in some ways he had even done it for Bruce. Bruce would no longer have to risk losing another bird, another son, to that monster.

But he knew the real reason, the thing that had tipped the scale, had led to him taking the matter of the monster's death into his hands was Timothy Drake. The reason he had shot the Joker in the head, cut off said head, and then stabbed a crowbar through the monster's heart was a little brother who didn’t know he even existed yet, and he couldn’t be more grateful, because his killer was dead and all Tim had to do was exist to cause it.

Well… Tim probably knew about Jason, as his predecessor at least. As the dead Robin, the failure, but he would know about his alive older brother soon enough. Jason just had to be certain everything was ready first. No reason to shock the Baby Bird before Jason had everything ready for him. He didn’t want to risk not showing Tim exactly what he wanted to show him, an older brother that cared about him before anything else.

Jason had thought Bruce had replaced him with a new son, a better son than a street rat, but he quickly realized Bruce hadn’t been so quick to find a replacement for Jason. At least not as his son. Instead Jason found himself enraged that Bruce hadn’t done practically anything for Tim. Barely even did the bare bones of what was necessary for Tim’s role as Robin.

When Jason had first set up surveillance in Tim’s home, to get more personally collected information, as second hand information gathering was never enough, he hadn’t believed what he had seen at first. He had thought Tim had seen his cameras and microphones and decided to trick him. To hide how good Bruce was treating him, treating his new, better son.

Realizing Tim actually lived alone in that mausoleum of a house, with nothing but a grocery delivery set up for him by constantly absent blood parents, the only parents in Tim’s life, had been one of the worst days of his life.

Yes, his own blood father had been a bastard but he and Jason’s mom had been there, and he never doubted his mother loved him. Even if that love hadn’t been enough. 

The Drakes on the other hand only spent enough time in Gotham a year to attend important parties and celebrations, of which their own son’s birthday was not considered important enough for even a call, let alone a visit.

The day he figured out that Bruce was treating Tim like Jason’s father had treated him, had seen to the destruction of an entire safe house. Yes, Bruce replaced the anger with apathy, and the violence with training, but there should never have been even a trace of anything to compare the two men. Between the sperm donor that had been stuck with him, and the father that had chosen him.

Even Dick wasn’t innocent in how Tim was treated. It was easy enough to see that although Dick spent a lot more time and cared directly for Tim, it was always tinted with how Dick wished he had spent with Jason. Before Jason died.

Yes, Dick taught Tim more than he had ever taught Jason, but when Dick took Tim out for a treat, like ice cream, it was always to Jason’s favorite places, not Tim’s.

Hell, Tim had his own favorite treats like pocky, that were all but ignored, if not actively avoided. Tim actually had pocky delivered to a discrete postal box to hide the treats from anyone’s judgment, and he didn’t even get the types he spent so much time looking at. Instead just the most basic flavors and the cheapest items, when he bought anything at all. That discrete postal box both saw too much and too little use as Tim felt the need to hide so many things, but rarely indulged in the things he enjoyed.

Jason was already planning ways to get Tim to buy those flavors. One of which was in him not trying the treat so he could ask Tim to introduce Jason to the treat, and hopefully its many varieties. The searches he had found when investigating Tim’s computer for signs of the hoax that wasn’t Bruce’s treatment of Tim.

He had gotten several gift cards for Tim, they were a way to make sure Tim spent money on what he wanted and not only what he thought he should buy. As Tim could use the gift cards from only specific stores and not to buy only the bare necessitates, he would have no excuse not to buy anything at the candy store Jason had found that had an entire aisle dedicated just to pocky, as the money was already spent in the gift card and needed to be used or it would be wasted.

Jason shook his head, he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to go through the checklist so he’d be ready when Tim moved in with him. Which Tim didn’t know was going to happen yet, but it would be as soon as everything was checked off on his checklist to ensure Tim’s new home would supply everything he both needed and didn’t need, but deserved. When the house was set up so he could take proper care of his little brother.

If Bruce wasn’t going to take care of his successor Jason would, and show Bruce just how bad he had screwed up with practically abandoning the newest Robin. Who was probably going to be the best Robin ever, after Jason finished training him properly so that he would be safer. At least when he demanded to continue as a hero. No matter how much Jason wished he could, he knew he couldn’t stop Tim from being a hero, he could only do everything he could so that Tim would live far far longer than he had.

Chapter Text

Now on to the checklist.

Picking up a stack of papers and a marker he grinned at the checklist. The checklist that would determine if he could finally bring the Baby Bird somewhere actually safe for him to stay. Where he would not only be safe but all his needs, and wants would be met to the highest standard, no beyond, the highest standards. 

Also where he could finally start feeding Baby Bird right. The Baby Bird is far too tiny for a boy his age, who was literally easy to mistake for a younger age, let alone one running around in a cape. Hopefully he could get Timbit to wait to go on any more missions with his friends until he had put on a few pounds. So he wouldn’t fall over in a stiff breeze. He was certain that was an actual worry the boy had, luckily he had flying teammates in the Titans to catch him if he blew off something but Tim needed to gain weight before going out into Gotham, he had seen Tim wobble in the wind that was so powerful over Gotham’s rooftops during Mr. Freeze’s last blizzard.

Right, the house needed to have at least two bedrooms with attached bathrooms, check. He had had to seal up a door and punch a hole in a wall but each bedroom now had their own private bathrooms attached, both with a shower head over a bath for however Tim preferred to wash. Then an industrial shower in the area that he had created for their cape IDs for washing off anything rogues might throw at them. He would have Tim pick which room he wanted to use as Jason was already uprooting the kid from where he currently existed, and into a real home. So it would be good to give the Baby Bird as much control over other things as Jason could manage to. 

Jason had already stocked both bathrooms with Tim’s preferred items when it came to soaps, shampoos, toothpaste and such. Well hopefully as Jason had to base Tim’s preferences off what he kept in his own rooms at Drake Manor as Jason didn’t risk searching the rooms Tim had to have at the Wayne manor and his quarters in Titan’s Tower. Which check. Jason grinned as he marked that off on his, hopefully final edition, checklist.

The next requirement was a dark room slash office for Tim. He had installed a sliding wall that could divide the room in two and had sealed up the window on the one side so he would have his own personal darkroom to use or put away as he wanted. The wall would actually pivot so that Tim could make the dark room area either half the room size or only a quarter of the room size depending on what he needed for the dark room or for other uses of the room. He had surveyed the dark room in the Drake manor and gotten similar equipment and products instead of moving the items Tim already had as that room would be good if Tim needed to do a large number of prints or wanted to let something sit longer for one reason or another he could still use the room at the manor. Jason wasn’t completely sure how developing film went, he had some idea but he planned to try and get Tim to teach him about developing pictures to not only get Tim back into developing photos but to spend time with his little brother. It would be interesting to learn more.

He also set up an area for Tim to put any chemistry analyzers he wanted to as Tim seemed to have an array of personally made chemistry analyzers and equipment cobbled together from different analyzers that could be found on the market, or possibly on earth. Jason wasn’t worried about Tim not spending money on this interest at least in this as Tim seemed to invest a great amount of money into whatever experiments or analysis he was doing. Jason had glanced at the notes Tim had laying out but not investigated further as he didn’t want to intrude on Tim’s experiments and such as that would be rude. He would wait for Tim to tell him what he was studying and what he had, or would in the future figure out.

Last Jason had set up a computer station with a top of the line computer with three screens as Tim seemed to favor. Jason wasn’t sure if it was for homework, case work, or gaming that he needed that many screens but Jason made sure to provide what Tim might need in gaming consoles and such as well. Jason had a sneaking suspicion that keeping Tim from overworking was going to be an interesting challenge. Another three checks.

The next thing was his own office with room for gun maintenance and places to lock up the firearms he was going to keep in the house. Most of his armory he would be keeping in the basement dedicated to their cape IDs, but he would prefer to be easily available for Tim when he was doing homework and had questions, or wanted to talk with Jason for any reason, so he would do his more detailed maintenance in his office and not the basement. He wasn’t worried about Tim touching his guns, mostly, but better to keep things locked up for when Tim’s friends came over. He should probably double check Tim’s firearms training. No reason to risk the Baby Bird getting hurt if he encountered a gun Bruce hadn’t shown him. Bruce had barely shown Jason anything beyond how not to shoot yourself when disarming someone. The one that had taught Jason about guns, and how to use one in an emergency was Alfred. An emergency being a break in in the Manor where he couldn’t afford to fight off a robber, or kidnapper, with his Robin skills. 

Alfred had shown him all the places he had stashed guns in the manor in case something happened when Alfred wasn’t there to protect him. Bruce would never pick up a gun even to protect someone and hated knowing that there were guns in the Manor at all but Alfred had made his stance on personal protection clear when it came to anyone inside the manor. If someone came into the Wayne Manor with the intent to harm someone within they wouldn’t be walking back out if Alfred had his way. He’d have to show Tim where the guns for self defence were stashed in their house as someone getting past all his security was doubtful but was always possible. That was another check mark for those.

Then he made an indoor training area by turning half of the basement into one room with a few machines along one wall for weight lifting and the like. The other half of the basement that wasn’t the training area had a small bathroom, the washer, dryer and a small storage area. He had made inserts into the walls of the basement to hold cases for their suits and gear with the majority of the walls being storage areas now. Tim’s biometrics were already entered into the locks so that was another check mark. 

He grinned he was getting pretty far down the check list without any problems!

Which left them with a spare room in their house that he was thinking about turning it into a guest bedroom for Tim’s friends when they wanted to visit, but Jason would wait for Tim’s opinion before deciding on what to do with that room. The downstairs bathroom was across the hallway from that room which was a three quarters bath so any guest could shower without having to go into his or Tim’s rooms.

There was a small dining area next to the kitchen with a table with room for four people so he could spread out multiple dishes if he wanted and it had hidden leaves in it that could extend the table to comfortably sit ten people, or less comfortably twelve or possibly even fourteen uncomfortably. Although neither Tim or himself knew enough people to have to worry about that.

The kitchen was his baby, plenty of cupboards, two fridges and freezer combos so one could have already prepared healthy snacks and meals for the Baby Bird to grab when ever he was hungry and Jason wasn’t there to make him something fresh. Tons of counter space with a single, single cup coffee maker.

He was proud of the coffee pod dispenser. It would only dispense two coffee pods per person, per day. Which as a teenager Tim should have a max of one, especially as he was so tiny, but with Tim’s current coffee intake that wouldn’t fly. Hopefully with an easy method of keeping track of how many cups one was drinking it would help Tim realize how much he had been drinking.

There was a second dispenser containing decaffeinated coffee pods, hot chocolate pods and a variety of tea pods which was a free for all. He was hoping to get Tim hooked on the special flavors of hot chocolate for a sugar boost instead of all the caffeine in coffee. Sugar was healthier than caffeine at least, a lesser evil, but it was still better. If he was lucky Tim would get hooked on one of his tea blends.

He had also set up a reward system where Tim could earn coins he could turn in for extra cups of coffee, or a different reward, for helping out with different chores, as well as some things like keeping his room clean for five days in a row. Jason had put a cap on the number of cups at six as twelve could have negative and evil fatal effects in adults, and Tim was a twig.

He had added a note on the reward sheet with weight goals that would increase Tim’s cap and eventually daily allotment so hopefully Tim would take an active part in eating more than he currently did without someone like Jason or Alfred feeding him.

Would it be easy for Tim to get around this system? Completely, but Jason was hoping he could get Tim to understand the rules and why Jason was asking for them.

Right back to the checklist, checking off all the requirements he had just gone over and continuing down the list. 

Yes, he had food already prepared in the premade fridge freezer set up, glancing around the living room he noted the squishy armchair and couch with plenty of blankets for snuggling. The larger couch would be good for snuggling a touch starved little brother and a TV set for Tim’s game systems and movies. As well as having Netflix and Amazon Prime for his cooking shows.

His grin stretched across his face at the last check mark. Straightening out the folder full of all the decisions he had made, with reasoning behind them, with a red pen beside it, for Tim to review and edit so they could compromise on things Tim had problems with. Except coffee allotment, he was willing to make any number of compromises, but he wasn’t having Tim die from caffeine overdosing himself.

He knew Tim would appreciate the clear statement of facts on what was going on, and it would be a good way to open clear communication between themselves.

Now to abduct and rehome his little brother.

-

The hero worship his little brother had of him was unexpected but very useful as Tim readily agreed to come with him. Not even questioning anything as he was being rehomed.

He needed to keep an eye on that so Tim didn’t overly agree with things Jason wanted, after it stopped being so useful in rehousing him.

Chapter Text

Tim set his bag down on his new bed. He had collected a few things from the tower before going with Jason, one to pick up a distress beam that went to Kon in case something bad did happen, and two as he wasn’t sure how ready the place Jason was taking to him was for him to stay at. He had not expected the two story brownstone Jason had led him to, especially as it was barely on the edges of Red Hood’s territory and not the heart of it. He had chosen the green bedroom as the color was better for sleep. Which, with his struggles sleeping, it was always good to take every advantage he could, if he had dared to permanently, or semi-permanently, alter his rooms in Drake manor he would have painted them green but he hadn’t dared, not that his parents would have ever seen the change.

Also his new… housemate’s eyes were now green instead of the blue of his childhood, and with how they occasionally flared to a glowing green Tim figured the blue would be more soothing after nightmares about his revival for Jason.

If Tim was correct in the fact that the Lazarus pits, which glow an ominous green, were involved in his hero’s revival, Jason most likely had nightmares about being submerged. Blue colored walls would be more soothing after those nightmares.

Tim was rather certain it actually was an older Jason Todd that had, rehomed in Jason’s words, Tim. The man’s appearance was easily comparable and similar to when Jason had died.

The linguistic characteristics, even with the expected, if Jason was placed in the Lazarus pit, Arabic tilt to Jason’s voice, was just a deeper version of his childhood voice, as well as retaining vocabulary from his childhood.

The ease the older Jason had used traveling through Gotham was another good sign, as well as how focused he was on food and making sure they had enough to eat, without chancing wasting food.

The discrete DNA test of course was very helpful in confirming Jason Todd’s identity. He knew his new testing device would work with the DNA he had previously added to the device.

All of this proved that going with the man claiming to be his childhood hero was a good idea. Especially with the occasional flare of glowing green eyes any attempted resistance probably would have been unsuccessful and would only have led to Jason spending even more time than he currently planned to make sure Tim didn’t leave. Even mentioning going to his room to gather a few items had brought green to Jason’s eyes as Jason had insisted he already had everything Tim needed in his new home. Tim was luckily able to mention his current homework assignments as an item he needed to grab and the green had quickly faded back to teal.

Humming he put the last of his belongings away, it was taking a bit longer than he expected it to when he left the tower as it seemed Jason had packed all his belongings from Drake Manor and brought them to the brownstone. When Tim picked his room Jason had carried in all the boxes he had packed for Tim, although he did mention leaving some boxes in Tim’s office. The idea of having another room, what Jason hopefully meant by an office as it could be a corner of a room, was appealing as he had never had a room specifically for his use that wasn’t his bedroom. At Drake Manor he hadn’t dared use another room for himself, the dark room in the basement was as much as he dared, which was now half his chemistry instruments. He only dared to have the dark room as it was a gift from his parents when he mentioned at a gala, when questioned about his hobbies, that he was interested in photography. It was his favorite gift from his parents. Unpacking everything Jason had packed and brought here was a good way to signal to Jason that he was planning on staying. He would need to move a few outfits back in case his parents came home unexpectedly and he had to spend a day or two at home to avoid suspicion from them. Although he wasn’t sure they would notice if he didn’t show up at all during their stay. 

Shaking his head he considered his options for analyzing the mental effect of the pit’s after effects as it was very obvious there were some. Jason from before the pit wouldn’t have literally all but abducted him to give him a home… or at least he didn’t think he would have. He’d have to take into consideration that he only knew of Jason’s psychology from before the pit from distant viewing and reports on the Bat Computer, but there were some things he knew were facts.

Jason had hated even taking pain medication before his death and that was unlikely to have changed due to the source of hatred of drugs. So if he was to realize he was currently under the influence of a psychoactive substance it would likely have negative repercussions. Considering the situation Tim decided already having administered or having a cure or treatment already created would be best to do before bringing up the subject with Jason.

As Jason seemed to have taken Tim’s well being as one of the focuses of his inebriated state it should allow Tim to sway Jason away from any of the more excessive plans that Jason might be considering that he would never normally consider, was a definite advantage for Tim. Plans such as beheading eight people to set himself as a crime lord, although it had been very effective.

He would just need to make sure part of the open communication between them involved talking about Jason’s plans. Maybe make it a teaching moment. Jason had loved school so teaching would probably be a good lure for him to share his plans.

Now where to do the analysis of Jason’s blood? He had four main options, each with positives and negatives. Tim pulled up a mental white board for each location, he needed to get a real one, or three for his office. His choices were Gotham University's chemistry labs, the Batcave, Drake Manor, and his new office.

He immediately removed Gotham U for the unacceptable level of risk of discovery by outside parties before he considered the Batcave. It was secure with only four, well five, Jason could probably get in, individuals with access so the risk to Batman and his associates identities was null.

Unfortunately Jason’s identity would be at risk to the other Bats for as long as Jason planned to be hidden from his family. Even when they reconcile someone discovering who he was doing research on? About? Well Jason learning about his post-Lazarus Pit symptoms before Tim was ready for him to know, would be too high a risk of discovery by Jason, or the others, in the Bat Cave.

Tim nodded, he would keep private the fact that he was working on a treatment until the final stages when he would want to have Bruce review his work before giving any treatments, well maybe not all treatments as he might find something to help the symptoms but before he gave a major drug to Jason to combat the Lazarus effects he would want Bruce to review them before giving them to Jason. If time allowed of course.

He would probably use the equipment there when necessary but it would be best to avoid doing any analysis in the cave. His interest in the chemicals of the Lazarus pit would be suspect and arouse suspicion he could not afford if he wanted to keep Jason’s revival secret from Bruce until they could safely be reintroduced to each other.

His current home lacked the space and more importantly would have Jason's potential interest in his research, so anything past sample collection would be out here, or if he had his own room for an office he might be able to do analysis of blood and different chemicals might be possible as long as he had something to distract Jason with. That all depended on what analyzers he could get set up in the office. Hopefully it was a big room.

That left Drake Manor for his more sensitive to questionable work. He already had a good deal of equipment there he could use in his studies and acquiring the rest wouldn’t be overly complicated. The manor also had almost absolute security from others finding out about his research. For one no one would suspect anything to be there unless he told them, and the actual security was not quite deadly.

Unfortunately getting Jason to allow him to spend time in his old home would be a major obstacle.

Biting his lip he walked into the bathroom to empty his bathroom items considering different options. Blinking he stared at the soap, toothbrush and toothpaste before looking at the products in the shower area. Well everything here was brand new, but it was also the exact same products that he had in the Drake Manor so Jason had apparently been looking around there. Well hopefully he didn’t find the embarrassing large amount of photos he had of Jason as Robin stashed in the hidden compartment under his bed. 

Right, ways to spend time in Drake Manor to work on the analysis of Jason’s blood and possible treatments. Well, the best of which all involved Jason knowing about him visiting the manor but if Tim said it was for case work or research Jason would probably want to talk or ask about it, and possibly find ways for Tim to be able to do the excuse Tim would have at his new home and not the Drake Manor. So that could work when he had other things to work on, but for other visits he couldn’t wait for his parents return as that wouldn’t be nearly enough time to dedicate to his research.

He nearly face palmed when the obvious occurred to him, even living with Jason he needed to be at the manor for the food delivery, and to let the monthly cleaner in so that would be at least five times he would need to spend some time in Drake manor so five times a month at least to set up tests to run. Then when he could find reason to need to do research into cases would probably give him a couple more visits… It would be something at least. As long as Jason didn’t already have a plan about those. Which, if Jason had been watching the manor he might already know about the food deliveries and cleaner and have his own plans, well Tim would deal with that when he talked with Jason later.

Well if he could get Jason to let him visit the Batcave running over to change some things in his analysis wouldn’t be hard. He would need to visit the Bat Cave, or at least the manor some to avoid drawing suspicion from Bruce about his sudden absence. Bruce did order him to not go out as Robin in Gotham due to the risk Red Hood had seemed to present to Robin so he could avoid going out for now. Although hopefully he could figure out another reason to be busy at home and not biting at the bit like he would be if he wasn’t trying to figure out how to manage the situation with Jason. Putting the last thing away Tim turned to go talk with Jason.

Now how to explain the plan, minus the fact it was all being done so he could study Lazarus chemicals and how they were interacting with Jason blood, to Jason to get him to agree, Jason whose emotions were currently being altered by those Lazarus chemicals.

This was going to be fun...

-

Well it seemed Jason did have ideas for the food deliveries, he had already figured out how they were both going to go to the manor and get the food when it was delivered. Fortunately Jason didn’t have an idea for the cleaner as he hadn’t seen the cleaner come so Tim would at least get the time the cleaner was in Drake Manor to set up some experiments. Frowning, he considered what he wanted to do at the manor and what sort of time he would get there, he might need to outsource some of his experiment set ups…

Chapter Text

Tim narrowed his eyes at the teacher across from him, “You're worried about me? You're worried about me now that I have a big brother looking after me but not in the past when my parents abandoned me for months at a time with nothing but grocery orders set up?”

“Oh,” Tim grinned at the completely surprised teacher's expression, it seemed she at least hadn’t realized how bad his parents were when they were accepting his parents bribes, not to mention whatever the teachers did notice, but he went in for the kill. “And did you never realize that sometimes they forgot to do even that?” Jason seemed to think he didn’t eat just because he forgot to eat, he wasn’t going to fill him in on how Tim had learned to go without food. He didn’t want Jason drawing Bruce’s attention by killing his parents. “That I had to set it up myself, once I realized they really had forgotten? You're really worried now that I have someone making sure I eat three times a day instead of not even being concerned if I did have food in the house?”

Tim held up his hand to stop the teacher, “I’m not done. You want to know what else he does for me that my parents never bothered to do, even when they are even in Gotham? In the same house even?”

Taking a breath Tim continued, “I already mentioned feeding me, but he also makes sure I’m sleeping. He hasn’t given me a bedtime but instead a ‘no more working time’. A time where I need to stop working on my various projects I’ve immersed myself in, and he holds himself to it as well.” And wasn’t that a complete surprise. Someone having a rule and holding himself to it in a way to demonstrate a healthy habit, especially someone affected by the lazarus pits like Jason had been.  

“He holds himself to basically all the same standards, except for things like how much coffee he’s allowed to drink in a day, and he’s explained why. That him being older, and mostly just bigger, is why he’s allowed to drink more without negative effects.”

“Oh and that’s a big thing, he’s limited my coffee intake. Apparently I was drinking enough to be a serious risk to my life, so while he’s allowing me more coffee someone my age should have he has reduced the amount I used to drink by a lot. I mean I’m not drinking entire coffee carafes anymore. I’ve gone from drinking I’m unsure how much coffee mugs in the day to two. Two!” Which was actually rather horrible at first but once he realized how dependent he had gotten on coffee to be effective as Red Robin he had stopped trying to sneak more coffee, well as often as he had in the beginning. 

He crossed his arms scowling, even if it was good for him the limit sucked, “I mean I can earn a couple more if I assist with chores. One of my chores is just keeping my room clean, if I manage that for five days in a row I get a coin I can turn in for an extra cup. Which I have a max even then, and a max of how many times I can over indulge in a week!”

He rolled his eyes as she tried to break in, “You're worried about that hug from when he picked me up last week aren’t you? He asks every time we’ve been apart for a time for a hug. When I say no he doesn’t push it or act overly hurt to try and guilt me into it. Then he gives shoulder hugs, that while tight, he releases as soon as I so much as twitch.”

“He’s given me an entire one hug in his time watching over me. That was the more restrictive grab hug without asking and he apologized afterwards. It was after I fell on the training mats in the basement and hit my head pretty hard. He gave me the most professional concussion checks I have ever had. When he was certain I was fine he hugged me like that because he had been so worried.”

He rolled his eyes at the teacher, as she started to try to break in again, “Oh and touch. He always makes himself available for touch, for me to hug him, to cuddle into his side watching TV or when he’s reading on the couch. I’m touch starved, like so touch starved,” Which had actually been a huge surprise to him. Like just more human contact was doing great things for his mental health, “I never realized and now I can get positive touch? I’m all over that.”

Tim smiled, “One of my favorite things now is when he puts his arm around my shoulder and tugs me into his side and reads to me. I’m pretty sure he looked into my English class syllabus for the year because a bunch of the books have been from it, but he also read Frankenstein when he learned I’m into Sci-fi as, according to him, any real sci-fi fan should read, or listen, to the origin of the genre.”

“There’s another thing, he helps me with my homework. Mostly in my English class as I’ve been basically scraping through that, but if I’m struggling with anything, or pretend I am, he dedicates one hundred percent of his attention to me to make sure I understand, and that I’m doing my homework in the first place. You probably noticed I’ve actually started turning in assignments that I’ve paid attention to versus throwing out something so I could do something else.” She blinked, seeming to realize that the better homework had started at the same time that he started getting picked up from school by Jason.

“Then after homework and before dinner, and for a couple hours on the weekend he insists I spend time on my hobbies, not just focusing on things like Drake Industries. Which he’ll listen to me talking about but he’s insistent I also talk about my hobbies and such.” The amount of interest that Jason was investing into Tim’s interests, things that did him no good as Red Hood, was startling to Tim. No one had really wanted to know about his hobbies beyond what they were. Hell he wasn’t sure if the Bats even knew he developed his own film. Not that he had really had time before Jason started insisting on him spending time on his hobbies.

Tim hummed for a moment thinking, but not long enough to be interrupted. “I think he’s actually trying to find a photography group for me to join as he says I need to socialize, in person, more. He tried to get me to join a club or a sport here but quickly folded when I explained why I wasn’t interested in anything here.”

Snorting, he rolled his eyes, “I’m pretty sure if he doesn’t find a group soon he’ll found one so I’ll spend time indulging in my favorite hobby and spending time with people with similar interests.” Along with being able to decide when it meets to fit around his responsibilities as Robin, and his social life as Robin as Jason was invested in Tim spending time with his Titan friends. Even if he was worried about Tim going on missions. Tim barely hid an eye roll, his weight wasn’t so low as to get knocked over in a stiff breeze as Jason seemed sure to happen.

Tim snorted, carefully lying to excuse any injuries. Future planning for when Jason let him back in the field, marks or injuries that he couldn’t hide with make-up, “He tried to get me to join a karate or some other martial arts studio when I expressed interest in learning some of the fighting techniques he knows, but the idea of strangers being that close to me, touching me?” Tim shuddered, “I trust Jason to back off if I tell him to. I actually tested him once. He told me if I ever said stop that he would stop, and when I said it that time, he literally back-peddled until he ran into the wall.”

He smiled, “He asked what was wrong and when I admitted I was just testing him he was proud of me. He said that it was always good to make sure people would follow through on such promises. Afterwards he made my favorite meal, and dessert. I could tell he meant it when he said he was proud of me, no one has ever meant it before.” Bruce hadn’t said it at least. Tim thinks Bruce was proud of some of his work as Robin but he wasn’t sure. 

Tim blinked back tears before continuing, “I’m sure you're worried he might be touching me or sexually assaulting me, but quite frankly I’m more worried about me hitting one of his triggers.” Tim tried not to think about what they might be from, “Both bedrooms have locks, good locks with really long screws, and we each have our own personal bathrooms which the only entrance is from our bedroom. All my dressers and the drawers in my rooms can be locked. The only time he enters my room when I’m not home is on Mondays and Thursday to clean and retrieve laundry and the like.”

Tim snorted thinking about Jason in cleaning mode, it might surpass even Alfred’s goals. Maybe it's another obsessive tendency from the pit? “He’s a bit obsessed with the house being clean so he actually scrubs the bathroom down once a week and on Thursday he vacuums the entire house. I do get in trouble if he finds dishes in my room. I’m allowed to bring stuff into my bedroom but I have to bring the dishes back to the kitchen, and I have to do it the same day.”

“Now,” Tim picked up his backpack, “Jason, my big brother, must be getting worried not seeing me coming out of the door so I will be going now. Oh and,” Tim grinned with far too many teeth back at the teacher as he reached the door, “Jason has plenty of evidence into how this school has aided and abetted my parents abusing me. You make a big deal out of this because you're worried now that I’m actually being cared for, we’ll destroy this entire school.”

With that he turned and headed towards the exit of the school, now should he tell Jason about this or not? With the Lazarus influence it made deciding what possibly emotionally volatile information to share difficult.

Luckily his research was going well, another month at the most until he had something to at least start to treat the symptoms, if not work on breaking down some of the chemicals involved in the Lazarus contamination.

Chapter Text

Tim glanced around the area he had slid into at school, checking that there weren’t any surveillance cameras aimed towards where he was hiding. He suspected this was an area that people sneaked into to have more, mature relations in, so he made sure not to get too close to any walls. He was pretty sure Jason wasn’t actively surveying him, that was more his thing. At the very least he knew Jason was keeping less of an eye on Tim at school than Tim was on Jason during his patrols. He wasn’t sure if Jason had caught on to the fact that Tim had hacked into his helmet so he could see what Jason was doing when he was out or not. He was betting on no as Jason hadn’t changed his behavior during patrols or muting his hacked channel when he was more vicious than Jason probably wanted Tim to see. It would give Tim an honest way to monitor Jason’s levels of violence once he had started Jason on treatments. Jason did have other plans to watch out for Tim, but Tim wouldn’t be surprised if Jason had hacked the surveillance cameras and occasionally used them to check on him if Jason got worried for some reason. Jason was slightly paranoid about Tim’s health and wellbeing. Tim wasn’t sure how much was Jason and how much was the effects of the lazarus pit but he found himself hoping it wasn’t too much the effects of the lazarus pit.

If Tim was, occasionally, using surveillance cameras to check on Red Hood, even hacking into Jason’s helmet it would make sense that Jason was doing something similar to him. Tim only suspected that Jason wasn’t surveilling too much at school because Jason didn’t seem to know things that happened at school that he could have if he was surveilling Tim. Tim suspected that was mostly due to not wanting to chance getting caught and catching anyone's attention.

But Tim knew that Jason was respecting his call history privacy, Tim would know if anyone had hacked his phone as he had Bat level of encryption and firewalls. Which, with his links to Drake Industries, would hopefully not be too weird to see if anyone did attempt to hack his phone to get to Drake Industry information. Jason had agreed to not peek into Tim’s phone when Tim promised to tell Jason if Bruce called. So as long as he didn’t see Tim talking on his phone Jason wouldn’t be tempted to ask Tim about the call when he worked to make small talk during dinner. So he was hiding making this call just in case Jason checked in on him just as he was making this call. That would just be his luck.

Secure in the knowledge that no new security cameras had been installed, he clicked his most often dialed number.

Waiting as the phone rang he bounced his knee until the answering machine picked up. Right well it would have been nice to talk to Dick directly but leaving a message meant Dick didn’t need to write anything down as he could just replay the message, and Dick couldn’t ask any awkward questions.

“Uh, hi Dick. Um. Sorry About Ferret Escapes,” There had to be a better code phrase for saying you were ‘safe.’

Tim chuckled, “I’m actually more than that now than I’ve been in… well forever maybe?” He wasn’t even sure the nannies his parents had to have hired to take care of him had put as much work into caring for him then Jason did now, “I’ve ended up in a bit of a weird situation and I need you to trust me to handle this. When my plans succeed, everyone is going to be happy and we’ll all be better off.”

Tim rubbed his forehead knowing this was going to be a hard sell, “I need you not to drop by on my civilian ID, I know you were planning on coming by soon but I need you to wait a little bit. In a week or two we can probably set up something to meet up in our civilian IDs but I’m not going to be going out for a while as Robin. At least in Gotham. I will be doing some things with the Titans, mostly hanging out but not only does B not want me going out with Red Hood still at large but I have other reasons too. I’m actually not too concerned about Red Hood but I can’t explain why right now. It’s a bit complicated. I’m not injured, the situation is just highly sensitive right now, and I’m already rocking the boat as far as I think I can right now.”

“Okay,” Tim sighed, “So the main reason I’m calling, well not that the not freaking out about me not being out is unimportant but I do need your help. I’m going to be running some chemistry tests that I’ll need you to check in on as I’m not staying at Drake Manor right now. I’m not at Wayne manor either so I can’t sneak over. I’m actually staying closer to school now to get a shorter commute,” And to stay with Jason, not that Tim was going to risk saying that right now, “So I need you to collect results, and start new analyses for me.” Right now to throw more suspicion off where he was staying, or at least reasons for Dick to be concerned. “I’m currently staying somewhere where someone is making sure I eat three meals a day, sleeping and,” There was a pout in his voice now, “They're limiting my coffee intake.” There Dick would assume he was staying somewhere with like a housekeeper or someone like Alfred, but less awesome, now so he would leave Tim’s location alone for now.

Tim knew Dick would hate the not answer, but he was hoping the signs that he was actually being cared for would get Dick to stay back for now at least. He wished he could ask for help getting the research on the Lazarus pits but there was no way Dick would stay back then.

Getting that information was going to be harder. Maybe he could grab all the League of Assassins information and a few other organizations and tell Bruce he wanted to be prepared for the larger dangers he might meet some day? Make some emergency plans like Brucce had recently mentioned that he had and were important to have.

Actually that would be perfect. Getting more information on the LOA beyond the pits wouldn’t be bad and researching emergency plans could explain why I haven’t been trying to argue with Bruce about going patrolling. Oh shit he was still on the phone.

“So yeah, that’s it for now. I have some things I need you to do already but that’s the gist of the situation, oh don’t run or even bring any of my samples into the cave. That’s just asking for everything to explode horribly.” Tim could just imagine how horrible it would be if Bruce did run a DNA test on the samples Tim would be working with.

“Now this is what I need you to do…”

He was extremely thankful for Dick’s outrageously long messages allowances, apparently speedsters would only leave normal speed messages if they knew they had a lot of time to go over the normal time a phone message would normally allow. Tim finished everything up with, “Happy Alien Platinum Platypus to You.”

Hanging up Tim swore he’d figure out better code phrases but with the double ‘Happy’ hopefully Dick would understand that he was actually very happy right now. I mean how often does one’s hero come back from the dead and decide to basically adopt you? He was thrilled even with the Lazarus pit problem.

Chapter Text

My Dear Grandson,

I can not tell you how much joy I feel knowing you have returned to Gotham. I understand you have your disagreements with your father but I hope to see you with your siblings at the manor in the near future.

Your room is still refreshed but I am unsure if you will wish to remain in that room now. Changing the bed would be easy enough to accomplish, as well as upgrading the other furniture to fit your increased stature. A stature I never thought I would get to see. I have found several pieces you may wish to use now.

If the idea of using that room is unpleasant or undesirable I have some other rooms in the family wing for you to choose from. We could then possibly turn your childhood bedroom into an office for you.

Plans have been drawn up for security for the office you will have at the manor so you have a place that is secure to perform your business from. This will be essential for times you are not able to leave my care due to injury, illness, or any other situation. I more than understand that you will need somewhere secure to do your business where your father will not be able to observe or interfere with your work.

When I visit tomorrow I will be updating your medical file in my personal papers so as to be prepared in case you sustain an injury requiring a return to my care before you plan to return to your home on your own time.

I will be bringing your favorite apple pie to accompany the meal we will prepare together as we often did in the past. Something I have quite missed. If you have the ingredients I was thinking we could make a version of Master Timothy’s favorite dish, roast duck with blackberry orange sauce. The sauce I have found works quite well with your preference for chicken over duck.

Perhaps with duchess potatoes, pesto zucchini orzo and Master Richard’s roasted sweet potatoes with Master Timothy’s worrying love of toasted meringue on top. We will need to ensure he eats some of the potatoes with the meringue.

I will arrive at two pm at your newest residence tomorrow. I greatly look forward to seeing you once again.

Sincerely,

Alfred Pennysworth

Chapter Text

Jason sighed, shutting the door behind his grandfather. Today had been, a bit too much for him.

Walking into the all but sparkling kitchen he set a pod of hot chocolate to be made. He pulled up his weekly grocery list and added marshmallows.

He snorted. Alfred has been right, Tim really liked ‘toasted meringue.’ He had missed Alfred’s reworking of things to be more proper or less informal. Getting Tim to eat any of the sweet potatoes with the load of marshmallow on his plate had been surprisingly difficult. Tim was in general very good about eating everything he served, and he even liked sweet potatoes, he just seemed to be obsessed with marshmallows.

Not the best source of sugar for a growing teen but with all the sparring practice with him and Tim’s time with the Titans he wasn’t worried about a bit of artificial sugar in Tim’s diet. Maybe if he said mini-marshmallows were only for hot chocolate he could get Tim to sway even further away from drinking so much coffee. Tim had been better about the restriction on coffee than when Jason had first rehomed him but Tim’s coffee uptick had been, unfortunately, increasing and reducing Tim’s coffee intake by even just a cup or two a day would be good for Tim’s health. As Tim’s main, well really only demand now that Tim was comfortable enough to make demands, had been to revoke the coffee limit Jason had to let it go, well mostly. He had demanded that Tim remain under the potentially lethal level of caffeine intake. They were also sticking to pods to at least make Tim more aware of his coffee intake. It had helped but not enough for Jason’s preference.

Smiling, he looked at the weight goals for increased allowance of coffee intake that Tim had surpassed, there were more to go, and Tim would never reach a more average size for his age but Tim’s weight was healthier now. His little brother would be on the smaller side and slim but he wasn’t as twitchy about Tim going off with his Titan friends now. A sharp wind would be much less dangerous for Tim now. Tim’s fighting skills had also increased as Tim flourished under actual continued training and instruction. Jason could tell Bruce hadn’t been giving Tim as much instruction as he should have been in one-on-one spars and not just let fighting thugs and the like serve for training.

Taking the full cup of hot chocolate he wandered into the living room not bothering to turn on the light. His night vision was more than enough to avoid the furniture. Tim was already in bed so he had some time to himself to freak out.

So Alfred knew he was back… and he hadn’t told Bruce.

Alfred said he was impressed by all that Jason had done to take care of Tim. That Jason was doing a good job as an older brother to Tim and taking care of the Baby Bird.

Alfred said he was proud of the man Jason had become.

Jason wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

Alfred wasn’t mad at him. Jason hadn’t gone home when he’d been revived, he’d hid that he had come back and even eventually he was back in Gotham and his grandfather just… wasn’t mad.

Alfred knew what Jason was doing in Gotham and he sort of approved, and what he didn’t approve of wasn’t what he was doing but his lack of firm long term plans. Which was something Jason should not have needed the reminder to have. Jason wasn’t sure why he hadn’t realized he needed to make new plans for what he wanted to accomplish as Red Hood, maybe he had been a little too focused on Tim?

Well most of his plans had fallen apart after he’d killed Joker. Jason had been focusing short term on solidifying his position as a crime lord and avoiding Batman since then but he needed to start making real plans. To figure out what his goals were now. Other than taking care of Tim, and Crime Alley.

Maybe Tim would have some ideas? He seemed really interested in what Jason was doing…

Chapter Text

Dick tapped his fingers on the table as he listened to Tim’s recorded voice drone out his number and to leave a message after the beep, grateful when he could finally start leaving a message, “Hey Tim, I was really happy to get the last message you left but, uh, I know you wanted to wait a little until meeting up in person still… but I think we need to move that up.” Dick chuckled awkwardly, “Like to today, like immediately. I, I don’t think I can keep this all quiet anymore, without more of an explanation.” 

Glancing to the side Dick watched as an unnamed red-tinted chemical dripped from some sort of chemistry wiggly tube thing, into another thing that heated whatever the chemical was up and then dropped the heated bits into a bowl that Tim had told him to take and divide between several different analyzers, which the read outs would go straight to Tim’s email so Tim could analyze everything, and figure out what ever he was trying to figure out with all of this.

“I know you said we’d all be really happy once you figured whatever this is out but uh,” Dick watched as the liquid which started as almost black red color turned a weird blue in the middle container before boiling turned into, in the end, a very worrying green color. A familiar glowing green color that Tim should not be anywhere near.

“I’m just, uh, I’m starting to get a little concerned about what I’m seeing. In your experiments. I know you recently got access to certain files… about a certain league… from the bat computer and I’m really worried about the color I’m seeing here.”

Dick reared back pausing as he watched as the green liquid started to move on its own, as if it was in a pool with its own currents, something that in such a small volume should not be happening. 

“Alright, I’m like really worried. This looks very, very familiar and not in a good way. I really want an explanation before I do more than what I agreed to do today. I mean I’m going to go pull on all the safety equipment that you said I should use and then some before I-”

Dick glared at the phone as it cut off his message, Tim’s approach to dealing with speedster messages was to only give them a minute to talk before the message ended, so he was forced to dial the number again, get through the ringing, the message and the beep before he could continue, “Before I do anything with what I’m seeing here.”

Dick grimaced looking closer at the now empty top swirly tube thing, “Also the fact that the stuff that I poured into the top looks and smells like blood is very stress inducing. Blood turning into that color is more than worrying. You didn’t get mixed up in that League right? Right? I need to know you’re okay Tim and all of this is getting very worrying. Especially as you don’t want me to bring B into this.”

Frowning at the apparatus he watched as the final bit of blue boiled off, “I’m just waiting for the last of the neon green liquid, which is acting a lot like certain notes B has about certain pools in that Leagues locations. Like really acting like it. To finish dropping into the last bowl and then I will set up all your machines and tests.”

Walking towards the so far unused safety equipment, by Dick at least, Dick finished off his message, “Call me Tim. If I don’t get a message in.” Dick glared at his phone as the message cut off again. Well Tim would get the message. Now to put what looked like blood turned into Lazarus Pit water into all of Tim’s beeping machines before all but fleeing the lab area. That was one liquid he never wanted to have to deal with again… which if that was Lazarus water he probably would have to for… whatever caused Tim’s experiments with Lazarus Pit Water was sure to be worrying.

Chapter Text

Dick smiled as he shoved another shirt into a bag, phone headset on so he could talk and pack, “Wally! The greatest thing happened today! You know how I texted you worried about Tim living with some adult creep? Turns out the other person isn’t an adult but an extremely fit eighteen… wait.”

Pausing in his packing Dick attempted to do some mental math, “He would be like seventeen and a half if you don’t count the time he was dead but if he was dead for five months and twenty-eight days does that mean he’s basically seventeen?”

Pausing at the voice on the other side of the phone he winced, “Oh right, the good news! Little Wing, Jason is no longer dead! He apparently came back to life and uh, crawled his way out of his grave five months and twenty-eight days after his death according to Tim.”

Dick shuddered, “Which considering Tim managed to get saliva and multiple vials of blood from Jason without alerting Jason I’m going to go with Tim’s deduction. He ran DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests on Jason while Jason was ‘Rehousing’,” Dick did the air quotes even though no one could see him, “Tim.”

Going back to packing Dick nodded along to what Wally was saying, “Yeah apparently Tim’s parents aren’t really parenting? I mean Tim apparently was living alone with only a food delivery and a weekly cleaning crew that came in when he was in school so Jason bought a house with a bedroom and… office slash dark room, just for Tim. He also installed everything for Tim to have a personal dark room for his photography.”

Dick rolled his shoulder after managing to zip the overly full bag closed. “He, Jason, has his own room and office as well and they used to have a guest room but I’m moving in since they should have an actual adult in the house even if Jason looks like he’s at least twenty. He’s literally a brick house Wally. The little shit not only grew taller than me but he also looks like he could bench press Batman.”

Glaring at the far wall Dick pulled out another bag, as Wally continued to talk, “I so do count as an adult! I’m twenty-one with a job and, well I used to have my own apartment but just ‘cause I can’t cook… or clean, doesn’t mean I’m not an adult! Really I’m more of an adult than B since I don’t need Alfred to survive.”

Dick narrowed his eyes looking over his room, trying to find anything he missed that he needed right away. “Anyways Tim says Jason cooks so I don’t need to worry about that. I’ll just be there as adult supervision… or something. Tim’s telling Jason right now that I’m coming to live with them.”

He huffed at the doubt in Wally’s voice, “Of course Jason’s going to let me move in! I’m not pulling the ‘I’ll tell B you're alive’ thing but if someone asks Tim who he’s living with Jason can’t say ‘me’ without potentially revealing himself to Bruce.”

Dick winced, “Also Jason was exposed to the Lazarus pits so I can point out Tim will need someone if Jason has an episode. Maybe I’ll let Tim make that point as he’s got a better idea of what sort of control Jason has over the Lazarus pit’s effects. Tim seems to be doing something about Jason’s Lazarus symptoms so I’m going to take my cues from him on that.”

Zipping the second bag of things he would need in the near future he smiled. He will have to pack the rest up another day, probably donate his furniture as Jason fully outfitted the house he had bought already, “Lazarus pits? Oh, they’re these pools of evil goo that can heal the near dead and cause madness. Tim’s working on creating a treatment and eventual cure for Jason.”

Dick rolled his eyes at Wally’s worry, “Tim has it covered. He’s like a week, maybe, away from at least a partial cure… treatment? Well, something the little genius. Although I generally avoid thinking about just how smart he is because it gives me nightmares about evil Tim ruling the world. But anyways I need to go hug both of my brothers for like, a couple hours, so Tah!”

Hanging up on his sputtering friend he grabbed the bags and headed out. Now that the shock had worn off, he was more than ready to see his Little Wing for real.

Chapter Text

Bruce sat down at the Batcomputer. He just needed to go through the “every few nights” checklist and he’d head to bed as he promised Alfred. He’d go through important parts, not as important, and then the really important part and then bed that way he would give the really important things the proper amount of attention.

Loading up the file he started on the first bullet point.

Right, the Joker. Dead. Finally dead like he should have been for years. The one person that had made him doubt his conviction to never kill.

Body completely destroyed. He’d personally watched the bastard's body burn to ashes before having them ground to dust before having Clark dump that into a volcano on a barren planet. There was no way he was coming back. He might not be able to break his rules for Joker but he could do what he needed to make sure the bastard would never be a problem again, a risk, a danger to his family.

He didn’t bite his lip, looking at the next bullet. Killer unknown. Even Barbara hadn’t been able to find video on the Joker’s killer or of his death. Whoever it was, was a possible threat. They probably had a personal connection, a dead loved one or something similar from the way the murder had been carried out. The death had been extremely violent, there was an obvious personal connection of some type between the killer and Joker with the sheer amount of overkill.

He chuckled humorlessly thinking about the overkill; they also could just have wanted to really make sure Joker stayed dead. Not many people could survive or be brought back from being shot through the head and heart, beheaded, and then impaled with a crowbar. The crowbar intrigued him on why someone would choose to use a crowbar versus the blade that had rendered Joker’s head from his body. There must be a personal connection. Maybe the Joker had beat someone else’s baby to death too?

Bruce closed his eyes and took a breath. If he started spiraling about Jason this early on he’d never finish. Right. So, he needed to discover the identity of whoever killed the Joker and then… send them a fruit basket? He’d ask Alfred, he’d know if a fruit basket had any societal hidden messages. Unless they needed to be taken down for some reason Bruce wasn’t planning on doing anything beyond sending a thank you. Not that any of his children, and children-adjacent would believe him, but if this turned out to be just someone pushed too far, he wasn’t going to do anything. Well maybe make sure they agreed to never break into Arkham again. Joker he could understand, but he couldn’t let whoever it was go on a killing spree of the rogues.

Pamela was with Harley, mostly likely celebrating but if Harley did end up reacting badly and had a relapse of some kind Pamela would be there to help Harley through it. He was certain Harley wasn’t the killer, not only had he verified her alibi she didn’t have the mental wherewithal to kill the Joker in such an almost clinical series of steps in ensuring Joker's death. 

A link to Red Hood was highly probable, but Red Hood wasn’t the killer. Ever since the death of Joker Red Hood has had a serious behavior change. He was less violent, and less murderous, but he was on camera at the time of death so Red Hood was not a suspect. The fact that Red Hood was an old moniker of the Joker, it had been obvious that there was some link but it definitely seems like the relationship between the two, if there was one at all, had been antagonistic on Red Hood’s side. Perhaps Red Hood had had plans involving the Joker but with the Joker’s death he now seemed to be focusing on the alley.

Shaking his head he reminded himself he would return to Red Hood when he got to that part of the checklist.

Next; the other rogues’ reactions to Joker’s death. Shock and fear seemed to be wearing off but all were still contained. No escape attempts from Arkaham had been attempted in the last seventeen days.

Then onto the other criminals. No active serial killers. No serial rapists. Gang activity is starting to pick up. Black Mask is aggravated by Red Hood. Only change in behavior is increased violence and threats towards Red Hood. No other abnormal criminal behavior. Joker’s death didn’t seem to be having an effect now that the parties were well past done and life had returned to normal, or as normal as it could be without the threat of Joker escaping.

Closing the first file he clicked open the next. Red Hood’s file.

Chapter Text

The best picture they had of Red Hood flashed up onto one of the side screens of Bat Computer as on the opposite screen, on the other side of the main screen now showed the every few nights review list.

Identity still unknown. Likely a Gotham native due to familiarity with Gotham. Speech patterns similar to some Crime Alley residents.

Bruce closed his eyes trying to push away the painful reminder of the first time he sat down to analyze Red Hood’s speech patterns. It had been so easy to match them to a former Crime Alley resident. He could practically hear Jason speaking along to what Red Hood said. Only the scattering of different languages and a few oddly familiar Arabic phrases separated the two really. The Crime Alley accents seemed to be rather more consistent than he thought they were, maybe it was something about a specific region in Crime Alley they were from? Jason had a very strong accent like Red Hood’s, just a lot higher than the deep octave Red Hood had. An octave that Jason never grew old enough to develop, his voice forever stuck in that of a child.

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, he needed to focus on Red Hood, to get through this material about Red Hood before moving on to thinking about family. The most important thing to think about for all the hardest it was to deal with.

So Red Hood’s age was also unknown, at least mid-twenties but not more than late thirties. Most likely Red Hood was in his mid twenties based on his skill level, although normally he would normally put Red Hood as older than that, but for other reasons he didn’t think Hood was his own age.

He looked at the next line in the character summary of Red Hood. He was listed as a man which although Bruce didn’t have proof of the fact it was a safe assumption to make. It was possible a woman who was using the voice modulator and some extremely effective binding to appear to be a man but it was extremely unlikely in this case. 

Mostly because he didn’t think Red Hood would bother to hide the fact if they were a woman. Their psychological profile would have them shoving it into his enemies faces, many of which didn’t properly respect the danger a woman could pose, trying to make those who saw women as weaker admit that they were the weaker party. In fact he expected Red Hood had been smaller as a child as he did have some of that aura of ‘don’t underestimate me’ that Jason had always had.

Race unknown, no theories on that, Crime Alley had too many races living there to make even a guess. The way Red Hood dressed prevented even a glimpse of skin color so he could make no theories on that. The scattering of languages he knew wasn’t a clue as that could be from the many nationalities that resided in Crime Alley or from wherever Red Hood had traveled when he was undergoing his vigorous training. Unlike Bruce he seemed to have trained with multiple different people versus just going to one place, the League in Bruce’s case, to train. Although multiple trainers in one location was possible, it was unlikely that all his trainers were at one location.

Next Red Hood’s skill level overall was extremely high. In combat Bruce couldn’t pinpoint a weakness. His hand-to-hand skills mark him as a brawler type but well rounded with other skills and tactics. He doesn’t just go in, he thinks before attacking. Definite eastern tendencies in his skills. Low probability of a link to the League of Assassins. His skill set was too well rounded for them to allow an operative like Red Hood go. Along with that the League of Assassins generally frowned on a brawling style as a base for hand-to-hand skills in their operatives. They preferred more practiced, learned forms that had a more predictable back and forth than something you might see in a street brawl. Although Red Hood did mix in some moves for a large variety of different forms he was definitely a brawler at his base. 

He snorted if Red Hood had been with the League of Assassins at any point they would have probably had as much trouble trying to teach him a different fighting style to rely on, and with apparently lack of success that he had with Jason when trying to teach him to fight. Red Hood’s size meant that he could pull it off whereas Jason had never had the chance to grow into a body that would have fit his preferred fighting tactics.

Bruce looked at the most important bullet under that skill set. Probable outcomes in a full-out fight between him and Red Hood, in a one on one fight without weapons. There was a twenty-two percent chance of him winning, twenty-one percent Red Hood would win and a fifty-seven percent chance of them taking each other out enough that they would both have to flee. Even Dick who had known him for years, trained with him for those years, would not give Bruce as much of a challenge as Red Hood would.

Right skills with weapons. Firearms high. Traditional weapons were most likely very high, he had only seen Red Hood using a pipe once but by how Red Hood held it, well he would do his best not to engage in melee combat if Red Hood had a sword. Explosives, Bruce couldn’t hold back a groan. High.

Jason would have been horribly in love with Red Hood’s expertise and use of explosives. Bruce had seen him eyeing the few he had had back then for emergency situations with a much too interested eye on many occasions. He’d been planning to bring Jason somewhere he could blow some things up, safely, as a reward the next excuse he got. Maybe it would have helped heal the divide that developed between Jason and himself.

Bruce shook his head frowning at the screen. Red Hood’s skills with guns were Deathstroke level, possibly even having been trained by Deathstroke or had at least studied Deathstroke’s tactics. Bruce was rather certain that the only reason Red Hood hadn’t hit him with a bullet was because Red Hood hadn’t wanted to hit him.

It had surprised him when he looked back on all the videos of their fights. For all that Red Hood seemed to go all out on him, especially his verbal taunts that somehow always got under his skin, Red Hood did not appear to want to physically permanently harm him. He seemed as giddy as Jason had been to drive Bruce up the wall with taunts, jokes, and threats but not to physically cause him damage beyond those things that a normal spar would result in.

Recently the only times Red Hood had engaged in a fight was when Batman got too close to the territory Red Hood had claimed. Even when they were fighting, Red Hood did not aim his gun at any fatal or permanently disabling places on Batman’s body. To the point that he was obviously putting effort into not risking shooting Batman critically.

On one occasion Bruce had been chasing down a thief and ended up following him into Red Hood’s territory unknowingly, and Red Hood’s response had been to wait for Bruce to tie up the robber before telling Bruce to beat it. And to take his trash with him. Red Hood was no longer overly antagonistic of Batman. Only engaging in fighting when Bruce attempted to interfere with his business or territory.

Bruce knew he was spending more time on Red Hood than he meant to, but something just bothered him about Red Hood and he had no idea why and he just wanted to know why Red Hood had him remembering an almost forgotten laugh.

Right, moving on to trying to determine Red Hood’s goals and revenue. Initial plan seemed to be to gain control power of the area known as Crime Alley. Which he has succeeded at and he currently does not look to be trying to expand his territory.

Crimes seem to be centered into different sections each run by a different lieutenant. Sections are drugs, weapons, prostitution, and well it wasn’t a crime but Red Hood specially had a lieutenant for caring for the alley. Something that completely bewildered Bruce to see in a Crime Lord.

Chapter Text

Bruce took a moment to breathe before coming back to the file to start reviewing Red Hood's activities. He needed to take things one at a time so he would start with the drugs. Those were typically where most gangs made the most transactions so that would have the most activity.

Red Hood had a strict code on underage drug use and cutting drugs. They basically summarized into no. Teenagers could acquire marijuana but that was it for drugs for anyone under the age of eighteen, there was also a limit of how many joints they could get a week. Also drug dealers were never anywhere close to schools so the teenagers that did get marijuana were actively seeking the sellers, they weren’t being recruited in the way some dealers did in other parts of the city. Red Hood only had to drop two bodies after the ultimatum about avoiding schools for everyone to start following it.

He might hate Red Hood’s methods, but he couldn’t deny that they were effective. No matter how much he wanted to find something in Red Hood’s more lethal or dangerous methods that was flawed he couldn’t. Red Hood wielded his lethality in a systematic, precise manner that ended up with people doing exactly what he wanted. He seemed to even avoid lethal methods when dealing with his illegal activities. It wasn’t until you got to his more vigilantly like activities that Red Hood really kept up with his lethal reputation, but again in a controlled manner, unless a child was at risk. As soon as a child was in danger Red Hood’s cool manner seemed to vanish. It was obvious, to him at least, that children were Red Hood’s weakness but it wasn’t a weakness he could use. Or rather, would use.

Bruce shook his head, he was getting side tracked, again. He needed to focus on this so he could get to his family. So, Red Hood’s drug sources.

Red Hood’s marijuana source was from somewhere in the city based on how quickly he had acquired product after tossing all of the old products his people had been selling. He literally destroyed hundreds of thousands dollars-worth of drugs, marijuana, and other things, to ensure his products were untampered. Laced drugs had always pissed Jason off, specifically that dealers were using dangerous things to cut their drugs which could kill their buyers. From what he had overheard Red Hood had similar reasoning. Well he didn’t think Red Hood was overly mad about lacing drugs, but he seemed to care about keeping anything potentially lethal away from the people buying the drugs, something about not killing their buyers. The one bug he had managed to place that Red Hood hadn’t instantly found had given him insight into that at least but not much else. The bug had only lasted the one night so he hadn’t gotten as much information as he would like to have.

Bruce could not figure out where Red Hood was getting his marijuana product from. Red Hood did not have any growers working for him that Bruce could find, or links to places where it could be grown. Especially with the amount of product he was already moving, was moving almost the same day he took over, he started moving marijuana that was fresh. Which he somehow knew if someone tried to lace or cut it with something. Something Bruce had no clue how Red Hood was able to manage. It was like he had some way to sense what was in the plants…

Unless Dr. Ivy was supplying him. Pamela was capable of growing and producing the amount of product Red Hood needed but she had in the past always been unwilling to work with crime lords. He wasn’t even sure her link to the plants she grew would even alert her if they were being tampered with. She surely couldn’t sense when something was being mixed with the leaves when it was other leaves? But with Red Hood’s code of not lacing products Dr. Ivy might be willing to supply him. She had refused sellers in the past that guarantee her products wouldn’t be sold clean, but how could they make sure the packages were sold still sealed?

Stopping, he put a note into his “to deal with tomorrow” file about following that potential lead before going back to the Red Hood review.

Red Hood was providing needle exchanging services. He was literally taking in used needles and giving out new ones for no apparent cost. Something that was costing Red Hood money even if he was sterilizing the used needles so they could be reused without risk of infection from a dirty needle, or the danger of using a needle already used by another person.

Any time Wayne charities tried offering needle disposing boxes they had been ignored at best and robbed from at worst. No one seemed to be bothering the exchange. Although that could be due to the crime lord running them.

The needle exchanges also served as clinics for overdoses and sources of information and even programs to help get addicts clean, all of which was cross purpose for a crime lord. A good portion of what he was earning from his drug sales was going into helping drug addicts and possibly removing them as clients for drug sales. Red Hood seemed to literally be trying to put himself out of business when it came to drugs.

Fatal overdoses in residents of crime alley were down over sixty percent, overdoses, fatal and non-fatal, in people under the age of sixteen had gone from a worrying number to non-existent. He wasn’t even aware of any non-fatal overdoses in that age group. Not that it was easy to find out about overdoses on smoking marijuana, especially from areas in crime alley. He was also unable to get into the records of the medical clinic at the needle exchange for information so he had little to work from.

All of this led him to believe that Red Hood may have history with an overdose situation, most likely of a family member, highly likely that an overdose was fatal and that was why Red Hood seemed to be concentrating on the amount of product any one person could acquire for personal use. Something that Jason had complained about was dealers’ willingness to give clients enough product to overdose with. Going on about how if they wanted to keep clients alive, and thus still give them money for more drugs, they should really keep a closer eye on that.

Hood’s other drug sources were also well hidden. Bruce suspected he had taken over some of the old drug trade routes but due to Red Hood’s need for control he was mostly likely attempting to create his own sources or trades that were independent of past activities. Bruce doubted that Red Hood would feel secure with using old drug routes instead of new ones he created that he could insure were safe for the final customers in Crime Alley, and possibly make sure the moles were also safe. Red Hood did spend money on bribes and lawyers to get his sellers back from the system before they could be locked up so it was obvious he cared for the people who earned money for him.

He could see Jason both hating and loving what Red Hood was doing. Jason hated drugs but he had never been impressed by the proposals Bruce had made to help reduce drug use in Gotham saying that he couldn’t stop drug use, that it was a disease that Gotham would never escape.

Bruce had to stand up from his chair as he rubbed his face pacing as he tried to get back into focus. The anniversary of Jason’s death wasn’t for another month; he couldn't start spiraling already. Just because of the fact that Red Hood probably shared similar personal history points and some viewpoints with Jason shouldn’t be affecting him this bad. If he didn’t get a handle on himself he wasn’t going to make it as the anniversary of Jason’s death approached.

Chapter Text

He took a deep breath, before scrolling down slightly to look at the next subject he needed to cover, Red Hood’s weapon dealing.

Red Hood seemed to be mostly focusing on reducing the amount of guns in the alley. He was providing rewards for any types of guns, more for semi-automatic than non-automatics but the reward wasn’t small for the non-automatics. Turning in a fully automatic gun was enough that the reward had to be directly deposited into a bank account. In one case Red Hood’s men had created a bank account for someone who turned in one so they weren’t ever carrying that much cash. All the weapons were disappearing so either Red Hood was stockpiling them or destroying them. Which, keeping them could link his people to crimes they didn’t commit, so destroying them was most likely. Especially as Red Hood seemed to have no problem getting guns.

He was relatively certain that Red Hood had some fully automatic weapons in his weapon stores, but along with the rocket launcher they hadn’t made a regular appearance. The rocket launcher only having seen use once and the fully automatics never. Red Hood had mentioned to one of his men that the only reason it was okay to use an automatic weapon was an alien or monster invasion, which is the only reason he was as certain as he was that Red Hood did in fact have some despite them not having seen any use. Hood also made a weird comment about having something special for demons.

He snorted Jason had once asked if he could learn to wield an automatic in case of an alien invasion. He had said no but Alfred might have done it without Bruce’s permission, like when he taught Dick, and probably all of the other Robins, how to use the shot guns Alfred stored around the house in case of a burglar or someone similar invading the manor. When he talked with Alfred about teaching Dick, Alfred had simply stated that if one of the children couldn’t use their bat training overtly to protect themselves he was going to make sure they had something.

Bruce hated it but couldn’t argue, not like he could ever argue with Alfred. Alfred would do his whole ‘As you say sir’ and then do whatever he felt was right anyways. In a way it was one of the greatest benefits to having Alfred as his ‘butler’.

Right semi-automatics. The only people appearing with semi-automatics in Red Hood’s territory were Red Hood’s crew. They were strictly not for sale to anyone else as he was clear that non-automatics are more than sufficient for self-protection.

A new gun range selling manual guns, ammunition and classes was most likely run by Red Hood’s crew as it seemed to be the main source of guns in the alley and he suspected money laundering was occurring as the financials for the range and shop were a little too clean for Gotham, that and Red Hood had to be making money somehow as the cost of classes and guns was not high enough to support the range.

Red Hood’s personal stock of weapons, and some of the more unusual weapons that his crew would carry at times, he could not find a source for. He knew Red Hood was getting new weapons and ammo but he could not figure out from where. Well outside of the raids he did of Black Masks shipments. Red Hood seemed to especially like flaunting those at Black Mask. See his rocket launcher use.

Red Hood’s almost glee using the rocket launcher was one of the reasons he was wagering that Red Hood was younger than one would expect someone with his degree of training. It reminded him awfully of the one time Jason had gotten a hold of glitter bombs. They were still occasionally finding glitter.

Although that might have more to do with Dick possibly sneaking it in to remind them of the happier times of Jason when they got closer to the anniversary of Jason’s death… Maybe he should start patting Dick down whenever he was unusually eager to spend time in the manor…

Chapter Text

Bruce wanted to shake himself, he needed to concentrate. He just wanted to review Red Hood’s activities in prostitution and his lieutenant that was assigned to care for the alley.

Well, a bit of crossover between the two was the fact that child prostitution had ended overnight after Red Hood took over. Any children that were either forced or were prostituting themselves to survive had ended up in a children’s home. All ones that now displayed Red Hood’s symbol as a mark of his approval of the locations. There were a large number of businesses that now featured Red Hood’s symbol meaning they were approved by him and if they were a food supplier they had a tab that Red Hood paid off for any homeless kids to get fed.

When the directors of the Wayne facilities in the area, and eventually the rest of Gotham had approached him with approval to post the symbol he had given it. Most homes that had children dropped off with them were Wayne facilities. Red Hood had personally inspected every facility, if what the panicked reports from the facilities had told him, from what he knew the Wayne locations had received less suspicion than the non-Wayne locations. Although that might be because none of the people working at Wayne locations turned up in the morgue after Red Hood investigated the people that worked at the child home location.

He knew that Red Hood was keeping a careful eye on the facilities as he would occasionally appear nearby as if physically checking on them, as well as the facilities receiving background check reports that had Red Hood’s mark on the outside.

Grimacing, he thought of the prospective employees that had appeared on the lists with either listed possible ties with traffickers, or were family or friends of traffickers, and even worse the reports that appeared that said that the prospective employee was not a good hire. Everyone of those he had investigated had ended with a report filled in the city morgue. Many with Red Hood’s distinctive calling card for marking child molesters.

Bruce couldn’t find it in himself to be mad about those deaths, although he did oppose the use of lethal force. Whenever he had encountered a dead pedophile with Jason, he had been distressingly quick to identify them as pedophiles and that being a potential motive to their murders. Murders he generally left to the Gotham Police Department to investigate, and didn’t check if there was an investigation or not.

Taking a calming breath, he moved on to the prostitutes that did work for Red Hood. They all appeared to give Red Hood everything they collected in a night, which had worried him until he found out that they were all getting hourly pay checks from Red’s Hair Salon. These paychecks, like all the legitimate pay checks Red Hood’s crew and other employees got, also included benefits. From things expected in a benefit program, such as dental and healthcare, to rarer things such as child care services, to things that even Wayne Enterprise didn’t offer such as deliveries of food from local restaurants if an employee called out sick. Which yes, Red Hood gave his crew vacation and sick days.

Considering the amount of loyalty the entire alley had for Red Hood, not only the people who worked for him, but every person that lived there it seemed Jason had been right. If a crime lord actually treated their crew right, they would gain almost unbreakable loyalty from their crew. The man even helped his employees file their taxes so they could get the refunds they were owed.

It was no surprise that Red Hood’s territory was growing even without his effort as more and more gang members changed alliances. Black Mask and other gangs had had to up how much they paid their people to even hope to keep a hold of the men that had worked for them for decades.

Considering the safety measures Red Hood had put in for prostitutes, like handing them panic buttons that would summon Red Hood muscle that was assigned to areas prostitutes worked, providing actual locations that had even more panic buttons in the rooms for the prostitutes to work out of, as well as like providing necessary items for their work like condoms, it was no wonder they were leaving pimps throughout the city to work for Red Hood.

The fact that any protesting pimps ended up dead was another plus to the prostitutes considering working location changes. If the current trend continued Red Hood would be the only pimp in Gotham within the year.

Although he wasn’t sure if pimp was the correct term as Red Hood did not force the prostitutes to work and was helping several get GED’s and look into other jobs. Red Hood seemed rather focused on helping anyone in Crime Alley get a GED or stay in school.

Jason would have refused to try and stop Red Hood’s actions with prostitution. He had always had a soft spot for the working men and women, knowing many of them by name and checking in on them regularly. By Gotham Jason probably would have been singing the man’s praises. Red Hood might be a killer and a criminal but he was literally doing everything Jason had ever wanted to happen in Crime Alley.

Red Hood was literally helping to support food shelves and shelters as well as maintaining a vigilante-like presence in the alley.

Bruce could not figure out how the man was even making money. His biggest income was definitely from drugs but he was actively trying to cut down on users. He was definitely losing money on weapons as well with his many donations. Prostitution wasn’t even netting him much money with everything Red Hood was doing to protect and literally pay them.

If not for the almost feral way he dealt with traffickers that would have been Bruce’s best guess as it wasn’t like a crime lord could be without any major manner of income! It was driving him mad. Everyone, including even Alfred seemed to look at him as a source of good for Gotham and Bruce just wanted to know why Red Hood was doing what he was. And how he was funding it! Would the money run out before he was done and they would be back at square one? He was definitely helping Gotham in a way Bruce could never condone, but crime rates were down and school attendance of all things had majorly increased and not only in Crime Alley!

It didn’t make any sense. Red Hood didn’t make any sense.

Red Hood was a Crime Lord. He ran a literal Gang, selling drugs, weapons, and prostitutes? Why was he seemingly so committed to making Gotham better?

The fact that Buce couldn’t figure out a reason for a criminal to be doing this was why he was going to go bald from tearing out all of his hair before his children could turn his hair white from stress!

The only thing keeping him at all balanced was that he didn’t have to stress about his so-, the child he could not adopt. Tim wasn’t demanding to go out on patrol with Red Hood still active, even with Red Hood’s threats towards Robin disappearing Bruce needed someone he could know was safe from whatever Red Hood’s plan was!

Chapter Text

Bruce closed the file. Right he could freak out more over Red Hood later. He needed more information before could try and figure anything out anyways, Jason would forgive him for not trying to figure the man out right now. He wasn’t hurting the alley so Bruce had to focus on other things, not on the one place that always reminded him of Jason.

So, the other heroes and teams, nothing new there. Justice League’s funding was fine, and the next meeting was in seventeen days. Clark had called yesterday so that was the weekly phone call done. He was doing better at maintaining that friendship ever since he made his checklist of friend things. No holidays were upcoming to invite him to and he had invited Clark over ‘randomly’ two weeks ago so he was good at that, especially as he had invited Diana at the same time.

He pursed his lips; he should call Diana tomorrow. It had been over twelve days and she seemed to appreciate every other week calls. Her birthday wasn’t until next month so he should start thinking about a gift… or asking Dick for advice before it was the day before the party. He made a note in the file for tomorrow to ask Dick for ideas before making a note in this checklist to look into making sure someone was hosting a party or offer to throw it himself.

Then Wayne Enterprise was doing well. Projections were all positive. Green conversation of all facilities is nine-six percent accomplished, so hopefully Ivy would avoid Wayne Enterprise if she ever started attacking again, but she seemed pretty settled down with Harley now. The GED program in Jason’s name was eighty-nine percent complete and all of the employees without a GED were working on getting their GEDs. Even the newest employees had agreed to join the program and work on getting a GED. Jason would have been ecstatic to know how many people Wayne Enterprise had helped get their GEDs.

He scrolled down the page and took a bracing breath. Right the most important part of this checklist, his family. Now that everything that could intrude and distract him was dealt with he could really focus on his family, the most important part of his life.

First Dick.

Dick was physically well.

Dick had been pretty anxious the last couple days, peaking badly before going to eat out with a friend, but had calmed down suddenly afterwards but … not in a bad suddenly. He now seemed really happy. It was less than a twenty four change but Dick’s moods did fluctuate and it wasn’t completely abnormal for him to do that. Normally this meant something had happened with his friends. Maybe he needed advice from Tim about one of his friends and Tim had helped him figure out what was wrong and how to fix it? Tim was very good at solving problems.

Bruce wrote down in his tomorrow document to ask Dick about anything happening with Dick’s friends recently, it would be an easy conversation to start if Tim had helped Dick get through some problem.

Next Dick was not currently dating. There was no one inappropriately focusing on him either. Deathstroke was currently in Africa so he wasn’t a worry, currently, at least.

The only person Dick seemed to be spending attention on recently was Red Hood but not in a romantic way or more than mild flirting. By Gotham he wished he didn’t have to classify if Dick’s flirting was just his normal overly familiar behavior, what Bruce would consider mild flirting, which was Dick just being very friendly to non-family members, or actually flirting. Mostly because he wasn’t sure if other people understood what Dick meant when he was being ‘flirty.’

Bruce especially hated when Dick used flirting to get under an opponent’s guard, which is why Bruce had to watch out for inappropriate attention being focused on his eldest son. Dick might consider Bruce overprotective but he had no idea how many people Bruce had had to tell that Dick wasn’t actually interested.

Red Hood was not in any way flirting back. Not even the way some opponent would use it to engage in conversation with Nightwing but Red Hood completely ignored or put it down. He was a lot less aggressive with Nightwing and not antagonistic as he is with Batman. Almost acting more annoyed by Nightwing’s antics than anything else.

Nightwing’s status was overall good. No rogues were focusing on Dick and he had no recent injuries.

Okay now being Bruce with Dick checklist, being a dad. Overall he thinks he was doing better. Dick didn’t flinch or startle in surprise the last time Bruce had hugged him which was four days ago so he needed to look for new opportunities because he was going to hug Dick at least once a week. Dick needed hugs. They made Dick happy and he needed to give that to Dick.

Then he needed to ask about interests and listen. He asked about friends eight days ago, gymnastics four days ago, asking to see a new technique was always a good tie in. He needed to determine more conversation topics to have with Dick to engage in his son better.

Big reminders, EYE CONTACT, apparently shows attention and interest in subject and speaker. Use words not grunts. SMILE! Avoid looking away or tapping your fingers to avoid appearing distracted or impatient.

Next Alfred. In general he seemed happier in the last week and even though he doesn’t know why that’s okay. Eating in the manor and not in the cave he was at eighty percent successful which was under his goal of ninety-five percent but better than his previous average of forty-seven before he realized just eating in the manor made Alfred happier. The International butler day celebration had been a success.

Now Family Friend Tim.

He cannot adopt a child with parents, especially not ones who like the Drakes seem so invested in his happiness. They were always willing to talk about Tim with him when he brought up Dick. So he could not adopt Tim.

Chapter Text

By Gotham did he want to adopt Tim.

Something in him just itched at him to grab Tim and pull him into his family with Dick and Alfred and just wrap him in blankets or something and Bruce had no clue why. Tim was Robin so he was really close to Tim but he didn’t think that would lead to him wanting to adopt Tim so badly. For him to feel like he wanted to get Tim away from the Drakes so much. He desperately wanted to take Tim away from them but he had no idea why. Tim had happy, caring parents that spoke of him and his interests often, Bruce should not want to pull Tim away from that. Maybe he was just too possessive of his Robins because he worried about them in the field? Gah, he just wished he knew why he felt this way.

He shook his head. He needed to focus on what he did know about and can do for Tim.

Alright first Tim as Robin. To get the easy part done first.

Robin was currently not active in Gotham. Ever since the threats that Red Hood had made about him Bruce had not let him out into the field. Something that Tim had hated but seemed to have come to accept. Thankfully as he knew he couldn’t actually stop Tim from sneaking out, he’d been sneaking out longer than Dick had been Robin. Bruce did his best not to think about how long before that Tim had been sneaking out to take photos.

Tim was still active with the Teen Titans but that was safe. Red Hood showed no interest in leaving Gotham, only leaving his territory in Crime Alley in very rare situations. Mostly to deal with crimes that were not on Batman’s purview. Unless Red Hood was actively doing something in the open, he mostly ignored those forays into the rest of Gotham. They always ended up with someone dead that touched kids in one way or another anyway. 

While Bruce would never approve of Red Hood’s methods in some matters he didn't pay as much attention as he should. There was no proof that Red Hood was behind the sudden end of child prostitution in all of Gotham and he was carefully not looking for it.

He tried to block out the memory of how unsurprised Jason had been about the fact that it existed, or how he had told Bruce the projected statistics Bruce had on that were too low. If no children were dying, or reporting abuse, his hands were tied as he had to focus on the murders and crimes that were being reported or observed on his patrols.

Tim, he was supposed to be focusing on Tim. Well Red Hood was still talking about Tim, Robin but more about my prospective failures to keep him safe, and taunts about… the Robin he did fail. They no longer seemed in any way threatening towards Tim. Bruce was relatively certain if Red Hood did encounter Robin in trouble he would aid Tim, but best to keep the two apart when Tim started patrolling with him in Gotham again.

Although Tim wasn’t trying to force himself back in the field yet so Bruce would wait. As long as Tim was making back-up plans and contingency plans he wasn’t going to mention going back out until Tim brought it up. Creating back-up plans and the like meant Tim was safe at home or in the cave not running around in Gotham where he could get hurt.

He was a little worried he might have been a little too convincing about the importance of such plans as Tim seemed to be making plans for every threat in the batcomputer. Oh well, it kept Tim occupied. He could deal with any fall-out of those plans when it came. If it came.

Now plans about Tim and not Robin-Tim.

He needed to casually touch Tim more. He seemed open to shoulder pats or short squeezes when he does something good or if I can pull off a happy to see you or hear your new skill that would be good. Make sure to maintain eye contact and smile.

Tim hadn’t been around nearly as often as his plan indicated would be healthy for a positive relationship. He should invite Tim to dinner, it has been thirty days since he last ate dinner at the manor and that was far past the twice weekly he had been trying to achieve. He needs to make sure Tim knows he doesn’t want Tim around for only Robin.

He blinking and opened the other document, work on making Robin suits for when Tim had growth spurts. He hadn’t been good enough with Dick and Jason so he should try to be better this time. Tim was small for his age so, growth spurts were likely to be frequent or large. Tim seemed to be filling out some on the few occasions he’d checked in on him so he was probably about to hit one.

Right, he was done with his checklist so he’d just review his plans of things to address.

Joker’s death, wait for more evidence.

Red Hood’s goals and prospective actions, wait for more evidence. Monitor statistics for success rates of Red Hoods actions.

No action needed at Wayne Enterprise.

Consider next subjects to talk with Dick and Tim about.

Monitor people around Dick. Look for an opportunity to hug.

Eat more in the Manor

Do not emotionally adopt Tim, or at least don’t show it. He has parents and he doesn't need you hanging onto him.

Invite Tim to the manor and ask about interests. Photography? Offer new suits to show I still want him when he wants to come back, if he wants to come back.

Review checklist in five days.

Nodding he closed both documents and shut down the batcomputer, or at least as shut down as it ever was. Standing he did a few stretches to get any tightness from sitting at the batcomputer for so long eased out and checked the time.

He smiled, good, early enough that Alfred would be happy and not ‘tut’ at him. Walking up into the manor he considered what Alfred might make for breakfast. Since neither Dick or Tim was there he didn’t have to worry about Alfred making waffles at least. He shuddered thinking of the one thing Alfred could not cook, not that he’d ever say that to the man. Maybe scones?

Chapter Text

Dick hummed as he shoved his clothes into the dressers that Jason had delivered to Dick’s new room. Dick was carefully avoiding the knowledge that Jason’s goons had been able to get an entire bedroom set of furniture and have it delivered in less than an hour. Dick chose to focus on putting his clothes in the nice new dressers, or well new as in new to him, they were all obviously from a thrift store of some sort, none of the pieces matched for all that they were whole and clean. His favorite piece was the bed stand that was a beautiful almost Nightwing blue. He worried for a moment about the goons bringing him a bed stand like that but they were Jason’s men and Bruce was right in that Red Hood’s men, the entire alley was amazingly dedicated to Red Hood, Jason. Even with all his complaining Jason had called Dick his brother several times in front of his men so the dedication should roll over to protecting him. If they even knew anything as it could just have been the closest available bed stand. 

Jason had complained about Dick moving in but Dick knew he wasn’t that upset or Dick would be sleeping on the couch, or possibly a cot in the basement at the worst. Jason complained that giving Dick the room was more to keep Dick’s mess contained than any welcome of him, but that was obviously just an excuse as Dick wasn’t that messy. Although Jason only had memories of what Dick’s room in the manor was like before his death so… well Jason would be happy, surprised, and impressed on how clean he kept his room.

Blinking at the floor he pushed a sock that had fallen on the floor under the dresser, he’d pick that up later, but back to Little Wing.

Thinking for a moment about Little Wing talking about when he would be vacuuming Dick’s room, and picking up anything Dick left on the ground Dick hurried to the wonderfully colored bed stand to put away some of his more… personal items away. Jason had made it clear that was the only place he would never look, even while putting things away, clothing or otherwise. He actually mentioned adding a lock if Dick wanted to but Dick was willing to trust his word, and the idea of what sort of things Dick would want to keep out of his younger brother's eyes.

Walking to the closet he started hanging the stuff that was still on hangers after the box holding them during the move between his old apartment and this room had gotten dropped, more than once. The stuff that had fallen off the hangers he just shoved into the dresser where ever he could find space. After they got washed, he would hang them up, no reason to bother right now. He needed to get all things done so he could go hang out with his brothers. The empty hangers did get hung up quickly as Jason would have been angry finding them on the floor.

Checking over the room he was pleased to find that everything had been put away. He’d even put the dirty laundry in the laundry hamper Jason had very pointedly placed into his room. His Little Wing was always picky about not leaving clothes on the floor… or empty cereal bowls in places. He would need to remember to keep both dirty clothes in the bin and the cereal bowls in the kitchen, at least the cereal bowls once he got Jason to concede and have some yummy cereal in the house. He was somehow even worse than Alfred about Dick’s cereal, and with only Tim to distract him it would be harder to sneak the cereal in. Maybe he could find some place to stash the cereal in the kitchen that Jason wouldn’t see right away.

With everything of his civilian ID's belongings put away he quickly made his way down to the Red Cave. Jason was currently being silly and just calling his cave an operation center and training area. Dick would get him to realize how cool it would be to have a Red Cave instead of Bruce’s Bat Cave. Grinning Dick closed the door to his new room and slipped into the hidden stairs and headed down to where his brothers were currently up to something. Hopefully something fun!

Chapter Text

Entering the Red Cave... No! The Red Roost! That's even better! Caves were for bats and not the birds the three of them all were, even with choosing such a silly name like Red Hood Jason was still a bird with him and Tim. All three Robins at one point or another. Wait, wasn’t there a bird called Red Hood? He’d have to look into that later.

Dick moved over to the armor cases that looked almost identical to the armor cases that were in the Bat Cave, not that Dick was going to make that comparison now. No, he needed to wait until Little Wing was used to him living here before working on getting him to talk with Bruce. 

Although he really needed to corner Tim and get the rundown of his, probably fifty-step, plan for getting the family all together. He would have to see how long Tim was planning for his plan to take. Dick knew Alfred would be sad if it wasn’t done by Thanksgiving so Dick would need to make sure the plan was done well before that. 

His armor case was already adapted to hold, and was holding, his current Nightwing armor. Jason had blushed when he had shown the case to Dick. Talking all about having had a spare case in case he or Baby Bird decided to have an alternate costume but Dick wasn’t fooled. Jason may have had the parts for a spare case but everything inside was perfectly suited to Dick’s suit and his gear. The fact that it had taken Jason three days to show it to him also was a sign of how much work he had put into making the case perfect for Dick. He had been completely surprised at the amount of work Jason had put in, as Dick was more than willing to take a couple shelves if it would allow him to suit up in the same place as his little brothers.

Dick had made sure to tell Jason how great it was, which had gotten a very cute blush from his Little Wing; he was still as easy to embarrass as ever. Jason might have grown larger than Dick but he would always be Dick’s cute little brother, although Dick made sure not to overdo it like he might have when they both were younger. He didn’t want Jason running from him to avoid the compliments he more than deserved.

He smiled as his escrima sticks clicked into the wireless charger ports, before sliding his spare pair into their own ports. The batteries were still basically full in his main pair, he hadn’t used the electricity much the last few nights but Tim had been insistent that he always charge his weapons to full. It was only as he started slipping his excess bird-arangs into their places in the case that he started to really look around the Red Roost. This was his first time really down here with time to look around. The only other time he had been done here Jason had rushed to show Dick his case and then back out so he took this chance to look around the space.

He of course focused on his brothers first. They were of course the most important things down here. They seemed to be talking about something that would be higher up the walls on one side of the training area. Maybe the exercise bars that Jason had said he’d install.

Dick smiled at them; his Little Wing had gone on about not building Dick an entire jungle gym in his basement but Dick hadn’t asked for anything so this was obviously another way that told him that Jason was happy he was moving in, even if he would never admit it.

Everyone in their family struggled to use their words to show they cared so Dick had to be the one to use words for all of them, and recognize how each family member showed they loved him, and the others.

Alfred was always a special treat or just a moment of distracting Bruce to let you escape. 

Bruce had been the hardest to figure out. He was sad to admit he hadn’t figured it out until Bruce started to give his weekly, or something even more than weekly hugs! He grinned thinking about how happy the hugs made him, but back to Bruce. Bruce expressed his love through gifts and existing in the same place as you.

Dick had realized, now, that when Bruce was trying to pay for his apartment and such things he was trying to show he cared for Dick and not that he didn’t think Dick couldn’t make it without him. So, Dick has started slowly accepting little things. Not huge things like paying for his, no longer really used, apartment’s rent but paying for or filling up the gas tank of whatever vehicle he was using he allowed. Also, he was more than happy to receive the fun shirts Bruce had found. They were all so funny and made Tim wince when he saw them… How would Jason react to his ‘I’m just here to get Frisked’ shirt? That had been a hit at the last police picnic, or the unicorn with the ‘I’ll get over it. I just need to be dramatic first’? For the second, probably say it fits a little too well.

Dick froze, remembering his gift to Bruce on his last birthday. What would Jason do if he got Bruce to wear the ‘Proud Furry’ Shirt? That might be enough to tempt Jason to come to the manor just to see. If Jason ended up being leery about visiting the manor he might have to convince Bruce to wear it so he could convince Jason to come see the novelty shirt Dick had gotten Bruce. It would be a great way to break the ice if it got too serious between B and Jason.

Well future plans were made but the most impressive sign of love had been Bruce managing to sneak cereal into the manor, past Alfred, for Dick. Nothing says love quite like achieving the impossible.

Tim had also been hard to figure out, if not as bad as Bruce, but mostly because Tim didn’t want to impose or be too annoying. As if a little brother wanting hugs or to cuddle could ever be annoying. It was nice to see with Jason that Tim didn’t seem to have any reservations about seeking out physical contact from Jason. Dick would have to quiz Jason later on how to get cuddly Tim, he needed to have some cuddly Tim time. Cuddly time with both his brothers would be best of course but Dick was willing to work at getting his positive physical contact from his brothers, both together and alone.

Jason had been an impossibility to know before now. Dick’s memories had been too prized and his lack of more of them a regret for Dick to figure it out. Now, not even living more than a couple days with Jason had made it obvious that caring for them was how he showed his love, and he loved them so much.

Every night there was a home-made meal, and most mornings a home cooked breakfast, but the second one he was pretty sure that was part of Jason’s scheme to get rid of Dick’s cereal. Fortunately, Dick had years of practice against Alfred on his side. 

Huh, Dick paused, Jason had the same vendetta against cereal that Alfred did. He should tell Jason he was acting like Alfred. That would make Little Wing happy. He loved being likened to Alfred. Jason was, is, practically Alfred’s little me.

But back to Jason’s showing his love. Even if Dick didn’t notice the cooking, somehow being taste blind to all the delicious yummies the gymnast equipment Jason was going to assemble was a dead giveaway. He’d have to get Alfred to make Jason thank you cookies. Not only would Jason get Alfred’s cookies, but he’d also not have to clean up after Dick attempted to cook them himself. Jason would really appreciate that.

Well moving on to the rest of the Red Roost the exercise machines weren’t his norm but he could see using them occasionally. Although he’d need to make sure to not use a weight Jason set. That was just asking for an OW. The free weights were much more his style and Jason had weights in the weight he generally preferred to use.

The main sparing area was padded just enough to help if you get dropped on it, but without it being an issue with mobility. Although, he glanced at the extra mats that were rolled up and leaning against one of the walls, it seemed like Jason had some mats meant to be harder to stand on. Some had irregular mounds that would be more in line with a dirty alley than the flat mats. Dick also saw one mat that was probably meant for training to fight on slippery surfaces as it was labeled ketchup/mustard.

Dick shuddered. He hated trying to get the smell of ketchup and mustard from his suit. More than once he’d just scrapped a suit after those fights, well more Alfred had, and Alfred admitting he couldn’t clean something was just a horrifying level of stains.

Along with the rolled-up texture mats there were mats that he recognized that were for practicing specific gymnastics moves. He’d have to go through some moves with both his little brothers. Jason might be a brick wall now, and unfairly tall, but he’d seen some of the moves Red Hood’s pulled off so gymnastic practice should be appreciated. There were some moves he rarely used, and had never taught anyone, which would fit Jason’s new form perfectly.

Closing the case, he prepared a Cartwheel of Surprise to join his brothers who were talking over in the sparring area. It was always a fun move to pull out. Now to bond slash bother his little brothers!

Chapter Text

Tim sat staring at the sample vials in front of him. So Jason had known he was collecting blood and other samples from him... and he had bought Tim’s random excuse that he was practicing sample collection without alerting the target as a reason for Tim to be trying to steal his blood and such without letting Jason know.

This had all come up when Jason had wanted to know how many DNA tests Tim needed to do to make sure Jason was Jason. He of course asked this as Tim was mid, what he thought had been unnoticed, sample taking which had weirded Tim out at how calm Jason was being about it. He actually seemed to think it was practical of Tim to be practicing on him once he heard the bullshit excuse Tim had spit out. He also said some of Tim’s attempts were cute but whatever, he was getting what he needed to continue on creating his treatments. 

Dick had already approved for Tim to start with the most basic treatment which Tim was able to administer via adding the agent to the air filter that he had gotten Jason as a gift. It had a spot for essential oils to be carried up into the air and Tim had made a special compartment in it that allowed him to add his treatment instead of an essential oil. Having the treatment administered while Jason was asleep would be the easiest way to get Jason to take a treatment without him realizing he was getting treated.

The Lazarus effects had to be in play because there was no way Jason would normally be completely fine with someone taking samples from him without telling him, no matter the reason or excuse they might supply. He knew if Jason had caught Dick taking samples there would have been yelling and demands instead of a question asked with a chuckle and messing up Tim’s hair at Tim’s excuse.

Then there was no way if Dick then mentioned that he had created a special analyzer he was testing said blood with, and blood from other Gothamites on an analyzer of his own creation that Jason would have offered to help setting up the analyzer in Dick’s office instead of going nuclear in anger. Well Dick didn’t have an office, but somewhere Dick could work from and only ask to be told anything Dick found on his analyzer that was interesting.

When Tim had told Jason that he had created a special analyzer for testing for some specific chemicals, rogue based chemicals, that might be in Jason’s and other gothamites blood as Tim was interested in seeing how often it was found, and at what quantities in the Gotham population’s blood, outside of rogue attacks. Jason had just said he’d be interested to learn what Tim discovered and that if he needed more blood and didn’t feel like practicing collecting samples he could just ask for some of Jason’s blood. He hadn’t even asked for more details about what in particular Tim was testing for which was good as Tim was currently only investigating the blood samples he had for one chemical, or well set of chemicals.

The fact that Jason had bought his bullshit about wanting to sample the population and that was why he was practicing taking samples without alerting people was mind blowing, especially as he had going on to offer to get those samples from people for Tim so Tim wouldn’t have to go out and deal with the people in Gotham himself.

Well, he might as well run the test on all the samples. This round of testing would hopefully give him the okay to go forward with another of his treatments for Jason and having excess data to hide how focused he was on the levels of Lazarus chemicals in Jason’s samples would be good. Hell he could test the blood samples for the chemicals from rogue attacks at the same time so he’d have something to tell Jason about, and it would be interesting to see if there were any chemicals that lingered in Gothamites blood after attacks.

He just needed to load up all the samples, set the machine to test for a few more things and then he could read the results in the morning.

Chapter Text

Well, Tim blinked at the read out, that was alarming… and possibly why Jason had dealt so well with the pit. Apparently, everyone in Gotham already had some Lazarus chemicals in their blood…

Tim quickly grabbed two packages for blood collection and entered his own blood into the machine before running from his room, “DICK!”

Dick looked up from the bowl of cereal that he had somehow snuck into the house. There was also toast, orange juice and an egg on the dining table in front of him. Jason had made it clear that he’d let Dick have a small bowl of cereal everyday if he ate the rest of the food Jason served, if Dick could get the cereal into the kitchen without Jason catching and stopping him. It was either that or have Jason set all Dick’s cereal on fire so Dick had agreed. Tim had already eaten before retreating to his office to look at the read outs.

“What do you need baby bird?”

Tim held up the blood collection kit to Dick.

“Baby bird?”

Jason snorted, “You're not even going to practice collecting samples on him.”

“I need the blood sooner rather than when I get a chance to steal some.” Maybe he should get some of Dick’s blood, DNA to store in his own records. He already had Jason’s  and Bruce’s. He hadn’t dared to try and get Alfred’s yet but he’d find a way. Especially as he really needed to test Alfred’s blood for Lazarus chemicals.

“Steal some?” Dick looked at Jason confused.

“Baby Bird has been practicing collecting blood samples without the targets noticing. He’s also working on creating some new analyzers. I’ve been getting him samples at night to work with so he has some variety. So going to give him what he needs?”

Dick frowned at Tim, probably sensing something wasn’t quite right with what Jason was saying but held out his arm for Tim who quickly took it and ran back to his office and loaded it into his machine he had created to monitor the levels of Lazarus chemicals in Jason’s blood. He had set it up to also detect other Gotham only substances in Jason’s blood to see if that was why the Lazarus water was doing something other than causing homicidal rage in Jason. Which with the whole abducting Tim to care for him didn’t really go with any reports of Lazarus water that Tim had been able to find.

Maybe he should hack into the League of Assassins to see if they had more recent knowledge of how other people have reacted to the chemicals since Bruce last gathered information from the League of Assassins for information. Or he could ask Jason to… he’d probably prefer Tim not hack the League of Assassins but then he’d want to know why Tim was interested in the League of Assassins records… better to just hack them himself and explain only if he had to. He’d do that after school as Jason wouldn’t let him skip without a really good excuse. Tim had yet to find an excuse good enough for Jason. He was pretty sure Jason would only let him stay home if he was sick. Which if he was sick, he wouldn’t be able to get anything done. So what was the point then? He could do nothing at school!

But that was for later. Right now, he needed to try and figure out what mix of rogue chemicals that was in the water and really everything nowadays was normal for a crime alley resident like Jason and what was abnormal. Tim didn’t want to undo something that was keeping the pit controlled or remove some of Jason’s natural born Gothamite resistances to the various things that were in Gotham… including apparently Lazarus water.

Tim should probably mention that to Bruce but only after Jason was better. It was probably healthier for Gothamites to have some Lazarus water contaminating the… he should test the water, soil, and air for Lazarus chemicals. It was probably in the water but better to be sure.

Stopping Tim stared at the analyzer that now had his and Dick’s blood in it. Did Dick have the protections living in Gotham gave you? He wasn’t born in Gotham but he lived here for years, before moving to Blüdhaven and when he was in Gotham, he spent most of this time in Bristol with Alfred probably monitoring the water quality.

He blinked. Did his parents do anything about the water quality in his house? Was Dick, and him, possibly more vulnerable due to having grown up in Bristol? Was Bruce? Alright he needed to go get blood from Bruce ASAP to run tests on. If there was some natural, uh Gotham-natural, protection they lacked they needed to figure out how to gain it, if possible. It also would be a reason other heroes can’t work in Gotham, aside from Batman’s sometimes ridiculous rule. They don’t have the protections Gotham gave Gothamites against the dangers within her borders.

Nodding Tim replied to one of Bruce’s texts that he would be over for dinner that night. That gave him a day to convince Jason that he was going and assure him it was just to check on how Alfred was doing, that it wasn’t for any Robin activities. The Alfred card always worked on Jason… or he could tell Dick and have him tell Jason when he was at the manor, yeah that sounded like a better plan.

Chapter Text

Tim fell into his chair pouting. He had explained to Alfred why he wanted some of Alfred’s blood and Alfred had agreed, and then handed Tim vials of blood. Which was absolutely no fun, but practical. No reason to get Bruce all suspicious on why Tim wants his blood.

The analysis on his and Dick’s blood was done but he was going to wait until he got the results from Bruce and Alfred so he could compare all four against the native gothamites in the different parts of the city. Most of the blood samples Jason had gotten him was mostly from Crime Alley residents but he’d gotten several from each of the other regions of the city as well.

There was some difference in what Gotham chemicals in the different regions but Crime Alley had the highest level of chemicals overall but those people that resided near Ivy’s territory had higher levels of pollen, and thus resistance to pollens.

Blinking he wondered if people from that area had increased libidos. Maybe he could ask Jason to ask the prostitutes if there were more people from the region of the city visiting them. Hm, he scratched the idea down on the first piece of paper he could grab and tapped it to the wall to ask Jason about later.

Now the blood was in the analyzers. He had Jason’s blood running on a different machine with some last step tests before deployment of the next treatment. So he shifted to some information gathering.

Making it look like it was Jason and not him doing the hack was easy enough with them being on the same system and really who would suspect him, I mean high school students weren’t really the first suspects for hackers… other than anyone that knew him but that wasn’t in the League of Assassins. Hopefully at least.

Settling into his chair he shifted through the various firewalls and other defenses the League of Assassins had around their information and quickly went after the information they had on Jason and the pits. They had a lot of information but Tim had most of it before something detected him. He fought back for a few minutes like Jason would before backing off and disconnecting before the other side could follow him back.

Quickly moving the information from a disposable laptop, one he had acquired for this hack specifically to a thumb drive then to his normal computer as he also took out the motherboard of the disposable laptop and dropped it in some chemicals he had for photography. Nobody was back hacking that laptop. When he had a chance, he’d take a sledge hammer to the laptop as well. Better to be safer than sorry. It didn’t bear thinking about someone taking it out of the trash and repairing it only to get the league on them.

Pulling up the information Tim set to reading, hopefully none of the information would make him want to delay the next treatment.

Chapter Text

“Nothing’s wrong Clark,” Bruce rolled his eyes as Clark’s response came over his phone’s speaker, “Just because my heart beat is off more often than normal doesn’t mean I have a heart problem. Alfred did a full exam yesterday. Apparently, I need to work on my stress levels.”

Bruce sighed as Clark continued, “I’ve just been more stressed out more recently because of the new crime lord and worrying about my kids. Dick has started humming and even has more of a bounce in his step recently which is great but I can’t figure out why.”

He paused as Clark spoke before, “Yes it’s a good thing, great even but I can’t figure out why and it bothers me and yes he doesn’t have to tell me everything that happens in his life but normally I have some idea why.”

Looking over his latest data on the food shelves Red Hood was running absently looking for odd trends in food delivered to the shelves and the possibility of it not just being food. “Yes, he has moved back to Gotham. He wanted to have more time with Tim so that could be why his mood has been up.”

“Tim has been doing great as well,” He frowned, why was Red Hood refusing to have mandated reporters volunteer at his food shelves and soup kitchens. Was he worried they’d report his illegal actions, “He’s been hyper fixating on emergency plans right now. Although it's been some time since he was last at the manor so I was planning to send him a text message after classes today.”

Pulling up the calendar at Clark’s recommendation he grimaced, his father was probably pissed, “Well since it’s Saturday he might be with the Titans and Dick always got angry when I called when he was with his Titans so I’ll text and then if I don’t get a response, I’ll call tomorrow around lunch to invite him to dinner.” Sending off the text, and then a reminder notification to himself to make sure to call if Tim didn’t text back, he turned back to the Batcomputer. He grimaced at the name, why had he let Dick name everything? … Right, he’d been too cute to say no to.

Bruce sighed at Clark’s next question, “No I don’t need help with Red Hood. As far as I can tell he’s either not a meta or his power is either too weak or unsuited to aid him in his business. He doesn’t even attack me anymore, unless I go into his territory. He doesn’t ever shoot to kill or injure. More in a way to show I’m not welcome. He also seems to patrol for crime so I’m not needed. Not that I’ve ever really been welcome in that part of the city.”

Bruce rolled his eyes, “Okay, I’ll concede he does act somewhat like we do with Gotham in general and keeping people out but he’s also a crime lord. I don’t think I can classify him as an anti-hero.”

“Why not?” Bruce looked to the ceiling asking the bats for patience, “He sells or organized the sale of drugs and weapons. I mean he also runs a needle exchange and offers free drug tests for dangerous fillers and goes after dealers who try to cut their drugs with laundry detergent and the like.”

Bruce sighed at Clark’s questions, “Yes the needle exchange is very positive and something I’ve been trying to install in those regions of the city he has claimed, as are the food shelves and soup kitchens but he refuses to let any of them become legal for some reason.”

At Clark’s now barrage of questions Bruce offered, “Will you stop asking questions if I send my research to you? You can go all investigative reporter questioning on that and not me. My current confusion is really straight-out refusal to have actual mandated reports into the services he runs.”

Bruce shot up in his chair, almost knocking it over, “KIDS! I remember Jason complaining about soup kitchens being great for traffickers. Any time a kid goes into a, well legal, soup kitchen the staff is supposed to report them and their characteristics. I’ve done my best to put protections in but even one slip and traffickers can know if any homeless kids are around and what they look like! It’s why he never risked them; he said it was better to starve than be caught.”

Quickly clicking on a few spots, he sent his research on Red Hood to Clark. “Right, now that I’ve finally figured that out, I’m going to head up to the manor before Alfred decides to take me out with a tranq gun. He hasn’t yet but at some point, I’m going to push him a little too far and he’s going to break it out to threaten me at the least. Good ni-day Clark.”

Bruce waited for Clark to say goodbye before hanging up and heading up into the manor. Alfred was going to give him one of his looks, he just knew it. He couldn’t even argue it wasn’t warranted.

When he woke up later, he sighed at the newspaper, well apparently Clark at least thought there was something redeemable about the man behind the hood. If Clark really thought Red Hood could be changed to the side of a hero, he just needed to convince Red Hood that he was willing to be allies if Red Hood made that change. He doubted he could get the man to completely change to being non-lethal but if he could at least keep his fatalities to those that hurt children… Well he could never kill but from the things he had inferred about Jason’s time on the street he could understand why someone would want to kill that sort of criminal but he could never condone it. Hopefully that would be enough to get the other man to stop all the other killing of the more deadly and dangerous criminals. Although recently he had seemed to be killing fewer people but not enough for him to be okay with.

Having someone like Red Hood working with him to defend Gotham would definitely make the city safer during rogue attacks. He would have to figure out a way to reach out to the man… without insulting him or leading him to believe Batman was trying to trap him.

Chapter Text

Greetings Dr. Pamela Ivy,

I am sending this letter to you to request your collaboration on a project I am planning to start later this week instead of imposing on your territory again as I know men are not welcome in your home. If you do agree to collaborate on this project, I will assign one of my female employees to run the project.

Now the project that I am proposing to you was named Gerbera by Baby Bird, Robin, and will be far more successful with your aid. I am looking to add greenery to my territory, which is predominantly Crime Alley and such an endeavor would be vastly more effective and successful with your aid.

I have three main reasons for project Gerbera, the first of which is that the presence of plants has been shown to have positive impacts on people, even fake plants have shown to have positive effects on people’s moods.

The second reason is how they can improve the environment and the health of the people living in the area. You well know that pollution is a big issue in Gotham, it is an even bigger problem in Crime Alley where Gotham has left the residents to fight to survive on their own. My abilities to reduce pollution, beyond the ways you have provided me, is currently outside my reach.

Instead, I look to counter what has already happened and hopefully counter any pollution from becoming worse in my territory for my people. On this I have several plans and ideas, of which I would appreciate your opinion on, even if you do not choose to work with me on these plans.

The first project I will be starting is to get at least one plant into every family dwelling with an aim for more plants in larger residences. I was thinking Chlorophytum elatum as the best choice for this as it is easy to care for and more importantly is a great air filter with a plant having only 2471 square centimeter area of leaves can remove up to 1037 micrograms of formaldehyde in 24 hours, as well as clearing other toxins. The fact that the plant is pet friendly is also a good factor.

The next idea I have is to place larger plants that are air filters inside the soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and other buildings I own. I would also be looking to add flowering plants for the benefit of color diversity in the environment and potentially have better outcomes for the people in my territory beyond just greenery.

Baby Bird pointed out that when Crime Alley was Park Row the street was lined with trees at regular intervals. I already have people assessing the areas and determining what needs to be done for them to be able to support a tree. Preferably I would like to plant fruit trees as a source of food and prevention against scurvy in the homeless. Scurvy has been an issue recently with residents of my territory being unable to afford the rising costs of fruits but also a sanctity in grocery stores. With your aid we could get the trees planted and, in a state, to start producing fruits in the near future which would help alleviate some of the strain I am now placing on acquiring fruit for my people.

Rooftop gardens were another idea of Baby Bird but I’m not sure how achievable that is with Gotham’s rogues and vigilantes. If you have an idea on how to install some sort of garden without risking it getting constantly destroyed, I am all ears.

I am of course also interested in any ideas you might have in approving the health of the people and environment of my territory.

Thank you for your time,

Red Hood

1. The third reason is to confuse Batman further. A crime lord pushing greenery is going to get even him doubting what he’s finding in his searches.

Chapter Text

Pamela set the letter down again confirming the words hadn’t changed. When the second Robin approached her area, she had been apprehensive. The boy was a man now and an overly polite and courteous boy did not mean he would be as such as a man. Especially knowing what little she did of what happened between his youth and now. Not that she had known who he was when he first approached.

She had only first gone to see him to see what sort of danger he was, especially to her lover with the name he chose. She had told him to leave glaring when he said he wanted to talk.

It was only when he removed his helmet, and several of her plants had recognized the man before her was the boy who had quoted poetry at them, did she actually consider him and asked what he wanted.

He wasn’t the first person to approach her about making drugs, marijuana, for them. He was the first to ask versus demand. As well as having a clear contract already made up. It outlined what he would and more importantly not do with anything she supplied him with. His clear conviction to sell whatever she made him without modifying was comforting.

She had come to an agreement to provide him with clean marijuana in exchange for money she could use to further her own goals. Twice she had requested him to interfere, on behalf of the nature of Gotham, against legislation in contention in Gotham and he had dealt with it. She never cared to look into how as it was of no importance to her but with all that she knew he’d be good for an agreement they reached in his, she snorted, Gerbera plan. Bats and their names, at least it was better than the first Robin’s ideas.

The plan was almost perfectly in line with her goals, although much smaller scaled than her normal aims, and she most likely would have agreed, but with the comfort he had made for her love after dealing with the… clown, she would have and still was willing to do more than follow her goals in line with Red Hood’s goals.

She stood from her chair and moved towards her greeneries for safer plants. She smiled wondering how he’d feel about helping her plant some of her creations in areas that needed to have toxins and other materials filtered. Along with the other things she could do to make the areas around and in Gotham safer for the normal flora, and fauna she supposed that was important as well.

Jason, aided by the Drake boy, had brought her a project practically, and possibly was, tailored to her goals. She would be a fool to disagree, and her love might play at being a fool at times but neither of them were fools.

Chapter Text

Bruce frowned down at the vials Tim had given him. With everything Tim had said he really wanted to run all the tests he could think of on the blood… but Tim had made his swear not to. That if he did that, something precariously balanced would fall and he’d hate himself for it.

Sighing he took the samples and started running the tests Tim had requested. Tim wanted him to make sure it would be safe to administer the medication to the person whose blood and other material he had been given.

As he finished setting up all the analyzers he thought about the other information Tim had given him. He needed to confirm Tim’s findings. That there were Lazarus Pit chemicals in every Gothamites blood he had tested.

His eyes shot to the analyzers testing a cure for something Tim refused to name. Was Tim involved with someone with enough Lazarus chemicals in their blood that they needed treatment? Tim seemed to think that the levels of Lazarus chemicals in most Gothamites had little to no visible effect.

He glanced again at the blood in the analyzers, his fingers itched to take some of the sample and run some tests that Tim had requested him to do. No, he took a deep breath, Tim’s trust was too valuable to break just to sate his curiosity.

Now to focus on the issue he could. Tim had brought an important finding to him about the Lazarus chemicals in Gothamites blood. He needed to confirm these findings with a wider population than Tim would have used. If Tim was right that Gothamites had Lazarus water in their blood he needed to move fast.

So how to sample a large portion of Gotham’s population? He should probably try to geographically profile the findings to see if the concentration of Lazarus chemicals differs depending on where someone lives. If it did it would be easier to track down the source of the Lazarus water.

Should he talk to Leslie? Most of her clientele was from the poorer areas of Gotham but it would be a good sampling of that population. If he told her he only wanted the results and rough geographic area of their home because there was something dangerous in the environment she might be willing to help. Maybe if he stressed it as a potential danger to her patients? But what to do with the rest of Gotham?

He shook his head; test first then figure out how to get peoples blood to test and determine the concentration of Lazarus chemicals blood. Once he got blood levels, he should probably do some tissue sampling… great more breaking into the city morgue. He did have some old tissue samples, from previous trips to the morgue, that he could test as well but first figuring out how to test for Lazarus chemicals in a person without taking hours per sample.

He also needed a way to test water, soil, and plant levels for Lazarus chemicals, for the plants he wasn’t sure if he should ask Pamela for help or not. She’d give him a lot of information about the health of different plants, and possibly be able to sense the concentrations of the Lazarus chemicals if he pointed it out to her… but does he want her knowing about the Lazarus chemicals and their possible effect on plants? It was possible that the chemicals were having a positive benefit and then she’d go looking for more… better not to risk it.

Turning his attention to his analyzers he started working on ways to speed up the testing for Lazarus chemicals in blood, tissue, soil, plants, and water. He let himself be absorbed into the task, anything to help him not break his promise to Tim.

Sometime later he absently noticed Tim’s tests were done. Reading the results he called Tim and told him the results as well as that he thought it would be safe to use the medication on the subject.

Tim had given him an awkward thank you back before hanging up but B considered it a success.

Chapter Text

Dick peaked over Tim’s shoulder where he was sitting in his office at his computer, “Whatca doing?”

Tim jumped in his chair, “Damn it Dick! Remember how your supposed to knock?”

“I did, you didn’t answer and language.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just barge right in and English.”

“I think Jason’s rubbing off on your in ways he shouldn’t.”

“He’s not the one I learned cursing from, what do you think high school is for?”

Dick rolled his eyes but let foo g the topic, it’s not like he actually cared, “What’s with the graphs?” Narrowing his eyes he leaned further towards the third monitor, “Is that from Little Wing’s helmet?”

“No?” Tim tried to block that part of the screen from view, although it didn’t work well with how skinny he still was. He was filling out with Jason regular feeding but he had just hit a long-awaited growth spurt so he was almost as skinny as when Jason first rehommed him. He needed to build up his weight again, to suit his new height, before Jason would let him outside without at least three coats.

Tim was rather certain if Dr. Freeze got out Jason wouldn’t let Tim even leave the house at all.

“It is! What are you doing watching that? There is definitely some not appropriate for Baby Bird viewing material in that.”

Tim sighed in defeat falling back into his chair, “Not as much now.”

Dick cocked his head to the side looking down at Tim.

Tim bit his lip, “I’m tracking Jason’s violence levels,” He gestured at the screen with the graphs and charts, “How often he kills, for what he kills for and other parameters of violence and obsession levels, as well as spikes in heart rate when no source can be seen.”

“Why?”

“I’m collected data to see if the different treatment is working.”

Dick looked to the graphs, “Some of these are going down, but some are going up. Is anything working?”

“They have been, especially with the latest one. Since we administered the latest treatment he’s only killed three people.”

Dick blinked, “It’s been two weeks.”

“Yep,” Tim pointed at the line that showed the most rapid decrease, “The only people he’s killed were the leaders of a trafficking ring targeting children and a pedophile. The number of broken bones and serious injuries are down as well,” Tim hummed, “He is shooting more people, that’s this line increasing but the locations are drifting away from potential deadly locations. He’s mostly shooting places that incapacitate and are generally easier to recover from than altercations with Batman. It’s about even with most of us so I’m considering him at a level of acceptable vigilante violence.”

“He’s better with B? Using guns?”

Tim nodded, “Surprising me to. Which this means if we can accept Jason killing the worst of the criminals out there, we’d be good for introducing Red Hood as an ally to the colony.”

“Your saying if we let Little Wing have just a little murder I can patrol with him!”

“Basically. Although it might be better for B to see this information first.”

“Send it! I’ll say you showed me so I can go bother him tonight!”

“I’ll send him all the data and the details of how the treatment have gone and see his response.”

“I’ll go see Little Wing as Red Hood tonight as Nightwing so if B asks my opinion on him as a person not just the statistics you’ll be providing him.”

Tim nodded as he transferred what he wanted to give Bruce onto an encrypted flash drive. Alfred had made it clear that he was coming to dinner at the manor tonight per B’s invention, so he could hand it off then.

Chapter Text

Bruce frowned looking at all the data Tim had given him from the sheer mass of info it was clear Tim felt strongly about taking Red Hood on as an ally.

He should probably pull Tim back to patrols before he did this with someone else, someone who might catch Tim stalking them. How Tim was getting all this information without Red Hood finding out was worrying. If Red Hood really could be an ally he would no longer have to worry about Red Hood hurting Tim, but only if Tim was right. Which he generally was.

From Tim’s reports of crime levels in Crime Ally it was obvious Red Hood was having at least a temporary improvement to the area. If it would hold true was the question but there didn’t seem to be any reason it would back track with all the work Red Hood had put into improving shelters, food shelves and soup kitchens. Well unless Red Hood died.

Bruce frowned, unsure why that idea bothered him so much. Just Tim liking what the man had done wasn’t enough for him to feel like he did at the idea of the other man dying.

Shaking his head he looked over the chart. Red Hood hadn’t fully stop killing which he was not happy about but it wouldn’t be the first time he worked with someone who killed. Diana, Jason’s favorite hero, killed. Could he accept it for the help to the city? Having Red Hood as an ally would be a definite benefit, even with the man still being a crime lord.

Red Hood’s past murder rates were at least partially influenced by the Lazarus Pits he was exposed to so more treatment might further decrease Red Hood’s overall violence levels as well.

Bruce grimaced, the fact that if you discounted the murder, which was a big thing to discount, Red Hood was less dangerous than him, stung. He needed to think about that but later. He made a note on his list of things to check for him to go back to later.

Jason would have approved of Red Hood and Tim definitely did, and with Dick declaring he was going to make friends with Red Hood he probably would.

Alright, if Dick approved of the man after meeting him and he took one more treatment round he’d be willing to work out a relationship with the man. It wasn’t like he didn’t already do that for Harley and Ivy.