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As much as Dick loved Tim, it was undeniable that he had a bit of a ‘saving people’ problem. Most vigilantes did, so that wasn’t anything against the kid. It just worried Dick to think about him trying to apply these powers to a murderous crime lord, even if said murderous crime lord had “agreed” not to hurt him. Dick wasn’t nearly naive enough to think that Tim would really leave the Red Hood alone, like he had said he would, and even if Tim did actually decide to steer clear, an unknown rogue had taken an interest in, bordering on obsession with, his little brother, and Dick wasn’t about to let that go unchecked. Bruce and Dick had their disagreements on an assortment of topics. However, the necessity of having all available facts and gaining them through intensive surveillance when all other options were unavailable, begrudgingly, was not one of them.
Dick suited up for patrol in his apartment, like he would any other night, and started the drive into Gotham, but he didn’t get very far before the metallic gleam of red from the alley he drove past caught his attention. Dick circled the block in the most roundabout way he could think of and climbed up a building overlooking the offending alleyway. He peered over the rooftop, careful to stay as out sight as possible. Hood wasn’t in the alley anymore, but his bright red bike was.
“Fancy seeing you here, Nightwing,” a modulated voice behind him said.
“Funny. I was about to say the same,” Dick responded easily, slowly turning around. “You’re a ways away from Crime Alley, Hood.”
“What, is a man not allowed to take a drive these days?” Hood responded in mock offense.
“Typically, being anywhere that isn’t in police custody after committing several murders is frowned upon,” Nigthwing rejoined lightly.
“Sure. It’s a good thing the police can’t arrest me then.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course they can.”
“Hm. They haven’t yet though, and it seems like just letting a murderer go free is not very public spirited,” Hood responded dryly.
“What are you doing here?” Nightwing demanded, growing increasingly frustrated with not being able to read Hood’s tone, due to the modulator.
“Checking out the neighborhood. Might be thinking of moving,” Hood responded, shifting a little. Thank God for body language, because Hood’s distinct discomfort told Dick everything he needed to know about his response.
“No you aren’t. Why are you really here?”
“None of your business.” Hood crossed his arms. Dick resisted the urge to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want Hood to know he was getting to him if it was avoidable.
“Ok, it is though because this is my city. I have enough B-list criminals without adding you to the roster. Go bother Batman or something,” Nightwing said dismissively.
“Dickwing, I’m hurt! I can’t believe you don’t love me.”
“You shot me. I couldn’t patrol for weeks. Get. Out," Dick said through clenched teeth.
“Fine. I know when I’m not wanted.” Hood walked past him and climbed down the fire escape and onto his bike. Dick noticed with a touch of confusion that Hood’s shoulders were hunched, like he was trying to make himself smaller. His posture spoke of actual hurt, but that made absolutely no sense. Why would a crime lord be upset by a random vigilante asking them to leave? That seemed like a perfectly predictable response, so he wasn't sure what about it Hood had been upset by, not that it particularly mattered. Dick also noticed a bag on Hood’s motorcycle that he hadn’t seen in his initial sweep of the alley. It looked like there was surveillance equipment in it. Interesting.
Once Hood had driven away, and Dick had watched him to make sure that he really had left, not just circled the block, Dick grappled over to the neighboring roof to see what Hood could have been trying to survey. After checking all possible angles, Dick’s hypothesis of what Hood had been looking at up on the roof was coming into focus, and he was not liking the picture he saw. A very specific spot on the rooftop created the perfect angle to see into Dick’s living room window, and there was absolutely nothing else of note nearby, unless Hood was stalking someone else in Dick’s apartment building.
Well fine. If that was how Hood wanted to play it, Dick would gladly match him. He had been planning to scope out Hood’s operation regardless of what else happened that night, but he could adjust course to place of residence.
“Oracle, I know this has been low priority, but do you have any leads on possible Red Hood safehouses?” Dick asked as he climbed onto his bike and drove towards Gotham.
***
“That looked to be another dead end, unfortunately. Thanks anyways for indulging me, O. I really appreciate it.” Nightwing sat on the edge of the roof of the building across from the apartment building of one of Hood’s supposed safehouses. It looked uninhabited, to the point that he seriously doubted anyone had stepped foot inside in months, but he wasn’t quite ready to go back to Bludhaven yet, so he decided to stake out the place for a minute anyway.
“Of course, Nightwing. Any reason you chose now to be particularly interested in the guy?” Oracle asked reasonably.
Dick sighed. “He showed up in ‘Haven today with surveillance equipment and looked to be scoping out my apartment. It could just be a coincidence, but with how much he seems to know about the other bats…”
“It’s more likely to be related to you than not. I’ll keep looking for him from my end, and I can set something up to notify me if anyone matching his description gets within a block of your apartment, if that would ease your mind at all,” Oracle offered.
Dick smiled a little. “Thanks, O. That would actually help a lot.”
“Anything for you, Boy Wonder. I am going to sign off now, unless you’re planning on staying out for longer?”
“Nah, I’m headed back in a minute. Get some sleep, Oracle. We can theorize later this week if you’d be up for it?”
“Sure. Meet at the Clocktower?”
“Sounds good to me. Goodnight, O.”
“Goodnight, ‘Wing.”
Dick sat, watching the skyline and trying to convince himself to drive back to Bludhaven when he heard them: gunshots. He knew he had told Babs he would turn in, but he was a vigilante. He wasn’t going to just ignore gunshots. He took off across rooftops towards the sound.
Dick arrived at what looked to be a firefight between the Red Hood and several other armed men. Now that he had a closer look at the men, they appeared to be the same gang members that he and Tim had tried to catch earlier that week. Damn it .
He jumped into the fray to assist the Red Hood, of all people, in taking them out. He, of course, used non-lethal means, mostly electric shocks, while Hood took a more…permanent approach. It matched every bit of information he had on the guy. His shots were precise and completely incapacitating, if not lethal. Finally, it was down to Nightwing, Hood, and the last gang member. Hood and the gang member, a man who looked to be in his early thirties who was wearing a nondescript black jacket over a white t-shirt and jeans, both had guns, a weapon Nightwing was now intimately aware that he lacked. Hood went to shoot the guy, in the head if Dick was judging the angle correctly (and he was). Dick moved between Hood and the man before he had even registered what he was doing.
“Hood, don’t–”
He felt something tear through his shoulder from behind and could tell, logically, that he had just been shot at point blank range in the shoulder with a pistol. Hood sidestepped him faster than Dick’s eyes could track and shot the man in the head. Nightwing numbly reached his left hand up to where the bullet had torn through his right shoulder. It went all the way through. Of course it did. At that distance, there was an infinitesimally small chance that it wouldn’t have. Hood walked back into Dick’s line of sight. Dick noted that his helmet was off, but that he wore a domino underneath. He avoided eye contact, hoping that if he ignored him long enough, Hood would get bored and leave.
“You just had to go and get shot, didn’t you?” Hood said, half hysterically.
“I didn’t want you to kill him,” Dick responded faintly, stumbling back until he could lean on a building. He reminded himself to keep pressure on his shoulder.
“Well, stellar job you did of preventing that. Now he’s dead and you’ve got a bullet wound, Dickhead.”
“It’s rude to call people names when they’re bleeding out,” Dick managed.
Hood stiffened and walked over to him. Dick stiffened at his approach and shifted away.
“It’s ok,” Dick heard Hood say, softer than he expected. Dick’s eyes were closed. When did that happen? “I just want to put a compression bandage on your shoulder. You’re ok. You’re safe.” Hood’s voice was closer now. That was bad. Was it bad? It had to be. That’s what Dick’s instincts were telling him, and he was rarely wrong about this stuff.
“No. I’m fine. I can do it. Leave.” Dick forced his eyes open and pushed off the wall. He stumbled a step into the alley before overbalancing and falling. He tried to catch himself with his right arm, and that went about as well as catching oneself with an arm that has an untreated bullet wound in its shoulder can go. He crashed to the ground, landed on his shoulder, and gasped in pain.
“No, you obviously can’t. Just– Jesus, Dickie, just let someone help you, ok?” a voice said, filled with worry. Hood , his mind supplied.
“I–” Dick tried to push himself up with his left arm and chanced to lean the tiniest amount of weight onto his right one before his vision whited out.
“Oh, fuck ,” he heard, before everything went dark.
***
The first thing Dick noticed upon waking up was that he was on an unfamiliar sofa, presumably in an unfamiliar location, unless Bruce had thrifted a new sofa in the three days since he’d been away from manor. He tried to keep his breathing steady, but fuck his shoulder hurt. He tried rotating it a little and felt the tell-tale pull of a gauze bandage, but no stitches. Ugh. He was going to need stitches. He heard footsteps walking closer to him, and a familiar voice said, “I know you’re awake, Dick. C’mon, I need to stitch your shoulder. I wasn’t gonna be an asshole and try that while you were unconscious, but we can’t just leave it open.”
Dick said nothing.
“Can you sit up? I’ll help you if you need it, but I’m also not looking to be punched by a panicking vigilante, if that's avoidable.”
Dick sighed, resigned. His uncooperativeness could accomplish literally nothing. If Hood wanted to hurt him, he would, and Dick couldn’t stop him by lying on the couch and pretending he wasn’t there. He pushed himself up, slowly, with a pained hiss. He looked up at Hood.
“What are you–” Dick trailed off, staring at the man’s face. He was still wearing the domino, but he’s seen…Hood’s lookalike in a domino, too. Hood actually being upset by Dick telling him to leave…too easy and familiar banter…holding a grudge against anyone who hurts kids…promising not to hurt Tim but having a grudge against him anyway… obsessing over the new Robin... ”Dickhead” ... ”Dickie” , they all pointed to something that Dick was afraid to look at. “Who are you?” he asked warily.
“The Red Hood, obviously.” Hood shifted uncomfortably again.
“No. Who are you really?” Dick asked calculatingly.
“What, all the bats are allowed to have secret identities but I can’t? Seems a little hypocritical, Nightwing .”
“You’ve called me by my name three times tonight alone. You know Robin by name. You know who Batman is. I think we’re past the point of secret identities, don’t you?” The lenses of Hood’s domino widened, and he looked down. “Jay?” Dick asked, painfully hopeful and desperate to know that he wasn’t wrong.
“Hey, Dick.”
No thoughts, except My brother is alive! , Dick launched himself off the couch at Jason and threw his arms around him, half hugging, half steadying himself, very pointedly resisting the urge to let go with his injured arm.
“Dick! Oh my god. You’re going to hurt yourself, what are you doing?” Jason said in his ear. Dick could hear the tears threatening him through his voice.
“You’re back,” he said simply.
“Yeah,” Jason breathed. “Yeah,” he said more strongly. “And I’m not going anywhere, so will you please stop reopening your wound? You're gonna get bandage in it.”
Dick acquiesced and allowed Jason to lead them back over to the couch and sat down. Jason made a move to get back up, but Dick grabbed his wrist. He knew Jason could have easily shaken him off if he wanted to. He didn’t, though.
“Dick, I need to go get the med kit. You have a gaping hole in your shoulder that needs to be closed.”
“Just– You’ll come back, right?” Dick felt ridiculously vulnerable, but he knew he had to say it so that he could let go.
Jason’s anxious expression softened a little. “Of course I’ll come back.”
Dick let go, and Jason walked across the living room to a door that looked like it led to the bedroom. Dick closed his eyes and then reopened them a few minutes later when he heard footsteps approaching. Jason sat down on the couch to his right and pulled the coffee table closer so that he could put the med kit on it.
“I have local anesthetic via syringe and lidocaine spray. Which do you want?”
“No, it’s fine. Just do it.” Dick braced himself.
“Look, I don’t want to push, and if you really don’t want me to, I won’t, but will you least let me numb it a little? This is a bitch of a bullet wound, N.”
Dick did not roll his eyes. Anyone who said otherwise was a liar and a traitor. “Look, I really don’t care. I just don’t want there to be a 'gaping hole' in my shoulder anymore.”
“Cool. Lidocaine it is. Hold still.” Jason liberally sprayed his shoulder. “Tell me when it’s working, and I mean actually working, not just kind of starting to work.” They waited a few minutes, and Dick felt his shoulder start to go numb. He waited a few more minutes before telling Jason he was ready, and Jason started on the stitches.
“Why did you get between me and that guy?” Jason asked, still focused on his task.
“I didn’t want him to die, Jay. And it didn’t occur to me that he would shoot the guy trying to save his life.” Dick laughed a little, self-deprecatingly. “Hey wait, shouldn’t I be the one with questions? My little brother is apparently not dead and also a crime lord,” Dick said lightly.
Jason stiffened a little. “What do you want to know?” he said, sounding more guarded than he had all night.
“Well, first, I want you to know that no matter what you tell me, I will not, ever, wish that you hadn’t come back or decide that I don’t want you in my life, ok?” Jason said nothing. Dick turned to make eye contact with him. “Ok?” he said, in a stare off with his stubborn, self-critical little brother.
“Ok,” Jason said, like he wasn’t sure he believed it.
“Trust me. I will never lie to you about something that important.”
“But you will lie to me,” Jason challenged.
“Of course I will. And you’ll lie to me back. We’re bats; that’s like a solid half of what we do,” Dick said with a grin. Jason laughed softly. It was enough.
“So, Jaybird, we don’t have to talk about this now if you don’t want to, but-”
“No, it’s alright, Dick. You can ask. We might as well get it over with, right?” Jason gave him a tense smile.
“If that’s what you want, then of course. So, do you know how you came back?” Dick asked, careful not to be too interrogative, even though his brain was rebelling at having absolutely no idea what Jason was about to say to him.
“I mean, yes and no? I woke up in my grave,” Dick inhaled quickly, eyes darting over to Jason. “I– yeah. It sucked. Had to claw my way out with a belt buckle. Still have nightmares about it, actually.”
“Jay–” Dick said softly.
“But I was completely braindead from the whole explosion and crowbar to the skull and whatnot, so from what I got from Talia, I kinda just wandered the streets of Gotham for a few days, and then someone took me to Gotham General where the League found and absconded with me.” The League?
“The League of Assassins?” Dick asked, praying he was wrong.
“Yep. Apparently Talia tried to fix my brain for like, months, hoping she could give me to Bruce as a sort of apology present or something so that he’d– I don’t even know–take her back? I guess that's what she was going for? But eventually Ra’s got impatient and said he needed to either see significant improvement in me or they’d cut their losses and kill me again. Talia didn’t want all her hard work to go to waste, so she threw me in the pit.” Jason looked away uncomfortably. He had finished Dick’s stitches. Dick readjusted so he was sitting cross legged on the couch and angled himself to where their knees were touching.
“The Lazarus Pit?” Dick asked gently.
Jason shook his head a little, as if warding off a bad memory. “Yeah. As a result, I was stronger, bigger, and angrier. Significantly angrier. Talia didn’t trust me around people she didn’t want dead for months after.” Jason was staring at the coffee table guilty at the mention of killing people. “I didn’t kill everyone she brought to me to her evident surprise, and when I was lucid enough, I started asking about Br– about Batman. That’s where things went the most downhill, I guess. She showed me that he hadn’t killed the Joker, even though the man murdered me , and on top of that, he went and got himself a new Robin, only a couple months after I died . She told me that he obviously didn’t care, and that, by extension, you didn’t either. And can you blame me for believing her? B was acting like nothing had changed. He let that clown live, and he conscripted yet another child soldier.” Jason’s eyes were growing steadily greener. “And you didn’t even come to my funeral, Dick.” Jason looked up at him, eyes startlingly blue now, and rapidly filling with tears that were obviously unwanted. “I mean, was I really that annoying of a kid, that you wouldn’t even go to my funeral?” He tried to laugh, but it sounded closer to a sob.
“Jason, Jaybird, I didn’t know. Please, you have to believe that I didn’t. If I had known, I absolutely would have been there, and as it went, I had, well I suppose it couldn’t be called a funeral because you were already in the ground, but I mourned you, Jason. You’re my little brother, and your death shattered me. I couldn’t go back to the manor for a whole year, partially because of Bruce, yes, and how he had acted after– but also because the few times I tried, for Alfred’s sake, I could swear I heard you laughing or saw you in the library out of the corner of my eye and I just– I couldn’t do it.”
“How didn’t you know?” Jason asked, not warily, just confused.
Dick sighed. He knew talking about this would bring the lingering resentment he’d felt towards Bruce since then to the surface, but his brother needed to hear this, and he could sort out his own issues later. “I left for a mission with the Titans in space just a few days before– before. And B had ways to reach me, but after the fact, he said he hadn’t wanted to distract me from the mission. Which was complete bullshit, because I would have wanted to know that my brother was dead! Hell, I would have wanted to know that you had run away too, but that hadn't seemed nearly as important an issue at the time. I got back to Earth the day after your funeral, and I came home to one voicemail from Bruce, explaining what had happened and that the funeral was yesterday. I was so angry, Jason. I drove down to Gotham, and I can’t remember what I said to him or what he said back to me, but I know it ended in me sobbing at your grave at three in the morning with no memory of how I got there, thinking I was never going to speak to him again.” A silence fell after Dick had finished telling his story. He slowly looked up from the coffee table to see Jason staring back at him with undefinable sadness in his eyes. Jason slowly reached an arm around Dick’s back, carefully pulling him into a hug. Dick let his head fall on Jason’s shoulder and returned the hug as best he could with one arm.
Dick laughed a little, quietly. “I feel like this should be happening the other way around, you know?” Jason hugged him tighter in response. “I’m ok, Jay. I promise. Significantly better, now that you’re back, but I was…getting there, I guess, on my own. Very slowly.” Jason pulled back but stayed closer than he had been before.
“What an asshole,” Jason said, sounding like he was contemplating another murder.
“I know, right?” Dick smiled tiredly. “So, after Talia manipulated you into thinking that your family never cared about you, what happened?”
Jason grimaced and looked away guiltily. “Well, because of all she had said, I wanted to come back to Gotham immediately for my–um–revenge, but she said I wasn’t ready, so she sent me around to all these mentors, and that took about a year. Killed more people then, as training ,” Jason said the word as if it had insulted his mother, not Sheila but Catherine.
“Ok,” Dick said, keeping his voice neutral.
“So after that, I went back to Talia, and she helped me plan an entire revenge plot, and she kept trying to center pieces of it around going after the new Robin, and at the time, I thought she was just trying to fan the flame of my jealousy to manipulate me more, and that was definitely also part of it, but now I think she’s gotta have something against the kid, because the amount of time she spent trying to convince me to kill him was worrying for a grown adult woman. I was more focused on Batman, and how I could shove my death in his face and make him finally acknowledge it at least, even if he would refuse to do anything. The plan involved becoming a crime lord, I set my own rules for that, and I actually learned I could do a lot from this side of things to minimize harm done to people in the alley, so I actually got a lot more invested in that part than originally planned. Then Blondie showed up at Titan's Tower instead of Tim and forced me to realize that I actually have no reason to hate the new Robin, other than his existence, so I called off all those pieces in the plan, but Batman still has shit to answer for, and I’m not going to be talked out of it. However, that part has been set on the backburner because this new gang is trying to come into my alley and blatantly disobey my rules, so I want to deal with them before setting off anything important.”
Dick smiled at his little brother. His wonderful, kind, slightly murderous brother. Becoming a crime lord in order to be the best, most helpful crime lord possible was so incredibly Jason that it hurt a little. Every second he’s spent with Hood or Jason are so reminiscent of that kid. The kid’s been through a lot and has changed some, but at his core, Jason Todd would always be Jason Todd, even if he himself couldn't see it.
“If you need any help with them, just let me know, Little Wing,” Dick said, still smiling fondly.
“ Fuck no. You lost your helping privileges when you got shot because you turned your back on a criminal, Goldie.”
Dick pouted in mock offense. “Well maybe I wouldn’t have if someone wasn’t trying to kill him,” he rejoined. Jason’s expression shuttered, and he looked away. “Let’s just agree that it was the guy who shot me’s fault, ok?” he said softly.
Jason looked back at him, relief shining in his eyes. “Ok.”
“I’ve got a lot to catch you up on with Gotham, it seems, because Talia did a terrible job of it, and I’d also like to hear the whole Titan’s Tower story from your perspective because I know Tim didn’t tell me the whole truth, but that can wait. For now, I’m just glad you’re back.”
“That’s it? You aren’t even going to ask about the duffle bag full of heads? The exploded warehouses? The fact that I’m actively running a drug trade?” Jason said incredulously.
“What’s done is done, in regards to the duffle bags, and I had Babs look into it when it happened. Five of them were child abusers, three of them regularly hit their wives, and the other two were also murderers. All of them laced their product with dangerous additives to make it more addictive, but that also heightened the risk of overdose. None of them were exactly upstanding citizens, and the heads made for a very good point. I may not have ever done it myself, but as a strategy, it was extremely effective, and anyone should have to acknowledge that. The warehouses were empty and definitely not up to code. I also had Babs check on that, and we’ve all committed private property damage at some point or another. And you’re actively running the drug trade to minimize the harm it does to people in a community you care about so that hardly counts as criminal activity,” Dick finished with a raised eyebrow.
Jason stared at him, and it looked like, for the first time that night, that he actually saw Dick Grayson, as opposed to Nightwing. “You really don’t care,” he said disbelievingly.
“Sure I care. I care about everything. I don’t care about it more than I care about you though, and that’s the part that matters.” Dick met his eyes unflinchingly.
Jason smiled a real smile at him for a second, before his expression cleared itself, and he was back to business. “It’s time for bed. I’m tired. You’ve got to be tired; you have a bullet wound. C’mon, injured birdies sleep in beds. I can take the couch.” Jason got up and offered him a hand. Dick took it and followed Jason towards the bedroom.
“Jay, I really don’t mind sleeping on the couch. I don't wanna kick you out of your bed,” Dick protested, even as he followed.
“Shut up and go to sleep. We’ve been up for too long anyways. It’s fine, Dick, I’ve slept in way less comfortable places.”
“You have a queen, and I don’t mind sharing if you don’t,” Dick said.
Jason considered. “Fine. But if you try to cuddle me, I’m kicking you out, and you can walk back to Bludhaven in the dark and cold.”
Dick grinned at him. “Sure, Little Wing.”
***
If Jason incrementally moved closer to Dick throughout the night and woke up with his arms wrapped around his older brother like a teddy bear, that was no one’s business but his own.