Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was genuinely an accident when it started. He wants to make that absolutely clear: none of them meant for this to happen. 

See, it could probably all be traced back to being Bruce’s fault. And as his eldest kid Dick considers it a solemn duty of his to always try and turn every dumb mistake he and his siblings have made back around on Bruce because there is nothing funnier in the world than blaming the world's greatest detective, the Dark Knight himself, as being the real problem child of the family. 

This time Bruce can be blamed because he said he was going to be out of Gotham for three weeks. He claimed that it was because he had ‘very important’ Wayne Enterprises business to conduct in France although everyone knows that that was Brucie Wayne’s excuse for going. But Batman didn’t raise a hoard of detectives for them not to have checked all of Selina Kyle’s primary aliases and all associated passports to find out that she just so happened to line up her Paris vacation with the exact dates of Bruce’s trip. 

Still, all that really meant was that it was going to be all hands on deck while the Bat was out of town. It’s something they’ve handled plenty of times before and aside from the usual life-threatening villainy and evil-plan-foiling of their whole jobs, everything usually goes pretty smoothly. When Gotham gets to see all her heroes out in their full flock, even without the Bat, that’s normally enough to scare most of the low lifes and shit-stirrers off the streets without a single vigilante having to even raise a fist or throw a batarang. 

So all in all it should be a perfectly easy, totally normal night. 

Nightwing has been bouncing back and forth between Gotham and Bludhaven for the last few weeks, meeting up with the other Bats when he can to patrol. So he figures, reasonably enough, that the rest of the kids should all be more than capable of sorting themselves out and divvying patrol routes out amongst themselves by now. Especially since Nightwing has claimed no usual stomping grounds as his own. Without any specific territory to defend he’s found that all of Gotham is pretty much free real estate for the city’s second-longest operating protector to keep himself busy. Perhaps that trust in his siblings is his first mistake though because his engine isn’t even off before he’s confronted by the unfortunately familiar sounds of an argument echoing through the cave. 

“I get that,” Tim’s voice drifts to Dick first, “But that doesn’t stop it being mine.”

“Tt.” Damian’s huff, at the very least, leans more to general irritation rather than actual rage which Dick is absolutely going to count as a win for the whole team keeping it together before he arrived, “Your protests are irrelevant Drake. It is hardly as though you were planning on using them.”

Dick crests the stairs to the platform before the batcomputer where it seems the entire night crew is gathered right as Tim splutters in a truly impressive show of indignation. A quick scan of the room reveals both Steph and Cass dutifully checking over their equipment before heading out for patrol and both performing a frankly wonderful display of pretending to ignore the boys while still tracking every move of the spat behind them. Dick smiles back at Steph when she catches sight of him and throws Cass a wave, making a quick mental note to tell Babs just how well the girls have learnt from her well practised art of ‘ignoring idiot batboys’ that she herself had perfected back when it was just Dick and Bruce around to give her headaches. 

Jason is also in the cave apparently, which is an honest surprise. For quite a while now Red Hood has been much more likely to just meet up with the rest of the Bats in the middle of the city, claiming quite rightly that he has enough weapons caches and safe houses of his own that heading all the way out to the cave just to circle right back into the city proper is a waste of his time. Though now Jason has posted himself up at one of the work benches and is fiddling with his grapple so apparently the allure of Bruce’s superior tool sets is still enough to drag Jay back out when the mood strikes. Dick offers him a small smile and waggles an eyebrow at the adjustments his brother is making while he passes. Of course that earns him a half hearted kick to his shins that Dick dodges with ease and a small laugh. 

Which just leaves the last two.

Tim and Damian are stationed right beside the desk where it very much looks like they fell into their argument half way through prepping for patrol. He takes in the frankly astounding lack of readiness the two of them are displaying with mild surprise. 

What’s captured Dick’s attention this time though is the Red Robin costume that is only half done up, Tim’s utility belt lying neglected on the desk with half its contents sprawled across the table top while Damian in turn is standing in his Robin shirt, cape and hood drawn around his shoulder while he holds… Tim’s pants. 

Dick blinks at the strange tableau twice to just check if he may have inhaled some weird offshoot of Crane’s fear gas that is somehow designed to elicit visions of bizarre siblings behaviours. Unfortunately it seems Dick is still totally in control of his own mind and body and yet that does absolutely nothing to explain the fact that his youngest brother is not only by all appearances holding Tim’s trousers hostage but that he is specifically holding a pair of very familiar armoured leggings Dick hasn’t seen in years. 

“Why do you have Robin’s pants?” 

The words fall from his mouth before he can even think to hold them back. On any usual day the sight of Damian in possession of a Robin uniform would be utterly unremarkable, the only problem being that right now he is clutching at the muted green of what is very distinctly Tim’s iteration of the Robin uniform. A quick scan of the room doesn’t reveal Damian’s black attire anywhere in sight. 

Both boys do an admirable job of pretending like they definitely knew he was standing mere feet behind them, as is the habit of all Bats who want to make it appear that they’re aware of everything all the time forever, but Dick’s been in this business longer than any of them and if he wanted to sneak under their radars then sneak he would. Then again he really needn’t have bothered as neither of them had been paying attention to anything but the inexplicably present pants. 

Tim is first to recover but not fast enough to hide the pleased glint in his eyes when he realises that Dick had naturally defaulted to calling him Robin again. 

“He’s trying to steal them,” Tim dutifully snitches at once. 

“False,” Damian says, “It is not stealing if I am forewarning Drake of my actions. A courtesy I shall obviously not repeat next time.”

Tim eyes the pants warily, “There won’t be a next time, kid. That uniform is mine. You can’t just take it.”

“Why do you even want Tim’s uniform?” It is a subtle art to jump in the middle of a fight before his brothers can ramp up to actual yelling but Dick has never been afraid to take a leap before and these two being unnecessarily petty will certainly not be enough to make him start now. He pauses for a moment before adding with genuine curiosity. “And where’s the rest of yours?”

Damian successfully manages to avoid glancing down to the telling paint-stained jeans that Dick can only assume means he’d skipped dinner to finish whatever his latest artwork is and managed to avoid Alfred’s sharp eyes and strong opinions regarding appropriate attire in the dining room. 

“My uniform sustained significant damage during last night's patrol,” Damian reports stiffly, not at all subtly avoiding the first question. 

“He means Croc got a swipe at him,” Steph’s voice pipes up from near the lockers, “Snagged the fabric right down the back.”

“Are you alright?” 

Damian didn’t seem injured and Alfred-avoidance strategies aside Dick is certain the others wouldn’t have let Robin patrol if there was any significant damage. Still, he’d learnt a long time ago to double check on just what everyone in this family considered ‘acceptable’ levels of injury to head out with. 

“I am fine, Grayson,” Damian says, clearly trying to avoid any further interrogation but at the very least he’s not lying, “It is simply logical I borrow a replacement until Pennyworth can mend my current pair.”

Dick stares at his youngest brother hoping the answers to all his unasked questions will magically manifest before him so he doesn’t have to keep up with this utterly nonsensical conversation. Magic, as per usual, fails him. Instead he resigns himself to actually having to understand this problem, with all the put-upon exasperation he can muster.

“Damian. You have more than one uniform. You have plenty of spares of your own pants. I know this. You know this. So why the hell are you trying to take Tim’s?”

Ah. The first clue to the actual mystery of what the hell the boys are up to is finally revealed to Dick in the form of Damian’s ears tinting with the slightest flush of red. He purses his lips in the exact way he thinks makes him seem above the indignity of answering questions that are beneath him, but has always looked to Dick more like he has encountered one of the Batcow’s droppings in an inopportune place. 

Thank god for apparently being in a family of snitches though because it is Jason this time who elects to fill the pointed silence. 

“He left ‘em all in Gotham.”

“What do you mean in Gotham?”

“What the hell do you think I mean? The brat left ‘em all in the city.”

Dick turns his attention back to his youngest brother who is making a real display of studiously examining the cave floor. “Damian. Where.” It wasn’t a question. 

“At the penthouse.”

Now it’s Cass whose voice enters the fray. “And.”

Damian rolls his eyes, “ And there may be a pair at the Clocktower.”

He’s not even finished speaking before Steph chimes in again and he can hear the grin on her face even with his back to her, “There’s also the pair at my place. You really gotta come pick them up at some point by the way, Baby Bat,” she pauses, “Also stop breaking into my apartment just to leave your stuff everywhere.”

Apparently, despite all the interruptions Jason’s also not done throwing Damian’s remaining dignity right out the window. 

“Couple of them are at one of mine.”

Now the other locations make at least some semblance of sense. Even if Damian really should stop leaving such incriminating evidence in Steph’s civilian apartment. That one’s just common sense. But Dick has to wrack his memories for the last mission Robin and Red Hood had gone on together and where Jason’s closest safehouses are to figure out where the hell Robin’s uniform could possibly be, “The one near the Frankston Batburger?”

“Nah. Between Grimms and Rosenburg”

“How’d you guys end up all the way out there?”

“Riddler got pissy and added an extra line to the last puzzle just to turn us around.”

“Ah, fair enough.” With that sorted he looks back to the pair before him before promptly whacking Tim in the shoulder so he stops looking so smug at everyone throwing Damian under the bus. 

“And what’s your excuse?”

Tim blinks at him with wide eyes that have lost their well-honed ability to manipulate him into saying yes to any one of Tim’s ludicrous schemes some years ago. 

“What do you mean?”

Dick wants it on record that he hates having to be the adult of the group. It’s much more fun when Bruce is around and he can unionise with the youngin’s to go torment their mentor together. 

“Why can’t you let Damian just borrow the pants? It’s for one night, Tim. If you really hate it we can make sure we stop off at Jason’s safehouse first and he can change into the spare. No one will even see him.”

“Oi, who said you can come to mine?” 

Jason’s protests are dutifully ignored by everyone present, though Dick does see that both Steph and Cass have migrated from the lockers up to the main level and are both perched on a railing while making no effort to hide the fact they’re just here to watch the show now. 

“It’s not my fault Damian hasn’t been taking care of his own stuff,” Tim says while looking about one second away from pouting, “That doesn’t mean he should be able to just take mine when he feels like it.”

Resisting the urge to smack his own hand into his face Dick sighs, “Is it really that big a deal? Your old Robin uniform is probably the only pair that will actually fit him and has any decent armour in it.”

“Exactly,” Damain chimes in unhelpfully, “Listen to Grayson. It is simply logical until I can locate a superior option.”

Great. That’ll definitely help convince Tim. Good negotiation tactics Dami. 

Tim, unsurprisingly, does not appear compelled as he gawks at the both of them. “If they’re so inferior then you obviously shouldn’t use them. C’mon Dick,” He looks pleadingly up at the man who had made the simple mistake of being the first one that Bruce adopted and now somehow over a decade later that’s left him in this situation, “Tell him he can’t just steal my things. Those were for my Robin and I’m saying he can’t take them!”

“What do you want me to do?” Dick finally huffs in pure exasperation, “Let him wear my Robin pants?”

Dead silence rings out through the Cave. Honestly the bats themselves up in the ceiling might have shut up just to really hammer home the point. The seconds stretch out in a way Dick does his very best not to be offended by.

Apparently, despite everything, Tim is still the only one brave enough to break the echoing quiet. “I don’t, uh, think Damian would like that.”

For perhaps the first time ever Damian doesn’t even protest Tim speaking on his behalf as he’s far too busy staring at Dick in abject horror.

“What?” Dick says. Okay, he’s well aware that the shorts are not exactly looked on favourably by all of his successors but they worked just fine for him thank you very much. 

The longer Damian stares at him like that the more Dick finds himself resisting the urge to launch into a defence of his uniform. It’s not like the kid ever even actually saw him wearing it in action so there’s frankly no need for this level of judgement. Whatever that expression of repulsion says to Dick, it apparently means free entertainment for Stephanie who promptly cackles at the boys. 

“Aw c’mon Dick,” she grins at the betrayed look he shoots her, “You’ve gotta admit that your, uh, early designs haven’t exactly aged well.”

“No, I don't. They’re just shorts. That’s a perfectly normal thing for a nine year old to wear.”

“Yeah sure thing,” she concedes, laughter still tracing her every movement, “But we all know Timmy here had the right idea to add, y’know, actual pant legs.”

Tim throws a hand out at her in a vague motion of agreement and even Damian manages a strangled nod at the end of Steph’s statement. Even Cass, the menace, is bouncing her head in sage agreement. It’s a hell of a long shot but Dick can’t help turning to Jason, hoping to find at least one person on his side. 

Jason, who it turns out is still standing frozen by the workbench, grapple in hand, looks deep in thought. The others all track Dick’s gaze to him and it is only with five separate pairs of eyes on him that Jason looks up to see them all waiting on his verdict.

“The shorts weren’t that bad.” 

A chorus of protests rises from the peanut gallery but Dick turns back with his own smug smile settled right back in place. 

“See? Not terrible. So you can all shut up about it.”

Tim scoffs, “That’s still two against four. You’re outnumbered.”

“Yeah but we’re older,” Jason says. 

“So?”

“So superior ages, superior opinions.”

“Exactly,” Dick nods. 

Now Cass is the one to scoff, “Same age,” she looks to Jason, “Shorts still wrong.”

“I’m two months older than you,” Jason points out.

Cass sticks her tongue out in a move that is so clearly a perfect mimicry of Steph that the blonde actually applauds in delight. 

“You’re still outnumbered no matter what,” Tim says, “And Jason is obviously biassed so he shouldn’t even count.”

“Excuse me?” 

Ah. And now he’s up, grapple forgotten as Jason marches closer to the crew, “How the hell am I any more biassed than the rest of you?”

Tim crosses his arms defiantly which would likely be a lot more intimidating if he’d ever actually fully finished getting dressed and wasn’t standing there with a half unzipped uniform. 

“Because you just copied Dick. Duh.”

One could hear a pin drop to the bottom of the cave if they tried hard enough in the ensuing silence. Jason manages one whole menacing step toward Tim before Dick’s arm shoots out to hold him back from enacting any more unnecessary violence. A quick scan of his idiot brothers reveals that no one is actually mad at the very least, but as far as bat-speak goes that pretty much just translates to freely escalating the drama until everyone forgets what they were even pretending to be angry about in the first place.

“You little shit,” Jason says, “I was planning to change it up but something got in the way. Doesn’t mean you get to disrespect the shorts.”

A truly impressive chorus of rolled eyes accompany Jason’s favourite tactic of throwing his own death into an unrelated conversation but Tim being Tim manages to keep focus. 

“I can disrespect the shorts as much as I want. See my Robin uniform? I’d wear it again, because it ages just fine thanks. No dignity to be lost. Steph?”

“Hmm?” Her amusement at everything happening here is so blatantly obvious Dick can’t help but shoot her a betrayed look. Of course she just beams brightly at him the way she always does when someone presents her with the opportunity to cause problems just as the conniving glint in Tim’s eyes says he’s about to.

“Thoughts on your Robin? How’d the pants go?”

Steph preens beneath the collective attention all the Bats are directing right at her, her feet swinging joyfully against the railing she’s still perched on. “Oh big fan of my uniform. As a fellow Robin-Of-The-Long-Pants club I’ve gotta say we nailed it.” 

She shoots finger guns back at Tim and Damian who both dutifully ignore her before turning in eerie synchrony back to face down Dick and Jason.

“See?” Tim says. “Robin majority is clear.”

“Evidently,” Damian agrees from Tim’s elbow where the two seem to have entirely forgotten that they were the ones arguing now that they’ve decided to present a united front against Dick and Jason. 

“Hey now,” Jason complains, “I had plenty ‘a dignity then and I got plenty now.”

Damian arches one eyebrow in an impressive mimicry of Alfred. “ Perhaps you can make a case for the present. But I have seen both yours and Grayson’s suits,” he gestures an arm out to the display cases that line the walls, each featuring one of each major suit design and upgrade for each and every identity that a member of the family has taken up over the years. Dick and Jason’s early Robin uniforms are so far back down the line by now that they can hardly pick them out from where they stand.

“They are primitive compared to where I have concluded Robin.” Damian continues, “There is no armour nor any protection for your limbs at all. It is a miracle you both still have all four.”

“Okay,” Dick concedes, “So they could’ve been a bit more reinforced, sure. But do you have any idea how light they were?” Jason hums in agreement, “There’s a reason Robin could fly so damn well even before all our grapple upgrades. I bet if we’d done the same training courses as you guys have now our times would’ve wiped the floor with yours.”

“Big Bird ain’t wrong,” Jason says, “We had speed on our side for sure. Y’all are bogged down and you don’t even know it.”

A chorus of scoffs is pulled from their opponents, even Cass who hasn’t worn a single Robin uniform to compare it too but has chosen her side. He glares at her only to receive a smirk that he is also sure she learnt from Steph. It spells fun and humour and trouble. A dangerous combination from any of them. 

Shame for the kiddos that they keep forgetting that just because he’s the oldest that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten exactly how much fun any ex-Robin can have when making trouble. 

“Alright, alright,” Dick says, his hands raised in half-surrender and half-placating which only Jason knows to react to. Beside him his brother tenses, a look of deep suspicion crossing his face as he tries to figure out just what the hell Dick’s up to while the rest of the kids all ease back. Each one of them so easily convinced that Dick is about to launch into some boring spiel about getting along and putting the past behind them. Ha. 

“How’s about a bet?”

At once the flock before him snaps to attention, five pairs of eyes trained on Dick with varying degrees of intrigue and excitement. And of course heavy reluctance from Jason but Dick is quick to latch the hand that was previously holding him back into an anchor on Jay’s jacket so he can’t slink away. Dick is going to need an ally on his side for this to work out and Jay is apparently the only one he can count on. 

“Whatcha thinkin’?” Steph asks, her head tilted in idle curiosity but her gaze sharp at the mere suggestion of a challenge. 

“Tomorrow night. B’s still out so it’s just us in Gotham again. All five Robins in your chosen suit. Same route through the city. Fastest wins.”

A cacophony explodes through the cave in the space of a single breath, each Bat trying to crest above the tide of voices in response to the proposal. Dick lets the noise wash over him for three whole seconds before lifting the hand not currently occupied with thwarting Jason’s escape attempts, up to his mouth to let out a sharp whistle that has all the kids shutting up at once. Only Jay’s groan of defeat is left. 

With a quick glare at his brother in warning to not abandon him Dick releases the leather sleeve and props his hands on his hips as he looks around at the others.

“One at a time.” 

Four hands shoot into the air. 

To avoid any accusation of favouritism Dick decides to just head down the line and points.

“Damian?”

“This is juvenile. We shall be busy patrolling the city, there obviously will be no time for a frivolous race. What do you propose the civilians will say when they see four imposter Robins?” 

Dick dutifully holds back his own huff of disagreement at the implications of just who the imposter Robins are; though Jay, Tim and Steph have no compunctions about glaring down the youngest Bat.

“The civilians will be fine. They’ve heard of having fun before, you know. So I’m sure it won’t exactly be a foreign concept to them. Not to mention that it’s always good to keep the criminals guessing, huh? You can’t tell me any of them will be expecting this. Plenty of these guys are getting far too comfortable anticipating each of our individual strengths and weaknesses. Maybe it’s time to shake it up.”

It was honestly a long shot but Damian does quiet down, obviously weighing the virtues of disrupting their routine for what he perceives as a potentially strategic exercise in reestablishing the Bat’s collective mystique amongst their enemies in the city.

“Tim.” Dick points next down the line.

“Dick,” his brother couldn’t look at him with more scepticism if he tried, Dick smiles benignly at him until he decides to get to the damn point, “You’re not exactly nine anymore. None of those uniforms are going to fit you. And Jason?”

Tim just kind of throws his hands out to gesture at all of Jason and the good hundred or so pounds of muscle his little brother has put on since he was last wore the red, green and gold. Jason makes a vague noise that Dick translates into general agreement with Tim and he certainly can’t let his one reluctant ally be assuaged by such weak reasoning. So he elbows Jay in the side until he shuts up and waves away Tim’s concerns.

“Easy fix. Our uniforms were way more streamlined than yours and it’s not like I was still in middle school when I last wore mine. We have plenty of my old mockups in storage that are close enough in size so we can just modify them.”

Before he can open his mouth to protest Dick decides to just cut Tim off by pointing next in line. 

“Steph?”

“What’s the prize?”

Dick blinks at her. “What prize?”

“Exactly,” she says, snapping her fingers even though the mere mention of a reward has already drawn everyone’s attention right to her, “This is a race, right? Or a bet. Whatever. So usual rules suggest that we’re gonna end up with a winner. And I want to know what I’m going to be winning when I leave you boys in the dust.”

All four of the aforementioned boys bristle at her very obvious challenge. But even as the burning embers of his own competitive streak begins to stir at those words, Dick can’t help but grin at her clever cajoling. He can always count on Steph to be the one to whip the rest of the bats to attention with friendly teasing and her own sharp wit. She’s certainly not one to shy from a challenge and she is damn well aware that her own brazen confidence in a win is enough to redirect his brothers’ attentions to how they are going to come out on top while not even noticing they forgot to question the plan in the first place. 

“Great thinking, I vote winner gets eternal bragging rights and all the losers have to collectively explain it to Bruce when he asks us what the hell we were thinking.”

“And?” She presses.

“And… the winner doesn’t have to write up an incident report for the next six months because everyone else will have to do it for them.”

“I’m in,” she says confidently, “I hate those things, can’t wait for you guys to have me covered.”

Considering the smug smirk she throws his way, Dick is willing to bet that once this whole mess is over Steph is absolutely going to cash in her success at getting the others to agree to this whole thing in the first place. Eh, he can deal with that later. 

Before she can go and spoil (ha) her own clever work by teasing the other Robin’s for how swiftly she got them to buy in, Dick interrupts again, his attention landing on his surprisingly patient sister who has stood with her hand raised through all of this. 

“Cass? You’ve got a question?”

“No,” she says confidently, her own quiet enthusiasm brimming beneath the quirked tilt of her smile, “I will win.”

Damian, Tim and Jay all splutter at once, while Steph just peers at her friend in general bemusement. 

“But you weren’t Robin,” Damian protests.

“You don’t have an old uniform to compare to them,” Tim points out. 

“What the gremlins said,” Jason huffs, crossing his arms, “This whole Robin club is already too big as it is. B shoulda stopped at two obviously.”

Now it’s Steph, Tim and Damian who once again unite to glare at Jason who dismisses them with an easy wave of his hand. Before any of the youngin’s can start hissing at Jason’s smug expression, Dick shushes them all.

“You want in, Cass?” 

She nods.

“Whose uniform do you want?”

At that Cass finally does pause, uncertain. Of course both Tim and Steph take that moment’s hesitation to start pitching their own suits to her, no doubt hoping to double down on the supposed superiority of their preferred designs by having Cass’ blessing on them. 

“Honestly Cass don’t knock the skirt till you try it,” Steph says, bumping her shoulders with the other girl, “And you have no idea how many lock picks I used to fit in that headband. It’s free storage, how great is that!”

“No way, mine is obviously best for you Cass.” Tim says with absolute certainty, “It’s more streamlined than either of theirs,” he gestures both at Steph and at Damian. The first sticks her tongue out at him again while the second scrunches his nose in disgust. Though whether that is disgust at Steph’s childish actions or at Tim’s audacity of criticising his uniform is anybody’s guess.

Tim carries on oblivious to the other’s nonsense, “I had the long pants. No unnecessary hood. No excess skirt fabric. It’s closest to what you normally wear anyway.”

While Damian bristles about just how important his cape’s hood is, Cass takes a moment to peer around at the Robins around her. 

“None.” She eventually declares, earning her a confused look from everyone gathered.

“None?” Dick asks when it seems no one else will, “But you want to join in on the Robin Race?”

Jason groans, “Don’t tell me you’ve already named it.” 

His complaining is ignored, aside from the slightest twitch to Dick’s lips as he fights down the urge to laugh. 

Cass nods in answer to Dick’s question.

“Not a single Robin. Bit of all.” 

There’s a beat of quiet contemplation from the rest of the team but apparently none of them can think of any real protests to that. At least if Cass takes elements from each of their designs then no one has a double advantage when it comes to winning, and it neatly sidesteps her playing favourites amongst any of them which Dick can only assume is a relief. By the looks of it Cass is already planning to be in the race for the fun of it, after all it’s not like she really has any stakes in the superiority of any given Robin iteration nor anything to compare it too. 

A silent agreement passes between the Bats until sure enough Cass is inducted into the race itself, though her results won’t have to affect the final ranking of the pants vs shorts debate that will obviously underlie the whole thing. 

For a moment Dick thinks that’s that and now they can finally actually head out for the patrol they were meant to have started roughly twenty minutes ago - and then a thought seems to enter Steph’s head all at once.

“Wait if we’re letting Cass join as an honorary Robin for the night then it’s totally fair we should add Duke too. He was his own kind of Robin too y’know.”

Another shared series of silent glances and meaningful eye contact between the lot of them settles the debate without words as everyone concedes that Signal would absolutely love to join the night crew when they’re getting up to nonsense. 

Steph beams, “Great! If that’s all settled I’ll text him now. He’s not scheduled for patrol tomorrow anyway so he’s got plenty of time to rest up and come hang with the rest of us at night.”

She slips off the railing with a fluid movement that somehow ends with her phone already in her hands, her fingers tapping away, presumably to leave a message for Duke whenever he wakes up in the morning. Cass takes that as a signal for her too to climb down from her perch and starts to head towards her bike, ruffling Damian’s hair as she passes by. 

The boy makes a half hearted effort to squirm away from her attentions but begrudgingly concedes to the affection - with Tim’s old Robin uniform still clutched in his hands. Dick eyes them warily, wondering if his little bet was enough to distract his younger brother. 

Obviously when it comes to Tim he should never expect that he’d forget something he was in the middle of arguing about, because almost immediately Tim is also staring down at the armoured green leggings in Damian’s possession. 

Tim squints at his younger brother, endless calculations that Dick couldn’t even begin to guess at are running through his mind until Tim apparently reaches his conclusion and steps back from Damian. 

“Fine. You can have them until you find your own at the safehouse. Not a second longer.”

Dick doesn’t even attempt to hide the way his mouth drops open in surprise at that. He’s pretty damn sure that’s the quickest he’s ever seen Tim concede to one of Damian’s impositions into whatever Tim considers his turf. Beside him he can even feel the way Jason stills at the unusual, near genial accession between their younger siblings. 

Damian, in turn, eyes Tim warily for only a second before he seems to reach some sort of satisfactory answer and nods sharply. 

“Very well, Drake. I shall return them after our patrol concludes so that you may have access for tomorrow’s event.”

With all they needed spoken apparently done the two younger boys wander off in opposing directions with Tim finally zipping up the rest of his suit and Damian retreating to the locker room to change out of his jeans. 

“Hey, Dick?” Jason says after the two of them find themselves suddenly standing alone in the centre of the cave.

“Yeah?” 

“Did you somehow just rope us all into a stupid competition on your own and still somehow manage to make sure I’m not only stuck with you but outnumbered two to one?”

He’s glad that he is still staring after the empty space where his brothers just shared the first, and most concerning show of solidarity he’s ever seen now that he unwittingly just put them on the same team apparently against him . And Jason. 

“Steph helped.” 

Jason sighs. 

“You’re all idiots.”

“But you’re in?”

“Duh. If I gotta dress like an idiot to show these idiots whose boss then so be it. But you fuckin owe me for this one Dickhead.”

“Noted.”

-

Potentially, Dick thinks to himself, this was not his best idea. 

Admittedly his improvised plan apparently united the youngest Robins in such a bizarre sense of uniform-based solidarity that Spoiler, Red Robin and Robin had the single most efficient and collaborative night of crime fighting ever on record. The three of them meeting up around the city time and time again as they provided support and back up for each other for everything from bank robberies to simple muggings. Concerningly enough Dick is absolutely sure that those three were regularly turning off their comms, or at the very least they were swapping between the main channel and a private one of their own. Though what they were possibly scheming about behind his back continues to elude him. 

He even caved and asked Oracle halfway through the night if she knew what the kids were up to which earned him a sharp bark of laughter and absolutely nothing else no matter how much he prodded or wheedled her. Cass was evidently the only sibling who could be trusted to behave like a normal person because she managed to follow her own patrol route with minimal fuss and no unnecessary conspiring. 

Jason though… well Dick had just about written off the kids' strange behaviour to generally chalk it up as a win that at least they were all united in a common goal and maybe they’ll be able to actually work together with some semblance of peace for their future missions. Or at least with less snarking - though asking that from any of those three is a lesson in disappointment so Dick isn’t exactly holding his breath for it. 

Regardless, the sudden appearance of Red Hood landing behind him on the middle of a roof right as the clocks were tipping past midnight was a surprise.

“Hood.”

“Wing.”

Dick doesn’t take his eye off the backdoor of the seedy bar he’s been staking out for the last half hour, though he does shuffle just a little to the left to leave room for his brother to slink out of the window’s sightline and sit beside him in the shadows. 

Jason takes the invitation for what it is and slips down, his heavy boots making barely a whisper as they settle right beside Dick’s own shoes.

“Anything I can help you with?” Dick asks when a few minutes stretch out with Jason just sitting idly beside him. 

“What’s the play?”

“Not much of anything at the moment. One of Sionis’ old lackeys popped up on one of O’s cameras recently but he hasn’t been seen in Gotham for a couple of years now, just checking in on if he’s joining up with any new gangs that we might need to keep an eye on.”

Jason doesn’t react outwardly though he does hum a soft acknowledgement under his breath. Not particularly interested in pushing for any more details until he is willing to share Dick bites back any further questions and refocuses his attention on the exit. Thankfully Jay apparently doesn’t actually have all night to try and outlast Dick’s patience. 

“What’s the play for tomorrow?”

He flashes his brother a quick look though his mask of course betrays nothing. 

“What do you mean? We go out, kick the kids’ butts and brag about it for eternity. Job done.”

At that Jason does scoff a short laugh, “Short and sweet. But where’s the rest of it? Neither of us are exactly as small as we were when whatever that aerodynamic bull you were spouting earlier would have had any actual effect.”

Dick can’t help but grin at the reminder that not a single one of his siblings thought to actually question that explanation. To be fair Dick hadn’t exactly been intentionally lying. He couldn’t say for sure whether or not the later Robin iterations did have any real decreased mobility, or any excess drag. Dick has spent his vigilante career pretty consistently in the lightest, most flexible suits he can find. With a small exception for his time in the batsuit, Dick has always streamlined his costumes as best he can and even if Nightwing certainly keeps more covered up, he still doesn’t pack quite as much padding as the others. 

Still all that means is that Dick himself has no real clue whether or not he would perform significantly differently were he to have grown up wearing Tim’s, Steph’s or Damian’s stylings for Robin. At the very least he doesn’t think he’ll have to go and justify his weak reasoning any time soon because Jason had wordlessly decided to side with Dick’s explanation and the rare sight of them in true agreement seemed to be enough for the other Bats’ attention to slide to more important topics. 

“Sure,” Dick shrugs easily, “But you and I have been out in Gotham longer than any of them. And we’ve been doing this longer too.” He gives a vague inclination of his head to point out both their costumes and the whole staking-out-a-potential-criminal-den-as-part-of-their-volunteer-night-job. 

“So, what? You’re just counting on us doing better ‘cause we are?”

Dick hums, “I’m going to be honest with you Hood: I didn’t exactly plan this all out.”

“No shit.”

“Mostly I just think this is gonna be hilarious. Plus it got Red and Robin off each other’s backs.”

Even Jason can’t argue with results like that.

“Sure but I’m not losing to any of them, and you can’t do shit either or that’ll give them all free reign to lump me in with your failures now we’re apparently on some team together through the power of fucking short shorts.”

"And what exactly do you want me to do about it?"

The whole line of Jason’s body seems to slouch in defeat at the way Dick is apparently just not following his line of thought. He’d apologise for not being a mind reader but he’s not exactly looking to get pushed off this roof for some pretty basic sarcasm. 

“C’mon man. We’re obviously going to cheat and I wanna coordinate so neither of us look like idiots more than we already have to.”

Ah. Now that very much does seem like the kind of thing that would motivate his brother to actually seek him out. Dick is well aware that this whole race was an improvised plan mostly to prove to all of his younger siblings that they don’t know all his tricks just yet. But now that he has Jay voluntarily sitting beside him to make a plan together, and he can hear the sound of Red Robin asking Robin for assistance over the comms in his ear, Dick can’t help but think this might just be the best damn idea he’s ever accidentally had.

Now as long as he can get Bruce to realise just how fucking funny this whole thing is going to be with seven Robins out causing trouble together, then he’s pretty damn sure B will have to bow down in awe at how efficiently Dick has summoned a sense of sibling unity together through one simple game. If nothing else he’s bound to end up as the recipient of Alfred’s finest cooking as repayment for at least a single degree of peace in the manor once everyone has learned to work together. 

Well, assuming this all goes well that is. 

“I’m not planning on cheating dude,” Dick eventually replies, his attention divided between this conversation, his thoughts of eternal rewards and praise from the only actual adult of the house, and the way that his mark has just exited from that back door of the bar.

“It’s been a while since I was Robin,” he continues while packing away the last of his surveillance equipment, “But it seems to me like the kids need to be reminded just who started all this in the first place.”

He flashes his brother a quick, parting grin and then he’s diving off the roof already in pursuit of his target for the evening. 

Chapter Text

The next day rolls around to a strange energy thrumming through the manor’s bizarrely quiet halls. Breakfast was an unusually subdued affair, even with a full house. He’d been surprised when he’d wandered down the stairs closer to what Alfred would pointedly suggest was lunch time rather than breakfast only to find everyone else already up and at the table. Their own plates in varying degrees of empty which suggests that at the very least he hadn’t just fully missed a call for food and moreso that everyone had ended up here independently. 

The usual rules in the house suggested that if no one woke early enough to join Alfred when he was already in the kitchen then one would be left to fend for themselves because, as the butler had quite rightly pointed out, he had better things to do with his time than wait around for the more nocturnal members of the household to drag themselves out of bed. These days it was mostly Duke and Damian who got the spoilings of waking up early enough to reap the rewards of Alfred’s cooking. Though that was of course due to the fact Duke rarely spent the nights out as Signal and Damian would be caught dead before he admitted that he was in an ongoing feud with the toaster which, according to him, only behaved for Pennyworth. 

Still, a quick glance at the clock reveals that it is nearing eleven am so by all rights those two should have already eaten and headed off for whatever it is they get up to in their free time. Generally Cass is far more likely to steal whatever she is craving on any given day and take it with her unless the rest of the family is gathered which he supposes explains her presence at the table now, though he does see a granola bar tucked carefully in her right sleeve presumably for later. 

Steph and Tim are both wild cards when it comes to their eating habits so he doesn’t quite know what to expect when he sees them at their usual places. More often than not Steph will barge in and cook up whatever she feels like since she has officially earned Alfreds approval to have charge of the kitchen when he’s not around - though whether that’s because the man actually appreciates her cooking prowess or because even he doesn’t want to interrupt Stephanie Brown when she’s on a self imposed mission, who can say. And Tim will eat whatever is set in front of him Dick is pretty sure, especially considering just how many times he had served his little brother dishes that covered a truly vastly different degrees of actual edibility. But that doesn’t usually mean Tim is normally one to stick around for the morning meal even if there's company. 

And Dick honestly just doesn’t know what to think about the fact that Jason is somehow still here and that he’s plunked himself right into Bruce’s seat at the head of the table. 

“Hey guys,” Dick ventures further into the room when no one acknowledges his presence, “What’s up?”

The tableau in front of him is almost comical. Tim, Damian and Steph have all claimed seats as far from Jason as possible, their little trio huddled together closer than necessary and giving off all the signals of a conspiracy afoot. Meanwhile both Duke and Cass have taken the diplomatic route to seat themselves in the very centre of the table, both of whom shoot him matching sympathetic expressions while Jason resolutely does not stop staring down the baby Robin crew. For a brief moment Dick is reminded of the time Clark showed him how an established group of chickens will often bristle at the introduction of any new member to the flock and how Dick had watched a clear division of chicken-loyalties take over the Kent farm. 

“Hey man,” Duke eventually says, taking pity on him, “They’re all strategizing I think. And maybe planning on how to sabotage you and Jason.”

“You know what? I was starting to get that impression,” Dick resolutely ignores the nonsense around him with many long years of practice only to halt when he’s gathered his own food and is now confronted with the obvious political divisions of the table setting. He stares mournfully at his usual chair which has been co-opted by Tim’s current show of allegiance, so with a forlorn sigh he trudges back to the head of the table and settles to Jason’s side - resigned to his fate. 

The rest of the Robins all seem one iota of self control away from hissing at him for his apparent betrayal, while Jason only settles back with an even more self-satisfied sprawl across the chair. Dick huffs but as long as no verbal spar is going to break out he can handle some silly posturing. He turns to Duke and Cass as the only two members of the family he thinks he might be able to rely on. 

“You’ve been caught up on the whole race?”

Duke nods.

“Great, Cass is going in bits of all the uniforms so she’s not getting involved in the second level of this whole challenge. Where are you at with all that?”

The newest member of the family eyes the territorial divide that has occurred across the dining room and raises one arched brow.

“Oh I might be crazy but I’m not that crazy. I’m with her I think,” he says with a nod to Cass who grins, “I might bring out my old R gang suit though. May as well get another design out there too right?”

“The more the merrier.”

“Hey,” Jason interrupts, whacking Dick in the arm, “Stop fraternising with the enemy.”

“Duke is not the enemy.”

“Well he ain’t on our side, is he?” 

Duke raises his hands in mock surrender, “I’m on my side… and maybe Cass’. That’s it though.”

"You're on thin ice but you can stay."

"Thanks. Really appreciate it."

Dick shares a commiserating look with Duke, not that Jason would know as he has already given up on them and returned to staring daggers at the other end of the table. 

“Right,” Dick says when he’s finally scarfed down enough food to call it a meal and can push his chair back with just enough force that the rest of the table’s occupants all perk up, “This has been nice and weird so I’ll leave you all to it. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

Time to head to the Cave and start working on those suit alterations.

-

Hours later, the energy in the cave has grown truly palpable when all seven of them troop down together after dinner. A quiet affair that Alfred had watched over with a fond glint in his eyes even as he bemoaned their shared 'inclination to troublemaking'. 

Dick is the one leading the pack now to the quiet tune of seven sets of shoes making almost no noise between them. They step out onto the centre platform where he turns to see his successors all waiting eagerly for their signal. He draws in a deep breath which signals to all his siblings that he’s about to run through the rules again and make sure no one is playing dirty - a direction he imagines they all promptly intend to ignore. 

Dick grins. 

"Ready?"

They nod.

"Set. GO!"

And with a sudden burst of energy Dick bounds towards the lockers while the rest of them are left in stuttered confusion until a chorus of squarks and protests fill the air. 

Dick laughs brightly at the suddenly thunderous echo of boots pounding across the floor after him, all care and caution thrown to the wind while his siblings scramble for their own uniforms. 

Dick's jacket makes for an excellent distraction when he whips it off with a practised efficiency before taking a half second to aim and throw it. Steph's flustered shriek when it hits her is music to his ears, though not nearly as sweet as Damian’s sharp voice complaining that she got in his way. 

Kicking his shoes off behind him as he runs, Dick is of course first to the lockers where he had left his newly minted Robin suit hung up right by the entrance. He whips it from its hooks, toeing off his socks as he does. 

Cass is next through the entrance, her impeccable instincts guiding her swiftly enough to dodge the shirt he has just sent flying her way. Her laugh sounds bright in the room even as she slides to a perfect stop right before the pile of clothing she'd spent the afternoon scavenging from them all.

While the shirt missed its target Dick does manage to throw his newly discarded jeans right at Tim who barely takes the time to glare at him before he too is skidding to a stop by his own Robin suit. Honestly Dick would love to savour the experience of seeing his little brother back in his family colours but right now he's still shrugging into his own reds and greens and he most certainly doesn't have time for any of that. 

Predictably enough Jason is putting his superior height and longer legs to good use and so is next to thunder into the room, snatching his uniform from the hooks where Dick had very kindly elected to leave it in easy reach. 

"Asshole," Jason huffs even as he's yanking off his own jacket, "coulda warned me."

Dick laughs. 

Steph is in next, with Damian right at her heels which just means they're both in perfect proximity for Jason to follow in his footsteps and kick his own shoes out at the pair of them. Having learnt from earlier Steph ducks away from the projectile with a single minded focus and has her hands on her old costume in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately for him, it seems Damian hadn't considered any further 'indignities' like having Jason's manky boots soaring through the air towards him so Damian takes a sole to the chest that has him whirling on Jason with all the rage of a puffed up pigeon. 

Luckily Duke is not far behind and the sheer instinct of not getting bowled over gets Damian moving again which has the bonus benefit of letting Duke himself have direct access to his own locker. 

Just as the last member of their party has started to tug at his shoe laces Dick spins in place. 

"Have fun getting dressed kiddos," he croons at them. "I'll see ya at the finish line!"

He doesn't wait for them to quit gawking at him, fully dressed in a suit he hasn't worn since before most of them had ever even entertained a single thought about vigilantism. He's already bounding back out the door and making a steady beeline for his bike, which he, of course, already parked as close to the lockers as possible earlier that afternoon.

The grin doesn't slip from his face for a single second as he pulls out the simple black domino he used to wear and slaps it right over his eyes, its familiar shape and weight a comforting presence as he revs his engine and shoots out into the night before any of the others have even finished getting dressed.

See the thing the kids all apparently forgot when they were arguing for their supposedly superior suits yesterday is that back in the day Batman and Robin didn't have nearly as many resources as these guys have all gotten used to. Time was of the essence back when the batmobile's engines were half as efficient and when they didn't have any of Oracle's endless warning systems to prep them early. It was Dick and Bruce racing against the clock each night to make a difference in their city. 

All that is to say that shorts and a shirt may have offered Dick less protection than the later Robins' armoured leggings but hell if they weren’t significantly easier to put on at a moment's notice.  

Wind rushes past him as Dick's bike roars down familiar streets. Admittedly, the sheer amount of air hitting his bare knees is a sensation he wouldn't mind not having to remember but ah well, the sacrifices one makes to prove a point and beat one’s siblings at a dumb bet. 

A soft crackle sounds in his ear, his smile only stretching wider at the sound before a familiar voice sparks up.

"Looking good Boy Wonder."

"Always, BG."

Babs' laugh is rich and achingly familiar. A thousand memories of nights just like this fill his head while he swerves inadvisably close to a curb on the outskirts of Gotham proper. Echoes of endless occasions where Dick had crossed these same streets with Babs at his side. Batgirl and Robin: a formidable duo in their own right.

"Enjoying your head start?" 

"Of course," Dick says even while keeping his attention on the roads before him. It's early enough in the evening that there are still a fair amount of cars filling the streets, and even a couple of pedestrians who are braving some of the more well-lit areas of Gotham are swept past him in a blur when he pushes his engine just a little bit more.

"Are the rest of them out yet?" He can't help but ask.

Barbara tsks at his obvious ploy for information on his fellow competitors but eventually she replies.

"Yes. Most of them are on their way to you now."

"Oh? And whose left?" 

"Robin."

At that Dick doesn’t bother hiding his huff of amusement. Damian is very fond of his uniform but the extra tabard around the front and the layered armour across his chest was never going to work out well in his favour when it comes to a speedy suit-up. 

However Barbara apparently isn't done, her own humour evident in her every word.

"Also Robin and Robin are left."

Ah. Well damn. 

Dick groans. "You're not being very helpful, O."

"No. No I am not." Her laugh echoes out once again through the comm in his ear. “I thought that was the whole point of tonight? Robins, Robins and more Robins.”

"Wanna give me any hints?" 

"Sure," she agrees far too easily, "the ones that are left are not the Robin closest to you."

Dick curses and whips his head around to the streets behind him expecting another bird trailing in his wake only to be met with the exact same late night Gotham traffic he's been passing for the last few minutes anyway.

"Oracle," he whines and takes a sharp left towards his destination. 

Babs sounds utterly unrepentant when she replies. "Oh don't get your short shorts in a twist Boy Wonder, you've still got plenty of your head start left. I'll even be nice and let you know that Red is actually the one closest to you."

"Wait, which Red?"

His comm clicks off.

"O? Oracle? Is it Hood or Red Robin? Oracle?!"

Cursing at her meddling Dick elects to ignore the ever present threat of his competition gaining ground against him and instead just leans a little harder into his turns, pushing the bike to its very limits. While he definitely had the advantage over everyone in the suiting up department he is under no illusions that his brothers and sisters have all got their own tricks up their sleeves that he’ll have to watch out for. So for now putting as much distance between him and them is going to be his best bet to maintain that lead. 

Which is of course why Dick’s eyes are sharply attuned to his surroundings as he nears the first designated building for their little race. Oracle had agreed to chart the route out for them all so no one could claim a home advantage and she’d elected to start them off properly down in the Bats’ eternal least favourite part of the city: the warehouse district. 

Considering they are in fact still out here to do their jobs, entertaining Robin Race aside, the warehouses are always a safe bet to start sticking their noses into any illegal business that might be brewing throughout Gotham. Dick has just exited through the last of the outer suburbs and is starting to get surrounded by the looming blocks of storage that could all contain anything from imported clothes to Scarecrow’s latest medical crime he wants to call a lab. He slows just a fraction to make sure he can still properly case the buildings around him on the off chance there are any real signs of trouble he’ll need to check out; and it is probably exactly that shift in gear that gives him just enough time to jump. 

Something twigs in the back of his mind as he sweeps through the second last street before his destination and years of inbuilt instinct has Dick trusting whatever signals his senses picked up on before his brain could catch up and so Dick leaps from his bike. His body is thrown up in a near perfect back flip, the motorcycle charging forward without its rider for another few seconds before all at once a sharp band ricochets out from a nearby wall and a heavy duty, extra tensile net is ejected right into its path. 

Dick lands with a thud and watches in idle fascination as the net he can only assume was planted by Tim wraps around his bike, throwing it right off its course and heading to a convenient pile of discarded mattresses. He grins at the first evidence of his brother’s conniving but doesn’t have time to rescue his ride so with a quick shrug he takes a running head start before leaping up the nearest wall to him - keeping watch out for any other booby traps. 

He makes it to the roof with no further complications but this little delay is enough that he can just now start picking up the first hums of more engines making their way to his location. With no time to rig his own trap Dick elects to ignore whoever got out of the Cave first and start leaping the rooftops so he can reach the first checkpoint of their route. In fact he is willing to bet that in his excess rush to arrive Dick must’ve actually skidded right past another one of Tim’s traps and whatever pressure plate he would’ve set up because a couple of blocks from his location a cloud of smoke suddenly explodes up into the air in a flurry as well as the telltale sound of a motorbike’s brakes being hit far too hard and a skid of wheels across tarmac. Whoever was victim to that trap is quick to recover though, their engine revving up soon enough. 

Not one to look a gift smoke-bomb in the mouth though Dick has already taken that time to start making his way deeper through the district towards the second checkpoint. 

A roar echoes out from the general vicinity of the explosion. "Robin! You little shit." 

Ah. Classic Jason.

Dick spares a brief moment once he's put a few rooftops between him and the starting point to turn around and scan the area. If Jay is already out here and yelling at one of the others then it seems pretty likely that either Cass or Tim were the ones to get out the door at the same time as him. And knowing his siblings Dick is willing to bet Cass isn't going to waste her time with sabotage. She's much more likely to rely on pure skill and just try to stealth her way around the rest of their collective nonsense. So he'll definitely have to keep an eye on the shadows before she can slink past his lead. 

All that means is that Tim is almost certainly the one stepping on Jason's tail back there. It's always possible those two will manage to trip each other up enough that Dick's head start will hold up but there's no point in relying on that chance so he puts a little extra burst of speed on and makes the next few leaps up a couple of the taller warehouses. 

He's just crested the top of the tallest building in the district where he slows to a stop. From this vantage point he can get a pretty good look out across the streets and it is from here that Dick can see the swerving headlights of three more bikes all speeding right towards the area he's just left behind. He can't tell from here who is leading the pack but it does give him all the warning he needs that the kids are hot on his trail and he'll need to be sharp to stay ahead. 

The sounds of a scuffle reach him just as he finishes catching his breath for the next leg of his sprint. 

"Get off of me!"

"Aw, c'mon Robbie," Jason's glee is obvious even if Dick can't see where his brothers are just yet, "You chuck a bomb at me, I sit on your scrawny ass until you apologise. Fair's fair."

"Your fat ass isn't fair," Tim wheezes. 

"Ooh, solid comeback Baby Bird." 

Dick takes the opportunity of their distraction to creep up to the ledge and peek over the side where sure enough just a few rooftops away those two are in the midst of a technically skilled yet impressively stupid fight. 

Is it strategically sound to wait around and watch? No. Is it hilarious? Definitely. 

Even from there he can see the truly comical view of Jason Todd in all his grown up glory and 200 pounds of muscle in his own pair of bright green shorts and hilariously short sleeved shirt putting all of his not-insubstantial weight onto Tim. The younger of the two is more a flailing of limbs than a vigilante as far as Dick can see. Though Tim does admittedly look right at home in his old uniform, the black lining of his cape pooling elegantly around him even as he keeps wildly throwing his arms about in a vain effort to dislodge Jason. 

Then as was always bound to happen Tim finally takes stock of the situation and must have realised the obvious advantage their temporary suits were giving him. In one swift movement Tim has targeted his strikes up and around Jason's width until he has two strong fistfuls of Jay's own canary yellow cape and then he tugs .

Entirely unused to having loose fabric attached to him after all these years Jay had very much not been keeping track of his cape which just means Tim has all the leverage he needs to pull Jason's entire weight off balance. While his spine naturally arches back to accommodate the tight hold around his neck which lets Tim bring one armoured kneepad up and around to dig into Jason's thigh, levering the man off in one go. 

Jason's strangled shout is immediately cut off when Tim finishes the manoeuvre by just shoving Jay’s own cape into his mouth. The single most affronted expression Dick has ever seen in his life crosses Jason’s face while he stares up in betrayal at Tim standing victorious above him. 

Nothing in the world could possibly stop Dick from bursting into laughter at the sheer indignity of Jay sprawled on a rooftop in defeat with his brand new and improved pixie boots on full display. As one, Tim and Jason narrow in on the sound and Dick becomes all too aware that his brothers have now fully turned their attention into taking him down. Any solidarity and supposed team unison he might have had with Jason has most definitely just gone flying out the window considering the sharp competitive gleam that overtakes him the second he sees just where Dick has been perched ahead of him. Shit. 

Throwing his brothers a quick, mocking salute, Dick turns and sprints for the edge of his own roof and takes a flying leap out into the darkness of the night. Unfortunately he isn’t the only one. 

Seeming to simply materialise out of the shadows Cassandra Cain comes flying into the air right by his side. He gasps at her sudden appearance but honestly considering the set back of losing his bike to Tim’s trap and the undeniably alluring sight of watching his brothers make fools of themselves, it only makes sense that Cass’ single minded focus has let her make up the difference he’d gained from his quick exit. Even now she doesn’t pay him any mind, throwing her body expertly into a perfect dive that lets her roll out her excess momentum through her shoulders as she lands on the next roof - Dick follows suit barely a second behind. 

She’s grinning as the two of them start moving in sync. This whole night is just an exciting game to her when she has nothing to prove but her own skills. In fact, her unbridled joy at getting to stretch her prowess against the other Bats with no lives on the line, just fun and excitement starts to infect Dick too who feels that same endless energy that comes with the adrenaline rush of a performance. He feels his legs pump harder, his steps lengthen and his heart beat to its own rhythm with every step that he and his sister take in stride together. 

The pair of them simply fly across the rooftops in an improvised dance, neither gaining any ground that the other can’t make up moments later. Dick throws his body into flips that launch him through the air while Cass’s delicate steps seem to transport her across the rugged terrain with effortless grace. 

His comm clicks to life in his ear and by the minute raise of Cass’s eyebrows beneath her own black domino it seems hers did too. They charge forward even as Barbara’s voice chimes in their heads.

“Are you two cheating?”

“Huh?” Dick gasps out right as he leaps off the precarious edge of a protruding vent that gives him just enough height to make it to the railing of the next building’s fire escape.

“I’ve never seen you guys cover this much ground without your grapples.”

Cass lets out an amused scoff but doesn’t bother speaking when the both of them are already channelling their every ounce of energy into keeping pace with one another. But Dick can’t help himself when he can already tell Babs is more than willing to keep pestering them all night until she gets the answers she wants. 

“Nope,” he huffs, “We’re just that good.”

Babs sighs in his ear but clicks off the comm when she eventually trusts that they are in fact just operating under their own power. 

Cass beams at him and he is struck by the realisation of just how rarely he gets to see so much of her face out in the field. She apparently chose to stick to the same simple black domino he, Jason and Tim all wore before Steph had swapped to green and Damian had added his angled corners. She seems to have settled on her preferred combination of all their outfits pretty quickly: she’s wearing the same shirt as him and Jason while she’d obviously modified one of Damian’s dark black pants to fit. She’s got Tim’s Robin boots on and Steph’s cape and headband to complete the look. Maybe he’s biassed but Dick can’t deny how good it looks to see the history of his mantle all gathered into one piece all complimented by the sunny grin on his sister’s face.

“Lookin’ good, Robin,” he says.

Cass’s laugh is breathy and quiet but he hears it loud and clear anyway. 

What happens next is only not embarrassing, he decides, because Cass is obviously caught just as unaware as he is. One second they’re flying through the air, both angling for the very last warehouse before they’re officially out of the district and can start heading for the next checkpoint. And then before they know what’s happening a sudden click emanates from the rooftiles they’ve just landed on and the all too familiar instinct for danger has Dick freezing in place, Cass doing the same right beside him. They each stay motionless so as not to trigger any pressure plates or unseen threats - only their eyes dart rapidly, casing every detail around them. 

The fact they’re not even moving makes it all the more embarrassing when Dick finally figures that whatever tripped the sound either malfunctioned or is at least not something that’s about to jump out and attack him. Cass seems to reach the same conclusion at the exact same moment which means the race is still on and they’ve lost precious seconds standing in the one spot for far too long. He sees the way her muscles tense, preparing to take off running again so he scrambles to beat her to it only to encounter the sudden realisation that his goddamn shoes are stuck. 

Dick and Cass seem to jerk forward in gawky, awkward swerves when they both only just manage to catch themselves from falling right to their faces by sheer force of will. He looks down at the floor with abject horror to only now notice the near invisible sheen of light bouncing off what he can only assume is the exact same fast-drying adhesive that all the Bats carry with them. You never really know when you’re going to need some heavy duty security out in the field. Of course a Bat has to be prepared for anything so Dick also damn well knows that this is bound to be the same adhesive that will dissolve with the application of a simple salve they also all keep stocked in their belts. 

Whoever set this trap very clearly had their fellow Robins in mind so that at least rules out some exceptionally poorly timed supervillain attack. Cass has already started trying to pour the salve around her boots, tugging listlessly at her feet as inch by inch the glue dissolves around her. Dick doesn’t waste any time in copying her movements. 

If he’d thought they’d wasted time earlier that’s nothing on the tedious process of releasing one small section of sole at a time before he has to pour even more salve to get to the centre of his shoes. 

“Oh my god!” An all too familiar voice crows from the building they’d just abandoned. Out of the corner of his eye Dick can see Steph skid to a halt right before the ledge. 

“It actually worked?!” Her face splits into a near-manic grin, “I got both of you?!” 

“ Robin ,” he hisses only to be rewarded with a snicker. 

“Oh man, I hope O has a camera somewhere ‘round here - this is the greatest night of my life.”

He watches in disbelief as Steph effortlessly drops down to a balcony he hadn’t even seen before he’d jumped and uses her lower position to leap effortlessly to one of the industrial fans that protrude from his current warehouse’s side. She pulls herself up a mere metre from his position, carefully dancing her way around the pool of adhesive. 

“Well this has been fun but I think the Robins back there are about to figure out I’m the one who packed the detonators that dumped them into that warehouse so I’m gonna just skedaddle now.” She throws them a cheerful salute, “See ya!”

And with that she’s racing to the edge of the roof, her grappling hook pulled from her belt right in time to launch her out across the street in a wide arc that has her swooping out into the Gotham suburbs and ever closer to their second checkpoint. 

Dick gives another fruitless tug as his right foot which is stubbornly refusing to unstick. Cass doesn’t seem to be faring any better, especially considering just how thick Tim’s boots are, which are great for storing his third spare set of lock picks and a hidden knife in the thick tread of the shoes, but are obviously more than she is used to operating with. 

“Hey guys,” Duke’s voice calls out behind them. Dick groans as yet another one of his competitors is apparently closing the distance. “You good?”

Oh hell yeah . 

With a sharp look to Cass begging her to play along, Dick straightens up once he’s pretty sure the very last of the adhesive is about to get eaten through by the salve. 

“Yeah man, just catching our breath, was honestly expecting Re- uh, Robin to be next.”

Duke throws a look behind him before turning back with a shrug, “Eh. Pretty sure those three all fell through a roof together.”

Wow. Steph has apparently tricked everyone but Duke in a matter of minutes. He’d be impressed if he wasn’t mad that she’s already disappeared from sight. 

Cass gives a few more subtle tugs that he’s pretty sure means she’s got one leg free and just needs a few more seconds before she’ll be chasing after the current leading Robin. Duke is still eyeing them both warily so Dick has to get a goddamn move on. 

“Robin trapped us,” he answers the unasked question, “You gotta drop to that balcony and come up round here to avoid it.” 

Duke watches where Dick has just indicated. “Man, you think I’m going to fall for that?”

“Scouts honour. That’s how you get around the glue Robin left.”

Understanding dawns on his face, “Oh is this what she needed it all for? Huh.”

At least Duke takes that as the signal that he’s not lying and is quick to hop down and around until he too is clambering up right next to where Dick is still standing frozen.

“Thanks for the tip dude.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Dick bursts out, anxiety colouring his voice. “Please, Robin, can you give me a hand?”

He plasters on his most charmingly helpless smile he can, arm outstretched to where Duke is only just out of reach. “I just need a little push and I’ll help Robin here out too and you can still keep your head start, sound fair?”

Cass is watching the exchange in silent curiosity but he doesn’t turn back to her, too focused on keeping Duke’s attention before he can abandon them too. He hesitates, eyeing both the way he’s just come from and the alluring call of their next destination - but he’s clearly weighing up the fact that Dick did just help him out. 

With a put upon sigh Duke clasps his hand in his, “Alright but I’m outta here as soon as you’re unstuck.”

“Totally,” Dick agrees. “On three?”

“Fine. One. Tw-”

“Three!” Dick yells as he suddenly puts all his weight into the grip, yanking down as hard as he can. Duke goes tumbling forward, his left foot landing squarely in the glue right beside where Dick has just gotten free. He uses the momentum of Duke’s fall to propel himself upwards, a vertical leap that lets him push off from Duke’s weight and flip up and over the now falling Robin. Dick lands delicately right where he’d seen Steph walk earlier and watches in delight as Duke does his very best to stop from falling even further into the trap by grabbing desperately at the closest thing near him. Which just so happens to be Cass. 

Cass, who clearly thought Dick was going to use Duke as a distraction so she could slip out just as her shoes had become unstuck, moves. However, the sudden weight of a whole other vigilante falling on top of her halts that whole plan as she has to plant her foot right back down to avoid toppling under Duke. Which just means she’s restuck one whole shoe before she can escape Stephanie’s trap. 

Dick shrugs unapologetically at the pair when they both level twin glares at him. “Sorry not sorry?”

And then he’s off because he’s almost certain he just caught yet another silhouette rounding the crest of the building behind them all. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s got before Cass and Duke free themselves, nor how long till whoever was first out of Steph’s other trap can catch up so Dick pours all his energy into making up the distance Steph has gained. He’s only a few blocks from the second checkpoint when his comm clicks on again.

“Oh hey Ora-”

“You need to head to Brevy and Marian now.” Babs voice is sharp and direct, enough that before she’s even finished speaking Dick is throwing his body into a wide arc to shift directions mid swing. He’s familiar with the intersection she’s talking about, it houses a few of the more popular nightclubs that the Gotham youth like to flock to. By this time in the evening the first real bustle of crowds should have started to show up for a night out. Shit.

“What’s the sitch?”

“Two armed gunmen. They’ve taken the upper floor of Rose And Crash hostage. Robin is on scene scoping out potential entrances.”

Damn. Rose And Crash is one of the newer clubs that’s gotten real popular lately. The rest of the bats had been mildly worried Ivy was trying to branch out and take Cobblepots shtick of scamming more money from Gotham through overpriced drinks and venues that cater to the less-than-scrupulous crowds. Turns out it genuinely is just some normal club owners who thought roses were a nice theme with some cool faux-destroyed decor pieces just for fun. 

Dick rounds a final corner and sees the neon lights of the club drawing him in. A security guard is knocked out on the ground by the entrance which sure doesn’t fill him with confidence. He lands with barely a sound, immediately checking the man for his vital signs but he seems stable at the very least. A quick tug at the main door reveals that it’s definitely been barricaded from the inside so he’ll just have to grapple to the roof and see if Steph has had any better luck. 

“Uh… dude?”

Dick spins on his heel, a disarming smile plastered on his face even as he slips a batarang from his belt and tucks it out of sight in one fluid movement. Before him now stands a trio of college-aged students all clearly dressed for a night out and staring back at him with open confusion. 

“Hi,” Dick greets.

“Is there, like, some sort of costume theme for tonight?”

He blinks at them. They stare back.

“No… there’s an armed hostage situation taking place though."

The leader of the trio looks confused. "Is that, like, code for something?"

"No?" Dick entertains the brief thought that these three might be the most bizarre hired distraction crew he's ever come across. 

"Why are you dressed like that then?" Asks the girl in the back, "Doesn’t Robin have like a hood? And pants."

Ah. Dick doesn't need to follow their gazes down to his astoundingly bare knees, instead he opts to shoot them some quick finger guns and swap the batarang out for his grapple.

"Sure he does," he says with a shrug, eyeing the integrity of the rooftop he's now aiming at, "and he also looks like this. Anyway I really do have to go stop the hold up. See ya."

A trio of gasps sound below him as he's pulled up into the air. He lands with barely a thud but Steph still whips around at the tiny noise from her perch over the building's ever-so-convenient rooftop access door. 

They nod once in silent acknowledgement of each other before Steph fills him in with a few quick hand movements. The two gunmen have taken the entire building hostage, one posted right near the entrance that he'd already seen was blockaded. The other has apparently been hunting through the crowd looking for someone in particular. 

Dick raises an eyebrow but when Steph just shakes her head he realises the two of them will just have to move in without knowing who the thugs are targeting since O apparently hasn't been able to figure it out from her end either. 

A scream reaches them from below only to be cut off half way through. No time to waste. Dick and Steph fall into a familiar routine. She's already picked the lock on the door and is through in moments while Dick drops down to one of the extravagantly large windows towards the back of the building. Both he and Steph have plenty of experience drawing fire and creating plenty of distraction while the other Bats tend to favour a more subtle entrance when they have the chance to stealth in.

When it's just the two of them though they've found plenty of success with letting Steph charge in with all her natural loud and brash attitude and in those moments of distraction Dick will find whatever vantage point he can to draw everyone’s attention right back up and away from her. 

This time proves no exception to the effectiveness of their plan as Dick catches sight of his fellow Robin. She must've snuck down the stairwell just to make sure she gets maximum surprise by kicking the door inside wide open, its slam reverberating throughout the crowd. A whole bunch of party goers jump out of her way, and even more strangled yelps and shouts break out. 

Steph scans them all with a deceptive ease, "Hey assholes, didn't take you for the club type. Didn't you know bringing guns to a party is just so out of fashion?" She scoffs, "pretty embarrassing if you ask me."

Both the thugs are staring at her in such a genuine disbelief it would be almost comical if Dick couldn’t see that the second guy had apparently found his mark. There's a brunette girl held trapped in his arm, her mascara streaking down her cheeks while the guy's pistol is pressed upsettingly casually against her forehead. 

"Who the fuck're you meant to be?" 

"She's Robin," Dick delights in the way his voice carries across the room and half the occupants startle all over again as they try to find him up in the rafters, "duh."

Steph smirks, "Yeah, duh ."

The one by the door is so taken back by Dick's current get up his own gun dips enough that he's not even pretending to threaten anyone at all, far too focused on the man in the ceiling. 

"Hey man," Dick grins at him, "let me help you out with that."

Before anyone can register what he’s doing Dick lets himself tip forward, plummeting through the air for just a moment before twisting into a series of entirely unnecessary flips until he lands a mere few feet from the man. A murmured hush of recognition seems to spill across the room. Honestly considering the age range of most of this club's patrons Dick is willing to bet that pretty much all of them have been growing up in a Gotham that has always known the name of Robin. Plenty of them would be just old enough to remember when he really was the one and only one to have worn these colours. And even more of them would've likely encountered one of his successors now that the sight of a Bat out and about isn't nearly as rare as it once was. 

All that is to say that he reckons some of them have started to put together the old uniform, probably Steph’s own distinct look too, and tied them both to the much more familiar shapes of Nightwing and Spoiler in action. 

Unfortunately for him it seems the idiot with the weapon in front of him is yet to figure out how to put two and two together so it's absolute child's play for Dick to step into his space and whip the gun from his grasp. The sound of bullets scattering across the floor when he empties the chamber elicits a whole bunch of relieved sighs from around him. Deciding he has no time for his new pal to start getting any ideas in his head Dick whacks him once right at a pressure point that has the man collapsing into unconsciousness. He pulls out some spare cuffs and makes sure he's secured before turning his attention to the real show. 

"Hey buddy," Steph says from the mezzanine level above him, her attention still solely focused on the man still holding that girl hostage. Dick starts to slink his way through the crowd. "You gonna let her go?"

"Oh fuck off girl," he slurs. Great. He's armed and definitely intoxicated. Guess that explains the dumbass plan to hold up a hundred odd people with just two guys and some pretty shitty firearms. "You even think about hurting me an' I'll shoot her. I will." 

Steph lets out a theatrically put upon sigh that has Dick’s lips twitching just as he makes it to the bottom of the staircase. 

"Dude I literally don't have time for this. Are you going to come quietly or do I have to embarass you even further in front of everyone?"

"You can fuckin' try."

She grins. "As my good friend Yoda once said: do or do not, there is no try." 

And then all at once she is a flurry of movement, darting forward and pushing off one of the stockier patrons. Using her improvised human-springboard Steph has plenty of space to flip over the rest of the crowd in her way. Her black boots coming up just in time to slam into the guy's elbow, yanking his forearm out of the way of the girl's head. Steph lands in a flurry of red and green and streaming blonde hair. It's wonderfully dramatic and Dick would very much like to applaud her showmanship but he has just made it up to the top level. 

While she keeps the guy's attention occupied with a few vicious strikes Dick pushes forward until he can grab the brunette and tug her out of the guy's hold. He whips around at the feel of his suddenly empty hands. 

It's an unbelievably satisfying sight to watch when the guy's face slowly dawns into abject horror when he realises he is currently trapped right between two rightfully pissed Robins. 

"Now I know she already asked this, but hey, second time's the charm, right? Now are you going to come quietly? I'd advise you to think very carefully about your answer."

Steph sidles up behind him and throws her arm around his shoulder. In any other situation it would surely be a casual, even friendly, move but here and now she manages to pack a truly impressive amount of threats in the simple touch. 

The man nods. 

"Good call," Steph chirps. 

"Great work guys," Barbara’s voice pipes up, "one of the hostages had already contacted GCPD before you got in so they're just taking down the barricade now. If you want to escort your new friends to the entrance you can hand them off and be on your way."

She signs off with another click of their comms which means she has no idea about the shared look that flares between the Robins. This whole situation is practically a walk in the park for two vigilantes of their calibre and Steph certainly could've handled it on her own, Dick playing back up was more for the civilians safety than any threat the thugs actually posed. Which means between the two of them they've disarmed the threat in a mere three minutes. 

But three whole minutes means the other Robins could be anywhere by now. 

Steph yanks her arm around the guy to start frog marching him towards the door as quickly as she can. Immediately Dick turns to the brunette and offers to guide her to an officer who can help her, hoping to wrap that up quicker than Steph can pass off custody. 

The cops are through the door soon enough but that doesn’t stop either of them from pouncing at the first officer that has the misfortune of entering the club.

"Officer!"

"Hey, officer!"

"I've got your perp.'

"And I've got their target. You should take her for her own protection."

"Robin!" Steph hisses, "Obviously this guy is a threat and should be taken away first."

"Wow, Robin , what would Batman say? Trying to rush out on the job huh?"

"Oh come on," she groans, "didn't you, like, invent pissing off B-man?" 

"Huh, got me there."

"Uh, excuse me?”

They turn to face not only the first officer who had just entered but the apparent three other cops standing right behind him. “Are you two… working with Batman?”

“Yep!” Dick beams, “I’m Robin.”

“And I’m Robin,” Steph introduces herself. “But more importantly I’m here to give you a gift!”

“A gi-” The man’s question is immediately interrupted by Steph’s perp getting shoved right into his arms. 

“Thanks officer!” She calls, her grapple already out and shooting her straight back up to the roof exit she’d snuck down earlier. 

“Damnit,” Dick hisses, he turns to the brunette girl watching him with fascination. “Sorry ‘bout her.”

“That’s… alright. Do you need to go?”

“Kind of? Will you be alright?”

“Yeah. Thanks, um, Nightwing? Robin?”

He can feel his mask crinkle up at the corners as he grins, “Robin’ll do for tonight, ma’am. Stay safe out there okay?”

“Sure thing.”

“Great well I’ve got a couple of stray birds to go catch. See ya!”

Taking after Steph’s lead Dick shoots his own grapple up into the ceiling and is zipping over the crowd in seconds. He has just enough time to throw finger guns to the crowd when someone down below wolf whistles at him as he flies past. The door opens with a bang as Dick charges out onto the rooftop, Steph’s silhouette just visible a few rooftops away. 

While his fellow Robin is certainly an accomplished acrobat in her own right, Dick was made to fly across the skyline of this city. He’s catching up far quicker than she’d like if the muffled curses he can hear is any indication. 

They land almost simultaneously right before the second checkpoint: the first ever Batburger establishment in the city. Because Babs thinks she’s funny, obviously. 

“You want to let me have this one?” Steph huffs out. 

“In your dreams Girl Wonder,” he laughs at the way she scrunches up her nose at him.

“I hate you.”

“Love you too,” he blows her a kiss right before darting forward and pushing her off the roof.

Her screech of surprise follows him as he leaps to the checkpoint. There’s a few seconds before he hears the tell tale sound of her grappling hook catching on the gutter behind him which is immediately succeeded by a truly impressive array of swear words thrown his way. Dick makes sure to laugh as loudly as possible before setting off on the next leg of his journey. 

“That was mean,” Barbara says in his ear.

“I can hear you smiling, O.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t also funny.”

“Now that’s more like it.” Dick executes a couple of superfluous flips when he makes his next jump because he suspects Barbara is taking advantage of her access to the vast majority of Gotham’s CCTV systems to watch all the Robins make fools of themselves tonight. That hunch is proved correct when she just sighs fondly at his showing off. 

“How pissed is she right now?” he can’t help but ask.

“Oh she’s already asked me three times whether or not I’ll let her into my blackmail folder. I think she wants to print out the photo of you stacking it off the top of the manor. Maybe frame it too.”

He whines. “Aw, c’mon how’d she even know about that?”

“How do you think?”

“You’re so cruel to me.”

“And here I was about to give you a hint as a reward for stopping that hostage situation.”

Dick would be embarrassed by how quickly he perks up at the promise of a reward if this wasn’t Barbara and she hadn’t already seen him do much worse. “Reward?”

She chuckles. “Yeah, yeah. You’ve got a Robin heading North West off your current location. And he’s gone stealth so you better keep an eye out.”

Well that ruled out Cass at least. 

“Any traps I should watch out for?”

“I said you get a reward. No more gifts for you unless you can bring me another criminal.”

“Wow. Demanding.”

Babs scoffs, “You’re a menace.”

“I do my best.”

“How unfortunate for the rest of us then.”

Dick gives the exact exaggerated gasp he knows she was fishing for right before she clicks the comm off, satisfied with her meddling. Still, he’s not going to not take advantage of whatever hints he can find right now so he swiftly adjusts the trajectory of his runs, heading further West while still tracking the next checkpoint. 

Time to find another stray bird. 

Chapter Text

Dick lands with a soft thud onto the roof that Babs indicated would be hiding a Robin for him to hunt. He straightens nice and slow, eyes sweeping across the seemingly empty space around him. 

It’s not long at all before those well honed instincts of his warn him that he’s definitely not as alone up here as someone wants him to think. He casts his gaze around but doesn’t have time to slow for a proper investigation so instead Dick runs through the usual Bat priority hiding places as he goes. The heating vents and discarded junk that line Gotham’s rooftops reveal no siblings to him. And annoyingly enough they’re all too well trained to be making enough noise he could pick up on while still running so sight is all he has. 

Actually… Dick narrows his gaze. 

The one thing all the Bats are well trained on is knowing the value of a good shadow to hide in. And one of the honorary Robins of this night certainly has a distinct way with light. 

“Oh Robinnn ,” Dick coos into the unnaturally dark shadows around him. “Come out come out wherever you are.”

There .

He keeps his trajectory up for the next few steps to make it seem like he hasn't caught anything unusual only to bound out of line right when he comes up parallel to a particularly dense patch of shade. He kicks off against a nearby wall and throws his whole body weight into the pitch black with the exact type of reckless abandon that would have Bruce sighing dramatically into the night if he were here.

Instead he is rewarded by the sound of Duke Thomas scrambling out of the way two seconds too late before Dick’s outstretched arms catch him by his jacket and pulls him out onto the rooftop. 

"Fuck," Duke gasps, his chest heaving where he lays sprawled on the concrete. "Why are you like this?"

Dick shrugs. "One of life's greatest mysteries."

He keeps Duke pinned to the roof for a few more seconds before deciding he's proved his point and rolling off. Duke eyes his proffered hand with an entirely reasonable amount of suspicion considering everything Dick has done already that night. 

Honesty Dick might be a little proud of his brother’s blatant distrust. Always a good skill for a Bat to hone. Still he doesn't actually try to sabotage the guy when he gets to his feet. Without Dick’s help. 

"How’s it hangin’ Robin?"

Duke glares. "Well it was going fine until someone trapped me in glue."

He nods sadly, "Yeah, I hear ya. Robin is a real pain in the ass isn't she?"

"Sure. She’s the one I was talking about. Actually. Hang on," Duke hesitates, looking around the skyline like Steph should be emerging any second now. Which might be true depending how quick she's recovered from her sudden, totally accidental fall earlier. "Where is she? And how'd you end up behind me ?" 

"Had to stop a hold up, then thought I'd help her get a different view of the area."

"You pushed her off a roof?"

"I pushed her off a roof."

Duke snorts. "Alright, alright. Well you've caught me too now. Does that mean I'm about to be taking a tumble?"

"Nope!" Dick beams, "Congrats dude, you're now on my team. I need backup if I'm going to make up the distance for where the other kiddos have run off to."

"Not to ask a dumb question but why the hell should I trust you? Aren't you the competition?"

"Robin, Robin, Robin. Don't be silly." Dick throws an arm around Duke’s shoulder to starts to guide them towards the fire escape, they've already spent way too long just standing around up here, "You are one of two lucky individuals this fine night who don’t have anything to prove with your outfit. Which is looking great by the way.”

Dick pats his brother and his admittedly very cool red jacket that he’d worn back in his Robin gang days, even if it does slightly worry Dick just how little actual armour is now protecting Duke. Though considering his own current clothing situation he doesn’t imagine any of his feedback would be particularly well received so he keeps his mouth shut. 

“So that means you’re all the more suitable for helping out your favourite Robin who will share his many many years of wisdom and experience with you to make sure you can one up all the other kiddos out here tonight and therefore have bragging rights for eternity.”

They start scrambling down the fire escape together and Dick can’t help but be pleased that Duke has apparently decided to just go with the flow on this and hasn’t even questioned why Dick is leading him down. Maybe he’s just grateful he’s getting the options of stairs where Steph had the wonders of gravity. 

“Favourite Robin, huh?” Duke says drily, “You do remember sacrificing me to a trap like twenty minutes ago don’t you?”

“Pssh. Don’t you know to let bygones be bygones? All’s fair in Robins and War.”

“Not a real saying.”

“Irrelevant. I’m making that little mishap up to you now anyway so you’ll join my team.”

“And how are you planning on doing that?”

Dick spins with a grin. They’ve now made it down the stairs and are making good time even while walking towards Dick’s intended destination. He can see Duke peering curiously around the street they’re on, no doubt wondering what Dick has in store - but apparently he’s been neglecting his big brother duties for the newest member of their family for too long because the kid doesn’t seem like he’s put it together just yet even as the ground beneath their feet is just now starting to rumble.

“I’m going to introduce you to a Robin's favourite pastime.”

“Punching criminals in the face while wearing short shorts?”

“Close.” 

His timing on this has to be perfect. Considering the subtle shuddering below his feet he’s running out of time to convince Duke. Ah well. Dick darts forward to grab his brother’s hand who kindly indulges him and lets himself be tugged right around the corner of the nearest building. There’s no time to waste so Dick sprints forward, Duke in tow, and hops right over the turnstile, pleased when Duke follows effortlessly just as understanding begins to dawn on his face. 

“A Robin’s true favourite pastime young grasshopper,” Dick continues breathlessly right as the ever-familiar trundle of wheels screeching across metal tracks starts to reach them both, “Is train surfing.”

Duke’s hushed “holy shit” is swallowed by the cargo train that comes whistling past them. At this time of night there are only a few citizens milling about on the platform waiting for the next passenger cart but he has no doubt they’ve all already caught sight of the unusual Robins. Before anyone else gets the bright idea of asking him if there’s some sort of costume party on tonight Dick instructs Duke to watch closely before dropping his hand and lining up his shot. 

This particular train has no intention of stopping at this station which is a mild inconvenience but he’s sure that Duke will pick it up quick enough. At the very least in suburbs like these even cargo trains have to slow down a touch to make sure they have time to break in case any hooligans get the wrong idea. Good thing Robin has never been known for having wrong ideas. Right? 

Dick bounces on his feet once or twice to build the momentum he needs and then he’s racing straight towards the oncoming rush of steel. He times it just right, an arm shooting out to latch onto one of the more sizable protrusions that’ll let him pivot his weight midair to lie flatter against the carriage so the wind can’t whip him away. 

He catches sight of Duke bravely copying that exact move a mere few metres down the carriage he’s on. Dick flashes him a thumbs up with his free hand which Duke does not return because it sure looks like he’s using every ounce of strength to hold onto the side of the train for dear life. Dick gestures upwards, well aware that even if he were to shout at the top of his lungs his words would be whipped away faster than his brother could possibly hear. It seems the message got through anyway though because Duke nods resolutely and begins hauling himself up hand by hand until the two of them have made it to the roof of the carriage. 

Dick has no idea what’s stored inside this train but that hardly matters. He’d memorised the train timetable of Gotham years ago, mostly because Bruce had offhandedly mentioned that he’d gotten bored one day and learnt them all. So Dick had obviously secreted himself away in the library to learn it that afternoon just to prove he could do it faster than Bruce. Not that he’s competitive or anything. Anyway, what he does know is that this train is heading right towards their next checkpoint and that if the other Robins were behind him when he’d left the glue trap but had already passed the Batburger then that means none of them would’ve had time to divert course to any of the nearby tracks. Therefore he and Duke are the only ones who even had the chance to take this particular express route through the city. 

He grins at his fellow Robin who is just now getting the feel of the sway and surge of a train beneath his feet. They’re close enough now that he reckons they can hear one another.

“How’s my redemption going?” Dick yells.

The laugh Duke lets out is just a touch hysterical but mostly delighted. “You’re crazy.”

“And?”

“And this is so fucking cool.”

“Redemption success!” Dick pumps the air in victory to the rich sound of his brother’s laughter. 

“So what’s the plan?” Duke yells back once he’s feeling a bit more steady on his feet.

Dick shrugs, “We’ve got a minute or two before we’ve got to bail. Thinking we jump off around Pitts street and from there it’s only a couple of blocks before we hit the next check.”

“You want to bail?” Duke gasps, “Off a moving train?” 

“How’d you think we were getting off?” 

Man, Dick has missed train surfing. He makes a note to bring the other kids around with him next time he’s in Gotham. Just the thought of all seven of them out on the same train is hilarious, especially when he imagines the look on the Gothamites faces when they caught sight of them all. 

“Dude! I’m not jumping off a train!” 

“Dude, yeah you are.” He pats Duke on the head, pleased when he isn’t fast enough to dodge the affection “Don’t even worry I’ve done this a million times. We jump at the start of the bridge, then we’ve got the extra depth to make sure you’ve got plenty of time to get your grapple out and then we’re all good. Speedy Robin delivery right to the checkpoint.”

Duke does not look nearly as reassured as he definitely should, so Dick just lets his hand rest right on top of his brother’s head, mildly curious how long he’ll let him do that. 

“When I was kid my parents used to ask me that question. You know, like: If Dick was going to jump off a bridge would you do it too?” 

Dick laughs.

“I can’t believe I lied to them,” Duke sighs, “And that the true answer is apparently fuckin’ yes .”

“Aw don’t pout Robin,” Dick pats him once more for luck before reaching to his own belt, “You’re already handling this way better than Robin II did when I first brought him up here.”

“Wasn’t he like twelve?”

“Yeah, but he made it through train surfing with yours truly, so you’ll be just fine. And hey look. There’s our bridge.”

They both eye the upcoming bridge in question. From up here Dick would estimate they have a solid ten seconds of ideal exit-time before they’re annoying far across the river. He turns back to Duke.

“So. Do you want to jump first or do you want a push?”

Duke blanches. “I’m jumping! You keep those hands to yourself.”

Obligingly he raises his arms in surrender and watches as Duke grabs his own grapple tight. He sucks in three short, sharp breaths to hype himself up before he’s rushing to the edge of the carriage and throwing himself out into the dark abyss over Gotham’s river. 

Dick himself comes flying out after him, expertly avoiding the grapple line that’s shooting right back up into the air above him. He twists until he’s facing the sky, aims and fires.

Seeing as Duke shot first it’s no surprise when he comes soaring up the line before Dick’s grapple has even caught on the bridge above them. Which just means he has plenty of time to hear the excited “Whoo!” that Duke is yelling as he goes. 

Soon enough the two of them have successfully crested the bridge and are across the tracks back onto safe ground. Beside him, Duke is practically thrumming with adrenaline, his face split into that kind of manic joy that comes from needlessly chucking yourself off of high places for no good reason. Dick is entirely sure he’s mirroring that exact same expression right back at him.

“See?” He says, elbowing the younger man, “Told you it was worth it.”

“I have got to do that again.”

“Definitely, I’ll take you next week, cross my heart. But right now, my darling teammate, we have some birds to beat.”

“Oh I’m so down for that.”

Dick claps him on the back, “Then shall we?”

Duke grins, “We shall.”

Together they both break into a sprint right towards the nearest building they can see, both scrambling up it using whatever they can find. Windows, door frames, gutters and more are all free game as they launch themselves back to the Bat claimed territory of Gotham’s rooftops. From the streets below Dick hears a few shouts of surprise and enthusiasm as a couple of people out on the street must recognise either the telltale Bat moves or maybe the costumes themselves. There’s certainly more people out and about then he’s used to at this time. But honestly maybe he’s only getting noticed so much from the glaringly bright colours he’s decked out in. 

Duke’s set is much more muted than Dick’s own clothes, not to mention the embarrassingly pale sheen of his bare legs and arms. He misses the comforting darkness of his Nightwing suit for a brief moment. And then he thinks about how long it's been since his legs saw sunlight and how well those black pants hide that fact and he misses it even more. Quickly though he brushes those thoughts aside, though does make a mental note to circle back on reestablishing his natural tan during a time when the sun is actually out. 

He and Duke are making good time as they circle round to the third checkpoint: the largest bank Gotham has on offer. 

Dick has no idea how many robberies he’s stopped here over the years. It’s frankly wild how much security the bank has invested in over the years only for the villains to get more and more creative with their schemes. Ah well. Classic Gotham. 

Babs must have set this as the check point in an effort to remind them all that they are in fact still out here to check out any potential criminal activity even if the city has been pretty blessedly quiet so far. So to appease the all seeing Oracle Dick and Duke do make sure to do a quick sweep of the area but sure enough all the usual gang hideouts, nearby abandoned apartments and all local rooftop entrances are showing no unusual signs of activity. They meet back up on top of the bank.

“Hey,” Duke says, “Does it feel, like, worryingly calm tonight?”

“Annoyingly enough I think I might have to say yes.” Dick hums thoughtfully before tapping at his comm. “Hey, O. You busy?”

Barbara, angel that she is, answers immediately.

“Not at the moment. Anything the matter?”

“Suspiciously no.”

“Ah. Are you boys getting nervous out there?”

The two men in question share a commiserating look that even the mighty Oracle’s cameras can’t pick up on.  

“Something like that,” Dick says, “Guess I was just wondering if you have anything for us? Are we good to keep on track or should we be heading off trouble somewhere else.”

Waiting for Oracle to finish hunting through her scans of the city and whatever programs she’s already got up and running leaves Dick with a nervous energy. The race is very much still on and he wants to be keeping up his lead but not if it's going to come at the cost of missing anything actually vital. 

“You’re both looking good,” she eventually reports back, the faint clacking of her keyboard still coming through the transmission, “Robin II and Robin V are just wrapping up a break in down at Jameson ave. Nothing else is pinging in your area.”

Shit .

“Oracle. Where does that leave Robin III?”

Barbara, devil that she is, doesn’t answer. 

“Shit,” Dick hisses and slips a batarang back into his hand before scanning the nearby rooftops as best he can from his position. Duke takes one look at his stance before he too is getting into a ready pose.

“Why do you think he’s here?” Duke asks, nerves colouring his voice. 

“Because I know O too well,” Dick mutters, “And I know him too. Don’t I? Robin .”

There isn’t a single warning sign before a dark shadow seems to peel out of the Gotham night itself and starts flying towards them. Dick is already moving before his brain can parse out enough details to identify Tim, his dark black cape streaking out behind him but with the yellow lining across the inside reflecting light in such uneven ways that the actual details of his brother are hard to pick up. Not that Dick has time to bother trying; he's already in the middle of a back handspring that puts not nearly enough distance between him and his flying menace of a sibling. 

Duke might be quick on the draw but Tim had just enough of the element of surprise to clip his shoulder before he could fully dive out of the way. Thankfully Duke is smart enough to follow the momentum and use Tim’s kick as a way to push his momentum, falling into a forward roll that transitions smoothly into yet another ready stance with his feet right back under him. 

Tim growls quietly at his unsuccessful attack, bo staff held at the ready. All three of them take in the current battleground: Tim is stationed just off centre of the bank’s ceiling, the ornate detailing around its perimeter that he’d clearly just used as cover before his attack is now at an inconvenient distance from where he’d landed. Dick and Duke frame him, though Duke is closest to the street facing wall while Dick has ended up with his back to the next suburb they’ll have to enter to continue the race. 

Just for old times sake Dick uses Tim’s moment of distraction while he replans his attack to chuck the batarang he’d had prepared. Of course that doesn’t stop his brother from blocking it with a simple swipe of his staff but it does mean that he had to turn his attention away from Duke. Immediately he takes advantage of Tim’s move to charge forward hoping to use his sheer muscle mass to force Tim into moving back. It would be a perfectly sound strategy except apparently Tim is all too familiar with Duke’s fighting habits so just as he’s knocked the batarang off course Tim uses the momentum of the swing to plant his bo into the ground and push up. 

Instead of tackling Tim right at his centre of gravity Duke has the unfortunate experience of having to change course at the very last second to avoid a boot to the face. 

Guess it's a good thing for their little team that Dick isn’t one to sit idly by. Before that kick can land anywhere important Dick is already darting forward again, arm outstretched. He clasps Tim right at the ankle that’s poised to hit and physically drags him out of his swing. Tim lurches forward with the unexpected weight, his bo staff slipping out of place and all the leverage he’d just been taking advantage of now turning against him. He goes plummeting to the ground, his ankle still in Dick’s grasp meaning that he doesn’t have enough spare limbs to catch himself so he slams right down, a heavy “ooft” escaping him as all the air in his lungs makes a swift exit. 

Dick drops his boot before pushing his own foot down on Tim’s chest. It’s by no means enough to hold him if Tim really wanted to get out, but that whole scuffle definitely gave Duke enough time to circle round and even Tim isn’t going to get past the two of them without making more trouble than it's worth. 

“Hey guys,” Tim says from the ground.

“Hey.”

“Hi Rob.”

“Nice night we’re having huh?” 

“Yeah, not too bad.”

“And yourself?”

Tim shrugs as best he can while still pinned to the ground. “Was going alright until this whole situation. Didn’t think anyone would’ve been able to beat me here when Oracle asked the other two to head out to Jameson.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Dick says with a smile.

Tim eyes them both carefully, his gaze fixated on Dick’s windswept hair for an extra beat before he swears. “Shit. You guys took the train didn’t you?”

“Yup!”

“Sure did.”

“Ugh.”

“Well,” Dick says, “As fun as all this is, we do have a race to go win.”

“Oh yeah,” Tim agrees with an unnatural level of geniality, “You two go on ahead.”

Dick and Duke share a look over Tim’s eerily relaxed form which is still just lying there on the rooftop. 

“What are you planning?” Dick asks.

“Nothing,” that faux innocence would’ve fooled Batman himself if the Bats didn’t all know Tim far too well to trust that tone. “You beat me fair and square so it only seems right that you get a head start. I’ll stay right here. Scouts honour.”

“You were never a scout.”

He once again does the awkward half shrug from the ground, “Can’t argue with that.”

“Okay,” Duke interrupts, “What are you actually up to right now?”

Tim shoots him an impressively neutral look that Bruce himself would definitely be proud of. "Why must you both suspect me of such betrayal?" 

It's hard to tell under the domino across his face but Dick is almost certain that his gaze has just flicked up and behind them both. 

"Oh, by the way," Tim carries on as if nothing has changed, "duck."

Duke blinks. "Duck?" 

And that's right about when yet another goddamn net comes flying out from an alcove tucked into the roof's balustrade. 

Dick dropped his whole body weight right as Tim opened his mouth so the net sails perfectly over his head. As he slams into the rough surface he can't help missing the wondrous invention of knee pads, his bare legs admittedly doing very little to save him from the harsh floor below him. However it turns out that Duke isn't quite as lucky as to just come away with a few bumps and bruises. 

"You fucker!" He shouts from within the tangles which only seem to be tightening with his every movement. 

Tim, who is now sat back on his haunches observing his trapped brother, quirks his head. "Huh. Didn't expect that to work quite so well. Hey, Robin do you feel more or less trapped if you move in two separate directions simultaneously would you say?"

"I'm going to take you down."

"Okay, we can compare notes later." 

He tilts again until he is taking in the way Dick is still lying sprawled on the ground, waiting for any further traps.

"It was too much to hope I'd get both of you, hmm? Ah well, I'll leave you for him to deal with."

Dick launches to his feet, spinning around to where Tim was just looking to confront-

Absolutely no one. 

"You little shit,' Dick hisses, not that his brother is going to hear it because he's already made it to the edge of the roof and is diving right back out into the city: officially taking the lead. 

A quick glance back at Duke reveals he's only got wildly more tangled in the brief few seconds of their exchange and Dick would love to stay and help but unfortunately it is his solemn duty as an older brother to go and rub his victory right in Tim's smug little face and he can only do that if he gets a move on now . 

"Sorry," he says, "I gotta-"

He throws his arms out in Tim's vague direction and is pleasantly surprised when Duke’s eyes narrow under his own domino mask, but for once not targeted at him.

"Go. Take him down."

What a magnificently overdramatic family Dick has somehow managed to acquire over the years. Then again he did start out with circus acrobats, an ex-spy for a butler and a billionaire vigilante so maybe his chance for normal was over before it started. 

Still, in honour of their brief but fruitful teamup Dick does chuck another batarang Dukes way, hopefully severing enough of the heavy duty tensile cords of the net that he might have a better chance of escaping on his own. And then Dick is off. 

He sprints after the steadily disappearing silhouette of the Robin in front of him, tracing his every step with that same ease he and Cass had been following earlier. Soon enough the two of them are falling into their own rhythms of movement in this game of cat and mouse. It’s familiar in that bone deep way he had been feeling earlier with his sister but as if looking through a different lens. 

See, he and Tim have both spent far too much of their lives stealing their way across the Gotham skyline. While for Dick that has pretty much always been under the guise of Robin or Nightwing - where his identity was protected by a domino and the world (when it could get a glimpse) was never really surprised to see just what he was capable of, showy flips and all. But for Tim he’d started out his nighttime adventures armed with little more than a camera, an overly ambitious attitude and a worrying disregard for his own safety. 

So it's only natural then that when these two find themselves closing in on the same path they’ve always tended to revert a little bit more naturally to their own styles. Dick is loud, bright and showy with his every twist and turn. He’s a performer at heart and that always translated to flying for him. Habit draws him to bound and leap off whatever surfaces he can find, his feet know to push him up and over any obstacle and he can always trust that he’ll find his landing one way or another. 

For Tim though he got used to skullking and slinking back when he was keeping his eye out for Batman and Robin and the perfect shots he could capture for himself. He keeps low and swift when he moves, his black cape just another extension of the amorphous shape he becomes as he moves. Tim sticks to the shadows like a moth to light, he is light on his feet and full of absolute focus. His moves are economical and strategic - each one bringing him further and further with perfect focus to optimise his outcomes. 

It’s an absolute goddamn delight to play like this, the two of them leaning so heavily into their own strengths to try and gain the upper edge over one another. Despite his headstart, Tim has been running pretty much nonstop as far as Dick can tell, and he certainly didn’t have the convenient rest that he’d gotten on top of that train. Slowly, inch by inch and building by building Dick is making up the distance between them. He catches the few times that Tim will sacrifice a couple of seconds to look back and chart Dick’s progress. It brings him no end of joy to see the way Tim’s entire face will scrunch up in frustration to see he’s not maintaining his lead nearly as much as he clearly thought he could. 

Occasionally Dick will also have a moment or two mid somersault as he vaults across a street, or during the brief swing via grapple when parkour alone won’t cover the distance, that he can see an unusual amount of people populating the ground below him. He’s not sure just why so many of them are out and about tonight, though Oracle hasn’t reported any suspicious behaviour or plots they’ll need to watch out for. And it's not like she could possibly miss all this, he decides, because as they both head closer and closer to the city centre the crowds only seem to get denser. 

A fair few of them already seem to have the gazes lifted to the sky, delight flashing across the seas of faces whenever they catch sight of the Robins. Sometimes Dick will throw a wave to the people of Gotham who respond with an uncharacteristic good humour in the form of cheers and whoops that is often hard to find in this wonderful, dreary city of theirs.

Still, peculiar as their unlikely audience is; Dick has a brother whose ass is very much in need of humbling. 

“Oh, Robin,” he calls when they’re finally in hearing distance. “Won’t you wait up for me?”

“Fuck off!” Tim shouts back.

Dick laughs. “That’s very rude Baby Bird, what would Penny One say?” 

“He’d say you’re an adult and should learn to wear pants like one.”

“Pssht. Don’t you slander his good sense like that. He was right there when I correctly decided this was a good idea.”

“He just didn’t want to hurt your little baby feelings.”

Dick gasps, throwing a hand to his chest to clutch at imaginary pearls which Tim doesn’t even appreciate because he’s busy ducking underneath an industrial sized pipe that Dick in turn promptly vaults right over a couple of seconds later. 

They’re nearly neck and neck now and Dick can see the perspiration running down the side of Tim’s face. He imagines that if anyone were to see him right now they would find his grin to be eerily similar to that of King Shark, more teeth and threat than humour now that Tim’s exhaustion is catching up to him while Dick is just as spry as he was at the start of the night. Give or take. 

They leap over a few more stores and even scramble up an apartment building in near synchrony, both cresting the top at almost the exact same moment. Tim’s breath is coming out in ragged puffs as trying to beat Dick at (literally) his own game is proving quite the challenge. Never one to turn down the opportunity to show off Dick takes the brief moment where Tim is clearly reorienting himself to surge forward and throw himself into a front handspring, aerial cartwheel then bonus somersault pretty much just because he can. 

Tim groans but doesn’t slow down in his own sprint, grapple out in hand so he can leap off the apartments. Normally Dick would love to pout and whine at the lack of attention he’s receiving until Tim caves and starts laughing at his shenanigans like he normally would but apparently he’s all business tonight so Dick just throws himself off the building instead. 

Once again an unexpectedly large crowd is spread out below him as he becomes reacquainted with gravity. Tim’s grapple has already hooked across the other side of the plaza they’re traversing and he’s deep in his arc before he’ll pull back up and over to the next block. Dick decides to give it another few seconds of free fall and even imagines that the gasps of joy the crowd are letting out at the sight of the Robins might be tiding over into actual fear as he just keeps falling, no grapple in sight. 

Years of practice let Dick relax into the fall until the very last second where he can aim and fire, his downward trajectory abruptly pulled away as his grappling line goes taut and then he’s swooping right back up. Half the crowd can’t help but duck as the very tips of his lovely pixie boots just skim above their collective headlines. Others are cheering loudly at the show while even more have already got their phones and cameras out, all pointed at Dick and his magnificent outfit. 

Showing off effectively completed, and a subtle check over for any signs of mass mind control that he might’ve missed from above accomplished, Dick rises through the air. From this far down Dick can’t see where his brother has disappeared to now but that doesn’t really matter. They’re both heading for the next checkpoint anyway: Gotham Central High. 

While Tim is welcome to keep to the upper levels of the apartment buildings he’s already on Dick isn’t planning on wasting time scrambling right back down later so he’s already curved his trajectory to turn him towards the next side street over. This one is primarily populated with shopfronts and restaurants that stick to a respectable two or three storeys of height. Dick is more than familiar with this area of town, and back when he himself had attended Gotham High he’d spent plenty of time staring around at these buildings and charting the perfect routes to race away from the school in case Bruce would ever happen to call him out of class on Robin business and he could blissfully escape his maths exams by punching Two Face. Anyway, all that is to say Dick has his idealised route that’ll take him straight to the centre of campus locked away and ready to go. 

Tim’s clearly settled on his preferred strategy and taking the most direct route by pure distance but Dick’s plan takes him on a nigh perfect pathway across these businesses. Here there are the ideal array of incredibly climbable brickwalls, so many window frames to grab onto, plenty of air con units he can launch off of and really tight gaps between buildings to conserve energy so he doesn’t have to jump so far. 

Dick is giving most of the cars on the road a good run for their money considering how fast he’s going, but he’s totally in the rhythm of his path so he notices immediately at the soft click and hum of his comm turning back on.

“Hey, O.” He greets before she can get a word in first.

“Hey Boy Wonder. I see you’re not taking the high ground for once.”

“Ooft. Low blow.”

She rudely ignores his excellent pun. “Well I am happy to report that this little deviation has made Robin up there very nervous.”

“Oh?” He can totally imagine Tim weighing up whether hunting him down is worth the time he’d have to sacrifice, or if he should let Dick run free with whatever scheme he no doubts suspects he’s up to. “And what have I done to earn that little fun fact?”

“Honestly I just thought it was funny. He keeps looking behind like you’re going to pop out of the bricks at any second.”

“And?” he prods when she doesn’t elaborate but he’s known her far too long to believe he earnt that hint for just that. 

“And,” she huffs, “That dive looked very cool, so it's already been uploaded about a million times and now half of Gotham is involved in a city wide debate about the uniforms. Thought you’d like a heads up that it's not just the Bats you’ve got to win over with those hot pants now.”

Dick doesn’t have the breath to waste on a chuckle right now but he hopes Babs can hear the amusement leak through his words. “And how am I doing so far?”

She sighs in the exact way that tells him he’s going to like her answer even if she doesn’t want to say it out loud. “You’re in the lead.”

Dick pumps the air once mostly for the benefit of whatever camera she’s bound to be spying on him from. 

“Hell yeah I am. What’s the word on all the birds tonight?”

There’s clacking of a keyboard as she clearly starts bringing up whatever forums she’s haunting at the moment and lets out a soft hum while she reads. “Hmm. It’s looking like a couple of those kids at the club got video of you and Robin IV. Nice fingerguns at everyone by the way.”

“Thank you kindly.”

“Some people were worried about Robin V getting demoted but reports have just caught him dropping past the bank so those will probably peter out soon.” Another hum, “No sighting of Robin VII yet so she’s safe from speculation and Robin VI has already been recognised by a couple ex-Robin Gang members who are rooting for him.”

“They know there’s a race?” Dick can’t help but ask.

“An educated guess. You all keep popping up heading in the same general directions in a pretty close vicinity. A couple of Bat Watchers have been trying to map the route.”

She sounds mildly impressed so he can only assume that the normal nerds on the internet who like to try and identify whatever they can about all the Bats are doing better than usual. Mostly when Babs brings him one of their theories it's about how one of his family members is secretly a ninja trained from birth by an evil cult and was tempted to the light side of the law through fame and fortune. Actually upon reflection that one wasn’t nearly as far off as it should be. Still. They’re usual way off base is his main point. 

“And there’s a couple of blurry photos of Robin II coming out of Jameson which has sparked a fascinating debate.”

“Really?” Dick has taken no news as good news, especially considering O had already said both Jason and Damian had been on the scene and he can’t imagine either of them not taking down any opponent without the ruthless efficiency they both possess and only ever gets heightened in each other’s company. 

“Yup,” Babs says, popping the ‘p’ at the end. “A couple of folk seemed to think he was you.”

“Now hold up,” Dick says breathlessly, as he rounds one of the last few corners he needs before he’ll be at the checkpoint. “That might’ve kinda made sense when we were kids but Robin II has a couple more pounds than me these days.”

“Uhuh,” she replies leadingly, like he’s missing something else glaringly obvious, “There were a few too many reports of you moving around the city elsewhere and more people have connected the dots to Nightwing on your end and the timeline of the original Robin checks out for you.”

“Yes?” He says, not sure where she’s going with this.

“ So , now the people who are seeing this grown man in the green shorts who for sure isn’t Nightwing means they’re trying to put two and two together.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh my god,” she groans when he clearly is not putting it together. “Idiot the entire city is trying to figure out if he’s the real second Robin because certain rumours about his mortality kind of got around back in the day.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” She laughs, “The forums of the same like nine people who have been pitching the Red Hood Was Robin II theory for the last few years are absolutely losing their minds right now.”

Admittedly that is very funny and Dick will absolutely be trawling through the comment sections about Jason’s accidental re-debut from the dead as soon as they all get home but for now the high school has just come into his sight and he has a Tim to beat. 

“A+ work, O. Please send me links to the best ones you find. I'm going to make fun of him forever. He’ll hate this.”

“Already done and yes he will.”

“Perfect. Well I’ve got to look out for meddling siblings at the moment but thanks for the chat.”

“Good luck, Boy Wonder.”

“Thanks, BG.”

And then it’s just him racing against the clock and a conniving little Robin to make it right to the top of the school hall. 

So far that Robin isn’t visible yet which Dick is hoping means the shortcuts he used have actually given him the advantage he needs to resecure his lead. His low vantage point doesn’t give him a lot of room to grapple into any particularly large swings across campus so instead Dick finds himself using the skills Bruce hammered into him about forest terrain traversal which he rarely ever gets to use out in the city. Still, now’s as good a time as any considering the high school is one of the few places where Gotham had actually committed to breaking up all that concrete with trees so that at the very least the kids could have some fresh air. 

Dick leaps from branch to branch with the exact type of ease that used to have the Titans accusing him of trying to take Beast Boy’s whole shtick by becoming a monkey himself. It’s a fun kind of challenge for him now to navigate the uneven surfaces of the trees, but that doesn’t mean he stops paying attention. He catches a brief glimpse of a silhouette he can only assume is Tim right up the top of the apartments that bracket the school’s campus. Now the younger Robin has to go through all the effort of climbing down to his level without anywhere strategic to grapple off of so Dick is certain he will make it to the hall first with time to spare. 

In fact no one at all manages to melt from the shadows, trip him up or otherwise seem to have set up any traps that he’d trigger by accident. Overall it's going very well which is immediately worrying. 

“Hey O?” he says when he starts coming up on the entrance to the main hall, unfortunately having to abandon his beloved treetop cover. “How’re you feeling about giving me an update on the kiddos?”

Barbara hums, “What’s in it for me?”

“My eternal love and respect?”

“Already got enough of that. What else’ve you got?”

“I’ll steal Robin III’s secret laptop that he has deliberately kept off the grid so you can’t trace what he’s up to?”

“Tempting.”

“Uh, I can confiscate Robin IV’s prototypes of the glitter bomb she’s hiding from you in the Cave.”

“Getting warmer.”

“Man. Um. I’ll trick Robin II into heading to that cafe you like in Burnside so you can trap him into having lunch with you like you suggested but he left you on read and then felt too awkward to follow up on?”

“Ah. Is that what happened there. Interesting.”

Dick huffs as he makes it to the ground floor of the hall and starts planning his ascent route up to the building’s very top. “C’mon, O. What else do you want from me? Those were my best offers.”

“Oh I didn’t have anything in mind,” she says breezily, “But I did want to see just how many of them you were willing to throw under the bus for this update. Plus I didn’t actually know about the laptop or the bombs either so those two will have something to look forward to now.”

“Aha!” he crows, “That’s three bits of info. Will you please tell me where they are?”

“Wow. A please too? Just for me?” Her voice has that familiar teasing lilt that means he has a 96% chance of her caving to his wishes, “I can’t believe you’re using me to cheat so much tonight Mr Robin.”

“It’s not cheating if it was never against the rules,” he counters reasonably, “I’m merely making an effective use of available resources and you are a veritable wealth of knowledge my dear Oracle.”

Her laugh sounds bright in his ears, “Okay, okay you charmer. Robin III is right on your tail. Robins IV and VII teamed up a while back and are making good time towards the school. They’ve overtaken Robin VI but he’s out of the net now and on his way too. Robin II is currently chasing down one of Black Mask’s informants that just escaped custody but GCPD isn’t far behind so they’ll take her off his hands soon.”

Dick nods along with the list, mentally charting where all of his troublesome siblings are in his mind until the glaring admission catches up to him.

“And where might Robin V be? I’m not falling for this again.”

She huffs, “Maybe I wanted him to be a surprise.”

“I’ll get you one of B’s yearbook photos that he scraped from the internet before you were even old enough to touch a computer.”

“Deal.” She says. “He got a lift and is coming in hot on your tail.”

“A lift?” Dick squawks, “From who?”

“Oh I think you’ll find out pretty soon.”

No matter how much he presses her fur further detail, nor how much blackmail he offers up Bab’s refuses to give into his wheedling so Dick decides the only reasonable thing to do is put some fucking energy into it as he races to his next checkpoint. 

This is the last one he has to get to before the last leg to the finish line which means Dick now has to make his way right across town to get to the Iceberg Lounge. 

Penguin is currently in Arkham but he has enough legal ties and enough money to grease the wheels of the GCPD enough that his club is still allowed to operate under his management even when he’s locked away so it’s pretty much always a safe plan for the Bats to keep an eye on it’s current goings on. Plus Cobblepot has bought up a frankly alarming amount of real estate in the area so there’s plenty of Bat-repellent architecture and security measures that makes just straight up parkouring through the area a bit more of a challenge. 

Damian probably has the right idea of getting a lift - even if he has no idea who the hell would give Robin a ride at this time of night, nor who Damian would even accept the help from in the first place. Well, he thinks, he might not know who Damian would accept help from but Dick certainly isn’t so prickly to strangers. 

The race rules did say they weren’t allowed to hot wire nor commandeer any vehicles from citizens without their permission. That last bit was mostly added for Tim’s benefit because that boy has an unhealthy obsession with pushing the boundaries of any rule given to him to the very extreme. However, he’s certainly not the only one in this family who likes to test the letter of the law if not the spirit of it. 

Dick has now made it outside the bounds of the school campus without catching sight of any of his competition but between Tim and Damian being so close he doesn’t have room to recuperate for long. So instead Dick starts charting his way to a couple of the more populated streets between the school and the club even if they’re not the most efficient routes but he’s really banking on-

There .

Dick eyes the crowd gathered around in one of Gotham’s nicer parks with anticipation. There’s a fair few people out tonight, and according to Oracle’s earlier assessment a good chunk of those people are out hoping to catch a glimpse of the unusual flock of Robins making their way through the city. Plenty of the folk gathered here have their phones out, likely checking for any updated sightings while the rest have their eyes trained to the skies. He makes sure to pull his grapple out, gaining a bit more height so the people below will have optimal time to catch sight of him. And then he’s soaring through the air to the sound of gasps and the chorus of excited cheers he expected. 

He pretends to have just noticed them and unhooks his grapple mid swing so he can change course. Now he starts plummeting towards them all, does a few flips as he goes to really ham it all up and then alights  perfectly balanced right on top of one of the park’s ornate lamp posts. This of course has the dual advantage of keeping his audience staring up past the light to see him which will limit their actual visibility of any definitive features of his face; and it also looks really cool. 

“Hey guys,” he says with a grin. The group below him seem torn between trying to catch as many photos of him as possible and all trying to shout over one another to say ‘Hi’ back first. Dick lets them carry on for a few moments before enough noise dies down that he thinks he can actually be heard now. 

“Great time of night for bird watching I see,” Dick says with a grin. Plenty of the crowd scattered around him smile or laugh at his terrible joke which he will absolutely take as a win thank you very much. “Now what are all you lovely people doing out and about?”

A couple of them exchange looks until one woman seems to arbitrarily be decided as their spokesperson, “Looking for you I guess. Everyone is saying there are like five different Robins. And that you’re all legit.”

She manages to inject a healthy amount of scepticism into that last sentence as she looks him over. She’s on the younger side so admittedly she would have still been a child if she was around when he or Jason were out and about in this uniform. At least the showy acrobatics he’d done seem to have convinced the majority of his audience that he is in fact the real deal. Still he offers the woman and her companions a lopsided smile and the kind of guileless shrug he’s always been known for as either Robin or Nightwing.

“Well here I am. And yeah, the Bats are all Birds for one night only. So I guess it’s pretty good you guys got the front row tickets.”

“Why?” asks a teenager who is very clearly filming this entire interaction. For fun Dick decides to drop from his perch, hooking his knees on the lamp post’s arch so he can fall back down until his head is nearly level with the teens. It does get half the crowd to jump back in surprise at the sudden move and also means that the angle he’s at still blocks the majority of the light while hopefully giving the kid a good show for his video. 

“Mostly for fun,” he shrugs again which the crowd seems to find mildly amusing considering he’s still just hanging upside down, rather appropriately like a bat. 

“Won’t Batman be mad?” pipes up one of the older folk towards the back.

“Who?” Dick asks with faux innocence.

“Batman.”

“Hmm,” he taps at his chin, deep in thought, “Nope! That name doesn’t ring any bells.”

A young girl, around eight if he’d had to guess, peers up at him and giggles “But you’re Robin!”

“Very true.”

“So you have to know Batman.” she continues. 

“Pssh,” he says, “Never heard of him.”

“But he’s Batman .” She insists.

“Nah,” Dick says stubbornly, “Pretty sure I would’ve heard if there was someone dressed like a Bat out here. Gotham is for Robins and Robins only.”

Now a few more of the actual adults are laughing too. All Gothamites are familiar with the many, many, many rumours that have circulated over the years about just how real Batman is and whether or not he’s just an urban myth. Those accusations have certainly died down, especially since Bruce joined the League and the rest of the kids have been caught on camera or just seen in person more and more over the years. But the running joke of insisting that there’s never been a lunatic who dresses as a Bat to fight crime is a long running commitment that Dick always delights in continuing. 

One of the adults in toward the front of the crowd has been staring at Dick contemplatively for a while now, so he turns his attention to her a bit more fully, inviting her to speak.

She hums to herself for a moment before gesturing to his outfit. “Are you Nightwing?”

“I’m Robin.”

She rolls her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips, “Sure. I guess what I’m trying to figure out is if you’re the first one then.”

Dick quirks his head at her, “What makes you think I am?”

“Well it’s been a few years but I remember when that particular look debuted.”

Considering the gentle salt and pepper greying of her hair, and the thick Crime Alley accent he can detect it certainly does seem likely that this lady has been around long enough to remember when Dick first showed up in the Gotham papers. 

“I might be the first,” he eventually says, curious where she’s going with this.

“You’ve got the attitude for it,” she counters his evasion easily, sounding more and more confident in her assessment.

“Maybe I’m just a very talented actor. Impressions are my forte.”

She squints at him, “Nope.”

“Oh? So certain?”

“I saw that fancy little flip thing you did. You’re the first one.”

Figuring there’s no real point in hiding it he acquiesces. He attempts to do a bow with a little flourish but seeing as he’s still hanging upside down it mostly just looks like an ab crunch with his arm stuck out to the side. Still enough people seem to have gotten it judging by their grins.

“Robin 1.0 at your service Ma’am, what can I do for you?”

Her face twists for a moment, like her humour is warring with a more genuine emotion. After a second or two she seems to gather her wits about her and pushes on despite her apparent nerves.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to see you again,” her voice stays strong but Dick is concerned to see what looks like a tear threatening to spill, “But you once saved my life back when you first looked like that.”

“Oh,” Dick says softly, suddenly all too aware of their audience and all the cameras pointed their way. And also the fact he’s not really wearing pants. 

“I didn’t think you were real,” the woman continues on anyway, a choked laugh escaping her, “kind of like how I didn’t actually think Batman was real either. But it was you, not him who showed up one night when I needed help the most. You were tiny and making truly the worst jokes I had ever heard in my life even while you kept three men who were twice your size from hurting me.”

A little more of that surety returns to her voice as she stands up tall. “I know I can never do anything to repay you for what you’ve done for me and who knows how many other people, but I wanted to say thank you.”

Dick reaches up to his lamp post and unhooks his legs, dropping to the ground onto his own two feet so he can stand before the woman who is still looking at him with half a tear in her eyes. 

"I'm glad you're safe," he offers, "and I'm glad I was there at the right time."

She huffs a laugh, "Okay okay, no need to get sappy. Just takin' my chance before you flip away wherever you're headed."

He nods, "Can do. No sap here." 

His little salute is met with the entirely reasonable eye rolls and scoffs that he has come to expect from most of his interactions with the public.

"I didn't think that was exactly something you were capable of Mr Robin."

"Ah. My reputation has preceded me."

"You've been runnin' around this city since you were upsettingly young, kid. Pretty sure it'd be hard not to have a reputation despite all that vigilante mystique you lot have goin' on."

"If it makes you feel better I'm about to ruin all the mystique by asking for a favour."

"What kind?"

"I need a ride."

There's a lull of silence as their audience clearly tries to see if he's joking. 

"Really?" Asks the woman before him whose name he should really learn, "I mean… I'm parked round the corner if you need?"

"Oh that would actually be perfect. Thanks."

Is it entirely inadvisable for a vigilante who has had well over a decade to acquire his fair share of enemies in this city to get into a stranger's car? Yes. Does he need to beat his brothers at a race for arbitrary bragging rights? Absolutely.

Dick waves goodbye to the gathered crowd before following his temporary chauffeur.

"I'm afraid I missed your name," he says as they near the majestic honda civic that is about to transport him to victory.

"Beth," she says before sliding into the driver's seat. "Where am I taking you to Mr Robin."

He grins, "you know just Robin is fine, I'm not exactly one for formality Ms Beth. And you wouldn't happen to know where the Iceberg Lounge is by any chance would you?"

She raises one eyebrow slowly, "please tell me you're not getting me involved in any crimes right now."

"Technically vigilantism is a crime," he points out happily, "but other than that no you're all good. I need to beat Robin there, that's all. Scouts honour."

The car takes off with Beth confidently making her way through the city so Dick doesn’t even have to direct her. This was an excellent idea wow. 

"Were you actually a scout?" She asks eventually.

"Nope, but it sure is fun to say."

He catches the mostly-subtle side eye she throws his way a couple of times and decides to leave her to it.

"Do you have a day job? Or do anything outside of all this?"

"Ms Bethany are you trying to figure out my secret identity?" He gasps, scandalised, and is pleased when she only chuckles.

"No, no. I don't need no details I can't unhear, just curious what you types get up to. 'Spose I'm just hoping you've got more in your life than just spandex and punching."

"Sometimes I kick too."

"And kickin' then."

"Well you'll be pleased to know under the mask I am in fact a real boy, earn my own money and pay my taxes and everything."

"That's good to hear, kid."

"You do know I am a full adult right?"

"Supposedly."

Dick huffs and just barely refrains from crossing his arms and pouting. 

Still it is a surprisingly pleasant car ride with Beth who pokes around the very edges of what a vigilante life entails without ever requesting or expecting any compromising details from him and then all too soon they’re a block away from Penguin's lair. Dick signals for her to pull over in what he knows to be a blindspot for Cobblepot's security cameras. 

Even with his detour to the park and the ensuing conversation with the Gothamites there Dick is positive he's shaved off at least ten full minutes from his journey, maybe even fifteen considering just how littered with traps the rooftops in this area are.

"Thanks for the lift Beth, honestly you're a lifesaver."

She laughs, "Anytime Robin, between the two of us I'm glad that I'm the real lifesaver here."

"Now you're getting it." He exits her car with a parting wave, "get home safe!"

"You too kid, don't do anything too reckless out there."

"Me? I'd never." 

And before she can try and challenge that blatant lie Dick hops out onto the sidewalk, ignores the various pedestrians staring at him in wonder and starts to climb right up the first building he sees. 

It might technically be faster to have just run right up to the Lounge's front door while he was street level but considering just how many mob bosses, crime families and particularly ambitious henchmen like to frequent the Iceberg Dick figures he'd rather face some heightened security measures than chance a face to face meeting with any of those assholes.

He's successfully made it past four silent alarms and disarmed an automatic firing system attached to a tripwire when he hears an engine roaring through the streets below. Dick peers over the edge of his roof which is the next building over from the Lounge, to try and get a look at the oncoming maniac who already sounds like they're breaking ten traffic laws at minimum . 

"Ah shit," Dick mutters the second he catches sight of the red and black car that has just come swinging wildly around the corner. 

"Oracle," he hisses when his comm clicks on, "I've got eyes on Harley. Looks like she's engaged in a chase but I can't see her pursuers. Is GCPD aw-"

"Hold it Boy Wonder," Babs interrupts with thinly veiled amusement, "Harley's not running from anyone."

Dick dubiously eyes the way her beat up, almost certainly stolen car comes skidding to a halt just below him, her tyres screeching at the sudden breaks and small plumes of grey smoke flying out behind her. "You sure about that O?"

"Certain," Babs grins, "Though I guess you could say she did get involved in a chase of a kind."

"Okay, what the hell does that mea-" 

What's the point in finishing that question when the answer reveals itself in the form of Damian stepping out of the passenger door decked in his full Robin attire.

"That little shit," Dick curses. He abandons any commitment to stealth and decides to just jump across the rooftops so he can make it up the Lounge and pass this goddamn checkpoint before his little brother can steal it from right beneath him. Of course Damian doesn't miss the sudden burst of movement, his face is tiny from up here but Dick can still see the look of shocked outrage that crosses Robin's face.

His voice carries all the way up to where Dick is sprinting around Cobblepot's favourite pressure plates and trip wires.

"Quinn!" Damian shouts, "Relinquish my grapple now!"

"Ooh," Harley coos, "Ya mean this thing-o?"

"Yes!" 

"What's the magic word little Birdie?"

"Quinn!"

"Nope!" 

He can't help but wonder if she's deliberately projecting her voice for his sake because even up there he can hear the hilariously obnoxious way she pops her 'p' which no doubt is only riling Damian up further. 

"Quinn, I demand you return my equipment to me immediately."

"Aw, you're no fun Birdie." Her pout is almost audible, "at least let me see what this gizmo does huh?"

Damian’s protests are drowned out by the all too familiar sound of grapple shooting up towards him. Dick looks on with mild curiosity to see that the hooks actually land solidly on the Iceberg's rooftop and then the winch starts winding up. Sure enough a few seconds later a bright blonde head of hair is peeking up at him.

"Hiya Big Birdie!"

"Hey, Harley."

Both of them resolutely ignore the sounds of the youngest Robin swearing loudly up at them. Harley finishes scrambling up until she's standing just a few feet away from him. He doesn't know if she deliberately stopped out of arm's reach as a sign that she's not planning on attacking him anytime soon or if it's a deterrent for him not to attack her . Regardless, she certainly doesn't seem wary as she beams at him.

"Ain't this a throwback," she says, "I ain't seen you in this getup for a long time Birdie."

"Yeah, it's been a minute."

Her grin is bubbly and genuine and so different from the sharp angles he remembers from his childhood. Apparently Ivy has been working on finding some proper meds that Harley is actually willing to take and she's definitely seemed a lot more stable since they started trials a while back. Admittedly the bar was low but Harley has proved herself something of an ally enough times that Dick is willing to see what she's up to now. Even if it does mean he’s losing his lead while Damian is no doubt already climbing up towards their position now. 

"I hears ya got the kiddos to play a game tonight," she carries on oblivious to his thoughts, "the little grumpy one kept tryna tell me it was all 'juvenile nonsense' but he sure seems mad I took his doohickey."

She brandishes the grapple still clutched in her hand to prove the point as if he’d somehow already forgotten she is currently in possession of Bat tech.

"Y’know I bet if you hand that over to me it'd annoy him even more."

Harley cackles, "See? This's why you're always my favourite one Big Birdie - you're fun."

"Aww shucks," he says as drily as possible which only pulls another laugh from her, "you're too kind."

"Nah," she says good-naturedly, "but I'll give it to ya if ya answer one thing for me."

Now that's a trap if he's ever seen one. He doesn't verbally agree but does gesture for her to continue. Judging by the sharp crook to her lips she absolutely caught what he's doing.

"Now I want ya to be straight with Aunt Harley but are you kiddies doin' all this to piss off your old man? Youse got any problems you need to talk out?"

"Harley. Please stop trying to therapize me or my siblings. We're all fine." He pauses. "And you're not licensed anymore."

"License shmicense," she flaps her hand dismissively, "I still earned it in the first place! Anyway for the record: none a ya are fine, you're all dressed up like birds to go punch criminals at night. But okay! As long as you're not all actin' out and I gotta go tell the Bat to keep an eye on ya."

"Honestly I would love to be present for the conversation where you try to tell him that. Please give me a heads up when you're planning on it so I can set up a camera."

"Sure thing," she agrees easily "anyway as promised here ya go."

Dick snatches the grapple out of the air when she tosses it over her shoulder as she spins around to peer back down over the ledge.

"Ooh Baby Birdie is gettin close." She observes.

"Shit."

Harley gasps, whirling on him. "Now who taught you that kinda language huh? Who does Aunt Harley have to beat up?"

"You're still not my aunt," he feels compelled to point out, "also you tried to shoot me when I was eleven but you're worried about me swearing now?"

"What can I say? I've grown a lot. People change, Birdie."

"Fair."

"So… the beatin'?"

"No."

"A little blunt force trauma then?"

"No."

"Verbal harassment?"

“No Harley.”

She blows out a frustrated breath, “I take back the thing about you bein’ fun.”

“Noted. Now why were you driving Robin around?”

“He took care ‘a Bud and Lou when Ive and I was outta town a couple weeks ago and I gave him my number in case he needed a favour. Honestly I didn’t think this would be what he used it on but I’m always down for a good joy ride.”

“Okay that’s… well he shouldn’t have had hyenas without us noticing but I’ll yell at him about that later. For now Harley please don’t do anything else illegal and also leave Robin alone.”

In an incredible display of maturity she sticks her tongue out at him. He takes that as her acquiescing and decides to book it because he’s pretty damn sure he just heard the sound of Damian climbing up the Lounge penthouse balcony which means he has definitely gotta skedaddle. He ditches Harley where she is and starts dancing his way past the last of the trip wires. Of course he isn’t quite fast enough because Damian’s face peeks up over the ledge.

“You!” He hisses.

“Me,” Dick agrees.

“Quinn, relinquish my equipment immediately.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” she shrugs easily though her eyes are alight with humour, “Already gave it to Mama Birdy over there.”

If it were possible Dick would almost actually believe he could see steam rising off his angry little brother. So he does the obvious thing and blows him a kiss before using Damian’s own grapple to hook onto the next building and swing away. 

“I will get you!” Damian shouts after him.

“Good luck with that,” Dick calls back before Robin is little more than a frustrated speck left on the Iceberg roof. 

Okay, Dick thinks, that should pretty comfortably leave him in the lead. Going off Oracle’s last info dump he got the other Robins should all be past the school by now and making their own way to the Iceberg unless any of the rest of them managed to hitch a ride from hopefully a nice citizen if not a mildly reformed villain. And without his grapple Dick has effectively forced Damian into taking the long way around until he remembers that Tim and Steph should definitely both be carrying the spare grapples their suits hold. But then he would have to negotiate for access to one of those which would be another feat in and of itself. 

Still, that leaves Dick sitting pretty in the lead and the end goal in sight: Wayne Tower. 

Of course that’s the final destination that Oracle chose for them. Barbara sure thinks she’s funny, and annoyingly enough Dick has to agree. Wayne Tower is the perfect end for all the obvious reasons, but also because it is the highest point in the whole city which just means more climbing time for the Robins to all try and battle each other out of the way while they ascend. 

It is also a fair few suburbs away from the Iceberg with plenty of winding streets between the two so each Robin is likely to pick a different route that favours their distinct movement styles. Which means that if the rest of the kids had been able to make up the distance between them then Dick might actually have been worried. There are plenty of nooks and crannies across the city that would give each Robin a different advantage if they’re clever enough to use it. 

Exhaustion is starting to pull at Dick’s limbs now that he’s been going pretty full out, though the park and the car were pretty nice breaks. Still, he is in fact only human, despite what many conspiracy theorists online like to boldly proclaim, so, hoping his estimations about his siblings will hold true Dick finds himself heading for one of Gotham’s biggest intersections. Regardless of which way the others would prefer to go when they start up on this last leg of the journey it's a pretty fair bet they’ll have to come through here first before splitting off. Dick perches next to one of his favourite gargoyles and settles down when he’s achieved peak-viewing angles. From up here he can see so much of the city laid before him. And more importantly, he can see just how much further he has to go. But at least for now, there are no more birds in sight. This win is his for the taking. 

Chapter Text

It is a beautiful view from atop the gargoyle, Dick has to admit; a city worth protecting. 

Of course, he thinks with an accompanying sigh, it is also a city designed to frustrate him. This realisation hits him right as he peers down at the streets below from his perch, and watches the soft flow of traffic get interrupted by an upsettingly familiar motorcycle. 

“Oracle?”

His comm buzzes faintly in his ear, “Yes, Robin?”

“Please tell me that is not who I think it is below me.”

“It is not who you think it is.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“Definitely.”

Dick groans, “How the hell did he get a bike? Stealing is against the rules.”

“I think you’ll find he didn’t steal anything.”

Deciding not to engage Babs any further when she’s busy having fun at his expense Dick turns off his comm and dives right off the edge of his gargoyle. 

There’s the usual rush of air flowing past him as he plummets straight towards the intersection below. And then instinct kicks in right as he’s hit the ideal height for his fall and his grapple comes shooting out. He feels the tug of his line connecting and his descent slowing until he’s in a smooth arc that brings him ever closer to the road. 

His eyes don’t leave the bike for a moment as he times this all out but when he has finally hit the very bottom of his parabola Dick releases the grapple and lets gravity do the last of it’s work until he lands with a thud right on the back of the bike.

“Fuck!” Jason shouts as the bike jerks and buckles beneath their sudden combined weight. 

Dick holds on tight and considers that it probably wasn’t his best idea to land behind his brother midway through speeding across the city on a vehicle that requires some pretty specific balance. Ah well. 

“Hello, darling brother of mine,” Dick says through their comms knowing there’s no way Jason could hear him over the wind and Jason’s helmet. Which is another thing he very much didn’t consider when he landed on the back of the bike. “Nice ride.”

“You asshole,” Jason huffs, “You don’t even have a fucking helmet.”

“You might have a point.”

“About which part? I vote both.”

Still, despite his grumbling Dick can appreciate that Jason has definitely slowed down from his quite literal break-neck pace. 

"Well thanks for the lift anyway."

"I literally hate you. Fuck off."

"Aw Little Wing," Dick coos with all the insufferable older brother energy he can summon, "Why must you say such hurtful things."

“Because you just jumped off a building like a lunatic-”

“We literally all do that. Constantly.”

“- And had to fucking rely on hope to land on the back of my currently moving bike. Dickhead.”

“First of all, rude. Second of all, it wasn’t just hope. I do sometimes know what I’m doing you know.”

“I know I’m kicking you off this thing as soon as all this goddamn traffic lets up.”

“C’mon,” Dick whines, “Why can’t you just take me with you to the tower? Then the two of us can win just like we planned and the kids can all be responsible for explaining this to B as punishment.”

“How ‘bout I make sure the bike is actually stopped and in return you can sit there and be grateful for how I’m not making you see how much road rash those shorts will protect you from.”

“I don’t like this counter offer.”

“And I don’t like how many people have seen my fucking legs today but we don’t all get what we want.”

Despite his truly copious amount of complaining Dick can tell Jason is just as amused by how things have turned out for them over the course of the evening. No doubt he has plenty of stories of his own of how he’s challenged and presumably beaten a couple of the other Robins. Not to mention the fact that bragging rights really are a very motivator for Jason pretty much anytime. 

Additionally, since Jason had made the mistake of committing to Dick’s side of the argument that the original Robin costumes were perfectly serviceable and the rest of the kids are obviously wrong, Dick knows he’s pleased that the two of them are in the lead just to double down on how entirely correct they were. No doubt if only one of them made it to the finish line the other birds would have plenty of arguments cooked up about how it was all a fluke. Because they’re charming little sore losers like that. 

“You’re not going to actually kick me off, right?” Dick asks as the sharp outline of Wayne Tower draws ever near. 

He assumes not, but Jason wasn’t kidding about the traffic earlier. There are far more cars out on the streets than usual at this time, so the two of them are weaving in between seemingly endless lines of cars blocking their way. Conveniently for him though, that does mean there’s not really a great place for him to pull over and actually kick Dick to the curb.

“I am.”

Damn it. “Can you add just, I don’t know, the barest hint of actual inflection in your voice? A hint of whether you’re joking? One single clue as to whether or not you’re serious?”

“No.”

Dick sticks his tongue out in retaliation with the full knowledge that Jason is sitting ahead of him and will under no circumstances be looking back to witness the movement.

“Put your tongue back in your mouth you child.”

Damn. 

“This traffic really is insane though,” Dick says in want of anything better to do while coasting an unexpected ride that he was in no way prepared for. 

“I cannot believe you’re trying to small talk with me about traffic.”

Dick whacks Jason in the shoulder, and then realises what an incredible opportunity this is so he changes to tugging at the yellow cape still slung around his neck. Jason hisses in response to the childish roughhousing but can’t lose his grip for long enough to do anything other than flip him the bird. 

“I’m just saying,” Dick continues, undeterred by their natural devolution to squabbling, “I know people have been coming out for us tonight but this is ridiculous.”

“Whaddaya mean they’ve come out for us?”

“Have you not seen the literal crowds of people out birdwatching tonight? Turns out there's a whole flock of Robins that folks are pretty interested in.” Jason groans at any and all bird related wordplay but that has not and will never be a deterrent to Dick making excellent jokes. “Also Oracle told me.”

“That’s more like it.”

“Shut up.”

“So what,” Jason effortlessly switches back to the topic at hand, “I get tonight is pretty damn weird for us but it’s still late, where the hell did these people even come from?”

“Gotham.”

“Helpful. Thanks Dickhead. But I mean Gotham doesn’t show up like this for anything. It’s not like we get this many bodies out and about for a Knights game.”

“That could be due to the fact that the Gotham Knights suck.”

“Slander.”

“Facts.”

“Irrelevant. Now why the hell are there so many of them. We can’t be that popular.”

As much as Dick does like riling Jason up about nonsense he has to admit he’s been feeling those exact same suspicions for a while now. Something isn’t right but he can’t put his finger on it just yet. 

“Maybe we should call-”

“Should we call-”

The two of them break off simultaneously just as they both started speaking as one. Jason sighs while Dick laughs and tries to patch through a comm to Oracle seeing as they’re clearly both thinking on the same wavelength. 

There is no click in his ear. 

Dick frowns. 

“She’s not picking up.”

He can just hear Jay curse under his breath before his hand is up and fiddling at the side of his helmet but that seems just as unsuccessful as Dick had expected.

“Nothing.”

“Short range comms are still doing fine,” Dick notes absently as he tries switching to the usual Bat channel that everyone has access to.

“Robins? Anyone reading me?”

“Oh heya Robin Prime,” Steph’s cheery voice is first on line, “What can we do ya for? You ready to get your ass kicked in this race? As soon as we find you, that is.”

“Tt.” Damian chimes in next, “He has absconded with my property. Vengeance shall be swift and will not belong to you Spoi- Robin. ”

“Nice save,” Tim comments drily. 

“Quiet on the channel,” Jason barks before their conversation can divert too far. “O isn’t answering us, what about you?”

Even over the humming static of the comm Dick can feel the humour recede and rigid concentration overtake everyone online. There is a beat where everyone else clearly tries to hail Barbara on their own channels but by the sullen silence that carries on he can probably guess how successful that was. 

“Okay we need to know if everyone is connected,” he says with all the authority in his voice he didn’t want, “Sound off - chronological order. Robin One Present.”

Jason hisses, though even more of his concentration keeps having to be diverted into diving in and out of the heavy traffic he is next to call. “I’m here.”

Tim is next. “R. Three online.”

“R. Four here,” Steph says darkly. All the lighthearted humour has been dropped from her voice now that a potential threat is making itself known.

“Robin present.” Damian says shortly. 

“Robin Six here too,” Duke adds.

“Seven. I hear you all.” Cass finishes for them. 

Any relief that courses through him at knowing his siblings are all safe for now is short lived when the next logical question prods at him: what has happened to their Oracle. 

“Any of you seeing any unusual activity from your location? Do we have a source?”

“I’ve got some unusual traffic patterns,” Tim reports, “Massive increase in the night time population around Kane Park.”

“Same here,” Steph says, “Me and Seven just passed the theatre district and there’s no one in any of the carparks but the roads are absolutely packed. Can’t tell if they have any destination currently but they sure aren’t heading for the usual nightlife areas.”

“There are an unusual volume of vehicles surrounding the Iceberg Lounge,” Damian muses, “Whilst there are indeed many criminals present of varying ranks, none seem particularly unusual considering the locale. Yet civilian cars are passing by in excess and seem entirely unconcerned with Cobblepot’s establishment.”

Duke sounds unsure when he pipes up, “Well I’ve got pedestrians everywhere ‘round the edge of Robinson Park.”

Dick pauses, “Why’re you near Robinson?” That suburb is so far from the race route that he can’t figure out how the hell Duke could have ended up there if he was still playing the game. Tim, Cass and Steph’s locations all make sense if they’d already left the school and were taking the long way round to the Iceberg. 

“O told me to head out here.”

“When.” Jason doesn’t phrase it as a question, but Dick can’t find it in himself to care when his brother is already revving the engine to pull their bike around. Wayne Tower shrinks in the side mirrors as Jason turns them both towards Robinson Park and their brother. 

“About six minutes ago.”

That would have been just after she’d spoken to Dick while he was on his gargoyle.

“Anyone else have closer contact?”

A chorus of “no” sounds out across the channel. 

“Robin III,” Dick says sharply, “Any updates on alternate contact methods?”

Tim thankfully doesn’t challenge Dick’s assumption that he’d have been trying to get into the Clocktower’s server backdoors since this conversation started. 

“All servers are operating as usual,” his voice is brisk, yet undeniable curiosity laces his tone, “But all messaging systems appear to be down including voice, text, emergency frequency signals and their respective backups.”

“We’ve got eyes on the Clocktower,” Steph says, “Can’t tell for sure from here but there’s no obvious sabotage from outside.”

“No movement,” Cass adds. 

“Yup,” Steph lets out a breath of restrained frustration, “No signs at all of anyone up there.”

“Close the distance,” Dick instructs, “Keep eyes on each other the whole time. Don’t engage until we know more but see if your short range comms will reach her.”

“On it,” Steph says before she and Cass both drop from the conversation. He waits to listen for the tell tale sounds of deliberately controlled breaths and the staggered rush of wind that always accompanies a Bat running across the rooftops. Sure enough the girls’ silence is merely a side effect of them pushing themselves to reach the Clocktower as quickly as possible. 

“Robin,” Dick says, “Can you make it to Robinson from your location?”

Damian manages to intuit that he is in fact the one getting addressed and answers accordingly, “En route now. ETA four minutes.”

“Rob VI, what did Oracle direct you to do there?”

“She said there was an unusual energy surge coming from right in the middle of the park. Wanted me to check it out.”

“The amphitheatre?” Dick guesses.

“Yup.”

“Seen anything unusual?”

“I’ve only just arrived, she said to go stealth but the sheer amount of people out here have been making that difficult.”

“Okay hold tight until you’ve got backup with you. II and I are headed your way too.”

“ETA two minutes.” Jason reports sharply. 

“Cool, cool, cool,” Duke says, “Quick question though, should I be worried about how many people are starting to head right for the amphitheatre.”

“Shit.” 

“Gonna take that as a yes.”

“Take it as a do not engage .”

“Great.”

“Robin.”

“I said great! That’s an agreement!”

“It’s literally not. Don’t you try to undermine me with wordplay, young man.”

From the seat in front of him Dick can feel the way Jason’s entire back shakes with quiet laughter for a second or two.

“Got something to add, Robin?”

If Jason’s smug grin is audible to him there’s no chance the rest of the birds can’t also hear it when he opens his stupid mouth. 

“You sound like B right now Big Bird.”

Dick’s affronted gasp is lost beneath the chorus of snickers that sound off through the channel. 

“You’re all grounded,” he huffs, though it is a nice break to the unusual tension. 

The kids’ laughter fades away by virtue of them all being on the move, no doubt including Duke who has never heard the phrase “stay still” and actually followed through on it. No news means good news as far as Dick is concerned right now because all he’s left to do as he perches at the back of Jason’s bike is just kind of sit there and wait for one of the others to find something interesting for them to work off. 

At least that is until Cass lets out a sigh of relief loud enough for everyone to tune in to her and Steph.

“Oracle!” Steph yelps happily, “You’re okay!”

There’s a tinny mumbling from either Steph or Cass’s comms that sounds like Babs but they’re clearly too far away to pick up anything clearer. It’s a tense minute before the girls can report back about whatever Babs has been up to since they’ve been cut off from each other. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell ‘em,” Steph clearly says to her before addressing the rest of the team again, “Rightio guys here’s the deal: O’s stuck in the tower right now. Whatever these people did to attack her systems they triggered the emergency lockdown and she’s yellin’ at us not to come too close or they might be able to wipe out our comms too. But the good news is she says it's all temporary and she’s already half done fixing it up again.”

“Focus on Robinson,” Cass says, correctly intuiting that any one of the other Robins would turn around to provide back up if Babs was under any imminent threat, “We will meet you there.”

“Yep, O is rebooting a couple of her systems so it’ll be a few more minutes until she’s fully back online with us but she can still hear us, just not transmit out. Also she says to tell OG Rob that he needs to get off his high horse because he ‘invented Robin’s disobeying direct orders’ and that’s a direct quote.”

Once again the channel is filled with conniving little siblings laughing at his expense because they’re all the worst. “Betrayal. Aren’t you meant to be on my side?”

There’s a beat before both Cass and Steph snort. “She said no.”

“I imagine she used a few more words than just that.”

“Yep,” Steph sniggers.

Any further banter is quickly squashed when Duke chimes in, his voice coming out as a hushed whisper that sets alarm bells ringing in the back of Dick’s mind. By the tensing of Jay’s shoulders it seems he’s not the only one worried about what he could possibly be up to.

“It’s nice to know y’all support rebellious Robin behaviours, and I want you all to remember that fact when I tell you I just got into the amphitheatre.”

“Report.” 

Is it too much to ask for any one of the kids to listen to him? Just once?

“Okay so you can’t get mad but I think I did just find our guys. They’ve got a massive computer set up in it and all those pedestrians I saw are totally heading this way. They’re all hanging out around the front just standing.”

Tim pipes up, though his breaths are coming out in harsh bursts like he’s just done a pretty significant sprint. “What are they doing? Are they all idle?”

“Yeah. They look like a buncha NPCs just waiting for orders.”

“Shit.” Tim hisses.

“Robin?” Dick asks even as he and Jason finally pull up to the outskirts of the park and can start sneaking around the tree line towards the amphitheatre. “What’ve you got?”

“Current theory is a bastardised copycat of Hatter’s tech.”

“Mind control?” Jason grunts, “Assholes.”

“Assholes who don’t seem to know what to do with Tetch’s work.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“I’m getting some pretty fucking inconsistent signals from not only the park but a bunch of the bigger stations around Gotham. I think they’re piggybacking off whatever sources they can but none of it is refined enough to give them the results they’re after.”

“Like they have the full range of what Tetch can do but none of the finess to manage it?” Steph says thoughtfully, “Do we wanna bet that’s how they triggered the Clocktower’s defences?”

“They weren’t even aiming for her,” Jason says as he too puts it together, “O just has enough juice in her systems that they accidentally picked up on it?”

“A mistake that will not be repeated.” Barbara declares firmly, her arrival into the channel accompanied by a touch of excess static from her end. 

“Welcome back,” Dick whispers now that he and Jay are closing in on Duke’s position.

“Thanks. Now you boys should hold still.”

“All of us?” Tim says sceptically, “I’m nearly there.”

“No you and Robin V keep going. I, II and VI and going to sit tight until you, IV, V and VII arrive.”

“A full frontal assault?” the shock in Jason’s voice is enough to speak for Dick too who finds himself just as surprised by such a bold play for what has proven mostly harmless interference so far. 

“Not exactly,” Babs says, “But Robin made a good point about how unprepared these guys are. It doesn’t look like they actually meant to get this many civilians involved in the first place. And any wrong move could end up putting a lot of people at risk.”

“Exactly,” Tim says, “Half of Gotham woke up tonight with the urge to get in their cars and not one of them have a destination in mind.”

“Wait, that was an accident? There’s hundreds of people out there.”

“Yep. Looks like they were trying to test some one ’s sense of ‘drive’ while under their command. They meant it as in willpower but…”

“Jesus christ,” Jason sighs, “We’re facing idiots.”

“This is ludicrous,” Damian says. They wait a bit in case he has anything else to add but it really does seem like the kid just wanted to insult their opponents. Fair enough. 

“Hey,” Dick muses as a thought occurs to him, “Why didn’t these signals hit everyone? If they’re just getting thrown around the entire city right now why isn’t everyone equally affected?”

Tim and Babs let out synchronised sighs of frustration. 

“Mostly bad luck,” Barbara answers, “Anyone who was asleep was pretty fair game but if anyone awake has a strong enough sense of purpose in their actions they would probably be able to rebuff such weak suggestions totally unconsciously.”

“Wow,” Duke notes, “This dumb race saved us from mind control.”

Everyone duly pretends to ignore that because every single person on this call is well aware of just how mind numbingly boring patrols can get on quiet nights and not one of them wants to consider if they would have zoned out enough to fall for these idiots. 

“Moving on,” Babs says swiftly because even she is not immune to how dull watching her programs sort through data can be, “Robins III and V both of you need to head to the north east side of the amphitheatre to meet up with the other two and the girls will catch up in another two minutes.”

“That’s quick.” Jason notes.

“Well the Clocktower does have a garage, which you would know if you ever visited me-”

“Sheesh, sorry O.”

“-Both of them had spare bikes parked here so they’ve just gotta make it through the traffic now.”

“Easier said than done,” Steph mutters. 

“And me?” Duke asks sheepishly.

“You, mister I Won't Wait For Backup,” Dick says, “Are the lucky volunteer to do recon for us all!”

With the false cheer in his voice Dick can hear Jason, Tim, Steph and Cass all giggle at Duke’s misfortune. 

“Ooh,” Jason smirks, “You got Big Bird mad.”

“Shut up,” Dick says sweetly, punches Jason in the shoulder, and promptly ignores his outraged squark. “Now Robin, what can you see from your position?”

Duke huffs but acquiesces quickly. “There’s eighteen guys in here. Four on the computers, five guarding one of the tables full of tech junk and the rest are patrolling in pairs.”

“What’s the tech junk?” Tim asks easily and it takes Dick half a second to realise he can now hear his brother both in his comm and in person. He whirls around on the branch he and Jay have parked themselves on where they can get a good view of the crowd milling around the amphitheatre, only to see Tim is now sitting on the branch right behind them. His little brother throws him a smug smile which means he totally just saw the way Dick had jumped at the sudden presence of his asshole little brother. 

Duke hums, “Not sure. There’s a bunch of microchips and motherboards just lying there. Plus a ring of metal? Could be from Hatters’ hat, looks about the right size. 

“Any chance you could get some for me?”

“Not unless you want them all to know I’m here.”

“Damn. That can be plan B then.”

“Oh no,” Dick interrupts, “That can at least be plan E. We can do better than ‘just go grab it’, c’mon.”

Tim rolls his eyes and Dick valiantly suppresses the childish urge to just push Tim right to the ground. Annoyingly that would be the exact type of attention-grabbing nonsense he just vetoed Duke committing and not a single one of them would ever let him forget it. 

“Boys,” Bab’s groans, “Can you not stay quiet for two whole minutes until you’re all together.”

“Unnecessary,” Damian reports from the branch above the rest of them. Dick is pleased to see both Jay and Tim jump at that too. “We are all present.”

“Aww.” Three heads snap around at the quiet whine to see both Steph and Cass perched on the next tree over, “You ruined our entry.”

“Okay no more sneaking up on people,” Jason says, having also just jumped in surprise at every one of their entrances, ruined or not. Of course then that does leave the rest of them to just turn to him and stare in bewildered silence until he realises just who he is talking to.

“Hey,” Duke interrupts the dead silent eye contact that Jason is furiously trying to avoid, “I really need one of you to confirm we’re all looking at Rob II like he’s an idiot right?”

“Already on it,” says Tim.

Jay huffs, shuffling awkwardly on their branch. “Fuck. Yes I get it. We all sneak up on people all the time. I know. Can we pay attention to the hoard of living zombies out there now?”

“As much as I hate to agree with him,” Babs interrupts smoothly, “He’s got a point. Boy Wonder, do you want to take point here? I’m still rebooting a couple things on my end.”

“Right,” Dick says. It’s a quick transition to shift into his mission mindset as he considers all the information they’ve gathered.

“You two,” he gestures to Tim and Cass who both perk up at the attention, “You’re backing up VI inside the Amphitheatre. Robin III your focus is to extract the tech and disconnect as many of their systems manually as possible until O can help remotely. VI and VII are going to keep the ones inside occupied with VI drawing attention and VII pincer them from behind where possible.”

He ignores the excited gleam that he can see in his sibling’s eyes as the chance to wreak chaos is presenting itself. 

“II and IV you’re going big and loud, make some noise outside the building to draw their attention and split up the guards so first team is good to go.”

Jason and Steph very, very quietly highfive but there’s still plenty of distance between their respective perches so Dick still manages to get a face full of stray blonde hair shoved into his face while Steph leans right over top of him to reach Jay. 

“Robin V, you’re with me we’re clearing a path through the citizens and trying to get them all back to attention and in control again.”

“We’re on crowd control.” Damian says, “Great.”

“C’mon baby bat, this is free reign to snap those people out of their mind control. As long as it’s not physically violent to the citizens, I will let you figure out how to move them your own way. Hell, herd them like sheep dogs if you so choose.”

At that a spark of interest does seem to take over his littlest brother. Dick would like to think it is at the simple idea of helping the poor citizens of Gotham and ensuring their safety but he’s at least ninety five percent sure it has to do with the chance to direct hundreds of people under his command. In the interest of their own safety. Of course.

“Very well,” he agrees with a sharp nod. 

And then in an eerie reflection of earlier that very night Dick finds himself the one that all the other birds are waiting on with bated breath. His lips tug into a smile. 

“Ready?"

They nod.

"Set. GO!"

At once the whole flock bounds into movement. Jason and Steph beeline right for the very front of the Amphitheatre with the capes streaming out behind them and their mismatched uniforms complimenting each other wonderfully as the two of them are plenty attention grabbing all on their own. The pair of them are sight to behold when they’re together. Both egging each other on to go harder, be stronger, push further. Now that comes in the form of Jason planting himself right out the very entrance and yelling “Hey fuckers! Get out here and face us.”

To which Steph obvious piles on, “Unless you’re too fuckin’ chicken to fight a coupla Robins, huh?”

With half his attention split on those two Dick still makes sure to keep an eye out for the way Tim and Cass practically melt into the shadows around him. Even without her usual all-black ensemble it is no surprise that his sister can disappear perfectly well from sight with this many shapes and shadows abound. And of course Tim in his Robin suit is nothing less than immaculate as all that calculating mind’s attention gets pulled to the task at hand. He offers Dick a half grin before leaping between the treetops until he has a clear enough shot to grapple up to the Amphitheatres roof and diving out of sight so smoothly it looks absolutely effortless. 

It seems that he and Damian had different ideas of where they wanted to go to start moving the civilians out of the way as his little brother has already disappeared into the midst of the people gathered. Even though he must be somewhere under the soft yellow haze of the park’s lamps that light up the path below him, Dick can’t even begin to trace Robin’s muted blacks, reds and greens amongst the idle population. 

Ah well, time for Dick to do what Dick does best: perform.

He himself launches from amidst the foliage and grips tight to one of the aforementioned lamp posts. A few quick movements and then Dick is standing tall upon it now with a much clearer gaze of the room around him. 

“Hello ladies and gentlemen,” he calls out more for the sake of experiment than anything else.

Honestly he didn’t expect anyone in particular to turn and face him but a small handful of the civilians standing just below him seem to startle at the noise. They seem to blink away their own confusion for a couple seconds before they realise where they are. One young man jumps back from the crowd only to hit right into one of the strangers who didn’t get drawn from their stupor at the sound. 

For a brief second Dick considers just running in circles and screaming in everyone’s faces as a way to jolt them out of the control but that really seems more like a Plan H type situation. For one fleeting moment he finds himself actually missing Jason’s usual repertoire of guns, missiles and various things that go boom. Of course this is the one night where a carefully controlled explosion might save the day and Jay is out here in hot pants. Ah well. 

“Hey guys,” Dick says as gently as he can to the folks waking up around him. A couple of them startle now from him , surprised to see a grown man in a mask perched above them - though considering they all lived in Gotham they shouldn’t actually be that surprised. 

“Don’t worry, we’re taking care of all this, you should all just head back home now, maybe listen to a good podcast or something. Just clear the area and keep yourselves safe, yeah?”

The man below him blinks up at him, eyes still wide and uncomprehending. “Am I dreaming?”

“Nope,” Dick cheerfully informs him, “Just a little mind controlled.”

“So I’m hallucinating this?”

“Still nope. This part is real.”

“Then why are you dressed like Robin? But, like, old.”

“Okay first of all: rude. Second of all: I am Robin. Third of all: go to safety please, I have other people to save.”

Thoroughly done with this guy in particular Dick flips his hair out of his eyes and peers around at his current surroundings. From up here he can see the faint flashes of yellow where Jason and Steph seem to be playing the most elaborate game of tag possible, but using half the armed security from inside the Amphitheatre as living obstacles. Dick watches in fascination as Steph uses one man’s back as a springboard so she can flip out of the way of Jason’s outstretched hand. He shrugs at having missed her and promptly punches that exact same man in the head so he’ll pass out and then the game continues. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have paired those two up. 

Damian seems to have discovered his own way of waking people up. Dick can’t see what he’s actually up to down there, but one by one the idle standing of the crowd gets interrupted by a yelp and a hushed conversation and then they’re slowly making their way out to the park proper. 

Time for Dick to start pulling his own weight on this little team. He grapples to the top of a much more central lamp post so he can have the largest visibility to the most people gathered here. Of course he hasn’t actually figured out a safe way to jolt them all out of their stupor yet but that hardly matters when he hears someone shouting.

“Robin! Oh my god it’s Robin.”

Dick swivels to face the noise, curious if someone has just woken up unexpectedly. But no, he can see a small hoard of teens all gaping at him in wonder and worry. He waves to them, amused when one of them waves right back on impulse while the rest of her friends all seem too shocked. 

It’s the work of only a couple of moments before he has made his way to them, delicately picking his path through the bodies in his way.

“Hey guys,” he greets.

“ Robin ,” says one of the teens.

“Good guess. What gave me away?”

The poor girl takes an extra second to see that he’s joking and just blushes a furious red while doing her very best to avoid making eye contact forever. 

“I’m kidding,” he clarifies and hopefully giving her an out of the awkward conversational trap she’s set for herself, “Anyway how can I help you fine citizens tonight.”

“Uh, we were just kind of wondering what’s up here?” Says one of the teens, his eyebrow pointed raised to the massive hoard of people standing there.

“You know how Gotham is. Some light mind control, the usual. We’re on it though.”

“Are they on it?” 

Dick follows the guy’s gaze to see that Steph and Jason have apparently graduated to piggy back rides. However they both seem to have selected one of their opponents as the unwilling piggy and are trying to manoeuvre these guards into hitting into each other. Maybe he should definitely not ever let them work together again. 

“Yeah.” Dick eventually settles on, “That’s part of the plan.”

“Cool.” The teens are all staring in fascination, half of them pulling out their phones to snap photos and videos of the errant Robins. 

“Hey if you guys are just going to be hanging here for a while could you do me a favour?”

“ Yes ,” they chorus as one. 

“Great. I’ve gotta go wake all these people up and get them out of the park, if I direct them over to you can you just make sure none of them are trampling into the idle folk? For sure get yourselves out of danger if anything crops up, but right now you're kind of the least disoriented people around here right now so it could definitely help for everyone else to just know that there is in fact a plan and they’ll all be fine as soon as they calmly exit the premises.”

To be totally honest Dick is certain he could manage the crowd control himself, it is certainly not the hardest part of his job. But he has also spent many years dealing with a rapt audience who have more curiosity than self preservation and he’s always found giving those ambitious bystanders a job they can focus on instead to be a great deterrent from them trying to follow him into the jaws of danger. One time quite literally with that one guy who fully thought he could take Croc on just because he had seen Dick punch him earlier. Anyway, by the looks of it these teens aren’t about to try and kick a bad guy for funsies, but he is also pretty sure they’re out here Birdwatching to see the Robins and he really doesn't need them getting in any of his siblings’ way. 

Once the teens have agreed to their little mission he directs them to the very edge of the crowd and tells them to keep an eye on their nearest exits so they can direct the flow of the crowd. They all run off armed with their camera phones and a great sense of purpose that will conveniently also keep them from any accidental mind control. Dick pings Damian on a private channel to let him know what the teens are up to and so he can direct his own sections of the crowd their way. When he gets a confirmation on that front he jumps back to the main channel.

“Hey Robins, update?”

“Goin’ great!” Steph whoops loudly. 

From here he can glimpse a small pile of bodies of their defeated enemies. Jason is hauling another limp figure to throw onto the gathered pile so Dick can only assume that means they both had their ends of the deal handled. 

Tim snorts quietly, “same here. These guys have no security on any of their systems.”

“Oh,” Babs chimes in sounding very pleased, “have you seen the way-”

“The way they formatted the-”

“Exactly. And the files-”

“The ones in the subsystem with-”

“ Yes . Or the protocols-”

“ Okay ,” Jason interrupts, “we get it. You nerds are doing fine. How's the infiltration team going?”

“Almost done,” Duke says, “Robin and I have all the other guards down, just wanted to check in about the leader? He's kind of just sitting here snivelling.”

There's a muffled sound of protest that Duke's comm can't quite pick up.

“Uh yeah dude,” he says in response, “I would definitely categorise that as snivelling.”

Another mumble.

“Well you can just sit tight until Robin gets here.”

Further muttering.

“Yes I am Robin. So's he. You'll figure it out.”

“Good work team,” Dick interrupts smoothly, “Robin III, Oracle, where are we with a remote shutdown of these guys' tech and the general mind control problem?”

“Almost finished.”

“Okay well II and IV you can come join me in making loud noises to wake some of these people up and we'll start herding them to the exits.”

“Yes sir, Robin Sir.” Steph chimes.

“Never call me that again.”

“Yes ma'am, Mr. Robin.”

“You're grounded.”

“No, I'm not.”

Dick groans. “Will you just help me already?”

“Sheesh, someone's short shorts are all in a twist.”

Whilst everyone else continues to laugh at his expense Dick does in fact get to work waking citizens up from their stupors and start corralling them all to the waiting teens. Periodically Tim or Babs will chime in to say they've shut down another aspect of these guy's systems. Mostly it seems to be taking this long just because they were so unfocused in their commands in the first place. Now the Bats have to go in and carefully disentangle the loose signals from everyone's minds before the shoddy workmanship can cause any actual damage. Those two gripe at each other well enough that no one else really needs to say much at all. 

Plus now with four of them working on waking folk up it goes much smoother than expected as they quarter up the remaining idlers and take their own approach. Dick likes to go from lamp post to lamp post and loudly introduce himself until people startle at the sound of his voice. He catches Jason wandering around with a trash can lid he must've picked up somewhere and starts banging it against whatever the nearest surface is. Apparently Steph's chosen approach is to walk right up to someone and start playing a truly atrocious selection of music right into their ears.

Whatever Damian’s tactic is he manages to keep wholly out of Dick's sight the entire time, but there's still a steady flow of folk leaving from his quadrant and Dick did tell him to just go for it so for now he'll leave him to it. 

Back in the Amphitheatre Duke has taken to poking his nose into all the crates and boxes these guys had brought with them while Cass rounds up both their fallen opponents, and the distraction team's defeated security from outside as well.

All in all it is a bizarrely smooth operation considering just how rare it is for all seven of them to be out on the ground at the same time. A pleasant change in pace really. For a brief moment Dick almost suggests they do this again sometime before remembering the hundreds of mind controlled Gothamites standing around in the park at midnight and thinks better of it. Ah well. 

“Oh,” Tim's voice cuts through his brooding, “I think this is it.”

That's the only warning they have before all of a sudden some three hundred people are released from mind control in one fell swoop. 

Before anyone can start getting any wild ideas Dick makes sure to leap to the very top of the Amphitheatres entrance so he can be as visible as possible to all the people gathered here. The movement alone manages to catch a fair few people's attentions and the yellow cape really is a boon when it comes to flashy movements that draw the eye so it doesn’t take very long at all until citizens start nudging each other to pay attention to him. It’d be quite flattering just how quickly he’s gained their attention as everyone waits impatiently for him to start speaking. The only problem being that he didn’t have anything actually planned to say but he’s Dick Grayson damnit, he can wing it. 

“Hello everyone,” he says brightly, “Welcome back to your own minds, hope you enjoy your stay. So, presumably everyone is wondering what has brought you here tonight and in great news I can say you’re not in danger.”

Unsurprisingly that does in fact elicit a sweep of untensing shoulders and relieved sighs. It's not often that the sight of a Bat addressing a horde of people can easily be taken as a good sign of pretty much anything. Dick is just about to keep reassuring them all when another grapple line hitches right next to him and in a few seconds Jason is sitting right up next to him and staring down the crowd.

“Alright, listen up you lot. This guy is taking too long, all you need to know is that you were mind controlled. Now you’re not. You’re welcome. Go home.”

Half the crowd ironically seemed to have missed literally everything Jay just said though because now whatever fear or confusion they had about the whole waking up in a park at night unwillingly thing has been replaced by seeing the two grown men in some pretty damn old fashioned Robin uniforms which has apparently taken the new priority in their minds.

“Man,” Dick complains, “That hasn’t helped at all. Look at them,” he sweeps an arm out to gesture at the crowd still staring up in mute confusion, “They need this to be cleared up.”

He turns back to the Gothamites with an apologetic smile that has Jason scoffing at his side. “Sorry about him. You were all mind controlled, yes. But nothing nefarious happened we promise. This was a misuse of technology outside of some people’s purview and I’m afraid you were all caught up in it.”

That should do it right?

Jason offers him a half hearted shrug but whether or not he had anything to say about it is unclear because yet another goddamn grapple line hooks right up to Dick’s other side and then Tim is perching himself right next to the other two. A few more surprised gasps appear from within the crowd. Annoyingly enough most of them sound distinctly more like recognition. Tim throws both him and Jason a smug grin, having clearly picked up on the fact that his Robin suit is pretty damn recognisable to the Gotham public. Little shit. 

“Everyone,” Tim says to the crowd, “You will likely experience some mild headaches for the next few hours but no permanent damage has been done to you or your minds. The signals that hijacked your brains have been neutralised and the equipment that made this possible confiscated so you can rest assured that you will all be fine. You may return to your homes.”

There are a few murmurs throughout their audience but everyone still just stands where they are, peering up at the three Robins with such a variety of expressions that Dick really can’t tell what they’re all thinking en mass. He drops his voice until just Jason and Tim can hear him.

“Are you sure the mind control is gone? They’re just standing there.”

“Ninety nine percent sure,” Tim mutters back, before quirking his head consideringly, “Maybe ninety eight.”

“Well bump it up another two Baby Bird,” Jason says, “I want to get out of here. Too many fucking people can see my knees and it is ruining my street cred I can already tell.”

“Oh no,” Tim pouts, “The big bad Red Hood has skin. Gasp. Now how can we respect the guy who fucking decapitated a whole bunch of-”

“Alright!” Dick interrupts, “Can we please focus?” A grapple hooks right next to Tim. “Or not.”

“Hey boys,” Steph grins when she climbs up beside them, “You’re taking too long.

Ignoring a trio of protests she waves wildly down at the crowd and manages to get a few waves back, “Hiya!” She crows at them “Is there any reason you guys are still here? Did we miss something?”

There’s no response for a few seconds as apparently despite the notoriously brash attitudes of all Gothamites they seem to have found the exact specific individuals who are too afraid to be the first to speak in front of a crowd. Then again, maybe that’s exactly why these guys were the ones so susceptible to mind control. He’ll have to pitch that theory to Tim and Babs later. Eventually one or two people find the confidence to answer Steph when it becomes clear no one else will. 

“I think we’re just, uh, wondering about the… you know.”

“The flock of Robins?” Steph asks, amused as always.

“Yeah. That.”

“Oh well good news is none of you are hallucinating the idiots in hot pants-”

“Hey!”

“- And the cooler birds in actual pants.” She fist bumps Tim without even looking at him which is just showing off really, “If you can believe it this is actually a totally unrelated thing that’s happening right now.”

A timid voice pipes up from the midst of the audience with a simple “Uh. Why?”, but Dick doesn’t have time to pick out where it came from before yet another fucking grapple line alights next to Jason this time and Damians disgruntled form is landing next to them. 

“Imbeciles,” Damian huffs to the Bats, “Stop engaging with the civilians. They have all the information they need. We can vacate now and go handle the ring leader of this gang.”

“Hey!” Someone shouts from down below, “It’s the actual Robin!”

Damian turns to face the general direction of that call with a faux indifference but Dick can see the pleased quirk to his lips. “Yes. I am Robin.”

“Hey now,” someone else replies from the swarm of faces, “It’s not like he’s the first Robin. The one with the pants is.”

Tim looks baffled at being singled out like that. “Oh, no I wasn’t the firs-”

“Are you kidding?” Another citizen yelps from even further back, “The biggest one was first.”

Jason snorts.

“Nah,” says someone loudly and affronted, “The flippy one was Robin first. Did none of you see him before? He’s Nightwing now duh. He’s been doing the exact same thing for forever.”

“Well who’s the big one then?”

“That’s the fucking Red Hood, idiot.”

“No way is the Red Hood a Robin! He shot my cousin!”

“Was your cousin a criminal?”

“I mean, he worked for Riddler but-”

“Well there you go.”

“It was Riddler , he was just guarding the door to one of those fuckin’ hedge mazes!”

“Well maybe-”

More and more shouts are lobbied back and forth across the crowd debating the merits and identities of the five Robins who are all sitting right there . Dick casts a quick look to either side to see that all of his siblings are watching in rapt attention to the proceedings before them.

“Do you reckon they’ll figure out that we’re still here?” Jason asks absently.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Tim replies.

“Did you see which kid said I was her favourite?” Steph asks.

Damian silently points towards one of the smaller members of the crowd, a young girl of around twelve who is still currently staring up at Stephanie with bright, wide eyes. She waves down at the girl who promptly squeaks with excitement so loudly all the Robins can hear it from up here. 

On either side of their little line two grappling hooks once again make contact and soon enough Duke and Cass are joining them up at their vantage point. 

Dick sighs when their presence only incites more arguments from the crowd. About a third of them recognise Duke’s get up as part of the Robin Gang’s brief turn in the spotlight while the rest are all furiously debating who the hell Cass is meant to be seeing as no one can recognise her look. 

“Hey,” he says, “If you’re up here who’s watching the bad guys?”

“Tied up,” Cass says simply while the vast majority of her attention is very much focused on watching the arguments all spilling out below them, “Oracle has cameras on them. Will let us know if they move.”

“Great.”

“Hey Big Bird,” Jason nudges him in the side, “Do you have an actual game plan here or what?”

“Honestly I don’t think they would even notice if we left. I’m going to go see what the leader has to say. Anyone want to come with?”

None of the Robins reply. “Thanks for the support guys.”

Tim claps him on the shoulder in what is clearly meant to look like a show of solidarity but that little bastard isn’t coming with him either. Ignoring his grapple Dick decides to just jump right down to the ground, rolling with the momentum as he lands and then heads inside to actually do the job they’re all out here for anyway. 

The eighteen figures all lying around certainly are tied up well with none of them close enough to release one another, not that that seems like a major issue considering they’re pretty much all knocked right out.

Except, of course, for their glorious leader who sees Dick coming and can only gulp down all the anxieties that are written across his face. He’s not very successful at it. 

“Hey buddy,” Dick says as he crouches down right in front of the guy right in his personal space. The man tilts back as far as he can go but Cass had clearly sat him front and centre against a large crate that blocks any movement while Dick just crowds further towards him. 

The man squeaks in distress which Dick takes as his own version of saying “hi” back.

“So what’s going on here, huh? You want to tell me how you got Hatter’s tech? What were you aiming for here?”

“Uh. Well. Um.”

“Not a great answer there, bud.”

“It wasn’t my fault!”

“Not my question.”

The guy swears a couple of times before apparently just succumbing to the fact Dick isn’t going to let him go without some answers.

“Look, Adam was the one who found it. It was like six months ago and Batman had just kicked the shit out of Hatter and Adam was there and the hat was there and I dunno but he brought it to me because I majored in computer engineering and he just wanted me to fix it up so we could see it and I said I couldn’t do it alone so he got his friends and-”

Dick holds up a hand as the rambling just gets faster and less discernible as he goes. The guy stutters to a stop. 

“Okay. So you found the tech, you said no - he convinced you. Got it. Now how does that end with you lot here and now? I counted eighteen guys out here tonight, doesn’t really seem like you’re just putting this up on the market yet.”

“Uh, yeah. Well, no one wants to buy it without proof, you know?” He squirms under Dick’s unblinking stare but does manage to keep talking. “So a couple of the potential buyers said they’d need evidence and they sent some representatives, right?”

Dick does cast a quick look around at the fallen guards and sure enough they do seem to be broken down into twos and three via their uniforms or the signifiers that Dick can recognise. A few from the Maroni’s, some from Black Mask and a handful from smaller crime families that still spell trouble if they ever got their hands on this tech. 

“And all the people out there?” Dick asks.

The guy is trembling so much he looks damn near close to tears, “Man I don’t know! That wasn’t meant to happen I was just trying to get them to go away then your guys came in and started beating the shit out of us!”

Dick sighs, taps his ear and stares into the nearest camera while he talks. “You got all of that O?”

“Loud and clear,” Babs says, “GCPD are already on their way, I’ll send this recording over to them now.”

“Great,” Dick looks back at the idiot in front of him and tries to put as much disappointment as physically possible into the expression, the man pales “You’re going to sit tight until the police get here, okay? And the next time one of your friends approaches you to try and mind control people you tell him to get lost.”

“Yes. Uh, yes sir.”

“Uhuh.” 

With a patronising little pat on the man’s head Dick decides he’s tied up well enough.

“Hey O do we need to gather any of this stuff up and take it back before the cops arrive?” 

Babs takes a second to double check the roster of cops heading their way because she damn well knows that what Dick is really asking is if any of the incoming police are known to be crooked, or the type to accept bribes to mishandle evidence. The usual. But then she pipes up again, relief colouring her voice.

“No need to worry about that Robin, the Commissioner and Montoya are headed your way now they should be first on the scene.”

“Excellent.” Dick starts lightly jogging out the back of the Amphitheatre to avoid the crowd and the watching eyes of his siblings. He makes it to the tree line before switching to the main channel.

“Hey guys, GCPD is on their way. How’s the crowd doing?”

“They’re now debating the chronology of the Robin mantle,” Tim replies with mild amusement, “Half of them are convinced your early years can’t be real because almost no one ever saw you.”

“Well I am quite the enigma.”

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Jason says, “I got two guys over here ranking your uniforms. Discowing is still going strong for most embarrassing look if you were wondering.”

He sniffs, “It’s not my fault everyone else doesn’t have good taste.”

A series of disbelieving noises chorus over the comms. Dick huffs, but that mostly is just to hide how he’s now broken out into a loping run as he puts more distance between them all. 

“I’m ignoring that. Now are any of these people still looking mind controlled? Any heading home?”

“Yes,” Damian reports, “Most of the people gathered have begun to disperse to their homes and seem entirely free of external influences.”

“Great work team, looks like we got this all covered then.”

“You coming out to join us?” Steph asks, “I think they’re about to start guessing at where B is tonight and I want to see how long it takes until they guess he’s getting it on with Catwoman.”

Everyone else groans in disgust at that particular image which only makes Steph cackle. 

“Gross,” Dick says instead, right as Jason’s bike comes into view, “I think I’ll pass on that, thanks.”

“I shall join you inside to guard the criminals until the police arrive,” Damian declares as a not at all subtle way to avoid hearing about his dad and Selina boning. 

“Sorry kiddo,” Dick replies. He fishes about in his pockets for a second or two to find the key he lifted off of Jason when they’d been sitting up at the Amphitheatre together, “I’m not there, but you can definitely keep an eye on them until Gordon arrives.”

Tim’s voice is coloured in confusion, “Not there? But where have you go-” He gasps, “You bastard!”

“What?” Duke asks, “What’s he doing? Robin?” 

“Oi!” Steph shouts, “Come back here and answer us, where’s he goi- Ooh you little shit .”

Dick laughs brightly letting the engine rev loud enough for his comm to pick it up as one by one the other kids all realise that the race is very much still on and he has yet again gotten away with a head start.

“Don’t you tell me you’re stealing my fucking bike, ” Jason hisses as judging by the sounds, he too presumably starts sprinting towards Dick’s location.

“Stealing civilian vehicles was against the rules,” Dick reminds them all victoriously, “No one said anything about taking one of yours.”

There’s a flurry of movement over the comms but Dick is already peeling away from the curb and turning right back towards the beacon that is Wayne tower. He’s pleased to note that there are already far fewer cars blocking the way as presumably all the drivers have been freed from their idle need to just drive in circles and have now all started heading home. He takes it from the lack of any Oracle warnings that all the drivers came out of their stuppors gently enough that none of them ended up getting into crashes that the Bats would have to deal with. 

The way back to the tower is bizarrely easy going. He keeps waiting for something else to go wrong but it really does seem like he has successfully outdone his siblings. In fact he makes it all the way to the very base of the tower with not a single issue. But because he really can’t resist he clicks back onto the main channel which had gone dead silent immediately after everyone had finished yelling at him. 

“So, how’re we all doing?”

“You’re the worst, dude,” Duke huffs. 

“Seconded.” Tim says.

“Thirded.” Steph adds.

“Agreed.” Damian growls. 

“Aww, look at you all getting along.”

“I’m going to kick your ass Dickhead, the second I see you it’s on sight.”

“Love you too Little Wing.” Dick eyes the oh so convenient architectural details that lace the tower at each level. One of those ‘quirky’ requests from Brucie Wayne who wanted the big ol’ tower with his name on it to have some more of the gothic stylings that this city loves so very much. What a lovely coincidence it is that Brucie Wayne’s idle whims happen to align with the perfect grappling hook targets for the local Bat population then. 

Level by level Dick starts swinging his way up the tower, pausing occasionally to check if he’s getting followed. It’s on the fourth time he stops for a quick breather and a scan of the road below before an all too familiar shape comes cruising right down the middle of the street. Dick hisses.

“Which one of you kids stole the goddamn batmobile ?”

“None of them,” Babs says all too sweetly, “I called it when you tried to skimp out on your duties.”

“Skimp! I’ve never skimped a day in my life.”

“Oh do you really want to make that claim to me ?”

“No. I take it back immediately. Do not dig up any evidence on me. You’re the best all seeing oracle the world has ever known. Still doesn’t mean you need to play favourites!”

“Oh woe is you.”

The batmobile screeches to a halt right out the front of the tower and even from up here he can see his siblings pour out of the car in all their brightly coloured glory. For a second Dick wishes he’d kept hold of Damian’s grapple to have at least knocked one of his competitors out of the race but he probably would have found one in the batmobile anyway. 

“On sight.” Jason reminds him evilly from the ground as he whips out his own grapple and leads the flock in chasing Dick down. 

“Uh oh,” he says mostly to himself before flinging himself up the building even quicker. 

When it comes to a straight vertical climb like this the Bats are all pretty evenly matched. What advantage Damian and Cass have in their lighter weights, Dick and Tim have in their precise, efficient movements, and Jason, Steph and Duke all have in their pure strength. If anything though, all it means is that the six of them are all leaping and climbing with a sharp focus that keeps them all nearly perfectly tied. And Dick is still in the lead. 

He’s just made it past the halfway point when he sees something go flying right past his head. Dick yelps and switches his trajectory at the last second, fumbling against his catch on the next gargoyle up above him.

“Which one of you threw that?” He yells down.

“Not me!” Tim says and is quickly echoed by literally all of them which answers nothing about just which one of the kids thought they could throw a batarang at him. 

“Don’t do it again!”

“Of course not,” Steph shouts up at him, he looks down just in time to watch her pull her arm back and throw one of her batarangs right at him - while holding direct eye contact.

“Robin!” He shrieks, ducking out of the way and missing his chance to climb another level. The rest of the flock are closing in faster than he wants. 

Dick tries to throw himself harder and faster into the climb but he’s not even two thirds up yet. So he’ll just have to get creative. As he makes his way up to the next level Dick throws himself out, pushing the limits of his grapple line as he fully disconnects from the building and hovers in midair before the tension will pull him back and up. During that brief window of time Dick reaches into his utility belt and pulls out a smoke bomb with practised efficiency. The Robins are all gaining on him so it’s not actually as far as he would’ve had to throw if he’d maintained his lead. He pulls back, hopes Bruce’s bulletproof windows will hold up, and chucks the bomb just above their collective heads. 

He pulls back in towards the building as a chorus of shouts explode from within the midst of the explosion. Dick sure hopes they are smart enough to stay hooked into their current position until the air clears up a bit and they can aim properly again. But knowing them at least one of them will take a shot anyway so he just tries to pour the very last of his energy into bolting up the sheer drop of Wayne Tower. 

It’s just as he’s passed the three quarter mark that he can hear more grapples connecting again, a few more batarangs flung wildly out in his direction that he dodges with grace and only mild panic. It would admittedly suck very much if one of them cut through his line from this height. Still he thinks he’s making some pretty good time and the finish line is so damn close.

Which is of course why Tim set a trap up here. 

Dick has just landed on one of the upper most gargoyles when he feels himself slipping. He yelps, arms waving wildly about as he desperately tries to keep his balance only to feel the soles of his shoes slip. He knows a lost cause when he sees it, so throwing dignity to the wind he pulls his own feet out from under him, practically bellyflopping on top of the stone instead of elegantly crouching upon it. 

At least at this angle his weight can be distributed more safely and he’s less at risk of plummeting to his death. It also means that his bare arms and legs can get up close and personal with the disgustingly slippery gel that Tim apparently coated the entire fucking gargoyle with. 

“Are you kidding me?” He shouts down to his brother who doesn’t even dignify him with a response and just aims for the next gargoyle over. 

Thankfully Dick has landed himself in the exact right direction to be facing where Tim has just hooked onto the building and he has enough balance now to release his own grapple arm and shoot horizontally. The two lines: Tim's vertical and Dick’s running perpendicular, crash into each other in mid air. The lines tangle and wrap around one another until they’re an absolute mess. Conveniently enough Damian and Duke both had just tried to shoot up, supposedly taking advantage of their literal crossed wires, only for the combined weight of two grapples to start falling much quicker than expected. Now the four of them have collided in one way or another, leaving them at a standstill since none of them have enough wiggle room upon their individual ledges to take the time to untangle the mess of ropes. 

Steph cackles at the shared looks of misery that passes over the four of them, especially Dick who is still sprawled atop a disgusting slimy statue. 

“Thanks for the assist boys,” she laughs. 

“Yeah it’s a big help,” Jason grins. 

As one Dick, Tim, Duke and Damian glare at the other three who are all aiming pretty ambitiously for the next level above them. And then as one they all four pull out their own batarangs and take aim. Cass’s line doesn’t even make it up to Dick’s level before it is knocked out of her hand by Damian, and both Steph and Jason have theirs taken out before they’ve even aimed properly. 

“Well what the fuck are we meat to do now?” Jason shouts, “Did you idiots just strand all seven of us up here?”

“Do you think O will send the batplane to pick us up?” Duke asks.

Steph groans, “Oh my god that’s so embarrassing. We’re literally three floors from the roof.”

Everyone takes it in turns yelling and shouting at who is responsible for getting all of them in this mess which Dick deftly tunes out as he carefully maneuvers himself back into a crouch, testing his weight at every minute adjustment until he feels secure enough to look around at his current positioning. 

He is the only one who made it this high, with all the other kids stuck on the level below, most of them standing upright on one of the decorative ledges that were installed on every second level. It’s good that they’re sturdy enough to hold the weight of the six birds but Dick is pretty damn limited in the little protrusion he’s currently stuck on. He inches back from the grotesque figure of the gargoyle until he can press his back against the corner of the building. There’s more yelling that he ignores as he instead starts to inch slowly to his right, testing the security of the stone trim that he is only just able to find purchase on. It holds, but he’s not really planning to trust it for long.

“Hey, Dickhead,” Jason calls loud enough that everyone shuts up to watch Dick’s movement with slowly dawning horror, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Robin!” Tim gasps, “Quit moving! There’s no room for you there!” 

Quite honestly Dick doesn't have the time to spare to reassure his siblings that he's totally got this and they can calm down. Admittedly this is a very thin precipice he's balanced upon and someone ensured that his shoes are covered with disgustingly smooth lubricant that makes his particular skill set rather difficult, Tim . 

“Hey Boy Wonder,” Babs says into his ear in the quiet, perfectly controlled way that means she is deliberately trying not to spook him, “What're you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay. Well you're looking like you're in a pretty… delicate position. And all the kids are begging me to get you to stop putting your life in jeopardy now that you've lost your grappling hook .” 

“‘M fine,” he mumbles. Right now he's made it a solid two metres from his gargoyle which puts him distinctly out of comfortable reach if he needs to bail at any point. At least from here though Dick can finally reach out with the very tip of his foot and kick against the glass window. There's a brief moment where nothing happens and he has to reckon with how embarrassing it would be if he actually plummets to his death in front of all of his siblings just because he misremembered something. Luckily though a second later the window clicks and opens outward. This is in fact one of the very few windows that do so considering Bruce wanted to limit how many unwelcome guests would ever be tempted to break into the tower, but still wanted a few extra ways in for himself in a place that would definitely be Bat accessible with the right equipment. Dick shuffles carefully along his little ledge until he can scoot his weight forward and come to sit down on the windowsill which gives him enough leverage to peer back down. 

Six pairs of domino lenses stare up at him unblinkingly. Dick throws them a salute, “The race isn’t over yet kiddos. See you at the finish line!”

And then he is darting inside and racing his way to the roof access staircase. He takes a spare second to grab some tissues from some random Wayne Enterprises’ workers desk and wipe off as much of whatever the hell Tim coated that gargoyle with. When he actually makes it into the correct stairwell he starts taking the stairs two at a time, not at all keen to see how quickly the kids can undo those grapples when they’re all unionised against him. 

In fact he’s so focused on charging upwards while making sure his still damp shoes don’t cause him to slip that he almost smacks head first into the door. Dick blinks in surprise. 

From somewhere below him he can hear the unmistakable echo of multiple people running into the stairwell just as he grabs at the door handle. With a single twist he is met with the fresh-ish air of a beautiful Gotham night. 

Dick walks out onto the rooftop, his eyes scanning for any last minute traps and tricks but finding nothing at all out of place. He laughs bright and loud at the fact that finally he has made it to the end. 

There’s a steady thumping of feet drawing ever nearer so Dick makes sure to perch himself right in the middle of the space where he can get an optimal view of the proceedings. 

Tim is first through the door gasping and wildly out of breath but it certainly makes sense that he would have been first to get to work on unhooking his grapple and following in Dick’s footsteps. 

Next comes Jason using his sheer size in his favour of blocking out Cass who was right on his heels but clearly didn’t have room in the stairwell to overcome his bulk. 

Then spills out Damian who is looking unusually ruffled, right until Dick catches sight of Steph’s red headband inexplicably sticking out the back of his hood. She’s next out the door, a satisfied smirk across her face as she definitely seems more amused by whatever sabotage she managed to get over Damian than however upset she might be about not coming first. 

Finally out walks Duke who clearly saw he wasn’t going to be ranking high up in the competition and chose the very sensible route of just saving his energy. He kicks the door shut behind him once he’s through and offers Dick a thumbs up in congratulations. 

“Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen,” Oracle's voice echoes from each of their comms, “I believe we have a winner.”

Steph, Cass and Duke politely applaud as Dick takes an exaggerated bow. To entirely no one’s surprise the other boys are all pouting to themselves but once Dick rises again Tim is first to break. He walks forward and goes to offer Dick a good natured handshake. Their hands clasp for a second before Dick pulls his little brother into his side, squashing him into a half hug and promptly giving him a noogie that Tim accepts with nothing more than a fond sigh. 

Jason takes advantage of the fact that his arms are occupied with holding Tim captive. He too steps forward, this time to give Dick a friend punch in the arm that will only lightly bruise by tomorrow. 

“I’ll accept your win for the sake of our team, but I want you to know I absolutely would have beaten all of you if you weren’t a fuckin’ cheat who stole my bike.”

From under his arms Tim squarks in protest, trying to crane his neck around to glare up at Jay, “Uh I think you’ll find I was the one who came in second place.”

“Were it not for unjust interference I would certainly have defeated you all,” Damian declares confidently to a round of scoffs. Still Dick lets his littlest brother sidle right up to him before reaching out to tug him into his other side. Now both Tim and Damian could easily escape the grip but Dick decides their continued acquiescence is part of his reward for winning. 

“Wait,” Steph pouts, “Why’s everyone hugging? I wanna hug.”

“Robin,” Tim says warningly as soon as he recognises the gleam in her eyes, “Don’t you dare-”

“Too late!” She cheers, running right at the three of them and launching herself at Dick’s back until she’s hooked around him like a gangly koala. She rests her head on his shoulder, close to Tim presumably just so she can stick her tongue out at him. Tim groans but doesn’t try to break away from the impromptu group hug. 

“Nuh uh,” Jason says all too confidently, “I’m staying right out of this.”

Of course, that would be more convincing a statement if Cass hadn’t just snuck up behind him. With a sturdy push she has him stumbling right into Dick’s back where Steph promptly captures his cape in her hand and pulls him even further in until he either brings an arm up around her back or gets it squashed between Dick and Damian. And Damian is very much at biting height if Jay lets himself get too close. 

With their most reluctant party members so thoroughly trapped Cass and Duke are both quick to plaster themselves to the fringes of the group with Cass draped over Tim’s side and Duke taking advantage of his thick jacket to deter any Damian-bites as he slides in next to him. 

Dick doesn’t even try to hide the beaming smile that is pulling at his lips with all his baby brothers and sisters plastered safe at his side, each one of them decked out in his family's colours for the very first time. 

Inexplicably they all manage to actually stay still and together long enough that Dick doesn’t even have to complain when Jason and Damian both inevitably start squirming to escape. Steph too eventually slides off his back and onto her own feet, though she does give him a congratulatory pat on the head while she's up there which he appreciates. 

He claps his hands together once everyone has split off, “Okay guys. That was fun, thanks for playing, I do expect all of you to acknowledge forever and always that my original suit was in fact an excellent choice.”

“You can expect that,” Tim says diplomatically as if it isn't blindingly obvious that that wasn't  actually a ‘yes’. 

Duke nudges him in the side, a lopsided grin lighting up his face. “Honestly dude, I think you might’ve actually convinced me.”

Every single person, Dick included, turns to him incredulously. However Duke doesn't back down, just offers them all a shrug.

“What can I say? I got to go train surfing with the og Robin guys, I literally don't think it gets better than that. Also every one of you were, like, actual staples of Gotham while I grew up.” He gestures loosely to the R patch sewn into his jacket, “Robin is kind of a crazy big deal, I mean, I definitely never expected to end up here and yet tonight has been literally the most fun I've ever had.”

Six pairs of eyes are still staring at him, mouths agape. But Duke doesn't back down. “Look I dunno what you want me to say. I got to hang with Robin. And Robin. And Robin. And Robin. And Robin.” He points at them all one by one, the inflection in his voice shifting with each person because ultimately Duke means what he’s saying. That he’s grown up as the exact type of Gothamite every one of them had sworn to protect and care for and in turn he'd had time to develop his own ideas and image about what that means. Finally he points to Dick who can't do anything more than stare wide-eyed and unexpectedly touched by the way his newest brother is framing this name, this suit, this legacy of his. 

“And I got to see Robin. The shorts are still wild, man. But also they’re yours. And they're Robins. And I guess that means they're kinda cool as hell.”

“Oh my god,” Steph whispers, “I think he's going to cry.”

“He is not going to cry,” Damian whispers back.

“I dunno,” Jason hums thoughtfully, “he might.”

“Holy shit, Dick are you going to cry?” Duke says, panic filling his voice. “Dude I'm sorry if I said something wro-”

“Shut up,” Dick hiccups, “You all suck and Duke is my favourite forever.”

Before the teen can run away Dick launches forward to pull him into another hug which is returned only after a second of bewildered hesitation. 

“Uh, thanks?” 

Before he can embarrass himself further by daring to have a visible emotion in front of a whole flock of Bats, Dick pulls back, deciding to be eternally grateful for the way his domino totally hides the water stubbornly gathering at the corner of his eyes. 

“Right, well. What's next?” 

It's a pretty even split of siblings who are doing the favour of pretending like his voice isn't getting choked up at all, while the rest are making no effort at all to hide their smirks.

“If I may make a suggestion?” Babs interjects smoothly, “a robbery has just been reported downtown if anyone is interested in dealing with that.”

The seven birds look at each other.

“Last one there buys a batburger for the winner!” Jason shouts before taking off. 

At once they all scramble forward, each Robin diving off the tower, their capes streaming out behind in a flurry of yellow and black. Gotham stretches out endlessly below their wings as her flock takes flight yet again.