Chapter Text
To put it simply, Jason was pissed. And look, he didn’t give a shit about how his death was handled. It was a slow, painful death and no one avenged him. Fine. It's been well over four years now. Jason could deal with it.
What Jason could not tolerate —and he would say as much to Bruce, when he confronted him eventually—was that no one protected his little sister. She’d disappeared and, somehow, the world’s greatest detective could not figure out why nor who took her. It was insulting. Well, it would’ve been if only Jason could find anything.
Every time he felt like he’d found a clue, all it did was lead him down a rabbit hole of someone else’s disappearance. It was driving him insane. There was no security camera footage, no receipts, no testimonies. Nothing .
There were zero leads. It was almost enough to make him consider contacting Alfred or Dick. He wasn’t that desperate, though. At least, not yet. Jason figured they had to have something. Dick loved her just as much as he did. He couldn’t have been okay with the way Bruce abandoned Anna.
He supposed another option could be to hack the Batcomputer or sneak into the Batcave and access their records. Jason paused. Would he be able to sneak in? If his identifiers were still in the system, it should be pretty easy.
It was, in fact, not easy. Easier than hacking into the Batcomputer? Probably, but Bruce, being the asshole he is, decided to switch into voice identification instead of fingerprints. And it’s been a while since Jason’s heard either of their voices. Still, somehow, by some miracle, he was able to trick the system into thinking he was Nightwing. He just had to take off his helmet for a moment.
Stepping into the cave was a mix of nostalgia and plain anger. It hadn’t changed much in the last four or so years. The only new addition was a uniform case.
A case with his name under it .
Jason’s breath grew ragged with rage as he stared at it. So, that was it? All that was left of him in the place he’d mistakenly considered his home was a bloody uniform and a plaque calling him a ‘Good Soldier’?
He wasn’t sure if he stayed there—just staring—for a few minutes or a few hours, but the reason for his break-in snapped him out of it. It was still light out, but who knew when any of the Bats would come down here. He had to act fast.
The computer was even bigger than he remembered. A tech upgrade, it seemed. Lucky for him, the system seemed to be the same, and Batman never removed his password. Jason smiled as he stuck the flash drive and waited for the files to download.
That smile slowly fell as he realized it would take a lot longer than he realized. According to the numbers on the screen, he’d be stuck there for another twenty minutes. Twenty minutes he, frankly, could not spare.
And it wasn’t like he could just hide and wait for the files to finish downloading, because the download bar took up half the screen. In short, he was fucked if anyone came down here.
Jason busied himself with wandering around the cave. In terms of weapons, not much was new. Exploding batarangs, strange repellant sprays, and still no guns. He wasn’t all that shocked until he reached the uniform cases—the actual ones, not the offensive display case he got.
If Jason believed he couldn’t get any angrier at Bruce, he was wrong. Not only was there another Robin uniform, but this one had pants. Come on ! Was he serious? Now look, Jason was well aware that Dick chose to not wear pants, and, yeah, maybe Jason should’ve realized that it was something he could’ve asked for, but it really pissed him off that he was never given that choice.
Jason decided that was enough wandering around and headed back to the Batcomputer. He was pleasantly surprised when he realized the timer only had five minutes left. Jason might actually get away with this.
As the counter got down to a minute and Jason’s hand hovered around the flash drive, a thud echoed behind him. Shit.
“Well, hello there,” Nightwing’s obnoxious voice mocked him, “you’re not supposed to be here.”
Jason turned his head just in time to avoid the kick headed right for his face. He quickly pulled out the flash drive and ran.
“Bat-Security!” Nightwing yelled. “Lockdown sequence 4!”
Jason remembered that one—no one out or in. A total shut down. He ran even faster, but he was no match for the acrobat with a grapple. Not to mention, Jason didn’t exactly remember the entire lay of the land, not like Nightwing did.
It wasn’t long before he was caught with a net, of all things. A blue gloved hand dragged him back to the center of the Batcave with surprising strength, cuffing his wrists and ankles before letting him out of the net.
“Now, talk.” Nightwing glared.
“What about, you dick ?” Jason reveled at the older man’s slight flinch. “Cause I can talk about a lot of things.”
“Fine,” he spat out, “be that way. Let’s just see what the computer has to say.”
Nightwing sauntered over to the computer and typed for a good minute before pausing. His shoulders visibly tensed, and Jason hadn’t realized how calm—if a little annoyed—Nightwing had been earlier.
“Why is the Red Hood looking for information on Anna Wayne?” He interrogated, voice dangerously low.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” Jason growled back.
“Look, you somehow found the Batcave.” Nightwing grabbed his mask, around where his mouth would be, and yanked him. “I don’t believe that you don’t have even an inkling of who we are. So, it’d do you well to tell me why you were stealing information on Anna Wayne before I call Batman.”
Jason struggled against his bonds, “I don’t have to tell you shit. ”
“Oh yeah?” Nightwing lowered his hand to the locks on his mask. “I’ve seen these kinds of helmets before–” the first lock clicked open– “and I know exactly how to open them–” the second lock clicked– “so, either you tell me what you want to do with this information or I will find out your identity.”
The third lock clicked open and Jason’s heart raced. He felt stupid for forgetting his domino mask. There was only one lock left now.
With all the pent up aggression he could muster, Jason headbutted Nightwing. “Go to hell!”
That was a bad idea. Now that it wasn’t fully secured, his helmet flew off, leaving him barefaced.
Nightwing cursed in a language Jason didn’t understand. He rubbed his forehead before whipping around, presumably to yell at him. However, the words must’ve died in his throat as he stared at Jason’s face.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Jason glared.
“...Jason?” Nightwing whispered. “No, there’s no–”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your eye twitched.” Nightwing pointed out, something akin to wonder in his voice. “That.. that’s your tell. It is you. How?”
“The Lazarus Pits are a hell of a spa trip, let me tell you that.” Jason looked away as Nightwing peeled off his mask and turned back to Dick.
“God, seriously?” Dick grabbed the sides of his face, unshed tears in his eyes, and just stared at him. “I’m gonna kill Talia. How could she just steal your body like that?”
“I actually crawled out on my own.” Jason raised an eyebrow, his voice a little muffled with how Dick was squeezing his cheeks. “Thanks for asking.”
Dick sniffled and threw his arms around Jason. It was warm. It was also the first time Jason had been hugged in five years, but he digresses.
After a few seconds, in which Jason fought against the tightening in his throat, he managed to mumble out, “Can you uncuff me? It’s getting a little uncomfortable.”
“Oh shit, of course.” Dick uncuffed him. Jason rubbed his wrists as Dick continued talking. “Actually, how did you get in here?”
“You should update your voice recognition if I was able to fool security into thinking I was you.”
Dick snickered, but voices began to filter in from upstairs. He whispered as he pressed a button and the entrances began to open, “I’ll erase the security footage. Go, we can talk later.”
Jason nodded, “Go anywhere in Crime Alley. I’ll find you.”
Dick clapped his shoulder and smiled softly as Jason ran away.
Jason was right. Dick had barely been in Crime Alley for a few minutes and the Red Hood was already standing before him.
“Hey,” Dick nodded, watching as Jason nodded back.
“Let’s go somewhere more private. I’ve got a safe house around here.”
The safe house was a two story house that blended in perfectly with the disheveled appearance most houses around the area had. That was, until you went inside. Dick remembered that Jason couldn’t stand messes—that was partly why his younger brother refused to step inside of his Bludhaven apartment—and it showed. All the furniture was slightly dusty, but there wasn’t a book out of place or a dish in the sink.
As soon as the door closed, Jason went straight into business, “I want to know everything you know about Annie, because I refuse to believe this –” he waved a flash drive around– “is all the information you Bats have.”
“I saw the file you downloaded. That’s most of what we have.” Dick’s shoulders slumped apologetically.
Jason laughed bitterly, “I refuse to believe that. I’ve seen the type of cases Batman has solved and you’re telling me he couldn’t find a seven year old he had an emotional attachment to?”
Dick shook his head, “Jason—”
“And what about you? Did you even look for her? I mean, you were an asshole sometimes, but—”
“Bruce didn’t realize she was gone.” Dick interrupted. “We didn’t find out until later and, by that point, the crucial 48 hours had already passed. He didn’t tell me she was gone until he accepted he wasn’t going to find her by himself.” Dick scratched the back of his neck. “You can imagine how long that took.”
What Dick didn’t say is that it had taken them a month to realize she wasn’t there. Shame filled him at the reminder, as well as anger at Bruce and Alfred. Even though it was no excuse, Bruce and he had been fighting at the time and Dick was holed up in Bludhaven. Alfred and Bruce, however… They lived at the Manor. They should’ve noticed his little sister was gone.
“I’ve got a bit more info back at Bludhaven, but it’s all physical files. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but intel on Anna tends to disappear, so I’ve taken to printing it out.”
Jason raised an eyebrow, “Yeah, I’ve noticed. Look, I don’t know what ideas you’re coming up with in that head of yours, but this–” he gestured between them– “team up is a one time thing.”
“I don’t think it should be,” Dick answered honestly, “We used to work well together, and this is clearly bigger than both of us. I’m willing to put my pride aside for Anna’s sake if you are.”
Jason huffed. “Yeah, no. Working alone works for me and I’m not willing to compromise my work ethic for your petty ‘morals’.” He ended that last part with quotation marks.
“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I’m fine with you killing–” Who was he kidding? He let Tarantula kill Blockbuster, he let her— “but I won’t stop you from making your own decisions. Just because I couldn’t handle taking a life doesn’t mean I think I can stop you.”
Jason’s eyebrows knit together, “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Dick smiled, although it was strained. “Just— let’s work together. For Anna’s sake.”
“If we’re doing this—which I’m not saying we are —we need to set some ground rules.”
Dick brightened up. That was basically approval. “Sure.”
“First off, you can’t judge my methods. I don’t give a shit what you believe. If you’re not pulling the trigger, you can’t have an opinion.”
“Done.” Dick nodded.
“Second, no holding back information. Anything either of us finds needs to be communicated immediately.” Jason paused for a second, only continuing once Dick raised a thumbs up. “And finally, you cannot tell Bruce who I am. I’m gonna tell him eventually, but only I can do that. And you can’t judge me when you find out how I did it.”
“That sounds good to me.” Dick agreed. “I just wanna add another one. We stay out of each other's business. No Red Hood in Blud, no Nightwing in Crime Alley. Just because I won’t stop you doesn’t mean I wanna know about everything that you do.”
“Deal.” Jason extended a gloved hand.
“Deal.” Dick shook it. “It’ll be nice working together again, Little Wing.”
Jason laughed, “I wouldn’t count on it.”