Chapter Text
The bust had gone sideways about ten minutes in.
The intel was solid, the layout was known, and the two of them—Jason and Dick—had worked together often enough to make short work of a low-level drug operation like this one. But people get desperate when they're cornered, especially the ones high on their own supply. Guns came out fast. Jason shot two of them before Dick even made it through the stairwell.
Now they sat on the roof of the adjacent building, city still buzzing underneath, the scent of smog and street food mixing in the air. Jason had grabbed burgers and fries from the first vendor they passed, tossed a beer at Dick without asking, and parked himself on the ledge like it was just another Tuesday.
Dick hadn't eaten.
He still had blood on his forearm—none of it his.
Jason took a bite of his burger, chewing like nothing had happened. "You want me to say it was clean?" he asked, without looking over.
"I don't care how you operate," Dick said flatly.
That was true. Had been true for a long time now. He might not agree with Jason’s methods, but he wasn't here to judge. He was here because it was easier to be with someone who didn’t expect him to smile and say everything would be fine.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching taillights blur through the streets below.
Then Dick spoke again, sudden and sharp: "You know what pisses me off?"
Jason blinked. “That I finished your fries?”
“I don’t get to lose it.”
Jason looked at him now, really looked. “Okay.”
Dick’s voice was tight. Controlled. “You get to be angry. You are angry. Every night. You go out, guns blazing—literal guns—and everyone just... expects it. It’s who you are. It’s allowed.”
Jason didn’t say anything, letting him go on.
“But me?” Dick shook his head, scoffing. “I’m Nightwing. First Robin. The one who kept the mission alive while Bruce vanished into his own grief. The one who’s supposed to crack jokes, lead the team, take the hit and get up smiling. I don’t get to have a breaking point.”
He stood, pacing now, beer still clutched in his hand but forgotten.
“You think I don’t want to lose it sometimes?” Dick’s voice climbed, not yelling, but close. “Do you think I don’t feel it? All the shit we’ve seen—the bodies, the kids used like pawns, the blood on our hands, on my hands—I feel it, Jason. Every goddamn day.”
Jason leaned back against the ledge, calm, unreadable.
“I show up. I do it clean. No kill shots, no breaking bones unless I have to. I wrap it all up nice for the GCPD so they can pat me on the head and say I’m one of the good ones.” Dick laughed bitterly. “But inside? I am furious. And I don’t get to show it.”
He finally stopped pacing and looked at Jason dead-on.
“I would love—just once—to drop the act. To go out there and make people afraid of me. To stop smiling, stop being the symbol, and just unleash. ”
Jason nodded slowly. “So why don’t you?”
“Because they’d never look at me the same again.” Dick sat down hard on the concrete beside him. “And I don’t know who I’d be after that.”
For a long moment, the only sound was the city breathing around them.
Jason cracked open his second beer. “You know,” he said casually, “I’m angry all the time and no one looks at me the same either. Just so you know.”
Dick almost smiled. Not quite. “Yeah, but you never had the option to be anything else. People see me as a hero. They see you as a warning.”
Jason tilted his bottle in salute. “Cheers to that.”
They sat in silence again, the weight hanging between them. Not uncomfortable. Not really. Just heavy.
After a while, Dick finally opened his beer. Took a sip. Let the bitterness settle on his tongue.
“I just wanted to say it out loud,” he said.
“Then it was a good night,” Jason replied. “Couple bad guys down. One emotional breakthrough. That’s progress.”
Dick nudged him with his shoulder. “Shut up.”
Jason grinned. “No promises.”
Dick got home just after midnight, shoulders stiff, boots scuffed, and the outline of a fresh bruise blooming across his ribs. He dropped his duffel by the door, kicked it shut behind him, and shrugged off his jacket as he crossed into the dark of his apartment.
Something felt off.
Not dangerous —no alarms tripped, nothing broken or shifted. But off.
He flicked on the light.
And stopped cold.
Spread out on his couch, like a twisted little gift from Gotham’s worst influence, was a Red Hood suit.
Not Jason’s. This one was sleeker, built to Dick’s leaner frame. The armor was lighter, more flexible. Custom, down to the stitching. Matte black with crimson accents—clean, aggressive, and just shy of theatrical. And resting right on top, a note, scribbled in Jason’s awful handwriting:
“Go nuts, Dickhead.”
Dick stared at it.
Then he laughed.
Sharp and sudden, the sound bounced off the apartment walls. He pressed the note between his fingers, grinning like a man who’d just been dared to do something very, very stupid.
Which, obviously, he had.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, still grinning. Of course Jason had gone and done this. Of course he’d taken that rooftop confession and turned it into a goddamn project. This was Jason’s love language—guns, armor, and chaos. And in its own backwards way, it meant more than Dick could say.
He lifted the suit and felt the weight of it. Not heavy. But not light either. Serious gear. The kind of thing you wore when you weren’t asking questions.
He should absolutely, definitely not wear it.
It was a terrible idea.
He’d built his whole identity on control. On doing things his way. On not becoming the thing people were afraid of.
And yet...
Jason was out of town. Off chasing some lead with Roy in Star City. Wouldn’t be back for a few days.
Someone had to keep the streets quiet.
And it would be a shame to let all this custom gear just sit there.
Dick set the helmet on the table and took a step back, crossing his arms, studying it like it might answer for itself.
“I’m just looking,” he said out loud.
The helmet didn’t reply.
But the grin crept back across his face anyway.
He was already deciding which route he’d take through the East Side. Already choosing which alley he’d drop into first. Already imagining the look on some low-tier thug’s face when Red Hood showed up a little more acrobatic than usual.
Just once, he thought. Just once to see what it’s like.
He glanced at the note again, Jason’s scrawl practically vibrating with smugness.
“Go nuts,” he read, shaking his head. “Yeah. Okay. Just for tonight.”
And just like that, Nightwing disappeared.
Red Hood 2.0 stepped out into the dark.
The explosion lit up the dockside like a flare.
Bruce stood on the rooftop of a rusted freight warehouse, cloak drawn tight against the wind, watching flames chew through the skeleton of what had once been a weapons drop point for the Maroni family. The fire was controlled—targeted. No collateral, no civilian presence. But still. Explosives. Blown charges. And Red Hood.
At least, that’s what the CCTV footage said.
Bruce narrowed his eyes behind the cowl.
Red Hood had been seen storming the building ten minutes prior. Two guards disabled at the perimeter. One van intercepted. A hard entry through the south wall. Then the whole thing went up.
It had Jason’s signature all over it. Except it didn’t.
Bruce pulled up the footage again on his HUD. Slowed it. Enhanced.
There—just a flash, but enough.
The way the fake Red Hood moved. The angle of the kick. The weight shift. Too light. Too fast. And then there was the body language. Jason’s usual gait carried weight—swagger, really. Anger coiled in his shoulders, unspoken threats in every movement.
Bruce’s jaw tightened.
That wasn’t Jason.
And Jason was supposed to be out of town.
He turned to move, already planning an interception route. He’d track the impostor, confront them, shut this down before someone got killed—or before Jason found out and did something worse.
Then a hand touched his arm.
Cass.
She’d appeared silently at his side, as she always did, blending with the shadows like she’d been born from them. Her touch was light but deliberate.
He looked at her. She shook her head once.
“Let it go,” she said softly. Her voice was calm. Sure.
Bruce’s brow furrowed. “That’s not him.”
“I know.”
“He’s not supposed to be here. And whoever it is—”
“Has permission.”
Bruce stared at her for a long beat, parsing every layer of what she’d just said.
Jason gave permission.
Which meant Jason knew. And, somehow, approved.
Cass didn’t offer more. She rarely did unless asked. But she was telling the truth. That was the thing about Cassandra—her words carried weight because she never used them carelessly.
Bruce glanced back toward the burning wreckage. The fake Red Hood was gone now, already vanished into the city like smoke. No trace on comms. No trace on the ground.
But the smallest corner of Bruce’s mind began to piece things together.
The slight shift in build. The speed. The fluid motion through combat. The faint echo of something familiar in the way the fake Red Hood landed from a leap, rolling up effortlessly, like he’d spent his whole life flipping off rooftops.
It clicked.
He exhaled through his nose.
“Dick.”
Cass smiled, just barely. A small thing. But real.
Bruce didn’t say anything else. Just turned back to the skyline, watching the fire burn itself down.
He didn’t approve. Not really. But some part of him understood.
And for tonight, at least, he’d let it go.
Dick had forgotten how good it could feel to just let go.
No smile. No clean image to uphold. No Bat-approved restraint on every punch. For a few nights, he wasn’t the symbol of hope. He wasn’t the one shaking hands with cops or calming down scared kids with a grin and a quip. He wasn’t Nightwing.
He was something else.
Someone louder. Angrier. Cruder. Someone who told a drug-runner exactly what kind of gutless piece of shit he was before disarming him with a knee to the ribs and a pistol whip to the jaw. Someone who didn’t pull his punches when a pimp reached for a knife. Someone who got to shoot back.
Rubber rounds mostly. Jason’s idea of mercy. But they still hurt.
He blew up a weapons cache two nights in. Planted charges, walked away without looking back—because of course he did—and felt the heat behind him like a benediction. He laughed into the helmet when the explosion went off. A real laugh, sharp and wild.
It was chaos.
And God, it was fun.
But more than that, it was freeing.
For a few nights, Dick didn’t have to be perfect. He didn’t have to be safe. He could burn off everything he kept locked down beneath the surface—the pressure, the anger, the edge he always swallowed for the sake of being Gotham’s bright spot.
And when it was over, when the city was quiet and the fire in his chest had dimmed, he packed the gear up carefully.
The helmet was last.
Jason’s actual helmet. Not a replica, not a spare. The real one, the one he’d worn into god knows how many fires. Dick hadn’t messed with the internals, hadn’t cracked it open. Just slipped it on like a borrowed identity and became someone else for a little while.
Now he held it in his hands, fingers trailing over the scuffed plating, the faint scratches like unreadable scars.
Jason got back that afternoon, dropping into the apartment like he’d never left, blood on his knuckles and a content look in his eyes. No words, no greetings.
Dick handed the helmet over.
Jason took it. No comment. No smirk. No jab.
And that was it.
No thanks. No lectures. No mention of what Dick had done in his name.
They didn’t talk about it.
They didn’t need to.
Jason was curious. No—scratch that. He was dying to know. He’d been back in Gotham for less than twelve hours, boots still damp from Star City rain, and the thought had been gnawing at him since he crossed city lines.
What the hell did Dick Grayson do while wearing his suit?
Jason hadn’t asked. Hadn’t even said anything when Dick handed back the gear with that easy, unbothered Nightwing smile. He just took the helmet— his helmet—gave a nod, and let it slide.
But his mind didn’t let it go.
Because Dick wasn’t the type to go dark. He was the one who smiled through broken ribs. The one who shook hands with terrified kids and managed to make them laugh even when the night was thick with blood. The one who held the line.
And now Jason was supposed to believe that that guy had spent a week dressed as Gotham’s most violent, unstable, gun-toting vigilante?
Sure, he figured there’d be some extra bruises on the criminals that week. Maybe a few snappier one-liners. Probably still walked his route—Crime Alley, the Narrows, a loop past Tricorner, maybe a pit stop near Monarch Theater if he was feeling sentimental. Just with a little more grit. A little more bite.
No big deal.
But Jason couldn’t not look.
So after a reheat of cold pizza—soggy crust, still kind of good—and a quick, lukewarm shower that did jack shit for his sore shoulders, he ran a full check on his gear. Everything was there. Guns cleaned. Knives where they belonged. Even the spare crowbar was untouched.
The helmet sat right where Dick left it, on the weapons bench like it hadn’t just spent a week with someone else’s sweat in it.
Jason stared at it for a second, then grabbed it, plugged it into his system, and queued up the playback feed.
The first clip was timestamped seven days ago, around 10:03 PM. Just after sunset.
The HUD flickered to life.
The screen lit up with the familiar red overlay—Jason’s own visual tracking markers glowing faint in the corners—but it was not Jason moving through those rooftops.
It was Dick.
Fully suited, helmet in place, moving like he’d worn the thing for years. The stride was lighter than Jason’s usual. Less stomp, more flow. Dick didn’t walk so much as glide, even in forty pounds of armor and Kevlar.
Then came the voice. Crisp, clear, straight through the mic feed.
“Alright, Jay, don’t freak out—I’m not gonna mess up your route. Crime Alley first, just like the man himself. Gotta say, though... feels weird. Little tight on the shoulders. Maybe it’s all the guns. Or the trauma. Who knows?”
Jason blinked, then barked out a dry laugh. The helmet, still synced to his system, picked it up and flagged it as a “user reaction.” Typical. Even his tech was smug.
Onscreen, Dick vaulted over a ledge, dropped into a crouch, then stood and kept moving. Clean. Efficient. Quiet. He didn’t say much for a few blocks, just let the city noise fill the silence—sirens in the distance, wind between buildings, the low thump of music bleeding out of a club a few streets over.
Then, casually:
“You know, you borrowed two of mine. Robin and Nightwing. About time I returned the favor.”
Jason grinned in spite of himself.
“Asshole,” he muttered under his breath.
But there was no bite to it.
There was something… surreal about watching Dick Grayson— Dick —move like this. In his armor. Through his streets. And sounding disturbingly natural in the process. The cadence was the same. The tone was different.
It wasn’t forced. It wasn’t some half-assed impression or playful impersonation. Dick wasn’t doing this as a joke.
He was in it.
And Jason couldn’t tell if that should make him proud, unsettled… or both.
The video rolled on.
At first, it was what he expected. Some acrobatics. Clean takedowns. More broken noses than usual. A lot more swearing. Dick handled a street gang behind Harlow’s Pawn like he’d been doing it for years. Told one guy he was going to “fold him like a beach chair,” slammed another through a dumpster lid with enough force to dent it in half, and threatened to use a crowbar as a suppository on the guy who tried to run.
Standard Red Hood fare.
Rougher than Nightwing. Funnier than Jason. All bark, and bite.
But then came that clip.
It started quiet. Mercer and 9th. A busted building with no power, half the roof caved in. The kind of place where things fester.
Dick moved differently—less glide, more stalk. Tense in the shoulders. Deliberate in every step. He knew something was wrong before he even opened the door.
And when the feed adjusted to the low-light setting, Jason saw what he saw.
A man.
Filthy. Shirtless. On his knees. Hunched over a girl’s body. Small. Emaciated. Eyes open, lifeless. Bruises like fingerprints up and down her arms.
And the man was touching her.
Jerking himself with one hand.
Jason’s stomach flipped. His jaw locked. He knew that kind of scum. Knew what they were. What they did. What they deserved.
The screen didn’t move for a beat. Just Dick, standing in the doorway. Silent.
Then his voice cut in. Low. Measured. But sharp—like someone pressing a knife in just to see how far it’d go before the scream.
“You’re the kind of filth that shouldn’t be allowed to breathe in this city.”
The man froze. Looked up, startled.
Dick stepped forward.
“No, don’t speak. Don’t even look at me. You don’t get that anymore.”
His voice darkened—anger curling through every syllable.
“You think you're a man? You're not even a thing. You're rot. You're the reek that crawls up from Gotham’s gutters and spreads disease just by existing. You’re the reason we don't let kids walk alone. You're the reason people lock their windows even six stories up.”
Jason didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.
“You’re not sick. You're not broken. You’re just… vile. And if there's anything worse than what you did, it’s that you don’t even feel bad about it. Do you?”
The man opened his mouth.
Dick moved.
Fast.
He reached down to his thigh, drew the pistol in one smooth motion—Jason’s pistol—and spun it once around his finger like it was weightless. Casual. Confident. Like he’d done it a hundred times.
Then he shot the man clean through the forehead.
Point blank.
No warning. No shout. Just the sound of a trigger pull and a body dropping like a sack of wet meat.
Dick didn’t flinch. Didn’t pause.
He stared at the corpse for half a second, then huffed out a dark laugh.
“Bet Jason checks the helmet footage.”
He turned and walked out, still muttering to himself.
“I’ve just been doing the whole ‘What Would Jason Do?’ thing. Y’know. Figuring out which of these assholes I can shoot and how hard I can hit the rest.”
Jason sat back, staring at the feed.
Frozen.
He hadn’t felt stunned like this in a long time. Couldn’t even remember the last time someone actually surprised him.
But Dick had.
And it wasn’t the kill.
Jason had pulled the trigger more times than he could count, had done worse to worse people with even less ceremony. He didn’t have a problem with the shot—not morally, not tactically. The bastard deserved worse.
What caught him off guard was everything around it.
The rage. The restraint. The fact that Dick hadn't lashed out like someone losing control—he'd made a choice. Cold and clear. His voice hadn’t cracked. His hand hadn’t trembled. He hadn’t looked away, even for a second.
It wasn’t fury.
It was conviction.
Dick knew exactly what he was doing and exactly who he was becoming in that moment. And he hadn’t hesitated.
That was the part that had Jason sitting still for a full minute, helmet playback paused, pulse tapping hard in his throat.
Because the scariest part?
He wasn’t sure if it had been a one-time thing. Or if Dick had just pulled the mask off and realized— really realized —how close they’d always been to each other.
How close he was to the edge.
Jason exhaled slow through his nose and scrubbed forward in the footage, skipping to the clips tagged “high activity.”
It opened on a warehouse. Dockside. West end. Human traffickers. Twenty men, all armed. Jason had eyes on the op—was planning to wipe them off the map next week.
Dick didn’t wait.
He dropped in like a fucking meteor, and the room erupted .
Jason leaned in, jaw tight.
Dick didn’t move like Nightwing. No flips. No flair. No playing for the crowd.
He moved like a fucking butcher .
Pressure points, bone breaks, ruptured tendons. One guy took a right hook to the jaw so hard teeth flew. Another’s knee exploded sideways before he even screamed.
And the words —
Oh, fuck. The words.
“You piece of shit motherfucker—come here—yeah, swing that pipe again, I fucking dare you. ”
Guy rushed him. Didn’t even get close.
Dick snapped the guy’s wrist, grabbed his face, slammed it into a pillar, then leaned in, voice like venom:
“You traffic women? Kids? I should rip your fucking spine out and staple it to the fucking wall.”
Jason winced.
Another bastard tried to get behind him. Dick spun, smashed a stray pipe down on the guy’s head like he was cracking concrete, then kicked him in the ribs five times.
“You breathe near another goddamn person again, I’ll carve ‘USELESS FUCK’ into your fucking forehead.”
Another lunged. Dick ducked, drove an elbow into his gut, then headbutted him so hard blood splattered the camera lens.
“Think you’re tough? You limp-dicked fuckboy, I’ll snap your arms and feed them to you one at a goddamn time.”
Jason’s stomach turned—and he wasn’t even sure if it was horror or admiration.
And then Dick found the crowbar.
Pulled it off one guy’s belt like he owned it. And what came next wasn’t a fight.
It was fucking punishment.
One man got it in the chest and collapsed gasping. Another caught it in the jaw and dropped like a stone. Dick roared , slammed it into a third guy’s back, then again. And again.
“Don’t scream now, motherfucker! You had plenty to say when you were chaining girls to fucking beds!”
Someone tried to crawl away.
Dick kicked his leg out. Stepped on his back. Shoved his face into the floor.
“You think you’re walking out of here? You’re fucking lucky I don’t skin you alive and mail your balls to your boss.”
Jason flinched.
Another guy begged. Hands up. Bleeding from the nose.
Dick didn’t stop.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t fucking care.
“You beg now? Now? Fuck off. I hope the medics miss the internal bleeding and you die screaming in a parking lot.”
Then he drove the crowbar into the guy’s gut so hard he folded like paper.
“I swear to God , if I wasn’t already late for something, I’d light this whole place on fire and laugh while you fuckers burned.”
Then he turned to the nearest camera and flipped it off.
Not playfully.
Not smirking.
Just a middle finger. Cold. Final.
Jason let the footage run a second longer, then scrubbed back.
Watched that last line again.
I’d light this whole place on fire and laugh while you fuckers burned.
The next clip was a quieter one—sort of.
Dick was standing in the shadow of a shipping container, talking with one of Jason’s mid-level guys. Mark. Former recon, good with maps, better with gossip. Ran intel for the East Docks and had a knack for knowing which containers were hot and which ones weren’t worth the bullet.
Jason hadn’t seen him in a week.
Apparently, he’d been busy.
“You’re not him.”
Mark said casually, hands in his coat pockets like they were just two guys grabbing a smoke.
“You’re not blind”
Dick leaned against the container like he owned the place. His tone was lazy, but there was an edge to it—like a knife just under the words.
“You gonna say something?”
Mark grinned.
“Hell no. You’re more fun.”
Dick quirked a brow.
“That an insult or a compliment?”
“Shit, man, you think I liked working with Hood?”
Mark chuckled.
“That asshole makes you do three weeks of recon just to blow up a warehouse. Great guy, not so great at communication. You, however, just walk in swinging like it’s Tuesday.”
“Because it was Tuesday. And they were selling the girls.”
Mark tilted his head.
“Fair point.”
There was a brief silence as they both listened to the far-off sound of sirens. Dick checked something on his wrist—heat signature scan maybe—then looked back at Mark.
“You were tracking the crew running the south docks?”
“Yeah. French. New, but not subtle. Someone’s bankrolling them.”
“You got names?”
“Maybe. Depends.”
“On?”
“Whether or not you’re gonna start swinging that crowbar again.”
Dick smirked.
“You like the crowbar?”
Mark shrugged.
“I respect efficiency.”
Jason blinked at the screen.
What the fuck ?
Mark reached into his jacket—slow, nonthreatening—and pulled out a flash drive. Held it up between two fingers.
Dick took it, pocketed it.
The footage jumped again.
Dick, outnumbered and cornered between two docked trucks. Two guys had him pinned—one with a chokehold from behind, the other swinging fists like a sledgehammer. Jason would’ve pulled his gun. Maybe used a flashbang.
Dick just twisted .
His whole torso collapsed inward, muscles coiling in a way Jason couldn’t even mimic with his build, and he dropped low—elbowed the guy behind him in the groin, kicked the other in the neck hard enough to lift him off his feet, then rolled into a vault that turned into a flying elbow across the jaw.
Jason leaned in. That move wasn’t new —he’d seen Dick use versions of it before. But never that fast. Never that sharp . No excess motion. No wasted breath.
The follow-up was brutal. Bone-snapping precise.
The guy who got kicked tried to get up, only for Dick to grab his wrist, twist it the wrong way, and stomp on the elbow until it crunched like wet gravel. The scream that followed barely made it to the audio feed.
“Get the fuck up again, I swear I’ll break the other one and shove it up your ass.”
Jason blinked.
The takedown that followed—two more guys, both armed—was a blur of joint locks and concussive blows that felt more like a warning to everyone than just those two men.
By the time Jason reached the end of the footage, the mask’s battery was dying.
Dick hadn’t just put on the Red Hood mask for fun.
He’d worn it.
Owned it.
Jason leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his mouth.
To anyone else, it probably just looked like Red Hood had had a particularly bad week—more blood, more fire, more cracked ribs than usual. But Jason knew.
He knew that voice.
He knew that edge.
Dick had dipped his hand into the dark, let it sink in past the wrist, felt the way it wrapped around his bones.
He’d been good at it.
Too fucking good.
Like it had been waiting in him all along. Not buried. Just restrained. Chained up somewhere deep, waiting for a reason.
And now?
Jason wasn’t sure if Dick had let it out…
…or if he’d opened the door and told it to make itself at home.
Jason wasn’t expecting company.
Which made it all the more annoying when he heard the unmistakable sound of boots landing on his fire escape, followed by a cheerful knock against his window that had no business being that fucking perky.
He looked up from the weapon he was cleaning.
Dick stood on the other side of the glass with a paper bag dangling from one hand and an expression that said you’re welcome .
Jason blinked. “What the hell—?”
Dick slid the window open before he could finish, hopping into the apartment like he lived there. “You’re gonna thank me in about ten seconds,” he said, holding up the bag. “Pad Thai. Extra spicy. Two orders. One with tofu, one with actual meat, because I’m not a monster.”
Jason stared. “…You good?”
“I’m great ,” Dick said, dropping the takeout on the coffee table like it was an offering. “That week as Red Hood? Honestly? Really needed it. Like a cleanse.”
Jason opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Dick flopped onto the couch like he hadn’t just been pretending to be him— violently —for the better part of seven days. “So, what’d I miss? You go anywhere fun while I was busy making the underworld piss itself?”
Jason blinked again. “I visited Roy. And Lian.”
Dick turned his head slowly and gave him a look.
Then he wiggled his eyebrows .
Jason colored immediately and shoved him off the couch.
“ Dick— ”
Dick cackled from the floor. “What?! I didn’t say anything.”
“You did with your face!”
“You’ve been hanging out with Bruce too long,” Dick said, sitting back up and snatching a container of noodles. “You’re getting all twitchy.”
Jason rolled his eyes but grabbed his own box. He ate a few bites in silence, then set his chopsticks down.
“I’ve got a couple questions,” he said carefully, “about your little Hood run.”
Dick didn’t look up. “So there was a hood recording.”
Jason raised an eyebrow.
Dick nodded and slurped a noodle. “Go ahead. Ask your questions.”
Jason leaned back. Arms crossed. Voice level. “You killed a guy.”
Dick shrugged. “Yeah.”
“You killed him while pretending to be me .”
Another shrug. “He deserved it.”
“That’s not the point.”
Dick looked up finally, something sharp flickering behind his eyes. “You want a confession or a moral debate?”
Jason’s jaw clenched. “I want to know where your line is, because from where I’m standing, I don’t see one.”
There was a pause. Then Dick exhaled and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“He’s not the first I’ve killed,” he said quietly. “Just the first while wearing the Hood.”
Jason frowned. “You’ve killed before?”
Dick nodded. “Never as Nightwing. Except once.” He looked down at his hands. “Tim knows. Bruce. Alfred. Probably Babs.”
Jason didn’t speak right away. His chest felt tight and off-kilter.
He’d always known Dick was capable—he wasn’t stupid. You didn’t grow up in Gotham without having that capacity burned into your bones.
But something about hearing it out loud…
“…Who?” Jason asked.
Dick shook his head. “Not a story I’m ready to tell.”
Jason let that hang there. He didn’t push. Not yet.
Instead, he cleared his throat. “When the hell did you become so good with guns?”
Dick huffed, the moment breaking just slightly. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever trained with a trigger? I was a cop, Jay. For years .”
Jason stared. “Yeah, but Blüdhaven PD —”
“Still had to qualify on the range,” Dick cut in. “And before you ask—I spent three months with Slade. Deathstroke. He doesn’t exactly teach baton twirls.”
Jason blinked. “You apprenticed under Deathstroke ?”
“Loosely.” Dick smiled without humor. “He was trying to turn me into something. I let him think it was working.”
Jason let out a low whistle and leaned back again.
Dick grinned, casual. “What, jealous?”
“Fuck no.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Just surprised you didn’t deck him five minutes in.”
“Oh, I did. Multiple times.” Dick leaned back with his container, resting it on his stomach. “He respected that. It’s how he bonds.”
Jason shook his head. “Gotham’s worst parenting simulator.”
Dick pointed his chopsticks at him. “Hey. You took your training from a guy who dresses like a bat furry and has no social skills. I took a detour through gun camp.”
Jason shrugged. “I turned out alright.”
Dick snorted. “Debatable.”
They sat in companionable silence for a beat. The city buzzed outside the windows. Somewhere below, a siren wailed.
Jason glanced over again, tone even. “So when you put on the mask—did you plan to go that hard? Or did it just… happen?”
Dick looked at him sideways. “You asking if I lost control?”
Jason shook his head. “No. You weren’t out of control.”
Dick exhaled. “Good. Because I wasn’t.”
Jason nodded slowly. “Didn’t think so.”
There was another pause. Then Jason tilted his head. “Was it weird? Being me?”
Dick considered. “At first. The helmet’s heavier than I expected. Voice mod’s weird. But once I got into it?” He shrugged. “Felt natural.”
Jason arched a brow. “Natural, huh?”
“Not me , but not wrong either.” Dick tapped his container with a finger. “It’s all angles and intention, right? The difference between what you do and what I do—it’s not the moves. It’s the why. ”
Jason hummed. “You thinking of doing it again?”
“Dunno.” Dick smiled crookedly. “You giving me the suit?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then probably not.”
Jason smirked and looked down at his food, chewing over that answer.
They both settled into silence again, the kind that didn’t need filling. Outside, rain started to patter against the windows.
Jason twirled a noodle around his fork, then paused. “So who was it?” he asked, quiet but steady. “That one time. As Nightwing.”
Dick didn’t answer right away.
He stared at the ceiling again, expression unreadable. The laughter and swagger from a minute ago faded, replaced by something colder. More distant.
Jason waited. Didn’t push. Just let the silence stretch.
Finally, Dick said, “Someone who’d done too much. For too long.”
Jason glanced over.
“He’d hurt a lot of people,” Dick continued. “Over years. Decades, really. Left bodies behind every time he showed up. Wounds that never healed.”
Jason’s brows drew together, but he stayed quiet.
“He said he’d keep doing it,” Dick went on. “That we’d never stop him. Not really. Not in any way that mattered.”
Jason sat forward a little. The food forgotten now.
Dick’s voice lowered. “He laughed at me. After everything. Laughed in my face.”
A beat.
“I killed him.”
Simple. Flat. Like stating a fact. Not a confession.
Jason exhaled slowly. “And Bruce?”
“Was there,” Dick said. “Not in time to stop it. But in time to… fix it.”
Jason’s face twisted. “You mean resuscitate him.”
Dick didn’t nod. Didn’t deny it.
Jason looked away, jaw clenched. “Jesus.”
“I don’t regret it,” Dick said after a moment. “I regret that it didn’t stick.”
Jason laughed—low, humorless. “Yeah. Welcome to the fucking club.”
“I get it now,” Dick said, voice even. “Why you did what you did. Why you had to.”
Jason didn’t speak. Just stared at the floor.
“But I also get why Bruce did what he did,” Dick added, softer.
Jason shot him a look. “You seriously think there’s a moral high ground in mouth-to-mouthing a mass murderer back to life?”
“No,” Dick said. “But I think it was the only way Bruce knew how to keep himself from crossing that same line. He didn’t do it for him .”
Jason stared at him for a long moment. “And you? You crossed it.”
Dick looked back without flinching. “Yeah.”
Another silence. Not uncomfortable—just heavy.
Jason leaned back on the couch and let out a long breath. “You should’ve told me.”
“I figured you already guessed.”
Jason tilted his head. “You gonna tell me who it was?”
Dick’s lips curled into something dry and bitter. “You already know.”
Jason studied him. The way his shoulders had gone still. The way his voice had dipped when he talked about the laughing. The resuscitation. The history.
He did know.
“…No shit,” Jason muttered. “ You ?”
Dick didn’t respond. Just picked up his takeout again like they were still talking about the weather.
Jason shook his head, still stunned. “Goddamn. You actually did it.”
“I didn’t plan to,” Dick said. “But there was this moment where I realized—he was never going to stop. Not until someone made it stop.”
“And Bruce took that away.”
Dick nodded. “Like he always does.”
Jason huffed a breath. Not quite laughter. Not quite a sigh.
“You ever think about doing it again?” he asked.
Dick looked at him. Not angry. Not defensive.
Just honest.
“No,” he said. “But if he does it again… I won’t miss twice.”
Jason gave a low chuckle and leaned back, shaking his head. “You’re scarier than me sometimes.”
Dick smirked. “Yeah. But I’ve got better hair.”
“Fuck you.”
“Love you too.”
They went quiet again, this time with the weight of old truths between them. Shared understanding. No judgment.
Jason wasn’t angry.
He wasn’t surprised, either.
He just wished it had worked.