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Part 21 of DC Things I've Written [No Longer] Anonymously
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Cutie Patooties
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Published:
2025-07-17
Completed:
2025-08-11
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4,121
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2/2
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I Have a Lot of Questions

Summary:

Teaming up with the Terminator had not been on Jason’s to-do list as he worked his way from the League of Assassins toward Gotham and built his network as a rising crime lord—but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

At least until he stumbles upon something too concerning to ignore: Why does the Terminator have so many pictures of his kids and Dick

Notes:

I have no explanation Life is crazy right now, so instead of finishing anything, I wrote this

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Teaming up with the Terminator had not been on Jason’s to-do list as he worked his way from the League of Assassins toward Gotham and built his network as a rising crime lord—but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Before his debut as the Red Hood in Gotham, Jason intended to undercut his competition in the drug trade by taking down some of their biggest suppliers. So, he was taking his time hopping from country to country and then state to state on a journey breaking up the supply chain of some international drug cartels on his way from Nanda Parbat toward Gotham.

And as chance would have it, while Jason was scoping out a good rooftop perch to spy on his current Chicago-based target and hopefully launch his new bazooka for the first time, he stumbled upon the Terminator’s sniper nest.

Turns out, one of this supplier’s rivals was also hoping to weed out his own competition by hiring Deathstroke. And with a mutual goal, instead of a fight, the two fell into parallel action.

“His security detail is fairly impressive for his level,” Deathstroke growled as he broke down his gun and methodically packed up his setup. “He’s on guard. He’s already survived one botched assassination attempt from a cheaper gun the client hired before coming to me.” Jason could see what he meant. All the lights in the building were dimmed, and every window shade was pulled down, although faint traces of movement could still be detected; a precise sniper shot was nearly impossible. As Deathstroke’s sniper rifle was packed away into its appropriate case, Jason caught a fleeting glimpse of a small scrap of paper flittering out of the case before the mercenary easily caught it between his fingers, and just as quickly, the scrap seemingly vanished back into some dark crevice of the case. “You’ll make the initial attack. I don’t care what you choose to do, use that bazooka or not, it’s simply a distraction. And when they initiate a lockdown, I’ll cut the target down as he retreats to his safe room.”

Jason scoffed. “You’re really ready to trust a random costumed freak to back you up?” The plan sounded good enough for Jason, and saved him the trouble of actually scouting, preparing, and getting the fucker, but he couldn’t obediently go along with the suggestion without some comment.

“It’s not a matter of trust.” Deathstroke tucked his rifle case into a shadowed corner of the rooftop before moving to the edge. “You’ll do what I say, and we both benefit. Or if you don’t, I’ll finish the job regardless, and you won’t make it out of the city alive.”

“Sure, whatever.” Jason shrugged, and with that, the mercenary plummeted off the roof in a dramatic exit.

Though Jason had never met the man in person before, obviously, Deathstroke’s reputation preceded him. He’d read the Terminator’s file in the Cave, heard a few passing complaints about him from the Titans and Dick, and he’d even met Joey a few times back then when he’d visited the Tower. Jason knew Slade Wilson was one of the best in his field as a mercenary, assassin, and soldier, and one of the worst when it came to fatherhood.

But that latter bit didn’t matter right now.  They just needed to cut off the head of this supply chain so Deathstroke could get paid and so Jason could undercut the Gotham dealers they supplied.

And it’s not like Deathstroke knew who he was—the Terminator might have had some vague memory of hearing about the Robin who died two years ago, but he didn’t know anything about the Red Hood.

Regardless, when the assassination was successful, Jason’s mission wouldn’t be over yet. Since Deathstroke’s client was clearly positioned to fill the power vacuum this death would leave, it would be in Jason’s best interest to find and kill that client next. So, time for a betrayal!

After fulfilling his end of the deal—blowing out a corner office of the smuggler’s building with his bazooka and instigating a panic—Jason did his best to break into the mercenary’s rifle case while Deathstroke was busy dealing with the target. Perhaps that mysterious paper might have some identifying information to help Jason find the client.

It took the culmination of years of lock-picking experience and training, but Jason was able to crack the thing open. And after all that, Jason wasn’t expecting to find tucked in a nearly hidden compartment beneath the gun, a simple stack of pictures—no, a stack of printed surveillance images.

Not proper photographs, but printed-out still images clearly from security camera footage or weird voyeuristic surveillance shots. The first of which Jason actually recognized the subject, Joey. It had to be from years ago, a still image of the young man in his teens seated at a colorfully painted street piano in a public mall. The image itself was a still from a CCTV camera in the mall itself. His blond curls blurred in motion as he smiled widely, seemingly turning towards another figure, a tall, dark-haired woman standing off to the side and smiling fondly down at him. Perhaps his mother? Jason had heard a few references to her. The only story that really stuck out to him as a young teen was that she’d been the one to shoot at Slade’s eye. Pretty badass.

The next image was a frozen still from a traffic camera featuring another blond boy. Though Jason didn’t recognize him personally, he remembered hearing about Joey’s older brother—Greg or Grant, or something. The blonde was huddled at a bus stop in the winter, the falling snow nearly obscuring the image of him holding hands with a pretty girl with brunette curls, and the pair smiling happily despite the weather.

Most parents would probably have a nicely posed family photograph or even just an ugly school photo with one of those terrible greenscreen backdrops tucked in their wallet to keep their children close. Even if he wasn’t a part of their lives, wouldn’t it be more normal to ask your ex-wife to send you a photo or two? But apparently, Deathstroke preferred weird stalker shots of his kids.

Weird choice, but anyone who chooses to run around in costumes isn’t exactly a paragon of normalcy. Jason would know.

He flipped to another, finding a new face. A more recent photo, based on the quality, of another teen, probably about Jason’s age, but undoubtedly another child of Slade’s, based solely on the family resemblance. She had pure white hair and was missing the same eye—well, actually, maybe matching traumatic eye injuries aren’t actually indicative of a familial relationship, but it really did complete the look. She was sitting outside of Teen Titans Tower, on the familiar border where the grass bled out into the sandy shoreline of the tiny island, with a small smile on her face and a handful of shells and a three or four-year-old girl beaming back at her, proudly holding up another shell. Could it be Lian, Jason wondered? He’d met Roy’s baby a few times, but she’d been, well, a baby. Here she was a full child (it made something in his chest rattle—he’d promised Roy he’d be a great babysitter. Roy had said he couldn’t leave a baby in charge of another baby, and Dick had laughed at Jason’s indignant objection to being referred to as a baby. But he never actually had the chance to show them what a great babysitter he could be. At least it seemed Lian liked her current babysitter). He quickly shuffled the image to the back of the pile—he didn’t want to linger on it any further.

The next picture, though, immediately gave him pause. It was from inside Titans Tower. It had already been surprising that Slade had managed the exterior shot of the one-eyed girl and the shore outside (it must have been shot from a drone). But this must have been taken by infiltrating the Titans Tower security system. Years ago. Joey and Dick, out of costume and dressed only in some casual workout clothes, were laughing in the Titans’ kitchen. Joey was leaning on the central kitchen island, hands raised mid-sign and his face split wide with a teasing grin, and Dick was perched on the counter across from him, head thrown back in laughter at whatever Joey had said, with his long black hair flowing freely down his back. The image was so sweet it almost distracted him from the underlying creep-factor—the fact that it was captured from the Titan’s security (How did he manage to bypass all the firewalls and security measures they had? Cyborg will be pissed), and it wasn’t just his own kid but also Dick too. This was getting really weird.

The next image had his blood running cold. Like the others, the image was a frozen frame from security footage, capturing a sterile, windowless training room and a single figure turning away from a fallen training dummy.

It was just Dick this time. And even younger. Maybe 14 or 15. Before Jason had even met him.

Dick was dressed in some sort of orange and black costume that matched Deathstroke’s color scheme, with a relieved little grin.

What the fuck. When did this happen?

As if expecting to find an answer in the subsequent photos, Jason quickly flipped through the pile as his stomach turned.

It got worse.

Next was a picture of a high-school-aged Greg/Grant. But instead of some zoomed-in still of security footage, this picture was clearly taken through a window with a high-end surveillance camera, capturing the teenager half-hanging off his dorm-room bed, fast asleep in the early morning.

Then came more of the same, another voyeuristic this time through a curtained bedroom window to capture a much younger Joey, probably 9 or so, curled around a stuffed dragon mid-nap.

And then Jason’s stomach dropped.

Next was a photo of Dick, collapsed face down on his apartment couch, one shoe on and one shoe off, passed out midday.

And it was fucking recent.

Having creepy stalker shots of his own children was one thing—but why the FUCK did he have pictures of Dick?

What followed wasn’t a decision. That would imply some level of conscious thought, judgment, and choice. Jason didn’t make a choice. He acted.

Clutching the stack of photos, he abandoned the rest of his equipment and the mission and took off to get to his brother.

Two and a half hours later, Jason crashed through Dick’s apartment window. “Gear up, we need to get to Gotham. Deathstroke’s going to be here any minute.” He shouted without bothering with the pretense of introductions.

Dick had been half-dressed, just boxers and a Superman tee-shirt, eating out of a takeaway container on the couch when Jason had arrived in a spray of shattered glass and shouting. Thanks to Dick’s years of training, though, he’d quickly flipped back into the kitchen, armed himself with a kitchen knife, and was now watching Jason warily from across the tiny apartment. “Who are you?”

Instead of answering, Jason tossed the packet of pictures at him and took the opportunity to ready his gun and scope out the window he had just crashed through for any sign of Deathstroke on his heels. Sure, he left Chicago with a head start, and the Terminator shouldn’t have any reason to know the Red Hood had a connection with Dick, but he was still expecting the mercenary to appear on their tail at any moment.

Dick easily caught the projectile with his free hand, glancing at the tied-together stack of photos with the voyeuristic shot of his sleeping on top. “Wait—did you steal these from Deathstroke!? Are you insane? Who are you?”

“Yes. The creep has pictures of you from when you were a fuckin’ kid! And that’s why we need to get the fuck to Gotham. Look, I’m not excited about it either, but we’re going to need backup. Hurry up.”

But to Jason’s confusion, Dick merely set the photos aside on the counter, keeping his sole focus on him instead of the inevitably approaching threat of the Terminator.

“Who. Are. You?” Dick repeated.

Jason balked behind his mask. “What do you mean, who am I? I just told you a contract killer has been stalking you for years, and you’re worried about me?!”

“Yes, well, I know Slade and I know his—" Dick floundered momentarily for a word, waving the knife absently. “Quirks.”

“Quirks?!” Jason was grateful for the voice modulation in his helmet—at least Dick wouldn’t know how his voice cracked. “He’s taking perv shots of you sleeping!”

“This window shot is news to me.” Dick conceded, although it was accompanied by a flippant shrug before turning a much more serious and suspicious glare Jason’s way. “But like I was saying, the bigger issue is the stranger,” He waved his kitchen knife in Jason’s direction, “Who just broke into my home, knowing way too much about my identity.”

“Look, you don’t have to worry about that,” Jason grumbled, impatiently keeping his head on a swivel between Dick and the window. “Yeah, I know who you all are, but that’s not relevant to—"

“Then just tell me who you are, mystery-man.” Dick demanded, eyes still narrowed and suspicious. “Fair is fair.”

Suddenly, Jason was outraged. “What? No. I have been planning this for years!” He’d dropped everything and rushed here out of some inexplicably foolish lapse of judgment that made him care about this asshole for a moment. Instead of gratitude, he was being met with an interrogation! “I’ve got a whole multi-stage plan for this damn identity reveal. I’m not throwing that all away just because… because you’re not taking your fucked up enhanced meta-stalker seriously!” And then, like a divine revelation, the solution dawned on him. The perfect answer to simultaneously tackle the Deathstroke issue while also punishing Dick for his ingratitude. “You know what? I’m telling Bruce.”

As soon as Jason made the declaration, Dick’s whole body froze as every ounce of color drained from his face.

“Bruce?!” Dick cried shrilly. “Why are you bringing Bruce into this?”

“Yeah.” Jason nodded to himself, ignoring Dick’s crisis as he reaffirmed his perfect solution. “I’m gonna tell Bruce about your little stalker, and he’ll have this all sorted out before I even get to Gotham. I'm getting back on my track. This is his problem. You should be his problem, not mine. I don’t care how this plays out.” He pulled out his burner phone, dialing the well-memorized number Bruce used for contacting informants, eager to drop this tip about his eldest son—

And then he was tackled.

Dick flew into him full force, knocking Jason into the sparse bookshelf and sending the whole thing, including the books and picture frames housed on it, toppling to the floor.

“GET OFF DICKHEAD!”

“GIVE ME THE PHONE!”

As they wrestled for the phone, more like petty teens than vigilantes, Dick continued to growl. “Who the hell are you? Some sort of giant time-traveling grown-up Tim?”

The sudden surge of anger gave Jason the strength to launch Dick off of him and halfway across the room, over the coffee table, and tumbling over the couch in a less than elegant tangle of limbs. “You think I’m TIMOTHY FUCKING DRAKE?!” What kind of sick insult was that? To confuse him with his own replacement?

Dick lay sprawled out where he had landed on the upended couch, seemingly no longer in a rush to jump up and fight—almost like he’d come to some sort of determination that the intruder wasn’t a serious threat. “Well, the fact that you broke into my home and tried to whisk me off to Gotham for my own ‘protection’ without asking my opinion is Timmy to a T. Who else breaks into my home and threatens to tattle to B about my life? That’s such a nosy little brother thing to do.”

“I’m not nosy!” Jason objected. “I happened upon this in a serious investigation into Deathstroke’s clientele—"

“You’re not nosy?”

“I’m not.”

“That’s your objection?”

Jason paused, brain retracing the conversation before protesting, “And I’m not your brother!”

A beat of silence passed between them before Dick's expression shuttered to a perfectly neutral blankness that sent a chill down Jason's spine—he was thinking.

Bad sign for Jason. "Look, you can think what you want, but we need to get to—"

Dick dove for his feet. Jason was caught entirely off guard as Dick swept his feet out from under him, then sliced through the laces of his boots with a quick swipe of his kitchen knife and easily yanked his whole boot and sock off his left foot. He had not been prepared to end up on his back with his brother holding his foot.

Before Jason could even determine the purpose, Dick’s face collapsed in shock and confusion. “Jason?”

Jason yanked his foot back, realizing what he’d seen—the starburst scar on his ankle from a surgery to correct a nasty break from his Robin days. Dick had been with him at the hospital. He’d come to visit several times during his recovery. He’d shown off his own similar scar and joked that they matched. Jason’s stomach turned at the memories. (Maybe it was memories like that that made him come here—that made it impossible to ignore his concern when he found those photos of his brother).

Dick’s breath stuttered in his chest, and tears were welling in his eyes. “Jason, is it you? You’re alive?”

This whole stupid excursion had blown up way beyond Jason’s original intent. He threw everything into kicking Dick in the chest, pushing him back, and twisting to his feet to make a break for the window. But in his rush to escape, Jason instead found himself turning straight into the Terminator, flying through the window.

Instantly, the air was stolen from his lungs as the fucking mercenary flew through the open window frame Jason had created when he crashed through it earlier, drop kicking straight into Jason’s chest. Jason collapsed to the ground, breathless.

“Slade!” Dick tried to jump between them, but just as quickly the Terminator grabbed him by the scruff of his Superman T-shirt, yanking it over his head and twisting in a fluid and dangerous movement, catching Dick’s hands in a knotted bundle in front of him, and then jerking him forward and slamming his helmet into Dick’s unprotected face.

“Sit this one out, kid.” Slade commanded as he shoved Dick back into the couch, where he landed in a dazed and bleeding heap, hands bound and blood dripping down his hairline.

Jason opened his mouth to curse the fucker out, but his straining lungs still weren’t ready to function as he scrambled for his guns. All this delay took far too long, and the Terminator was upon him. Not with his guns, or knives, or swords. No, the hulking mercenary straddled him, clamped a hand around his throat and simply punched him in the helmeted face so hard the special reinforced League-crafted metal designed to withstand a bullet cracked.

And he hit him again

And again.

And again.

And when his mask finally shattered on the fourth hit, Jason suddenly became very well aware that his skull would likely be next.

 

“Hey, Rose! How are you?”

Slade froze, arm cocked back, ready to take Jason’s head off. The expressionless mask slowly turned towards Dick, who sat on the overturned couch, hands still bound, but cellphone precariously pressed between his shoulder and his ear as blood dripped across his face onto the device.

Jason couldn’t hear what was said on the other end of the line, but knowing Slade’s enhancements, the meta could probably hear whatever response Dick was receiving as he laughed.

“Yeah, I know. It’s been a minute. I’m actually just wrapping up an issue with Slade.”

“I know. It always is. Turns out my brother, Jason, is alive! Still don’t know the details of how, because Slade was too busy trying to kill him for me to ask, but once we’ve got this all sorted out, I’ll have to introduce you. Are you doing anything this weekend?”

“Yeah, this weekend would be great. How about Saturday at 2? Great. Bubbles Café? The place down at the harbor. It has that nice outdoor seating area around the fountain.”

Slade remained entirely still, even as Dick finally made his goodbyes and hung up the phone, and Jason’s eyes flicked uncomfortably between the two.

With a sigh, Dick relaxed his shoulder, allowing the phone to tumble to the floor, turning to face Slade directly. “The way I see it,” He began seriously, “you can keep going with this—you can hurt Jason—and then I’m going to have to cancel my catch-up with Rose. And I’m going to have to tell her why. How you killed my brother, and why. What my brother found.” The only indication Slade was even listening was the minuscule tensing of the grip on Jason’s throat. “Or you could walk away. Rose and I can get boba this weekend at Bubbles. We sit at the nice outdoor seating area by the fountain. We’ll probably sit there for a good hour or so just catching up, in clear view of the Harbor Transit Center...” Dick held out his bound hands and let the silence hang.

A tense moment of silence passed before Slade ‘released’ Jason with a shove that slammed his unprotected head against the floorboards—but hey, Jason had dealt with worse.

“Where are they?” Slade demanded simply, and Dick nodded towards the kitchen.

“Kitchen counter. But no more of those window shots.” Dick stated as chidingly as if he were ordering a child to behave and not demanding a mercenary stop stalking him.

Slade merely grunted in response, taking the stack of photos and vanishing back out the window.

Even with the Terminator gone, the silence in the room rang with a tension Jason wasn't sure how to break until Dick rose to his feet, stumbled the short distance to where Jason still lay prone, and collapsed next to him.

“I just threw away years of planning for my return and revenge for you Dickface, and you just let the creep leave?”

With a quiet huff of a laugh, his brother pulled him into a strange sideways hug as they lay together on the floor in a mess of blood and broken furniture.  “I have a lot of questions, so let’s start with something easy. Are you free for boba this weekend?”

 

Notes:

That weekend Slade takes two new pictures with a high-quality surveillance camera from the top of the Harbor Transit Center: Dick, Jason and Rose laughing and sitting on the fountain edge with their boba, and Dick, Jason and Rose lined up middle fingers up in the general direction of the Harbor Transit Center.

 

a homemade meme

Chapter 2

Summary:

Again. I have no explanation.
(No Actually, the explaination is FauxPause comment about all the people who like to spy on Dick made me laugh)

Notes:

Again. I have no explanation.
(No Actually, the explaination is FauxPause comment about all the people who like to spy on Dick made me laugh and I just wanted to make this Homemade Meme)

Chapter Text

*A Year or So Ago*

Slade had been on a weeks-long foreign mission and was finally returning to the U.S. And his first stop was a quick drop-in in Bludhaven. He’d heard Nightwing and Starfire split, so a basic wellness check on the kid was necessary (teenagers—or in this case, 20-year-olds—could be so dramatic about these things). When he arrived and set up a high-intensity camera to spy through the open window of Dick’s apartment, he thankfully only saw the kid passed out face down on his couch. A normal enough level of poor self-care. He had just snapped a photo when his enhanced hearing caught the sound of another shutter across the rooftop.

Reacting instantaneously, Slade drew a firearm and quickly closed in on the source.

Instead of finding a threat, Slade found the new Robin crouched behind the rooftop water tanks with his own surveillance camera with telephoto lenses.

The young teen quickly leapt to his feet, slinging his camera behind him and releasing his bo staff to point at Slade. "What are you doing here?"

Slade casually batted the staff out of his face and holstered his gun, but made no other move towards the kid. “Does Grayson know you’re spying on him?”

“Yes—I mean. It’s not spying, it’s just... sibling surveillance? Normal... family... stuff.” Robin objected before trying to turn it back on, Slade. “Does he know you’re spying on him.”

“Yes.” Slade stated flatly. Sure, Dick didn’t know he was currently looking through his windows, but Dick was aware of his general surveillance habits.  

“Oh. Ok then.” The kid hesitantly lowered his staff and shuffled further back. “So... next time I see him, I won't need to mention this. And the next time you see him... You also don't need to mention this.”

Slade tipped his chin in a small nod.

"Great talk." The kid grumbled. And with that, they both departed without further discussion.