Archive of Our Own

Jason Todd knew Dick Grayson had been gone from Gotham for a while. In fact, that was a factor into getting Bruce all alone easily. No Nightwing to defend Batman and back him up in case things went awry; just a poorly trained Robin. 

Jason hadn’t been around when shit went down. From what Talia had told him, they had (another) falling out and Dick ran away again to “find himself” or something similar. It sounded exactly as what Jason had gone through as a Robin. He pitied the new Robin at the time, but couldn’t find much in himself to give a shit. He had priorities at the time: get to Bruce, make him acknowledge Red Hood’s superiority, and upon failure, kill the bastard. 

That was what he deserved for not killing the Joker after all. 

The point is this: Dick had been missing from Gotham, and months after Bruce’s death, he comes back like a saviour dripping in red. With a cape and everything! 

It had made news the next day when he had been seen getting locked out of the Wayne Mansion. Jason wasn’t sure what the other was thinking, coming home so late. What did he expect? Yet, Jason had hopes. Maybe Dick hadn’t been as bad as the gossip rags had made it out to be. He was always the closest to Bruce after Alfred, and even through consistent arguments and fighting, Jason knew Dick loved Bruce with a fervour. 

He didn’t expect Dick to behave like this after Bruce’s death though. 

Jason released a sigh and poured out two fingers of whiskey in a glass, and handed it to over to Dick. Dick sat morosely on the couch, placed right in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows Jason had installed to the apartment. 

Jason reached up to grasp his cheek lightly. Dick had managed to scratch at his cheek with the dagger before Jason could unarm him. It was, to Jason’s displeasure, a scar from the edge of his eyebrow passing through his eye and down to his cheek. He’d need to get it checked up with Leslie as soon as possible. 

It had felt like Dick was in a trance or seeing something through a haze. He had never seen his brother in a worse state. Even now, his elder brother sat there with his blue eyes crazed and fist intermittently tightening around its hold on the dagger. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Jason questioned, placing the whiskey glass atop the side table. He stood behind Dick, uncertain whether he wanted to look back into his eyes. “Nightwing doesn’t kill people. I know you.” 

“Neither did you, Little Wing.” Dick laughed brightly. It unnerved Jason just the slightest bit. He had never been one to underestimate his brother’s capabilities, but he had never deemed Dick one capable of intentionally hurting someone. Intentional-purposeful-mindful hurt. “And yet, here we are.” 

“I died. You didn’t.” 

“I wish you did it permanently.” Dick said this warmly, lovingly. Jason frowned and stepped back. He kept a hand on the pistol around his waist. “Maybe then we wouldn’t be in this situation.” 

“What situation?” 

“This,” Dick waved a shaky hand out at Gotham. His grip held the whiskey glass, which was now empty. “Tim and Alfred, sequestering away from the world. Locking me out of the mansion. My dad is dead and I still haven’t seen his grave. Isn’t that so funny?” 

Jason pursed his lips. He didn’t know how to respond. What did he expect from this? What reply did Dick want from him? “I guess,” Jason began, uneasy. “Dick, if all you wanted was to see Bruce one last time… I know where he’s being kept. I can tell you.” 

“Then what’s the point?” Dick chuckled lightly, and threw his glass straight at the window panes across him. Jason jumped back immediately, away from the shards of glass that now littered his apartment floor. “What was the point of all this, then? My youngest brother hates me and won’t tell me where my dad’s buried! My younger brother knows where my dad is, but oh, he’s the one who killed dad in the first place!” 

Jason stepped away. Dick stood up, his boots crunching on the glass shards. His right hand held tightly onto a dagger while the other held the remainders of the broken whiskey glass. “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Jason frowned, holding up his arms like he were in a shootout. “It was just… it was an accident.” 

“Was it an accident when you pointed the gun at his jaw and shot him point blank?” Dick laughed. Jason gulped, taking a step back again. “Was it an accident when you kept your goons operating every hour of every night to tire him out, knowing he only had Tim to rely on? Knowing that he would be tired at that very hour? Was it an accident then, Jay?” 

And that was the thing. Jason didn’t know. Jason bit down on his bottom lip, a tell that Bruce had long ago warned him to get rid of, and stepped back, but he hit the back of his kitchen counter. Dick approached ever closer. Was it an accident? He had meant to kill Bruce. He had wanted to, at the time. 

Then he had pulled the trigger, and had instantly found himself shocked that Bruce actually fell. In a part of his mind, Bruce had never been one to die. That’s what fathers were, right? Immortal and ever-constant as the North Star. It was a straight up shot, yes, but Jason had seen Bruce dodge worse shots before. He knew Bruce was tired from all the running around for Gotham, had timed it such that it would be in between chasing the League and Hush. But he had watched Bruce come back after worse odds—

He thought Bruce would dodge. Jason would just go back to Talia with his tail between his legs, and try again. He didn’t actually… he hadn’t thought it through. Was that what Dick wanted to hear? That Jason hadn’t thought things through, just took action. The green haze of fury had overtaken his senses until he woke up with blood on his leather jacket and a distraught Robin sobbing on his knees for Bruce to wake up. 

Jason had just wanted Bruce to see him. To look at his newly-gained skills, and balk with fear, because that was the only real form of acknowledgement a person could have, right? (Talia had told him stories of how Bruce had looked at her, really looked at her, that night she tried to kill him in his mansion bedroom. How he had seen her and saw her fit to be beside him, as his partner, and Jason had thought, that’s what I want from Bruce. That’s all I want.) To be known to the depths of your black soul and understand that the other person still loves you even if you’re rotten and made of stinky garbage now that you’re back from the dead. 

“Look at you,” Dick rolled his eyes. With his dagger in hand, he waved it in Jason’s face haphazardly. “You don’t even know what you were doing. What was I thinking?” 

Jason pursed his lips in response. “What were you doing in my penthouse, Dick.” 

“To kill you, obviously.” Dick looked at him, incredulous. “What else did you think I’d do to you?” 

Jason had to tranq his older brother before he could find peace of mind. Lucky for him, he was capable of future thinking and had kept a box of tranqs in easy access in the kitchen. Unluckily for him, he now had a massive pile of Grayson stinking up his bed. Bruce looked down at him from the wall, soft and understanding. 

He wanted to punch the stupid painting. Scrape it up a bit with his knives, or use it for target practice. Something that wouldn’t leave him feeling raw and thin. Bruce was buried in the private residence of the Wayne Mansion, laying peacefully beside his parents. Jason had been there for the funeral, in the loosest sense. (He had watched from the treetops, dangling his legs from the highest branch, watching numbly as the coffin went beneath the ground. To his left, lay Jason’s empty grave. To his right, were Thomas and Martha Wayne.) 

Jason himself was surprised to find that Dick hadn’t returned until the very last minute possible. He looked over at his brother now, and took in his condition. He knew Richard had temporarily left the Teen Titans, and that he had returned to Gotham. Richard was living in one of Jason’s owned apartments, and had been working part-time in the police department. Under Jim Gordon’s sympathetic supervision, he was stationed as the traffic police in Park Row, a ways away from Wayne Mansion. 

Dick was all he had left of Bruce. He understood that distantly. He just didn’t really want to acknowledge it. Bruce lived on in small ways everywhere Jason went — it was easy to find pieces of him that lived on in Gotham — like gems that shone in the darkest pits of hell. 

Bruce was there in the charities providing shelter to the homeless and the poorly. He lived on in the public schools stationed strategically across Gotham. He was there in the glittering skyline with Wayne Enterprises sitting at the very top of the city, a veritable Mount Olympus. He was there in the smog and dirt of the streets, the sharp-edged attitude of the street kids running amok.  

Jason threw a ratty blanket atop Dick and closed the bedroom door behind him carefully. It made a light click sound as the automatic lock acted and prevented the door from being opened from the inside. It wouldn’t be enough to stop Dick Grayson from coming out the bedroom entirely, but just enough to buy him some time when he eventually woke up. 

He eventually made his way to the pantry and took out all the right ingredients for Alfred’s chicken pot pie. He kept them stocked, even when he was still training under Talia, to keep a part of home with him. He got to slicing the carrots with his cooking knife. The light of the setting sun was streaming in from his massive windows facing the Gotham Bay, and the colour of the orange-pink sun alighted on his floor. It tinted his entire apartment in its colours. 

Jason had always liked the lull of cooking, the way it was rhythmic and methodical. He could memorise it and lose himself in the ways without thinking too much about what next step was needed. It didn’t require much thinking. Which was good, since he needed to think about his next steps regarding Boy Wonder. He could keep him here, until Dick was of sound mind and body to leave and go back to the Teen Titans. He could give him the number of a good therapist and send him on his way. 

Or…

Jason hummed, taking the shape of the idea and fine-tuning it. It would be a gamble, and he wasn’t certain how they would react to it. He wasn’t even certain if they really wanted Dick back, but Jason still had important information in his hands that he bets they would want access to. Key details, timings, the map of where to find the Lazarus Pit.

He bets Timothy Drake would pay whatever it cost to know where the Lazarus Pit was. 

Jason slides his knife across the wooden cutting board and leans his weight on the marble countertop. His fingertips tap on the surface without much thought. His head tilts, looking at the idea from all angles, and smiles. 

He goes right back to chopping the celery just in time for Dick to drop in from the ceiling and fall in place behind Jason. “What are you cooking?” Dick chimes, sliding in beside him sleezily. 

“Chicken pot pie.” 

“I don’t like chicken pot pie except for Alfred’s.” Dick smiles guiltily, as if he couldn’t help his preferences. Jason continues on, undeterred. He’s not buying that boy-next-door schtick. 

“This is Alfred’s recipe.” Jason informed. He places the celeries and carrots in a bowl and threw the cutting board neatly into the sink. He kneels down until he’s faced with the second drawer from the left. He pulls it out and takes another wood cutting board, clean, to begin working on the raw chicken. Dick watches all this with the keen eye of an eldest child of the world’s best detective. “I’m not going to poison it, don’t worry. That’s uninspired.” 

Dick grinned at that, and left the kitchen area. He sits down at the circular dining table, just enough to sit three people maximum. The circus boy places his elbow on the table and leans his head on his palm, and resumes his observation of Jason. Jason tilted an eyebrow. “How are you alive?” Dick finally questioned. His tone was deadpan and neutral, startlingly so. It was a big difference to the forced exuberence he’d been putting on for show so far. 

“Talia Al-Ghul.” Jason hummed down at the chicken slices on his board and nodded after inspecting them. He turned around to take a pot from the cupboard underneath his sink, withdrawing with a yellow-tinted ceramic pot the size of his skull. Slowly, he drained mineral water a third way through into the pot, and turned the fire of the stove onto medium low. He placed the pot lid on top, waiting for the soup to start boiling to cook through all the ingredients. “She resurrected me using the Lazarus Pit. It worked, but as you can see, I came out a few years older than I was meant to be. She trained me as an assassin with them before sending me out into the world.” 

It wasn’t everything, but these weren’t lies either. He had told Dick the swathing truths of the situation, with a few key things kept close to his heart. He needed Dick to believe him, wanted him to. This was his elder brother. Dick looked at him, seeing. “Why’d you come back as the Red Hood?” 

“Well,” Jason began, then stopped. He had a reason at the time, but it seemed almost juvenile now. “I wanted to reclaim it. Make it my own. Maybe scare the big man a bit, since he didn’t seem to give a shit that I died.” 

Dick laughed coldly and tapped his index finger on the tabletop a couple times. He didn’t reply. Jason wasn’t surprised about it, he knew how it seemed. Everything began to point to one possible conclusion from the answers he was giving. “You killed him on purpose.” Dick said it more to the table than to Jason. He was drawing squiggly lines on the glass top, smudging oil all over the pristine dining table. “It wasn’t an accident.” 

“I didn’t mean to.” 

“No, you did. You just didn’t expect to succeed.” 

Jason was speechless for a few moments. He wasn’t sure how to proceed, and was losing a grip on the conversation faster than he could grapple onto. Dick’s behaviour was unprecedented so far, unpredictable. Everything he thought the Older Wing would do, he didn’t. Jason guessed that it was all summed up to one explanation: Dick wasn’t there when it happened, nor was he there within the months following. But Timothy Drake was, and boy, did that make a hell of a difference. Timothy Drake was a completely different beast. “I know where Bruce was buried. I can tell you where, if you want. Even give you a map. Just… give me a chance, Dickie.” 

“You killed Bruce,” Dick reached up to rub his temples with his hand as he chuckled lowly all the while. “And now you want me to lay off, in exchange for his gravesite. That exists, only because of you.” 

The pot on the stove began to boil. Jason swerved in place and inspected the food. The chicken cooked relatively quickly, and soon he was pouring out the water into the sink. In a buttered pan, he emptied the diced onions and garlics. He swallowed his saliva and focused what he could on seasoning the pan, as he slowly mixed in the flour. The area was silent save for the sound of ingredients sizzling in the pan and Dick’s finger tapping on the table. “I know it’s not enough.” Jason began, a weak attempt at getting his voice past the choked up mess in his throat. “I know. But it’s a start I would like to work towards.” 

Dick said nothing, even when Jason had finished the cooking portion of the pie and had shoved it in his oven already. Jason let him think. He knew that’s how Dick Grayson thought things over. He mulled things over with silence and froze like those gargoyles so reminscent of Gotham. He could pretend all he wanted that he was a Blüdhaven man now, but he would always be Gotham born and raised. He had Bruce Wayne in his blood. Jason set the timer of the oven, careful not to turn around or look too eager. 

“Where is it?” Dick’s voice was tightly coiled. Jason peeked from behind the oven door. He could almost see the shadow of a king python looming over Dick’s shoulder. “His grave.” 

“Do you remember where grandma and grandpa Wayne are buried?” Jason asked lightly. He removed the finished pot pie from the oven and placed it on the table between them. “He’s buried beside them. Next to my grave plot.” 

“That’s on the Mansion grounds.” Dick said it like a curse, and shook his head. “I’m never going to get in. Tim’s security is insane. I could try asking Barbs, but…” 

“Barbara is liable to render you paralysed.” Jason stated nothing but the truth. “I have something that can get through Tim’s security. It’s a device, similar to Bruce’s own.” Jason laid out the plates and cutlery, arranging it in the manner that Alfred had taught him to long ago. He took out a jug of lemonade from the fridge and placed it beside the pot pie. “I can give it to you, if you’re that desperate.” 

Dick stabbed the piece of pie on his plate with his fork. It made a screechy sound, like the sound a sparrow made before a snake pounced on it. “What do you want in exchange? It can’t be for free.” 

Jason ate a bite of his pie, then another. The flavour was good and reminded him of home. The texture was soft and his slicing and dicing was getting much better. Overall, it came out alright. Alfred’s was still better, but fat chance he would ever get to taste that again. If he had a chance, just one more, maybe he’d be able to place what he was missing. A special ingredient, a specific step done in a different sequence, a different manner of preparation. He couldn’t place it. “Just one thing. One simple favour.” Jason finally placed his fork and knife down and crossed his fingers. “I need you to kill the Joker. And then I’ll give you the hacker and the map of the grounds. It contains all Wayne Security hotspots, the cameras, the motion detection sensors. Everything.” 

“That’s not a simple favour. More of a big ask, really.” 

“So’s breaking into Wayne Mansion with Timothy Drake at the head.” 

Dick stared into Jason’s eyes. Jason stared back, not one to be intimidated by little birds trying to be scary bats. The uneaten food sat between them, large and gaping. This was the question. What would Dick Grayson do to get one more chance with his father? Jason had bet a lot on this equation. Dick finally glanced away back to his plate and ate another bite of the pie. “I’ll bring you his head within the week.” 

𓋹

Dick sat on his couch apartment. There was a loud noise coming in from his neighbour, some sort of EDM music that was popular with most millennials nowadays. He was sure if he asked Kori or Wally about it, he’d get the name of the artist and the song, as well as which club in America popularised it. 

The window next to his dining table was agape, with the curtains billowing in on the cold Gotham wind. It was something Dick was no longer accustomed to at all. Blüdhaven winters were cold and brutal, but nothing on Gotham’s wintry scale. He could probably attribute it to Mr. Freeze doing his honest work in terrorising the city. 

Police sirens could be heard directly outside the window, they had probably pulled up to the opposite building. Ever since he came back, Dick realised a few things in quick succession: Firstly, the Gotham rogues were acting up without any sort of vigilante-ism in sight (and it seemed like Tim wasn’t going to do anything about it in the coming future). Secondly, Cobblepot and Dent had taken over half of Gotham each. What were usually Joker and Black Mask’s territories were now split evenly between the both of them. Thirdly, Joker had disappeared from sight and scent. Whatever goons he came across as a cop told him the same thing. Joker was already dead. Yet, when he questioned Gordon of the truth of that statement, the police commissioner merely gave a stern grimace and the slightest shake to his head. 

Dick had to first track down the truth, and he wasn’t liable to get it as mourning son of dead Gotham multi-billionaire, Dick Grayson-Wayne. There was, however, someone he knew who would know where Joker had gone. Rumours were that the Gotham City Sirens had set up shop someplace in the bowery, with some sort of threeway store that only made sense to them. It was a plant-shop-joke-shop-vintage-antiquity-collection. Something that made equal use of all their talents and interests. 

The moonlight streamed in and cut across his apartment’s floorboards. He tilted his head back and stretched out and cracked his neck. Dick had somewhere to be tonight. 

Nightwing perched on the roof of the building, his knees bent up to his chest and his eskrima sticks strapped tightly to his back. He wasn’t in his black and blue outfit today. He didn’t want Tim to get wind of his whereabouts so easily, and neither did he want Jason to track him down without any effort. Luckily, Bruce had seen fit to prepare something a little more stealthy for him a year ago. It was a completely black ensemble and outfitted Dick in the dark grey of Gotham’s sky from head to toe. It came up to his head and covered his head in entirety, rather than a simple domino mask. It had been a prototype of some sort, something that Bruce had been working on for months. He had called it ‘prototype Beyond 01’. It hurt Nightwing to wear something that had Bruce’s handiwork on it so close to his skin and his heart, as if he didn’t really deserve it, but he had no other option. 

The lights in the shop switched off. With his detective vision, he could see the three Gotham Sirens clambering around inside. They were closing up shop, cleaning up what little they didn’t sell, and moving up to the apartment they lived in above the shop. It was a simple life. Bruce would have been proud of them, would have been happy to provide funding and grants in the form of Wayne Enterprises for them. 

Nightwing climbed in through a bathroom window left open over the afternoon. It was simple enough business breaking in to the apartment. They already knew he was there anyway. He glided across the corridor silently, making no noise and blended in seamlessly with the shadows. They had yet to turn on the lights to the rest of the place, but the main living room and dining room was lit up with a yellowish white glow. 

A cozy amount of noise emenated from the room, the not-quite-loud hush that accompanied families everywhere they went. He had the strangest urge to slit their throats and be done with it. Instead, he knocked on the wooden entryway and stood by the floor lamp. Selina and Pamela were ready the fastest. A plant vine twined around Nightwing’s neck in a flash and the swish of a sharp blade was heard before he saw it moments later, held against his neck. Harley barely reacted except for a widening of her eyes and the fidgeting of her fingertips. 

“I need information,” Nightwing began. The voice modulator fitted to the costume made his voice weird, and it came out garbled. Almost hard to understand. “Information only you have, Dr. Quinzel.” 

“Listen, puddin’. I haven’t been a doctor in a decade, okay? You can cut the act.” Harley rolled her eyes and took a fat bite of her subway sandwich. She tilted her head just so, and leaned against the countertop with a gleam of her eyes. “It ain’t so nice to break into someone’s house uninvited and demand answers!” 

The ivy around his neck began to tighten. The progress was slow enough that he could still breathe, but it was the threat of force that lingered in his thoughts. “Joker. Where is he?” 

Harley blinked several times, too surprised to speak. Selina took a few steps back and frowned disapprovingly. “Honey, you don’t need to answer that question.” Pamela soothed, before turning to Nightwing and glaring strong enough to crush a man’s will. “Naughty trespassors don’t need to be treated well.”

“If you’re lookin’ for the joker, he ain’t here no more. By here, I mean Gotham City.” Harley shrugged. “I don’t mind answerin’ if it’s about the joker. He’s scum anyway. And my money’s on you lookin’ to rough him up a bit.” 

“I have a debt to pay.” Nightwing replied, without answering the unasked questions. “I’m only here for the Joker. Where is he?” 

“I dunno for sure, but my sources tell me he suddenly withdrew all his deals and left stateside.” Harley sneered derisively and took another large bite of her subway. “He was askin’ around for contacts to get ‘im outta here without askin’ too many questions. Guess he finally found what he was lookin’ for from that bozo livin’ downtown, I think his name was Rafficker.” 

“Rafficker?”

“Infamous guy,” Harley nodded. “Tate Rafficker. Spelled R-A-F-F-I-C-K-E-R. Makes up papers, IDs, cards. Sells information, whatever a girl could need. I dunno anythin’ beyond that.” 

Nightwing nodded and moved backwards to meld with the shadows. “Thank you, Dr. Quinzel. You’ve been a massive help.” And he dropped down from their living room window, and rappelled towards the nearby factory rooftop. The information was good, but he hoped it wasn’t a dead end. Dick searched up on the gauntlet database, (another good thing about this prototype. It came with its own bat-computer programmed in.) and looked up the name that Harley gave him. 

The address that came up was ten minutes away if he travelled by rooftop. It was somewhere in Crime Alley, and he’d definitely be risking Jason spotting him and shooting him, but it was on the edges and he hoped that Jason was too busy revamping his penthouse security to be a crimelord tonight. 

Turned out, Tate Rafficker was well-known in the underground circles that they revolved in. He was involved in almost everybody’s fake IDs, fake papers, fake certificates, fake anything. If they needed documentation faked, you knew where to get it. He dealt with almost everything and anything that Nightwing found. Drugs, weapons, booze, people. You name it, Rafficker had it. His base was set up slam-dunk in the middle of everyone’s territories, right on the edge of Greater Gotham which was Red Hood’s, Penguin’s Lower West Gotham, and Two-Face’s Lower East Gotham. 

Nightwing figured Rafficker'd eventually get himself killed if one of the vigilantes didn’t get rid of him first. 

Rafficker’s place was ill-maintained. Aside from the typical things expected from a place in Crime Alley, it wasn’t clear whether someone lived there at all. It looked like it would blend in with a waste disposal site as opposed to a place to stay in. There were broken beer bottles littered all over the floor and dirty towels laying across furniture as if to hide their unkempt state. The walls had gunshot holes over the northern and eastern facing walls, although he wasn’t sure why it was only those walls. The couches however, were pristine, and so was the living room table. It was cleaned regularly and shined daily, if the wood wax was to be taken as an indicator. 

Nightwing leaped down from the vent atop the wardrobe, and caught himself on the dusty wooden flooring. There were documents and files strewn across the desk in the bedroom, with big red stamped letters glaring from across the room. The documents were messy and had no discernible management system. It was clear Rafficker had been in a hurry when he left the apartment last. And as Dick slowly unearthed more and more papers with Joker’s name written on them, he began to have a hunch why exactly that was. 

For one thing, Harley’s hunch was right. Rafficker was the guy who sold Joker the papers to leave New Jersey. He had supplied the birth certificate, the resume, the passport, the driving license, everything — all in the name of one Lane Lowe.  

The driver’s license, interestingly enough, was one from Missouri. Specifically, Central City, Missouri. 

It had taken him some careful manouvreing. Dick had needed to contact Gordon about some time off citing personal reasons, about a week or two. He had needed to let Jason know, at least a little hint, that he’d be leaving the city to work on that favour of his. He had a few final things to finish up too. 

Dick looked down at the documents in his hands. They were unofficial and were written in pencil, but they contained key information that Cobblepot and Dent would be dying to have. In it, scribbled entirely in Dick’s miserable handwriting, were crucial movements and the timetables of Red Hood’s planned attacks against the two for the week. He had taken it from Jason’s safe while he was locked in the bedroom and Jason had been busy in the kitchen. 

Dick had figured, of course, that it was more or less permission to ransack his younger brother’s bedroom. Breaking into the safe was easy enough. The fool had used Bruce’s death day as his passcode, down to the damn hour and minute. He had juggled with using Bruce’s birthday instead, but opted for the death date when it was clear he only had one attempt to get it right before the safe exploded itself. Jason would realise he had it soon, within the day. That meant Dick needed to hightail it out of Gotham City as soon as possible. 

He dropped the Red Hood’s confidential documents on Dent and Cobblepot’s working desks and immediately left for the international airport. He didn’t want to be here when things blew over. Sitting economy at an airplane was, and Dick wasn’t afraid to say this, insufferable. One of the many things he did truly appreciate as a trust fund baby was the access to a private jet whenever he wanted. Unfortunately, Dick didn’t have enough money as a Gotham cop to splurge on business class tickets. 

Regardless, the flight was bad. There was a baby two rows down that cried for the entire flight, and another toddler three rows up that wouldn’t stop screaming for entertainment. At some point, Dick had contemplated knocking them out with a well-positioned jab at a pressure point, but it was probably going to get him locked in jail. 

Still, it was startlingly easy to get some basis of operations set up in Central City. He didn’t bother contacting Wally, knowing that the other would notice his weird behaviour almost instantly and get him reported to the Justice League. Gotham business stayed Gotham business. Maybe Bruce had been right all along — they should have never gotten involved with other superheroes. It would be way easier to move around that way. 

Central City was large and futuristic in the way that Gotham was sort of stuck in the past. Where Central City was towering glass buildings touching the sun, Gotham was gothic stone churches with gargoyles perched on every corner. It had been easy to find a short-term rental in Leawood, where he paid off a plumber and his wife to give him their apartment for five days, in return for 500 USD. It was probably overkill, but money guaranteed no questions. The sunlight and shining glass that made up Central City was beginning to scrape at Dick’s Gothamite sensibilities that yearned for dark days and even darker nights. 

It took him another day or two to set up some contacts with the mobsters of Central City, some shuffling around to figure out where the homeless stayed in this part of town, and to ingratiate himself with them the moment he did find out. His information gathering came down to this: a green-haired, white-skinned clown dressed up in a whacky purple suit had been going around shaking things up in the underground of Central City. He had been taking over territories, angering mob bosses, screwing with other rogues, overall what Dick would call ‘fucking around and finding out’. 

It, unfortunately, sounded like Dick would have to act sooner rather than later. The underground had been containing themselves for the most part, in large fear that a Flash or two will dismantle multiple criminal rings once the noise got too loud, but soon their anger would overtake their rationality and it would draw the Flashes attention anyways. This was something Dick had to try and prevent at all costs. He didn’t need Barry finding out that a Gothamite rogue was slumming it up in his city. 

Honestly, Dick was mildly surprised Barry had yet to figure it out. He knew he was busy with Iris and Wally, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that none of the other heroes kept as tight of a lid on their criminals as Batman did. “Rick, you done with those dishes yet?” The manager of the diner Dick was working at in Central City groused loudly. Dick called back affirmatively and wiped down his hands on the front of his apron before coming out of the kitchen. 

There, in front of the diner’s long bar table, was Chuck, the manager of The Retro Griddle. It served cheap, greasy food to the seedy part of town where poverty and crime intersected. Chuck had a golden tooth in place of his upper left canine and smiled with the assurance of a mobster running a money laundering diner. “Yes, boss, what do you need me for, sir?” Dick asked charmingly. He thought of his happy place (and pictured slitting the man’s throat), and smiled easily. 

“We have some importan visitors to the diner tonight. We’re fully booked. I need you to be the busboy tonight. I’ll do the waiting, alright?” 

“Of course, sir,” Dick agreed easily. “How many people will that be?” 

“Thirty. We’ve got a full house. Listen up, Ricky, because I don’t think you understand. I’ve got a big deal comin’ in, and I don’t need you messing things up for me. As busboy, you clear the dishes and that’s it. You understand?” Chucky snarled, a pudgy finger pointing accusingly at Dick’s face. 

“Of course, sir,” Dick tilted his head like a lost puppy. “But thirty people is a lot of people for only one chef, sir. If Jeff needs, I can help him with the plating. Just at the start, before there are dirty dishes to be cleared.” 

Chuck narrowed his eyes and glared for a few seconds, before sighing aggrievedly and waving a fat hand around. “Alright, you got a point. Fine, you be assistant chef and busboy tonight. I’ll tell Jeff. Why don’t you go and take a break, then come back in ten minutes. They’ll be comin’ soon.” 

Dick tries not to look too happy at that. Whistling on the way to the kitchen, he easily sidestepped the mess in the middle of the tiling and made his way to the locker room. From his bag, inside the compartment hidden to all but the owner, he took out a needle-point syringe. Not a large one, just one millilitre in volume. It was already stored with antifreeze inside — a slow-acting poison that took several days to kill. With his luck, by the time Joker was dead, Dick’s current alias and address would be gone. 

He shoved the syringe in his apron pocket and wiped his hands free of residue. Dick, whistling all the while, strolled back into the kitchen. “Rick, you ready to plate the food?” Jeff asked just as he opened the swinging door. The chef was positioned right in front of the pots and pans, and sweat dripped down his forehead in streams. “These are for the common goons. You don’t need to really plate ‘em too well.” Dick nodded, and reached out for a clean spoon and ladle to pour the mashed potatoes out on the plates that lined the counters. “This one, this is for the big boss. That’ll be served last, on that stupid white plate with the green smiley face on it.” 

Dick laughed at the derogatory tone Jeff took, and glanced over at the plate he mentioned. It was the iconic Joker green. “What are these people in here for anyway, boss?” Dick asked lightly. He moved on to the next food item quickly, picking up the pot of British peas and plopped them on the plates. It made a nasty ssssschlick sound as they slid down from the pot. 

“Makin’ deals.” Jeff answered gruffly. “Heard the guy comin’ in’s some kinda bigwig from Gotham City. He’s comin’ here to set some roots, make some deals, get a collaboration goin’ on.” 

“Sounds legit.” Dick commented lightly. He placed down the now emptied pot of peas, and moved on to plate the fried chicken. “What’s his name?” 

“Some kinda clown thing,” Jeff gruffed. Dick chuckled, he could practically hear the eye roll in the chef’s voice. “Joker, I think. Hey, soon as you’re done with that, c’mere so I can give you the fish for the big boss.” 

Dick nodded quietly. He walked over to take the fish from the chef’s hands and placed it neatly down on the aforementioned special plate. He knew this dish like the back of his hand at this point. It was Chucky’s favourite dish. Breaded fish served over Mac and Cheese, with gravy on the side, and served with an ice-cold Coca Cola. Like clockwork, they worked in silence until Jeff breathed a sigh of relief. “Now we wait for the waitresses to take the plate. I’ll go take a smoke break first. Thanks for the help, kid. Remember to serve the coke for the big boss.” 

“Got it.” Dick answered with a nod. The freezer where they stored the drinks was right beside the exit door, where Jeff just left from. Now that he was alone in the kitchen, he could do what he came here to do. He opened the can with a crack of his nails, and poured it out into a crisp diner glass filled to the brink with ice. He took out the syringe and tapped it to remove the air bubbles inside. It was filled to the top with antifreeze. Dick pushed out the liquid into the glass, and with a long shake spoon, stirred the coke up nicely. He pocketed the spoon in his apron, and after greeting the waitresses who had slowly entered the kitchen, exited to the locker room. 

He had only a few minutes left before Chucky entered the staffroom to check up on everyone’s status. Before then, Dick needed to leave the restaurant and destroy everything related to Rick Thomas. With his bag in hand, Dick left the restaurant through the back exit, and grappled up to the rooftop to avoid being spotted by Jeff. He ran across the rooftops, the wind blowing through his hair, and had the urge to do cartwheels instead of just running normally. 

That would definitely get some of the Joker goons attention though, considering that vigilantes running on rooftops in Central City weren’t exactly common. Dick felt his heart hammering in his chest, his internal clock ticking down the seconds. He needed to get lost, fast. Before the Joker knew what was happening. If he caught a whiff of Robin or Nightwing in the air, he’d never eat the food or drink the coke. He quickly ripped off the ginger-haired wig from his head, the fake nose from his face, and threw the brown contact lenses from his eyes over the roof. 

Dick’s phone pinged with the reminder notification for his apartment viewing over in Windsor Heights. He landed on the building with a grunt before climbing down the ledge and easing his way into the window of the flat. He pocketed whatever remnants he saw: loose snack wrappers, Batarangs, the five Nokia phones littered all over the place, any clothes that had been laying around the ground. He took the time to quickly change out of his restaurant uniform and threw it into the roaring fireplace, and put on an Armani silk shirt and some jeans from Agolde. 

He clambered back out through the window and, after jumping around until he got out of Leawood and into New Brighton, finally started walking on the streets. Dick couldn’t exactly leave Central City just yet. He needed to make sure Joker actually died, after all. Luckily, as he shoved his way into the rail station’s public toilets and glanced at the mirror, he had a back-up disguise. 

Dick quickly put on his beloved blonde wig and tugged his Gucci sunglasses over his iconic blue eyes. He spritzed on some perfume, put on a few gold chains around his neck (just shiny enough to ward off questions about genuinity, but gaudy enough to get some stink-eye from the Old Wealth). 

The apartment viewing was for the long-term. He wasn’t sure whether he really needed a base of operations in Central City, but it was just on the scope of possibilities that he didn’t want to push away the necessity. And thus, he just went ahead and did it. The apartment building was one of those ‘application’ types, where you couldn’t just ask for a price and get a place. Dick had needed to apply with his CV and a short biography submitted by his lawyer. 

He entered the lobby with a sleezy smile, ignoring the doorguard as best he could. The moment he entered the building, his mind catalogued the location of every person he saw and heard. There were two behind him, next to the entryway. Another four, a family, by the elevators. Two staff sat by the concierge desk, chatting with sly grins on their faces. 

Dick approached the desk with a soft smile. “Hey, I’m Luke Moore. I’m here for my appointment?” 

“Of course, Mr. Moore. You’re here for the penthouse in block six?” The brunette piped up with a chipper voice. It was high-pitched and reminded him vaguely of bells twinkling at a summer farm. “I’’ve got you here. My friend, Betty, will show you for your appointment. Our staff will be waiting for you at the apartment.” 

“Thank you, darling.” Dick schmoozed, smirking. 

𓋹

Jason knew Dick would get it done. The clock was ticking though, and the week was coming to a close. He peeked over at the alarm clock beside his bed, sat neatly beside a small photograph of Bruce and him, back when he was freshly picked up from the streets. The red neon lights flashed SUN / 02:00 AM like a warning sign. 

The week had passed by in what felt like just a few seconds, it was so eventful. Jason should have known better than to trust Dick in his bedroom without at least a camera. Bruce and Talia trained him better than that. And yet, he couldn’t help but think about that teenager he used to worship: the first Robin, the first son, the one to live up to. The one who could do no wrong, because his parents died when he was so young, and he had so much potential, and Jason, would you please stop touching his gadgets? 

Forget the fact that Dick left, and Jason was there. Jason, for all the neighbourhoods he took over from the Black Mask and all the lives he took and stole, still felt like a blistering fool of a boy tripping over his shoelaces trying to catch up to his superhero. 

Dick was the boy wonder. He wouldn’t do anything wrong. Couldn’t do anything wrong. 

But who else had stolen his confidential documents and given them to Penguin and Two-Face? There was no other explanation for the missing files from the safe behind Bruce’s painting, and no way to bluster excuses to his men about why they were suddenly ambushed twice over in what was meant to be an in-and-out mission. 

Somehow, despite himself, Jason had it in him to feel betrayed. 

He looked over at the gadgets laying on the east corner of the room, thrown on the floor from when Jason last unsuited and collapsed on the chair. The decryption hacker and the map of the Wayne Mansion grounds fluttered in the air-conditioner’s cool wind. 

The greater part of his mind, the one still tainted Lazarus green, clouded over with righteous fury. Dick has it coming, it spits viciously, he’ll get what’s coming. 

Jason rolled over to the colder part of the bed and pulls the blanket over his head. It was the last chance for Dick to take his help. No more chances after this. His mind roiled and churned over the last sight he had of Bruce. The unexpectedly crimson blood that dripped all over the remains of the Batsuit, the sigh he let out as the bullet entered his lungs, the way Tim Drake had screamed despite his training. 

If Jason took a closer glimpse of the grave, maybe that would erase the visions that had been haunting him ever since that day. 

The doorbell interrupted his reading time. Normally, just for that, Jason would have put a rubber round through the idiot’s head since everyone in the building knew not to interrupt the Red Hood from the times of 3pm to 5pm. However, there was something that stopped him right as he opened the door with a pistol in his hand. 

“Jaybird!” Dick greeted enthusiastically, with one arm holding a box aloft and the other tilting his cap visor down to mask his eyes. He wore the familiar red and orange uniform of the Gotham Postal Delivery, and Jason wanted to shoot two bullets through each of his cheery eyes. He didn’t, because Jason was a reformed crime lord who no longer used actual bullets. “Special delivery for one Red Hood, crime lord extraordinaire.” 

Jason sneered and snatched the box aggressively away from him. Something inside was heavy, and bounced around like a weighted ball. With the way it kept rolling around inside the box, “Didn’t you put packing peanuts in this box? What the fuck?” 

“Nope.” Dick beamed. “He doesn’t deserve that.” 

“What?” Jason set the box down on his lifted left knee and let his innate balance keep him up. The box wasn’t so heavy that he’d tip over. He tore open the box flaps, and he’d deny this until he stopped breathing (again), and screamed in horror when the deadened eyes of Joker peaked up at him. “What the fuck?!” 

His hands, which spasmed in terror and surprise, dropped the box and Joker’s head on his perfect glossy floor. It rolled around, stuck in a wide smile, and ruining his floorwax with the remainders of the makeup and face oils left on the decapitated head. Jason looked up at Dick with what almost felt like fear. He nearly took a step back before remembering himself. Dick, all the while, stared at the dropped head with disdain and kicked it a bit. It rolled away, past Jason and farther into his apartment. “Surprise, surprise. A dead Joker, delivered right to your doorstop. You should be happy. Now give me my shit.” 

Jason, once again, found himself shocked by a Wayne for the second time this year. And both times, not in the good sense. He shuffled backwards and let Dick come in to breech his living space. He felt a little bit of vomit rise up from his stomach. He swallowed it back down. He knew that Dick would kill the Joker. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind about it. Dick would have killed right about anyone, right there and then, if it meant seeing Bruce’s grave. 

What he wasn’t prepared for was the sheer nonchalance that Dick exuded. Dick walked about his apartment and observed everything with a keen eye, as if it were Tuesday again and they had met up for a regular teatime. This was the Golden Boy, Bruce’s beloved Boy Wonder, the first Robin. The one who, for all intents and purposes, was Bruce’s true legacy; his motto and teachings not just lived on in Dick, but were bettered and improved. He’s always been better than me, Jason still remembered the soft gaze Bruce held when speaking to him about Dick, Better than anything I could ever be. 

It chilled Jason to his bones. Had he caused this? Was this Jason’s fault? 

Jason felt roots growing beneath his bare feet, stretch out beyond the wooden panelled floor of his penthouse. They stretched out deep beneath Gotham City, deep beneath the earth that once housed him, and dipped into the fiery pits of hell. He could almost sense them wrapping around Bruce’s corpse, and crushing him in its grasp. They sapped at Bruce’s corpse, leaching his soul and all the colours in Gotham away from him, and left behind only rotting skin and bones. 

He pursed his lips and sighed heavily. “Alright,” Jason reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Sit down, and don’t touch anything. I’ll know if you do.” 

Dick laughed brightly at that, like chimes in a church. Jason could hear him speaking, even when he walked into his bedroom to pick up the map and decryption hacker from the discarded pile in his room. On the side of the gadget was a bright red bat symbol, for Red Hood’s logo. “Did you have fun with Cobblepot and Dent this week? I heard it was quite a bad week for you.” 

“Really? Did a little birdie tell you that?” Jason sniped, feeling brittle. He threw the items in Dick’s face, ignoring the faked sputtering. As if Dick didn’t catch that right before it hit his face. “Don’t pretend. I know what you did. You stole my files, you pilfering little shit.” 

“Now why would I do that?” Dick asked dully, and rolled his eyes. He pocketed the items in his uniform compartment, and they vanished from Jason’s sight. “I have no motive.” 

“Of course you do. You think I’m going to double-cross you. Doing that meant I have no time to plan for whatever-the-fuck you think I was going to do.” 

“You’re projecting, Jaybird,” Dick patted his shoulders once, twice. “I’m not doing anything you didn’t do. Right?” 

Jason watched him leave with a pep in his step and a tune on his lips. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. A blinking dot showed on his map, and it moved steadily further away from its previous position in Jason’s penthouse. 

He shoved it back in his pocket. He had no illusions that Dick didn’t know that he’d messed with the hacking device — but Dick wasn’t as adept with technology as he let on. He knew enough, sure, just to be able to finagle with Bruce’s devices and craft them into different shapes and tunes. Not enough to look at code and figure out what was happening though, and definitely not enough to figure out which line was sending his location remotely to a different device. 

𓋹

The device was warm and comfortable in Dick’s hands. It beeped up at him every now and then. Jason had probably messed with this. He didn’t feel comfortable having to use this without first looking at whatever Jason had put into the code, but he couldn’t work on it by himself. 

If Bruce were still alive, he’d have gone to him for help. 

Dick felt the familiar tingly urge in his chest, of bloodlust curdling in his ribs. He pushed it aside to look at the device in his hand. It was a familiar shape, rectangular and sleek, with an input screen in the center. It looked almost exactly like Bruce’s, if not for the crimson Red Hood insignia plastered all over the back. 

He could bring it to Victor. That was an option. He wasn’t as good as Tim or Bruce were, but it would be enough to catch whatever thing Jason had seen fit to sneak inside. But, that would require having to admit to his friend what he was trying to achieve, and that was dangerous. No one else understood the family blood as much as another bat could. They wouldn’t get it, the anger Tim probably felt towards him. 

They didn’t understand why Dick had to prove himself, why he had been treated this way. It was difficult to explain, and even if he could explain it, they still wouldn’t understand. They looked at things from the lens of a normal family dynamic. 

That wasn’t what the bats were. They were hardened soldiers, brothers in arms, falling into line but also so much more than that. They were comrades in the truest sense. Bruce had been his everything, once upon a time: his hero, his saviour, his father, his mentor, his best friend. His whole life had revolved around Bruce until Dick didn’t know where Dick ended and Bruce began. And now, Dick supposed, he’d never know again. 

He couldn’t bring it to Victor. He couldn’t bring it to Oracle either. If she found out what the boys had been up to since she Bruce’s death, he wasn’t sure what she would have done to them. They needed to keep it to themselves for now. Tim could probably manage Oracle’s flow of information himself. He needed to manage this by himself. 

Jason would have probably planted something in the device, yes, that was established. But what did he plant? What would it do? Could Dick really risk his life just for a chance to glimpse Bruce’s grave?

𓋹

Alfred knew something was off the moment the alarm blared loudly throughout the mansion. Master Bruce was still holed up within the basement, safely esconced in layers of security and wrapped in the finest quilts the Waynes could afford. Master Tim was studying still in the underground library the last time the butler had checked up on him an hour ago, and it was safe to assume he would still be there. 

There weren’t any alarms in that part of the basement. It had been too unsafe to retrofit within the stone walls of the corridors, dusty and decrepit as they were. Alfred and Alfred alone would have to manage this. 

He calmly placed down his knife and the pieces of chopped up chicken he had been slicing and made his way to the storeroom. There were several storerooms placed throughout the manor, as big as it was, and they were all outfitted the same way. Several metal shelves stacked against the walls and organised with pantry items just in case of the worst scenario in Gotham. And at the very back, lining the wall furthest from the door, was a box of shotguns. This particular case had been stacked here years ago and never been touched again. 

After all, Master Bruce has a debilitating fear of guns. Alfred picked up the topmost shotgun and carefuly inspected it. It looked to be in good condition, albeit a little dusty. He’d have to remedy that. He picked up three boxes of ammo, calmly filled up the barrel, and left the room. The alarm was blaring loud and clear and the red lights of the intruder alarm bathed the hall in crimson. 

Alfred approached the master control panel by the side of the entryway and pressed on the map. A floorplan of the manor, level by level, showed up almost immediately. There, Alfred noted, by the back door leading towards the garden, was where the intruder had come in from. 

He frowned. The doors were unlocked, and so were the windows. The intruder protocol had certainly been tripped, and yet, the doors hadn’t remained locked. He pressed the program logs, wondering whether there had been an issue with the coding involved (as unlikely as that may seem). 

Locked Doors program, overriden. User identified and confirmed: J. Todd

Alfred froze. That was impossible. Jason Todd was a child, buried in this very mansion, six feet underground and past the point of decay. He remembers the boy, sunlight in his lungs and stars exploding in his eyes, trailing behind Master Bruce like a kitten. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge, and cooked well despite his less-than-stellar upbringing. 

Alfred tightened his grip on his gun. The intruder could be anywhere by now — no clue as to where they were, no clue as to what their purpose was, except that whoever they were, was intimately familiar with the Waynes. 

“Alfred.” A murmur, soft enough to break the spell that Alfred had previously been in, but loud enough for him to be aware of the familiar presence behind him. “Where’s the intruder?” 

“Master Tim,” Alfred bowed with his head. “I was not aware you had finished working.” 

“I got an intruder alert on my phone.” Master Tim cocked his head to the side and inspected Alfred’s behaviour. “I made sure to lock Bruce down there. No one’s getting in or out, don’t worry.” 

“That’s the least of my concerns, sir.” Alfred replied demurely, a tight pinch to his lips. “Look at the master controls. It seems there is a slight problem with our intruder program.” 

Tim glanced over with furrowed brows. The space between his brows shrunk the more he read. “I didn’t know Todd had a special override protocol.” 

“He was given one shortly after his arrival. He had been having problems with keeping to his curfew, and kept getting locked out of our home. Master Bruce created one specifically for him.” Alfred hesitated for a millisecond. Long enough for Master Tim to notice. “He was subsequently buried with it.” 

“So whoever this is, already found their way here before. Without us noticing.” Master Tim hummed, a small smile on his lips. “We don’t know where they are now?” 

“There are no cameras inside the manor, sir.” Alfred sniffed impetuously. “Privacy is important for the young children Master Bruce always seemed to adopt.” 

“That’s a very long ‘no’, Alfred.” 

“We do not know where the intruder is now, sir—”

“That’s fine.” Master Tim interrupts with a huff, and takes out his W.E. mobile. It was modified slightly beyond what Alfred could pick apart, with every single day he sees it, it gets more and more different. A map of the Wayne Manor pops up, slightly different than the one installed to their security system. This one had what seemed like heat gauges and heat sensors popping up on screen, with two familiar bodies near the garden-side doorway, and another conspicuously moving around with startling speed in the main hall. 

The signature seemed to bounce around the hall with surprising agility. It could really only be one person: 

“Nightwing.” Master Tim hissed. The venom leaked out of his tone and dripped without restraint. “I told him never to come back here again, that scum.” 

“He took Master Todd’s protocol.” Alfred tutted with displeasure. “But from where?” 

“Red Hood.” Alfred glanced over at Master Tim. He was still skimming through the details on his phone screen, miniscule text listed below the virtual map and the heat signatures. It was more in-depth than the manor’s installed security system. From where he stood, Alfred could barely read the words protocol code and terminal. “In the code Nightwing used, a signature was left behind at the very end. Here, see? It says Red Hood. Like an idiot.” 

“I didn’t think he’d ever…”

“Stoop so low?” Master Tim snarked before rolling his eyes and stretching his shoulders out. “I always knew Dick Grayson was annoying.” 

It was easy enough, Alfred was glad to find, to trap the acrobat once they knew who it was and where he was. They weren’t certain where he was headed, but they could estimate well enough. From where he stood, Draco, Master Tim’s iguana pet, wrapped herself around his left wrist tightly. If he hadn’t known previously that it was alive, Alfred would have mistaken it for a fine piece of glassware. 

It was disappointing to see how far Master Richard had fallen. To even consider working with the Red Hood, after what he had done to his father. Was that the reason why he had taken so long to return home? Alfred couldn’t help but think, his thoughts turning darker and darker the further he was left to ruminate without clear-cut answers. 

Was this why Richard had failed to reach in time for the funeral? Had he been working with Red Hood all this time? Had they planned out the murder together? Maybe this was the reason why Red Hood had known Batman’s patrol timings and routes so well. They had always figured he had insider information and insider gadgets, received from somewhere. They had, together, thought that maybe he was just well-trained by the League. 

Maybe he wasn’t well-trained at all. He had just been working with someone from the inside. 

Alfred’s chest shattered and pierced his worn heart. How could Dick have fallen so far? He was Bruce’s beloved, Bruce’s admired, Bruce’s legacy. Had he really killed his own father? Alfred couldn’t bear to think about it. 

Dick faced Tim with his escrima sticks in hand, a vicious look in his eyes. Bloodthirsty and desperate enough to hurt, a wounded lion defending his pride. Tim, for his own part, merely stood stock straight, a light grip on his staff. Draco was wound tightly around his wrist still, unbothered by the constant movement. Bruce would have a heart attack if he saw this. “The prodigal son returns, by force.” Tim provokes, a curling condescension wrapped tightly around his words. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you wearing that outfit again.” 

“15 minutes to catch me?” Dick smirks and huffs out a chuckle. “You’re losing your touch, Robin.” 

“And yet,” Tim snarls. “Still a better partner to him than you ever were. I told you never to come back here. How dare you work with the same man who killed him.” 

“There are things you don’t know, Tim. Don’t speak on things you don’t understand.” 

“I understand perfectly well, thank you. You were the one feeding him insider info, weren’t you? All this time, we thought it was Talia. It was actually you.” 

“Don’t you dare accuse me of betraying Bruce!” Dick rushed forward, driven by rage, and twirls past Tim’s staff-swipe, until his escrima sticks meet Tim’s spine. They crackled with electricity, a bright blue light dimly reflected on his black hair. “I would never. I could never. The fact that you accuse me of that means you didn’t understand what he was to me. I loved him.” 

“Not enough to not betray him, I’m sure.” Tim giggles breathlessly. “Definitely not enough to attend his funeral.” 

“You fucking pest,” Dick growls past gritted teeth. “I’ll fucking kill you.” 

“Language, Master Dick.” Alfred finally chimes in, before smashing a wrought-iron pan hard on Dick’s skull. He falls to the wood floor with a loud thud, silence covering the hallway. The acrobat rolled on the ground, groaning in pain, bent over with his head in his hands. Alfred and Tim stared, for a moment, uncertain on how to proceed-

An alarm broke the brief silence. Intruder alert: Bruce Wayne’s grave has been breached. Intruder alert: Bruce Wayne’s grave has been breached. 

Tim and Alfred glanced up in unison, shocked. From his pathetic position kneeling on the ground, Dick started laughing to himself. “Of course,” He murmured bitterly. “I knew he didn’t give me that damn decoder for free. He used me as bait.” 

“Who?” Tim demanded, leaning down to scrunch Nightwing’s uniform tightly in his fist. “Who are you talking about?!” 

“Red Hood, of course.” Dick smirked. “Jason Todd enters.”

𓋹

Tim wasn’t sure when it had started raining all of a sudden, but it was storming by the time all three of them had rushed out the manor towards the grave. It was slightly annoying, that the world deemed it important enough to start raining at this very moment. He could picture the moments in the theatre, cozied up underneath a blanket with Bruce tucking him close to his side to explain the specificities of whichever document they had chosen for that night. Outside, there would be rain crashing against the window panes in a lovely acoustic soundtrack. 

Tim Drake hated rain. Draco was a warm comfort around his wrist, as she slithered her way up his arm and onto his shoulder where she tucked herself beneath his collar to hide from the rain. It was beginning to get cold. 

Tim’s heart thundered in his rib cage, realisation upon realisation slowly settling in. The grave - it was still open and emptied. It hadn’t been fixed after the resurrection yet. The coffin lay open, empty but for a red pillow cushion at the head area. Tim glanced over to where Dick was leaping across the flower pots and flower beds seamlessly, barely even casting them a glance. If Red Hood and Nightwing were both working together, Alfred and Tim were greatly overpowered. It didn’t matter that Tim now had magic. An unsettled discomfort lay over his heart like simmering oil. 

The rain made the soil and brick walkways slippery and hard to walk on, much less run. Dick was flitting about like a hummingbird, graceful but overeager to get to the grave. It was a distance away, another unfortunate inconvenience of living in a manor. From this far, it was hard to get a clear look of the grave, if not for the bright red helmet sticking out of the green grass. It stood over the emptied grave, still and unmoving. 

Thunder boomed overhead. Tim needed to get there, quicker, faster, before Red Hood could see the empty grave. Before he could connect the dots, and yell it where Dick Grayson could hear. He must be kept a secret, he had wanted to keep it a secret, the mistake that Tim had committed-

“He’s gone.” Red Hood’s voice modulator crackled with unmistakable fury. Tim panted and his heart thundered in time with the rain pouring around them. The grave was disturbed, obvious shovel marks in front of the headstone, and an empty coffin for the world to see. It was messy, shoddy work. “I didn’t think you were the type to violate your father’s corpse, Robin. And here I was, willing to offer you the location of the Lazarus Pit.” 

“I don’t need the Lazarus Pit.” Tim snarled. Was that sweat or rain pooling in his palms? “You’re too late. It’s done.” 

“What’s done?” Dick groaned, hands tangled in his hair. He stood right in front of the headstone, a wild look in his eyes as he stared down at the empty pit of earth. “Where is Bruce? What have you done to him?” 

Tim pursed his lips and looked down at the empty hole in the ground. It was deep, certainly, and for a brief moment he wondered how he had gotten Bruce out of there. The memory came in flashes, too fast to reminisce. Dick marched up to his face and, in a move that Tim should’ve predicted, punched Tim’s face in a brutal right hook. “Where’s my father?” Dick snarled, spit and saliva flying out his mouth. Red Hood stood by the side, immobile. For once, he didn’t look like he was going to butt in where he didn’t belong. 

“I’d rather die than tell you.” Tim answered stubbornly. Behind him, he felt Alfred’s presence like a sentry made of stone. It comforted him, even though he was certain that they were going to die here today. 

“That can be arranged. Don’t worry.” Dick stepped up, a firm grip on his escrima sticks. Tim glanced over at Red Hood, a foolish hope that maybe he might step in to help - but the villain didn’t move, and Tim suddenly remembered that this was a murderer he was thinking about. Of course he wasn’t going to step in. Silly. “Come on, Tim. Don’t be stupid. Just tell me where you brought Bruce. That’s all I want to know.” 

Tim stayed silent. 

An escrima stick strayed further and further towards Tim’s jugular. Tim swallowed and braced himself for pain. 

“Daddy?” A sleepy voice cut in. They all turned as one towards the source. A toddler stood only a few meters away, rubbing his eyes blearily with tiny fists. “Is the bad man threatening you, daddy?” 

Tim had no hope in his heart that Dick wouldn’t recognise him. 

“Bruce?” Dick and Red Hood whispered as one.