Chapter Text
“Start by applying dye at the root, and then work your way back.”
Jason leaned in closer to the mirror, grabbing the white tuft at the front of his hair and pulling up. Angling his toothbrush carefully, he dabbed a bit of hair dye on the root area. He glanced back to his phone, swiped through another missed call from Tim with his non-hair-dyed hand, and unpaused the video.
“So, here, I’m just touching up my last dye-job, so I’m only really working on my roots, but this all depends on which areas you’re trying to dye.”
Jason huffed. It was just hair-dye, right? No real way to mess that up. Another ping from his phone. He was starting to regret giving some of the Bats his personal number.
Jason scooped up another glob of black dye in his gloved hand and sort of mushed it into the white streak. He worked it in with his fingers until the area was all a uniform, shiny black. One that’d hopefully blend in nicely to the rest of his head. Did he need multiple layers? He turned back to the tutorial-
“From tim: Jason, if you don’t pick up the phone, I’ll tell B where your current safehouse is and have him deliver the message in person.”
Jason huffed again, this time in amusement. It’d only taken a little under a dozen missed calls for Timmy to resort to blackmail this time. Something must’ve put him in a bad mood. Probably the fresh benching for his newly broken arm from last night’s patrol. It’d been a hairline fracture, projected to only take 6 weeks to heal completely, and Jason knows he’ll be back on the rooftops in under a month.
Tim’s threat was an empty one, though. Jason had been very diligent about keeping the safehouses the Bats knew about separate from the ones they didn’t. It was a delicate balance to keep straight in a concussed brain, but it was worth the convenience of having an easy, non-Cave place to stitch people up after a team mission while keeping his privacy most of the time.
The apartment he stood in the bathroom of right now was one such private safehouse, and one of the more home-y ones. It had a blender. Working TV. Bedframe. He even had a rug in one of the rooms. Jason picked up his phone to skip ahead a bit in the tutorial. He was pretty sure you had to rinse your hair after dyeing it.
“From tim: 428J Apartments on Muirfield, 3rd Floor, second from the East stairwell.” Jason blinked. He swiped to the call app. His phone only rang once before going through.
“Siccing Big Bat on me is pretty low,” he growled into the phone. “I’m busy, so make it quick.” Jason caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The dyed part of his hair was sticking straight up.
“Don’t take the mission.” Except he said it so fast it blurred into one word, so more like Don’ttakethemission.
Jason snorted. Of course it was about me taking his mission. “Not even a please, Timmy? And here I thought we were approaching friendly.”
“B’s overreacting. There’s no reason to think I wouldn’t be able to handle a non-combat stealth operation,” Tim protested.
“I can think of one. Soon to be two if you don’t stop fuckin’ around with the injured arm.” Jason flipped the faucet on, sticking the top of his head under the running water.
“I already have it all planned out. Get in, get the necessary data for our next move, and get out. There wouldn’t be any fighting.” Jason hummed, but Tim must have not heard it under the sound of water, because he continued, with a slight edge to his voice. “Just because I’m injured doesn’t mean I’m useless. I’m well aware of my limits.”
Jason turned off the water and buried his hair in an old towel he never managed to get the blood stains out of. “No fighting? Thought you were supposed to be the smart one, Timmers. We both know stealth missions don’t always stay that way.”
“What? What the hell do you mean by that?” Tim sounded genuinely alarmed now. “Jason, I cannot have this mission going sideways because you went out of your way to crack some skulls.”
Jason wasn’t going to lie, that ticked him off a bit. He’d definitely earned his violent reputation around the scum of Gotham, but he’d like to think he was enough of a team player to warrant a little trust. He and the Bats had their ideological differences- irreconcilable ones. But he was smart enough to understand that, in a city with crime as interconnected as Gotham’s, it was ultimately in his best interest to help take out some of the Bats’ bigger projects.
Pissing off Timmers was a sweet bonus, though. “Wasn’t planning on it, don’t get your panties in a twist,” he drawled.
“So you agree this should be my mission.”
“No chance in hell. Finders keepers, Birdy.” Jason hung up the phone. He dried the rest of his hair, then shot Tim a quick text asking him for the mission files. The little Read notification popped up instantly, but no response.
Figures.
Jason had to email Babs for the case information. Babs sent it over within minutes, with a short message telling him to get in touch if anything went wrong. Jason, feeling a little more cordial than usual, responded with a thumbs-up and no intention of actually doing that.
Jason hadn’t done much undercover since his reentry into the land of the living, but Tim didn’t need to know that. He’d done plenty of lurking in the shadows, using his Robin training and the survival instincts beaten into him as a kid to remain as unseen as possible. And a solid chunk of his nighttime gig is spent gathering information on shady dealings; Being a crime lord gets you into a lot of places that a Robin wouldn’t be welcome. But tonight would mark his first proper undercover mission in a good while.
He wasn’t worried about it though. The agenda was pretty simple. Infiltrate a gathering of a group of exotic antique dealers that Red Robin suspects (and what Red Robin suspects is usually dead-on) to actually be a massive ring of drug and weapons smugglers. An organization like this would already be high priority to stop, but the pressure was heightened by rumors that deals were being hashed out for a new, highly potent knockoff fear gas. The hosts are supposed to be handing out the information for how to procure these canisters to individual party-goers tonight.
Jason absently adjusted the cufflinks on his sleeves as he stepped into the venue. The whole ordeal was black-tie, of course, because why would any rich person lower themselves to the indignity of committing crimes in comfort. The whole ordeal was also masquerade-themed, of course, because why would any criminal organization forgo the opportunity to dress up in a silly costume. His mask was already shedding red glitter onto his 5,000 dollar suit. Although, eyeing the ostentatious feathers and jewels glued to some of the masks around the room, Jason was just glad Tim’s flair for the dramatic didn’t extend to his fashion.
The ballroom Jason found himself in was elegantly but dimly lit. The light flickered out from LED candles. The platters that filled circular tables were piled high with meats, cheeses, and fruits, accented by the usual wealthy gala eccentricities of ice sculptures and inaccessibly complicated-looking pastries. And then, to sell its cover story as an innocuous group of antique enthusiasts, a few random Ming-dynasty vases and ancient statues were littered around the room as decoration.
The whole scene was an extravagant eyesore, so Jason focused his attention on some of the people milling around. Even under the masks, he could already identify a few of the individuals as Gotham’s more wealthy crime lords or their lackeys. Jason was severely tempted to introduce himself to one of the more influential figures in Gotham’s underground that he spotted in the crowd, one whose empire he was in the middle of undermining, but he shook the thought out of his head.
Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long. Jason watched carefully as guys in black suits and unadorned dominos filed into the room. Their masks don’t even have sparkles. They dispersed among the guests, appearing to do very little except pulling golden cards out from somewhere in their suit jackets and wordlessly handing them over.
Bingo.
He still loitered at the front of the room, so it took a while for one of the suits to reach him. He kept his expression perfectly neutral as he watched the man fish out another card and held it out. Jason nodded lightly when he took it, deeming that to be the best balance of acknowledgement and dismissal. The man didn’t move. His expression was unreadable from under his mask. Jason felt, for the first time that night, somewhat uneasy.
Jason looked down at the card. It was gold on one side, just like the others he’d seen passed out. When he flipped it over, there were a few things that caught his eye. First, the reverse side was a blood red that he definitely didn’t catch on any of the other cards. Second, scrawled on that red in a precise golden script was a short message: “Nice Try.”
Fuck.
The room exploded into chaos all at once. The masked man charged him. Jason tucked into a roll and used his angle and the man’s momentum to trip him into a nearby table. He shot back up just in time to catch and flip another man running at him.
It was only a short run to the front doors, but Jason didn’t want to turn his back on the countless other guys quickly approaching.
A few shots rang out. Great, they have guns. And Jason distinctly didn’t. He’d managed to smuggle in some knives in different parts of his outfit, though. He swiftly yanked out the small blade he’d hidden in the heel of his shoe and stabbed it in and out of some guy’s shoulder, using his shock to push him back into some of his buddies with a harsh kick.
He felt a bullet whiz by his head. He whipped around to the source, a man only a table over from him. “Well, this hardly seems fair,” Jason drawled. “If they’re gonna give you a gun, they should’ve at least taught you how to shoot.” He threw his knife, knocking the weapon out of the man’s hands before he could retort.
But before he could reach back into his other shoe for another weapon, a force slammed into him from the side. Or, well, two forces, both holding him to a wall, and a third man moving at him very quickly with a blade of his own.
“Don’t move.” He couldn’t have, even if he wanted to. Jason was flat against the wall at this point, the two other men pinning his arms. Jason knew he could break their grip without too much trouble, but they’d slow him down. And that didn’t look like a good idea right now. The knife pressed up against his throat with a pressure that threatened to break skin very, very soon. Jason narrowed his eyes.
“Oooh, touchy. I’d apologize for crashing your party, but I still have the invite somewhere in my pants, if you’d just let me-”
The glass ceiling above them exploded into a cascading wave of glittering shards. The man at Jason’s throat pulled back, gaping up at the sky. A figure emerged from the wave, red and black and… wearing a heavy green cast on his left arm.
Tim landed solidly on knife guy, sending his weapon clattering to the floor. Jason used the distraction of the other two men to wrestle free of their grips. In one smooth motion, Tim snatched up the knife and threw it. It lodged itself firmly in the wall by Jason.
Jason pulled it out and swiftly threw it at one of his attackers. It speared one of them in the thigh. He stumbled towards Jason, who yanked the knife out of his thigh and twirled around to stab the other man in the shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jason shouted at Tim. Tim opened his mouth, but was cut off by a stream of bullets that forced the two of them to leap out of the way.
“They barricaded the front doors!” Tim yelled back, in lieu of actually answering Jason’s fucking question. Jason was immediately flung back into the heat of the action. Tim glanced back at him, already kicking another guy’s legs out from under him, before whipping back around to meet the masked man charging at him. Tim flipped him easily, sending him crashing to the floor with a heavy thud.
It was easy to let himself settle into the familiar rhythm of an old-fashioned knife and gun fight, but Red Robin had to stay alert. His left side was compromised due to his broken arm, and the awkward heft of the cast shifted his balance in a way he struggled to account for when he kicked one of the men running at him. One wrong move, Batman echoed in his head.
He dropped his body weight to a lower stance, giving him a bit more stability but further limiting his movement. He swept the legs out from a few more of the masked guys that tried to sneak up behind him.
Red Robin sprung up to meet another attacker who swiped at him with a knife. A single mistake will get you killed, said the figure looming over him from where he laid crumpled on the training mat. His fist made contact with the masked man’s face in one smooth, solid blow. Red Robin shook his head, trying to sync his brain back up with his body. He probably should’ve tried to grab those extra few hours of sleep instead of pushing through another WE project.
He kicked out the legs of another guy, but forgot to account for the extra weight on the left-side of his torso. He didn’t fall- he didn’t even stumble, but it left him slightly off-balance when another masked man slammed a boot into his ribcage.
A little bit dazed, Red Robin gracelessly clambered back onto his feet. He braced himself for the next kick, taking advantage of Red Robin’s temporary disorientation. But the next attack didn’t come. Instead, the man pulled out a gun from somewhere in his suit and leveled it evenly at Red Robin’s head. Red Robin’s eyes went wide. He backed up slowly, but the man closed the gap with every step. Robin’s back hit the edge of one of the tables. He tried to think of what he had on hand, but all of his tools were in his utility belt. He wasn’t optimistic that he could grab and throw a batarang before the man pulled the trigger.
“Looks like the little birdy’s wing is injured,” the man sneered. Tim could hear heavy footsteps coming up from behind him, but all he could do was look down the barrel of the gun. Tim took on the Joker and he was going to get his head blown off by some no-name thug in a Party City mask? The footsteps were shaking the table behind him now, thundering in his skull as he tried to think. His finger was on the trigger and this was really not looking good for Tim. “It’s only right to put him out of his misery-”
CRASH!
The man collapsed on the floor in a heap. Jason straightened himself up from the flying leap he just took, the dessert platter he slammed against the guy’s skull still in his hands. A few stray cream puffs lazily slid their way down the metal surface, plopping onto the ballroom floor. Before Tim had a chance to react, Jason surged forward and grabbed his arm. “Run!”