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“The what?” Jason says incredulously, halting in his tracks on the rooftops of an abandoned warehouse district, before catching sight of his target still on the move and picking the pace up to stay on the shipment.
“The Godling Equation,” Tim grouses, voice uncharacteristically gruff. “It’s this new series of theoretical problems, essentially proving the existence of another host dimension of extremely powerful, incorporeal beings we had no clue existed until now. This kid at GothamU proposed it in a homework assignment, and then tried to cover it up when the professor asked for more detail—like he already knew what it meant!”
“How is this relevant to our patrols?” Damian interjects before Jason can respond, and Tim huffs dryly.
“No more relevant than the cat you’re holding, Robin.”
Damian squawks his offense, while Dick and Steph titter away; Bruce interjects with a comment about the merits of taking breaks—which is rich coming from someone who can’t stop working to save his life—and Jason snorts derisively but elects to stay silent when prompted by The Blood Son™ to ‘try him.’
“Anyway, it is relevant because if this kid’s as smart as I think he is, we may have a future rogue on our hands,” Tim chimes back in, the sound of the BatCave’s office chair spinning in circles on its swivel. “If he doesn’t already have a target on his back...”
Jason grits his teeth, fighting the urge to dive off the roof onto the freight van he’s tailing and blow a hole in this shithead’s skull.
So much for no more dead kids, he sneers internally, biting back a scathing retort at the chatter still steadily sounding over their communal channel. Boy’s blood in the water if anyone gets a hold of him before we do.
“Robin,” Bruce chides gruffly, and through the deafening ringing in his ears, Jason can tell the bickering has stopped entirely as Tim and Damian go startlingly quiet, just like he and Dick instinctively freeze; once a Robin, always a Robin. “Patrol—”
“—report!” Bruce calls over the edge of the abandoned warehouse in a tight voice, metal corrugated siding creaking as Jason attempts to scale it by hand after having lost his way back up in the fight earlier.
“No injuries, down three sets of zip ties and my back-up grapple,” Jason chirps back, popping up over the side of the warehouse roof with a cheeky, blinding grin. Bruce huffs lightly, face stony but with a slight lilt to his signature frown—trying not to smile at his Robin’s antics.
“Let’s get a move on, Jay—”
“—lad?” Bruce’s voice cuts in, voice strained.
Jason takes a rattling breath in through flared nostrils, gritting his teeth hard enough to creak ominously. On auto-pilot, he retorts a harsh, “no names,” and turns to grapple away with a bitten out excuse about dealing with some trafficking hotspots from one of the newer gangs.