Chapter Text
Dick and Jason were already arguing when Tim and Cass pulled into the cave on their bikes. Beyond the cave, the sun was starting to rise, and the two vigilantes were eager to wash off the night’s patrol and rest before tomorrow’s.
“What the hell is your problem?!” Dick growled, still dressed in his suit. He was standing beside Bruce, who was pointedly ignoring the arguing pair as he typed up the mission report at the bat-computer. Words like ‘explosion’ and ‘failed’ appeared on the screen.
“If you hadn’t been a fucking idiot, it would have been fine!” Jason shouted, then winced as Alfred continued to stitch up a deep cut along his bicep. He glared at Dick, his eyes a concerning shade of green.
“You blew up the building, Jason! You’re lucky people weren’t inside.”
“Wish you’d been inside.” The younger muttered.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you!” Jason stood, forgetting that Alfred was still holding the needle and thread attached to him. The thread pulled painfully before it tore at his skin. He snarled and turned on the butler. “Fuck sake, Alfred!”
“Jason!” Bruce’s voice boomed, causing both Dick and Jason to flinch, the latter suddenly looking like a kicked dog.
“Shit, Alf, I… I’m sorry.”
Alfred wordlessly tied off the final stitch, then secured the gauze over the wound.
“You are forgiven, Master Jason.” The older man reassured, giving Jason’s elbow a comforting squeeze.
“Jason, go clean up. We’ll talk about this later.” Bruce ordered with no room for argument.
Jason grumbled under his breath but hung his head before he made his way to the showers without protest.
An uncomfortable silence fell across the room once he was out of sight. Tim and Cass both stayed still, hoping they could magically disappear before they were acknowledged.
“What was that?” Dick asked Bruce, expecting him to agree, but he hesitated when Bruce pinned him with a glare.
“You could have de-escalated that situation; you were the mission leader. I expected better.”
Tim cringed at the disappointed-dad-voice, Dick’s least favourite.
“What? Bruce, he was off the rails tonight. He wouldn’t listen to anything I said.” Dick waved his arms around dramatically. “You saw him; he’s lucky he didn't blow himself up.”
Bruce let out a long, weighted sigh.
“I’ll talk to him, just… Go shower upstairs.”
For a moment, Dick looked prepared to argue more, but after a beat, his shoulders slumped, and he nodded instead.
“Yes, sir.” He followed Alfred to the elevator.
Tim and Cass took their chance and hurried across the cave to wait for the elevator to return. Bruce definitely noticed them, but said nothing. As the elevator arrived and opened to save them, Jason was making his way back into the main area, looking significantly more tired than he had minutes before.
An unobserved conversation between Bruce and Jason somehow ended in the latter agreeing to crash at the manor for the day. How Bruce managed it, Tim will never know, and he didn’t find out until Jason shoved past him in one of the corridors on the way to his room. Tim quickly caught himself and turned back to the older man.
“Dude, what the hell?” Before he could prepare himself, Jason turned on him, shoving him hard into the wall before he crowded into Tim’s space and pressed an arm across his chest to pin him into place.
“You got a fucking problem, Replacement?”
Tim sucked in a surprised breath; Jason hadn’t called him that in years - especially after they’d started sleeping together - but now, paired with the poisonous shine in his eyes, Tim suddenly felt like the too-small Robin he used to be.
But he wasn’t Robin anymore.
Tim’s shocked expression hardened, and he quickly shoved Jason back even rougher than the other had, sending him into the opposite wall with a thud. Whatever had been in Jason’s head seemed to dislodge with the collision as he looked at Tim with confused surprise.
“What’s gotten into you?” Tim demanded, glaring at him. Jason’s gaze skirted across Tim’s face, unable to make eye contact. He let out a frustrated growl before he righted his clothes and rolled his shoulders.
“Just… Fuck off.” He quickly trudged away to his room. Tim stood dumbfounded for several long minutes, trying to understand what had just happened.
The memories of Jason’s too-green eyes had haunted him since The Tower. When the other man got like this - with the pit whispering in his mind a little louder than normal - Tim usually tried to avoid him as much as he could. Unfortunately, he’d agreed to work a case for Bruce and was too stubborn to back down, even if his life was more at risk than usual.
With a heavy sigh, Tim shook himself, then retreated to the safety of his room.
“Jason, go with Tim to monitor the docks. Tim, you're mission lead.”
“What?!” Both boys turned to the older man. Jason’s voice was edged with annoyance, while Tim sounded more concerned.
“You heard me.” Batman stared sternly back at them. Tim frowned.
“But Steph and I were going to-”
Bruce stopped him with a raised hand. “Stephanie’s going with Dick.”
“This is bullshit,” Jason growled, but still pulled his helmet over his head and secured the latches. “Come on, lead.” His modulated voice snarled as he passed by. Tim looked between Red Hood and Batman, then quickly moved to Bruce's side.
“B, c’mon, can’t you go?”
Bruce tried to give Tim ‘the Batman stare’, but the younger man only glared back.
“Doesn’t work on me, B.”
Bruce sighed.
“Just go. It’s only a reconnaissance mission; if something happens, I’ll be close enough to provide back-up.” Tim hesitated, quickly going over all the outcomes in his mind, before he gave in. If he died, the likelihood of staying dead was surprisingly low.
“Fine.” He pulled his mask on and followed Hood towards their bikes.
“Pussy.” Jason hissed when only Tim could hear him.
“If you fuck this up, you’ll be dead for a second time.” He continued moving as Jason froze for a moment, before letting out a breath of laughter and quickly following Tim.
“Damn, RR, that’s pretty brutal.”
Tim rolled his eyes as he mounted his bike and started the engine.
“I’m serious.” He stared at Jason through his white lenses. Despite being expressionless, the stare made Hood visibly hesitate. For a moment, Tim thought he’d won, but then Jason grinned at him.
“Oh, threaten me with violence more, I’m kind of into it.” He started his own bike and peeled out of the cave. “Come on, Babybird, flirt and drive!” His laughter rang into their comms.
“I hate you,” Tim growled back, following behind him quickly.
Thankfully, they made it all the way to the docks without any more conversation, and again, Tim almost believed it would be alright. But statistically, he was bound to be wrong.
Waiting on a rooftop across from the warehouse, Jason had already stopped paying attention an hour into their stakeout, and Tim was gradually getting more and more annoyed with each raspberry the other man blew. By the eleventh one, Tim could feel his eye twitching as he tried to look through his binoculars.
“Stop!” He snapped, looking away from the warehouse. “For the love of god, Hood!”
“Jesus, Red, unclench.”
Tim’s gloves creaked as they tightened around his binoculars. The noise made Hood chuckle again.
“What’s your issue?”
“What’s your issue?” Tim hissed. “Seriously, you’ve been an asshole all day! And, hey, I’ve been pressed up against walls a few times, but that was more murder-y than hot. So, what the hell is up with you?”
Jason tilted his head.
“‘More murder-y than hot’?” He repeated. Tim opened his mouth to shout at him more, but he was cut off by gunfire.
“Shit! This is your fault!” Tim pocketed his binoculars, then threw himself over the building’s ledge.
“You’re Mission Lead!” Jason jumped after him.
Tim muscled his way into the warehouse, finding both gangs already fighting each other, with several crates of guns and ammunition between them. He worked quickly to disarm and immobilise as many people as he could, but there were too many for just him and Jason.
“We need back-up on the docks!” He called into his comms as he quickly tied three men to a pillar, then moved to stop several from escaping.
“Batman’s on his way. Situation update?” Oracle's cool voice slid into his ear as he was knocked to the side with a grunt. He grit his teeth and kicked the attacker away, tossing him onto his back, then knocking him out
“Gang war broke out, too many people, weapons access,” he searched through the fray to see how Red Hood was handling things, but he couldn’t see past the other bodies. “Hood’s status unknown.”
“Hood, status update?” Oracle demanded, earning a snarl crackling across the comm, followed by the sound of a gang member crying out in pain.
“I’m fine!” Jason finally replied as Tim noticed him on the second level of the warehouse, knocking down goons like dominoes, using brute force more than trained tactics. Tim cringed when Jason punched someone over the rail, crashing them onto a pile of empty crates below.
“Back-up ETA?” He questioned, refocusing on taking people down and inflicting minimal injuries to balance out Jason’s blatant disregard.
“Two minutes.”
Tim steeled himself; he could hold his own for two minutes. He moved steadily through the warehouse, continuing to take down as many as he could. He knew people were getting out, but he could only do so much with his bow staff against the gun-wielding escapees. Several weapons were already strewn across the concrete floor, ready to be picked up by another desperate gang member.
When Bruce finally arrived, he was immediately caught up in the chaos, moving like the phantom that Batman was, and swooping from goon to goon to disarm and immobilise, just like Tim was doing on the other side of the warehouse.
As two burly goons advanced on Tim, he quickly launched himself at the first one, using his staff for leverage before he wrapped his legs around the man’s neck and threw him to the ground with a swift twist. The man grunted, and Tim struck against the back of his head before he could get back up.
“You little shit!”
Tim didn’t move in time to avoid the second man, who tackled him to the ground and punched him squarely across the jaw. He gripped his bow staff tightly and pressed it between them, shoving it against the man’s neck. His arms shook with the strain to keep him away, but the man muscled in closer until he could wrap his hands around Tim’s throat. Tim gasped for air, trying to kick him off as his head spun, but the man only tightened his grip.
He looked around for Jason or Bruce, but both were too busy to notice his struggling. He tried not to panic as the edges of his vision blurred; even if he passed out, Bruce would notice before the man killed him. As his eyes started to roll, he could register his disappointment about how much he’d failed this mission.
BANG!
Tim gasped when the man’s grip suddenly loosened, and his entire weight flattened Tim against the concrete. Warmth dripped against his face as he hurriedly pushed the bulk off of him and scrambled to his feet shakily. The man now laid lifeless on the ground, bleeding from the bullet hole through his skull. Tim looked up to where Jason had been, finding the vigilante visibly panting, gun still trained on where the man had been before the shot.
He opened his mouth to demand that the man didn’t need to be killed, and if Hood had just jumped down, he could have gotten him off Tim without murdering him. But before a word could escape his lips, something hit against the side of his head, rattling his teeth and knocking him off balance.
His vision went black before he even hit the ground.