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Barbara stared hollowly at the wall. She exhaled slowly, matching her breaths with the blinking blue light of her computer system on the other side of the room. Phantom pain clenched her lower spine, sweat soaked her sheets, and her lungs tried their best to climb out of her chest.
The nights Barbara regretted putting on the Batgirl suit were few and far between. However, few did not mean never. She hugged the pillow tucked against her chest tighter.
Inhale.
A gunshot. Blood across the floor. Hole in her back.
Exhale.
Ghoulish laughter. Dad crouched next to her. Vision fading.
Inhale.
Hospital room. Legs lying useless. Echo of a nurse’s voice saying, ‘Paraplegic”.
Barbara kept her gaze steady on the blinking light. The nightmares were bad. Fear toxin had been worse. Both exacerbated by that bastard running around calling himself Red Hood.
She tossed aside her quilt, propped up the pillow as a backrest, and settled against it as she grabbed her phone. If nightmares wanted to have a go tonight, she might as well be productive.
Her phone blinked on, flashing the wonderful time of 4:17 AM.
Great. On a typical night, she’d be heading to bed. Barbara sighed and requested an update from her systems.
[16 calls to 911]
As expected. Crime always soared when Batman left.
[A fire by East End docks from an oil spill]
An ‘oil spill’? Criminals weren’t even getting creative with cover-ups anymore.
[False Face Society activity in Park Row]
Barbara paused on that notification, tapping her phone. Perhaps connected with Red Hood? She swiped to view what her cameras picked up when her phone dinged with the next notification.
[Robin active]
Damnit, Tim. Barbara slammed the tab on gang activity shut and logged into the Batcave database. Robin’s tracker left the cave at 9:43 PM. She pulled up his current status, releasing a slow, measured breath at the tiny dot moving back towards the cave, only minutes away.
She scrolled out on the map to view all of Gotham and eyed the black circle that hovered in Black Ash Graveyard. The tracker system recorded past and current movement, darkening from light green to crimson red the longer someone remained stationary. With it, Barbara had a complete visual of the vigilante's movements for the night and how long they lingered at each location. She was familiar with the stretching green to red lines splayed across Gotham.
But black? Even on stakeouts, there was always some movement. Black only showed up if someone hadn’t moved for hours. Usually, if one of them was kidnapped or knocked unconscious―
Her gaze flicked between the thin green line traveling towards the Manor and the black dot in the cemetery. What happened to Tim leaving him frozen in Black Ash Graveyard for over half the night?
Barbara’s stomach twisted. She ignored her unease. Far too many heroes relied on their gut. So it wasn’t unease that led Barbara to slip in her comm, but because of the fact that Tim had deviated from the set pattern.
“Robin. What are you doing out?”
Static.
“Robin.”
Oracle checked Robin’s status. Comm offline. Either Robin had turned it off, or it had been damaged. Oracle sent a message to his wrist computer. No response. Delightful. He was as bad as Batman with texts.
While she waited for Tim to return to the Cave, there was another mystery to solve. The Batcave system reported the Batbike leaving, and if its tracker was working correctly, it was near Park Row in an alleyway off Crover Road. By the speed Robin traveled towards the Cave, he was using some vehicle. But whose bike and why?
Well, she’d get no answers from Tim, so the long way it was. Babs sighed.
Black Ash Graveyard was rundown. Unlike most of Gotham, it was not connected to the power grid― so no cameras. It was, however, Crime Alley’s main cemetery, which meant it was in the middle of Crime Alley’s rotting heart, enclosed by multiple main streets that did have cameras. But she’d need more than her phone to search through those.
Oracle grabbed the arm of her wheelchair and shifted herself into it with practiced ease. She rolled across the floor to her computers and booted up the system. It only took a few seconds, but her lips tightened at the wasted time while she eyed Robin’s tracker on the screen.
It was possible this was all nothing. It was equally possible, if not more so, that it was something.
Oracle made a call.
“Did Tim tell you he was going out as Robin tonight?”
Dick blinked blearily at the phone he had just answered before the words registered in his brain. He bolted up in bed. “Tim did what?”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Babs said dryly.
“Is he still out?”
“He’ll be back in the cave in five.”
Dick relaxed marginally while he fumbled to untangle himself from his sheets, phone clutched in one hand. “And I have you to thank?”
“For once, no. He was heading home when I checked his tracker.”
Tim ending the patrol on his own volition? Yeah, something was definitely wrong. If Babs was even bothering to call him, she felt the same. Dick reached under his bed for his Nightwing suit, his gut telling him he’d need it. “What happened?”
“Don’t know yet,” Babs grunted, her chair squeaking in the background like she had leaned back. “Comms are off. I’m going over video footage now.”
“Video footage?” Dick repeated. What was going on that Babs was searching video footage?
“Take too long to explain,” Babs said simply, like that eased the steadily growing panic in Dick’s stomach. After years of working with Babs, Dick knew she didn’t spook easily. If she thought something was wrong― wrong enough that Dick needed to be called immediately…
Dick swallowed, his mind drifting unwillingly to a gravestone, hyacinths at its foot.
No.
Dick forced those thoughts and emotions back into the dark. Tim was fine and on his way back home. But Dick couldn’t shut out the truth. Bad things happened when Robin went out alone.
Babs inhaled sharply.
Dick froze, suit mid-way on. “Babs?”
…
“Babs?”
…
“Oracle,” Dick snapped.
“Check your phone,” Oracle replied tersely.
Dick yanked his phone away to see a short video clip pop onto his screen. While waiting for it to load, he threw open his door, yanking on the rest of his suit. With his elbow, he knocked on Damian’s door. “Damian, get in the car. We need to go. Robin’s in trouble.”
He didn’t wait to see if the kid responded, pressing on his mask and grabbing his keys.
The video finally played, and grainy footage of a street filled the screen. From the camera’s placement, Dick spotted the outer edge of a rundown general store. It was titled just enough to show the other side of the street and a black car idling by an alleyway.
The silhouette of a man stalked from the shadows, an unconscious Robin slung over his shoulder. He opened the trunk, and Robin was carelessly tossed into the car. At the last second, the man glanced towards the security camera. Streetlight glinted off a sickening, familiar red helmet.
“I thought you said Tim was okay!?” Dick shouted.
“He is,” Oracle said, her voice a horrid discord of confused, furious, and relieved. “He’s in the Cave…” she trailed off.
“Oracle,” Dick growled. “What is going on?”
…
“I’m unsure,” Oracle finally said.
Oracle stared at her screen, willing it to make sense. But no matter how many times she thought it over, re-analyzed, or assembled the facts, the image before her did not compute. The monster who had been murdering his way through Gotham, who was a living symbol of the demon that stole her legs, and who she just seen throwing her pseudo-younger brother into a car, was in the Batcave.
The Batcave.
With Tim.
Who was wearing the Joker Wannabe’s leather jacket and was currently coaxing said serial killer and mass murderer onto one of their medical beds.
“Nightwing. Get a hold of yourself,” Oracle finally snapped, before reminding herself that this was Dick, and this was hard on him.
She paused briefly in typing in the code to activate the cave’s internal defense system, to admit this was hard on her too. Neither of them had slept the same since Jason. However, those emotions would not help the situation, so Oracle did not apologize.
“Tim is in the Batcave with Red Hood.” She continued before Nightwing cut her off. “I don’t know why. Red Hood is injured and compliant, and Tim appears unharmed. I will keep a watch on them. If Red Hood so much as moves, I’ll initiate the cave’s defenses. Tim is safe.” Oracle paused to emphasize that. “I need you to contact B. I’m activating procedure X09-17.” The emergency procedure if their identities were compromised, and the Batcave was discovered.
“Understood,” Dick said, voice clipped. “Neutralize Hood now.”
Oracle eyed the mud-covered, costume-torn, slumped form of Hood and the concerned maskless Tim with a nasal cannula, stitching Hood’s thigh, her finger hovering over the button to send in the code that’d activate the cave’s defenses. Unless her vision was faulty, Tim had talked Red Hood out of an anxiety attack while hooking himself up to a nasal cannula. That fact only raised more questions.
Tim could be brainwashed. However, an alarm ringing in Oracle’s head whispered she was missing an important piece. It was not a gut feeling. Rather, it was the feeling one got when examining manipulated footage. Seemingly correct, but unmistakably off. The Red Hood on her screen was different from the one in her folder with video clippings of his sightings.
“Something is off about this, Wing. I’m not doing anything until I know more.”
“Oracle. Red Hood is in the Batcave. And you’re just gonna let him be? With Tim there?”
“Yes,” Oracle said. “I’ll contact you once I learn more.” She cut the communication and ignored Nightwing’s further attempts to reach her. She cranked up the audio to full, still only barely catching what Tim was mumbling. He was telling a story about one of his parent's digs.
Keeping one eye on the screen, she flipped through recorded footage of cameras in Gotham, tracking the car to the entranceway of Black Ash Graveyard. Red Hood hopped out of the car, and he and his men dragged Robin out of a truck. A truck pulled in after. A coffin in its bed.
Tim’s nasal cannula suddenly made sickening sense…
Oracle jerked her attention back to Tim. Alive. And still rambling. It was him. Unless somehow someone managed to make a clone of Tim in four hours, implanted with all of Tim’s memories and knowledge of the Batcave, or some spell, but if a spell like that existed, Oracle would have known about it.
Despite knowing all that, her insides twisted as the coffin sealed shut on Robin, and they carried it into the graveyard. Damn Crime Alley and its lack of cameras. The only camera she had was the front gate. But the monsters made full use of it. They knew the camera was there. They knew the Bats would be watching sometime. And they flaunted it.
Oracle's hands clenched, and she eyed the tender care with which Tim treated Hood. Her finger brushed the button to activate the Cave’s defense systems. Oh, how Babs wanted to press down.
Instead, Oracle took a deep breath and sped up the footage. Half an hour later, the monsters got back into the car, nil a coffin and Robin, and drove away. Red Hood sauntered away last with his leather jacket and costume devoid of mud.
Oracle moved. She took the footage of Red Hood on screen and found the footage of Red Hood in the cave, led by Tim, toward the med bay. She set up her computer to analyze the two figures. Within seconds, it beeped.
[No Match]
They weren’t the same person.
Oracle lifted her fingers from the button, leaning back in her chair with a sharp exhale.
So.
Were there two Red Hoods?
Or was someone dressing up as the other? And if so, which one was the real Hood?
She pursed her lips, glancing away to text Dick the update.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Hood hissed.
Oracle’s head snapped up to the screen. And so the criminal finally speaks. While his voice modulator distorted his voice, there existed an undeniable exhausted undertone.
Tim raised an eyebrow at Hood, seeming blithely unconcerned that he was treating a crime lord as he went back to poking at Hood’s wound.
Oracle narrowed her eyes. How did this Hood get injured?
“Sorry, I would be a bad doctor if I allowed my patient who just had an anxiety attack to ride a motorcycle,” Tim said.
Dick responded to her text, and she continued to update while monitoring the conversation.
Hood huffed. Disturbingly, it reminded her of a teenager pouting. “Your fault.”
Tim paused in his treatment to give a perfectly innocent sunny look at Hood. “Excuse me?”
“Coming here was your idea,” Hood snapped.
Tim grimaced, face falling. “Sorry.”
Dammit, Tim, Oracle cursed for the second time that night. He just invited a crime lord to the cave? What was he thinking? While he might seem to be acting normal, or normal for Tim, tonight must have messed with his head. The kid was smarter than this.
Hood sighed again before grunting, “Thanks.”
Tim beamed. He finished treating the injury, dusting off his hands, and stepped back.
Hood, without hesitation, leaped to his feet. And almost fell on his face. He swayed, looking somehow even more haggard.
Tim stepped forward, concerned. “Hood?”
“You drug me or some shit kid?” Hood gasped.
“Hood, you should sit down.” Tim wavered uncertainly a few feet away, looking like he wanted to step in. “I don’t think you should be moving right now.”
“Answer the question.”
“What? No. Well, besides numbing the cut.” Apparently, Tim’s selfless, caring heart won, and Tim got Hood back to the cot before offering back Hood’s leather jacket.
Hood leaned his head into his hands, muttering something so quietly that the mics didn’t pick it up. Regardless, Tim settled back into the coat with a small smile before hesitating again.
Oracle reached under her desk and grabbed an energy drink. She hated their artificial hijacking of her body, but she’d be up straight for at least the next twelve hours. At this point, Hood was not a threat to Tim. At least not currently. Rather, the data leaned toward this Hood having saved Tim. It fit everything that happened except for the rather looming question of why Tim brought Hood here, risking them all.
Oracle took a sip before feeling her stomach drop. The camera over the batcomputer only captured Tim’s side, but Oracle caught enough of his expression. He had the look he always got before he did something incredibly stupid.
Hood clearly sensed it too. “What?” He sighed.
Tim straightened his shoulders, stepped up to Hood, and looked him straight in the mask. “Thank you, Jason.”
Hood froze.
Tim lunged forward and hugged him.
Babs dropped her energy drink.
Oracle had hung up on him. Dick slammed his hand into the wall, cursing.
“Richard?”
The voice startled Dick back to the present, and he spotted Damian waiting in the doorway. Dick forced himself to relax; Damian didn’t deserve his anger. “Get in the car, Damian.”
His younger brother narrowed his eyes but complied. Small mercies. Dick was not up for wrangling Damian into the car. Before the front door was even shut, Dick was jumping out the window, bouncing down to the alleyway. He threw himself into the car, barely pausing to ensure Damian was there before he tore onto the street.
“What’s happening?” Damian demanded.
“There’s a situation with Red Hood and Robin.”
“Tsk. Of course, there is. The pretender can’t even handle a night alone.”
Dick took a slow breath, debating whether he should correct Damian on his statement, before deciding against it. There had been improvement since the first few weeks of Damian's arrival on the doorstep. But things were still… tense.
Dick had hoped space would do some good. It had for him and Bruce. However, it was uncharted territory. He was used to fighting siblings. Him and Jason…
Jason… No. Not now.
He and the second Robin took a while to see eye to eye, but the worst was a few shouting matches. Murder though? That was new.
And Dick was paying for his mistake. He should have known better than to leave Tim unattended. And he was yet again. Trusting Oracle, despite Red Hood being in the Cave. What was she thinking?
Dick yanked out his phone to call Bruce, but paused, instead hitting Tim’s contact. Nothing. Great. He switched back to Bruce, with each ring his grip tightening. Of course, the Dark Knight wasn’t available. He resisted the urge to scream.
A text popped up from Oracle.
Babs: Two Red Hoods. Cave RH is not kidnapper RH
Dick let his head thunk back against the seat. The horrors playing on a loop in the back of his mind slowed. It wasn’t a repeat of that night. Tim was okay.
Me: details
Babs: Kidnapper RH buried Tim in a coffin
Me: ?
Babs: Cave RH likely saved Tim
Me: ???
Me: actual RH?
Babs didn’t respond.
When this was over, he’d be having some strong words about appropriate communication in emergencies. But Tim was safe. Maybe.
Buried?
What the fuck?
Who would… whoever had done this― they weren’t getting away. Dick pressed down on the pedal, urging the car to go faster.
Tim thought Red Hood was Jason― insanity.
Oracle gave herself one breath. One breath to acknowledge the mountain of grief that name dragged up before she forced herself to focus so she ensured this Robin remained alive. A task he was making increasingly difficult, especially since he was now hugging the serial killer.
Oracle expected aggression. Instead, Hood seemed almost― almost like he had expected it. Oracle wasn’t sure what to conclude from that.
Facts, she reminded herself. She needed facts. Hoping Theorizing was a waste of time till more information presented itself. Theorizing distracted her from ensuring Robin’s safety.
“We missed you,” Tim whispered.
Barbara’s heart clenched. The wave of grief clawed up her throat. Oracle shoved that down. Hood was still a threat.
Hood was silent. Stiff in Tim’s arms. She was curious how the crime lord would respond to Robin mistaking his identity.
“You don’t even know me, kid.”
Oracle shut her eyes for the briefest moment. Part of her― part of her had hoped― no. Not right now.
Tim, sweet, hopeful Tim, didn’t get it. “Well, actually, we’ve met before,” he said as he moved back from Hood, and Oracle relaxed slightly.
Hood slumped against the cot. “When?”
“…You got me down from the gargoyle.”
Oracle grimaced. Tim idolized Jason and wanted to meet him, so it made sense that after this night, he’d see Robin in his new rescuer. But he was just opening himself up―
“Baby stalker.”
Oracle froze.
No.
That was just a coincidence.
That―
Impossible. But there had been only one person who used that title for the mysterious little boy trapped on that gargoyle. And Barbara knew because she’d listened to that teen prattle on for hours about said ‘baby stalker’ as she helped him with Algebra.
Jason.
But… How…
Barbara forced her right hand away from her mouth, where she held back a scream, unclenched her left hand's white-knuckled grip on the armchair, and squeezed back the tears in her eyes. She’s missed some of the conversation.
Sloppy, she reprimanded herself.
Tim was in the middle of getting Hood― Jason― Hood― the man from leaving.
He didn’t listen. Then collapsed.
“Jason!” Tim screamed.
He knocked back against the cot. Unresponsive as Tim tried to extract a reply. Quiet pleas of ‘Jason’, answered with weary silence.
Tim’s face clenched, and he bit his lip as he likely wavered from rushing off to grab tools for someone dissociating or remaining by Hood.
Oracle rallied herself and entered the system. She accessed the speakers. Allowing the static to alert Tim. He jolted, face paling as he looked toward the batcomputer. Good.
“Go. I’ll watch him,” Oracle promised.
“Oh, um. Hi, O,” Tim said casually, like he wasn’t covered head to toe in mud, hooked up to a nasal cannula to steady his breathing, and there wasn’t a serial killer three feet from him. “I can explain.”
With Hood out of action for the moment, Oracle focused on flipping through the video footage for the night. “Really?” She said while watching the video footage in the area at the time Tim had left the cemetery.
“Mmmhmm… you see…” Tim trailed off. “How long have you been watching?” He cleared his throat. “Just so, you know… I’m not repeating anything you already know. Of course.”
“Of course.”
Oracle waited him out.
“Don’t tell B?”
She snorted. Oh, Tim. He wouldn’t be patrolling again until retirement. “Go,” Oracle ordered. “Grab your comm. And maybe this time, leave it on? I must say, it was lovely waking to a missing Robin and having no way to reach him.” She was rewarded with a blush from Tim. Good, at least the brat recognized he’d been an idiot.
Oracle was relieved that Tim hadn’t completely lost his mind because he set Hood’s blood to be analyzed. While he busied himself with that, she managed to locate the footage of Tim leaving.
He was driving the motorcycle, Hood behind, holding onto the seat. She rewound the footage to earlier, stopping the recording on the image of Hood driving in, shovel strapped to the side. Once again, the man on the bike did not match the man who had tossed Robin into the car or coffin. But it did match the man huddled on the floor, drenched in mud and arms clenched around his legs. He looked like a scared kid.
Oracle felt something she never thought she’d feel towards a man who carried the name Red Hood.
Sympathy.
Whoever this Hood was, if he was a stranger or if, maybe, impossibly, he was her dead little brother back again, it didn’t change that for tonight. He was a hero.
She― Oracle had misjudged. She had assumed Red Hood had named himself after the Joker as some sick, disgusting, zealous fan. But no. Perhaps it was something else instead? A kid’s attempt to reclaim control. To do what Batman did, and name himself after a horror to maybe, just maybe, make it seem not so all-consuming?
And for the first time, Oracle allowed herself to consider it. Could Hood possibly be Jason? She examined the facts. And it was…
Possible. Not by much. Too little that it was foolish for her to even hope. But it wasn’t impossible either.
In some ways, that was worse. The uncertainty. But dammit, it might hurt worse in the end, and it might be idiotic, but she’d take it. She’d allow herself brief hope until the bloodwork came back.
Tim slipped his comm into his ear, and Oracle finally got to ask him the question pressing on her all this time. “Are you okay?”
Dick tried calling Bruce again two times, Tim five times, and received no responses from either. Oracle had been silent except for one quick message confirming that the RH in the cave had rescued Tim and proven not to be a threat. However, Dick’s mind failed to wrap around the reality that Red Hood, GPD’s new infamous celebrity, had spent hours rescuing Tim. The only possibility was that this hero was some copycat. But why?
Who in their right mind dressed like Red Hood?
Dick took a measured breath, acknowledging his anger and the validity of it, but trying to remember this mysterious man saved his little brother… huh. Was that it? The stinging failure that a potential murderer had been there for Tim, and he hadn’t?
His phone buzzed, jerking Dick from his thoughts.
Babs: It’s him. The Cave RH is the real one
Dick blinked before forcing himself to pay attention to driving. So that’s it, huh? A maniac was better at keeping his family safe than Dick was.
[Match]
The nights Barbara regretted putting on the suit were few and far between. But there had not been a night when she did not wish that she had chased Jason down. She had the skills to find Jason and bring him home. Instead, she had spent weeks feeling sorry for herself, held up in a hospital room. And then― and then it was too late.
No more afternoons at the library helping Jason with homework. No more late-night text conversations, scheming how to prank Dick when he visited the manor over the weekend. No more books hidden in her bag or car for their unspoken book swap.
No more.
No more Jason.
And she had thought losing her legs had hurt.
[Match]
There were moments Babs wished weren’t seared into her memory. The scream of the old man as she failed to push the crook’s gun away in time. The body of a kid in the trafficking warehouse. Joker grinning in her apartment…
There were moments when she was. The face of the first citizen she saved. Putting on the Batgirl suit for the first time. Batman tilting his head at her, thanking her for saving his life.
And there were moments like this. That just were.
It's not that the moment was good or bad, but rather, it defied reality to the point that deciding what to feel, let alone think, was impossible. Later, she’d look back and feel the relief. Other times, she’d look back with regret that her little brother had been alive all this time and she hadn’t known.
[Match]
Fact: People did not rise from the dead.
Fact: Her little brother was there, on her screen, breathing.
Fact: He was the Red Hood and had carried a duffel bag of heads.
Fact: He had saved Tim’s life.
How could logic exist in a series of contradicting data? What was she supposed to do? For the briefest, shameful moment, she wished Red Hood wasn’t Jason. That Jason hadn’t come back.
And as quickly as she thought it, she banished it. Wasn’t this what she wanted? How often did she wish she found a way to save him? Or wondered what would have happened if he had never died?
But he had. And he came back different, and that was hard. The Jason alive wasn’t the Jason who died. Barbara did not blame him. Pre-Joker Barbara and Post-Joker Barbara were two different people. It just felt more stark when it had been three years between the Jason then and the Jason now.
And yes, it was her little brother, but family ties did not change the fact that Jason was a killer. She should arrest him. Had been hunting him for two months to do just that. And now everything was so much messier, and Barbara preferred how simple the black and white made her decisions.
But fact.
Sometimes, data alone cannot tell you what to do.
So for now, Barbara remained silent. Soundless tears slipped down her face as she got back to work. She had four hours of comm recordings to listen to.
Dick answered Tim’s call on the first ring. “Are you okay?”
There was a crackle of static before the predictable whisper of, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Tim.”
“J― Hood is more injured than I am.”
Dick noticed the name slip but put it aside for now. “What happened with Hood?”
“It― it was metal? And he had to shoot―” Tim began to ramble, sounding everything but fine.
Oracle saved him. “Hood got hurt shooting the hinges of the coffin to get Robin out.”
“Yeah, that,” Tim said sheepishly. Like the mention of the coffin wasn’t a big deal. Like it wasn’t a concern. Like Dick was being the dramatic one for being scared.
“Okay. And you are sure you’re okay?” Dick pressed again.
“Yes.”
“Good, that’s good,” Dick said, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
“Sorry…?”
“SORRY? That’s it!?”
There was a stark silence, only Dick’s heightened breathing audible. The shout rang in the car, and even Damian flinched back. Dick swallowed thickly, forcing his hands to unclench around the steering wheel, opening his mouth to continue in a quieter tone. The rage could come later, Tim was probably scared and needed―
“Yeah, that’s it. Sorry,” Tim cut in, voice flat and chillingly soft. “What else am I supposed to say? Go ahead, berate me for how much of an idiot I was for only trying to help!”
Dick winced at the sudden shout, pulling his phone away from his ear.
“You and B never shut up about the danger Red Hood posed, you went on and on but refused to even give me the smallest details on the case―“
No, they had. They―
“Instead, you locked me up in the Cave, barely letting me leave either of your sights for patrol. Wouldn’t even answer my fucking questions! I had to dig that up all my own!”
They had… hadn’t they? Pushed Tim aside. And with Damian around, Tim was even more sensitive to exclusion…
“―And I know what the name, Red Hood, does to you guys. I’m not stupid. The only reason I’m even here was because of that damn clown, so forgive me as I tried to keep doing my job, which, may I remind you, is keeping Batman from killing himself!”
Dick sat stunned. It was the tears in Tim’s voice that cut the hardest. Not the screaming or anger, he had enough experience from Batman. It was the tears. And the pain of a kid trying too hard and it still not being enough, with Dick to blame.
“I was just trying to help,” Tim finished brokenly.
“Tim…”
There was a sniffle, before a thick, choked, “Sorry.”
It made the guilt churning in Dick’s gut harden into a cold rock.
“No, you’re not the one who should apologize,” Dick said slowly, trying to gather his thoughts. He had a quick temper, and Oracle’s treatment and the old memories the night had unburied had pushed his usually quick anger to hot fury. And Tim did not deserve that.
“I’m sorry, Tim. You’re right. We shouldn’t have shoved you out of the case like that. And I’m sorry for leaving.” Dick exhaled slowly. “There’s more I want to say, but I think that will need to wait until I’m home.”
“Okay.”
Dick smiled sadly at the quick, easy response. Tim was truly too good for them.
“Look, I want you to stay away from Red Hood, alright?”
“But―”
“I know. O texted me. He’s the one who saved you. But he’s dangerous. I want you to stay away from him until I’m there. O said he’s not going anywhere for a while, so I want you to leave him alone.”
“Okay.”
Some of Dick’s tension eased. “Thank you. I’ll be back soon. About 45 minutes out. Just hang tight, okay?”
“Mmhm.”
“And Tim?”
Dick waited a moment to make sure he had Tim’s full attention.
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
Barbara ran the Comm record through a program that removed any section of silence longer than five seconds and sped up the recording by 1.5. She had an hour till Dick arrived, and she needed to know what to do with Jason before then. She didn’t have time to listen to the four-hour chunk.
Meanwhile, Tim offered a mug of tea to Jason. She paused, watching the screen. Jason, with jerking movements, slid off his helmet. It clattered to the ground. Dull, hollow green eyes stared blankly at the cup now in his scarred hands. Brown skin glinted with tears, highlighting the hollowness in his cheeks, and black hair plastered across his forehead made the one white strand practically glow in the dim cave. None of that matched the Jason she knew. But she saw him.
Jason was in there.
Despite the sweaty, grueling past few hours, curls still sprang free, unruly as him, his eyes, exhausted, half-dead looking, and somehow now green, still carried that glimmer of mischief― the part of him that always laughed at the world― and his jaw was still set with spite, daring anyone to tell him what to do.
It was her little brother. With more scars, more baggage, and more horrors lurking behind his eyes. But it was him.
She smiled sadly and started the comm recordings.
“You need to apologize to Tim again,” Oracle said, finally deeming him worthy of her time to actually freaking call him.
Dick sighed, eyeing Damian, who’d thankfully decided to nap the rest of the way there.
“I know,” Dick replied, setting his gaze back on the road. Less than half an hour out. Despite his apology, the guilt lingered. Tim’s wounds were still too fresh; he wasn’t in the mental space to hear or be able to respond to an apology. Likely wouldn’t be for the next day or two. Dick was partly to blame for that.
Ever the mind reader, Oracle continued, “This wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t yours,” Dick shot back.
The silence that met him spoke the underlying truth. They’d both blame themselves for this. It was hypocritical to tell the other not to. Because here’s the thing. Dick had messed up. Tim was so competent it was hard to remember he was a barely fifteen-year-old kid. Younger than…
Dick’s throat tightened.
Younger than when Jason died. But with Tim acting more of an adult than even Bruce at times, it was easy to unintentionally take advantage of that. He swore he didn’t mean to. And then Damian came along and needed Dick. Tim hadn’t. Or that’s what Dick had told himself.
Now, rushing back in the early morning, to see a living, breathing brother who had felt so forgotten he was willing to die to prove he was useful… Dick had screwed up.
“I’ll fix this,” he promised. To Oracle, but more importantly, himself.
Oracle settled back in her chair, eyeing the two sleeping boys on her screen. She tapped her table. In the background, her comm recordings continued to play, but she ignored them: the volume turned down. She had heard more than enough, reaching Hood arriving at Black Ash Graveyard, and Tim slotting the pieces together that Jason had crawled out of his grave. That alone raised enough sympathy for Hood to let him leave. At least after the night he had and what he went through.
But, before that, she had heard the conversations about Robin, the barbed words screamed at Tim, hitting at every insecurity, filled to the brim with unnerving fury and bone-deep bitterness. The unstable mood swings displayed in those moments and the excessive rage pinned Jason as too great a threat. As a protector of Gotham, how in good conscience could she let him leave?
The data… the data stood for itself, right?
So why did she not make the call?
Oracle shut her eyes, swearing the insanity must have spread to her. “Hood,” she called softly, connecting to the batcomputer speakers.
Hood didn’t stir. She was reasonably certain he wasn’t quite asleep, his eyes staring half-lidded at the floor. But he definitely wasn’t present.
“Hood.” She said again. Nothing.
“Red Hood.”
A flutter of the eyes that time.
Oracle bit her lip and said, “Jason Peter Todd-Wayne.”
Jason jerked, Tim groaning sleepily as his pillow jostled. Jason blinked alert, gaze darting around the cave.
Oracle hesitated for one more moment before consigning herself to the course of action. “If you plan on leaving, you need to go.”
“Oracle,” he whispered, slumping back against the cot and staring up blankly at the ceiling. “You’re letting me leave?”
Her gaze drifted from him to where Tim slept safely and peacefully on his shoulder, a small, content smile on his face. Perhaps that was why. “Today. As a thank you for saving Tim.”
Jason carefully eased himself away from Tim, sliding on his helmet, taking an excruciatingly long time. She really didn’t need Dick to show up in the middle of this. Oracle bit back her frustration while she connected herself to the helmet. Then, before she stopped herself, she cut away Oracle’s voice modulator. It was Babs' voice that said, “Hey, Jason.”
“Hey.”
She forced back tears, sitting up primly in her seat. There was no time for a reunion; she needed to help a criminal escape the Batcave. A surreal sentence to think. “I would remove the footage of the Cave and the comm recording for the night. However, if Batman knows I was the one who did it, it will be pointless. I can guide you through how to do it.”
As she worked to figure out the best way for Jason to hack the computer, Jason collapsed in the chair and then didn’t move.
“Why are you helping me?” He whispered. “And don’t say because of Tim. The actual reason.”
Her hands stilled. The screen of the batcomputer’s code stared condemningly at her. Of course, Jason would ask. He always saw deeper behind people’s actions than most assumed upon first meeting him. It was a fair question.
She could stop now. She wouldn’t have to even do it herself. She’d trick Jason into accidentally triggering the cave’s lockdown system. But she doesn’t. And gun to her head, she could not say why.
“I don’t know,” she said, before clearing her throat and getting back to work. “So you better hurry up before I change my mind.”
Within fifteen minutes, Jason had wiped the batcomputer, taking precious time to write Tim a note and keep his tea warm, and… Oracle could not think about that at the moment. So instead, she reminded the once again frozen figure to leave.
Jason started, cursing colorful swears under his breath, and Oracle noticed with interest some in Arabic. Before he left, he checked once more on Tim, before saluting with a middle finger at the camera, and despite herself, Oracle smiled.
Over the cameras, Oracle watched Jason roar his bike to life, and finally, it clicked.
Tim was right.
Turn Jason in now, and her brother would be lost to her― Again. Last time, she hadn’t been there. This time, she was. And this way, maybe… just maybe, she could bring him back.
It wasn’t wise. But this time, Oracle allowed Barbara to win.
Babs let her little brother drive out of the Cave.